Summer of Obamacare

When Hillary Clinton decided to run as the third term of Obama she probably didn't anticipate that she would be having to deal with a crisis in Obama's signature piece of legislation.

Aetna the nation's fourth-largest health insurer, just decided to stop offering plans on Obamacare's exchanges in all but four states in 2017....
Aetna isn't the only insurer giving up on Obamacare. UnitedHealth, America's biggest insurer, will sell plans in just three states next year, down from 34 this year. Humana will offer coverage in just 156 counties in 2017, 88 percent fewer than this year.
In other words, the insurance "death spiral" has arrived. Obamacare's critics have long predicted that exchange plans' high premiums and deductibles would keep all but the sickest Americans from enrolling. These people would need so much medical care that insurers would lose money no matter how much they raised premiums. Eventually, insurers would have no choice but to pull out.

I don't recall that being the reason to oppose Obamacare in 2009. I remember bullsh*t arguments about socialism.
Nevertheless, that appears to be what is happening.

If three of the nation's largest insurers can't make it on the Obamacare exchanges, can anyone?
That's the question hanging over President Obama's signature health reform law less than three months before enrollment begins for 2017....
There's no question many insurers are losing big money on Obamacare. Costs exceeded income by 5% in 2014, and that figure doubled the following year, according to McKinsey's Center for U.S. Health System Reform. Losses are expected to grow this year.

Around one in seven Obamacare customers is about to lose their insurance plan.

"It's especially disturbing that this move could negatively impact nearly 10,000 citizens enrolled in Obamacare in Pinal County, Ariz., where not a single health insurer has filed to offer federal exchange plans," he said.

The premiums and deductibles are so high in Obamacare that healthy, young people are doing the math and realizing that a modest tax hit makes a lot more sense than paying for something they can't afford to use.
This decision is going to become even more extreme in 2017.

Insurers are seeking approval for average national premium increases of 24%, according to calculations by Charles Gaba of ACAsignups.net.

Some will point out that what is requested and what the government approves are two different things.
However, so far the approved rate hikes are averaging 17%, and less than two percent lower than what was requested in each case.

There is no way in this universe that Congress will approve a massive tax penalty this year in order to save Obamacare. So expect more healthy, young people to drop out.

People over at TOP will probably deny that Obamacare is so poorly designed that insurers are losing money, but the actual markets say otherwise.

Generally speaking, a company’s abdication of a revenue-bearing market would usually be met with jeers, and a stock’s plunge. AET shares haven’t budged, though. Shareholders are more than well aware the Obamacare market isn’t a good business to be in.

All but seven of the twenty-three Obamacare co-ops have gone under.
There is one other Obamacare number that you won't read about on TOP as well - it's a job killer.

Many companies are cutting jobs in response to rising health care costs spurred by the Affordable Care Act, according to a new survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Roughly one-fifth of service sector and manufacturing company executives said they are reducing the number of workers in response to provisions in the healthcare law, according to the Empire State Manufacturing Survey and the Business Leaders Survey.

The dramatic hike in 2017 premiums are going to make this even worse.

Can we have single payer now?

Tags: 
Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

We're talking about a lot more here than the ACA.

We should go a lot deeper than we're gonna be able to go w/out hijacking the diary, but I'll say this: I don't think the following explanation:
We have a system of government that is naturally resistant to change, by design. That's what the founders intended. That we have two parties that can't agree what color black is and what color white is exacerbates that. We have several competing visions in this country about how we should move forward, and each vision pulls us in a different direction.

Is why things are going so wrong, or why politics in this country is so resistant to change.

I am being called to defend the world from the advent of Elder Cthonian Evils (my family wants to play Arkham Horror), but we should definitely continue this conversation--the three of us and anybody else who wants to join in.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

.... I'll join in. You don't need to agree with me, I don't need to agree with you, but we can definitely kick things around to see where the edges are.

Tomorrow, that is.

up
0 users have voted.
Bollox Ref's picture

up
0 users have voted.

Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

You're reasonably healthy hence have little need of health care. Your insurance payments are lower than they used to be prior to RomneyObamacare and you feel freer to move between jobs, so you think Obamacare is working well. The insurance companies are still getting your premiums and not having to pay much of anything out in response so they're happy too. Only the people who actually need care but can't afford it wind up paying through the nose for it and going bankrupt and/or doing without.

What's not to like?

up
0 users have voted.

Because I don't use the healthcare system, my premiums are being used to subsidize someone else. Someone who would be paying more, but are now paying less.

What's not to like?

Stop ignoring the counterfactuals, people.

up
0 users have voted.
jwa13's picture

... you're joking -- right? Because the next step is that no one can have anything now --

up
0 users have voted.

When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.

But the corporate-sponsored half-measure has to fail before a real solution is finally considered.

...unfortunately.

up
0 users have voted.

... then yes. I remain a Bernie supporter.

If we're going to change the discussion in this country, then we have to continue to apply pressure to power and force people to actually look at the major problems we as a country have to face. If I see more or better people who are willing to put themselves out there for things I believe need to happen, then I will support them, too.

up
0 users have voted.
Bollox Ref's picture

and her Rockefeller Republican proclivities, how does one apply pressure to said person? As a 'Democrat'.

up
0 users have voted.

Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

And he actually had a criminal axe to grind. Or criminal "acts," as it were.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I know I'd take Nelson Rockefeller--with all his faults--over Hillary Clinton any day.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I know I'd take Nelson Rockefeller--with all his faults--over Hillary Clinton any day.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

rockefeller was left of HRC. Wink

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

have the same ring to it.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Bernie isn't a Democrat anymore, right?

I will vote Green this year and attempt to depress her turnout so that she doesn't think she has a complete mandate to do whatever she wants. I will also look into Brand New Congress and see what I can do to support voices that agree with me.

What do you plan to do?

This is a very weird year. You know that if the Republicans were running almost anyone else, that HRC would be losing by high single digits, right? What do you expect is going to happen to her come 2018 midterms, when Democrats are the ones playing defense? Her primary slash and burn has really hurt both her and downballot in the long term. I'm hoping that's going to mean she understands she's got some serious fence mending to do, post election.

I've said this before --- this is not the first election where my candidate lost. In fact, I've probably been on the losing side more than I've been on the winning side. But somehow, the sun came up the next morning, there were still issues to fight about, and for the time being, there's another election coming down the road.

This is the situation we are in. We deal with the situation as it is, rather than how we wish it was already. Is the fight harder? Possibly. But there is also the possibility that there has never been a better time to fight this battle, because in some ways, the establishment has never been weaker.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

all except this:

"We deal with the situation as it is, rather than how we wish it was already."

We've been doing that for years, and mainly losing.

The Republicans, on the other hand, have been dealing with the situation as if they already had power, and were in a world that was going to give them what they wanted--and they've been mostly winning.

It's possible none of this matters, and all that matters is who has the most concentrated power and money--but if our strategy choices matter at all, I see no evidence that "dealing with the situation as it is" has helped us change the situation.

Although I guess that depends what you mean by "dealing with the situation as it is." Voting Green to depress her turnout seems reasonable; defending Obamacare at this point doesn't, to me.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

because it's easy to do nothing. It's easy to be cynical about everything. Easiest and laziest thing in the world is to be a neocon Republican. Hell, you don't even have to speak in complete sentences!

Any jackass can kick a barn down. It takes carpenters to build one.

That's why our job is harder than theirs is. And it will always, always be that way.

So, where do you want to go with that?

I'm going to defend Obamacare and continue supporting people who want to fix it (the final fix being eliminating it). The alternative is to go back to the insane, unsustainable, bankrupting, completely "free market" system we had previously. I'm not interested in refighting that battle. Forward, not back.

up
0 users have voted.

IIRC that's how Obama rationalized not prosecuting war criminals and bank fraudsters. Great strategy, that.

up
0 users have voted.

back, not forward? Are you completely sure you're not a Republican?

up
0 users have voted.

NT.

up
0 users have voted.

but still wondering about you. Wink

up
0 users have voted.

to making your life more interesting.

up
0 users have voted.
Unabashed Liberal's picture

for the folks that this 'reform' was truly intended to serve.

For instance, one of the 'fixes' that's been proposed by Democratic Senators--pass legislation that allows for a plan that is actuarially lower than a Bronze Plan, and that has even fewer plan benefits.

A Copper Plan!

IMO, that would likely force millions more lower- to middle-income folks into health insurance plans with even higher out-of-pocket costs--which would likely either deny them health care altogether, or, force them into medical bankruptcy.

I'm sorry, I simply don't believe that any 'fixes' to the ACA will be offered, that do anything more than tinkering around the edges.

Hopefully, I'm wrong.

Mollie


“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit, and, therefore, to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

National Mill Dog Rescue (NMDR) - Dogs Available For Adoption

Update: Misty May has been adopted. Yeah!

Misty May - NMDR

up
0 users have voted.

Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

smiley7's picture

I'm sorry, I simply don't believe that any 'fixes' to the ACA will be offered, that do anything more than tinkering around the edges.

Going on a mini rant: Damn the limousine fuck from congress in the beginning of Obamacare, leaving the door open, no public option.

The doctor fix screws Medicare in 2020, as well.

Nuff said!

Battle stations.

up
0 users have voted.

... the plan I really want is one that protects me from catastrophic outcomes, while I pay out of pocket for normal preventative care. If you are relatively young and healthy, that's the least draw from your wallet.

up
0 users have voted.
riverlover's picture

Not at all true for before-Medicare coverage on a fixed income. Of which I spend about 33-45% on property and school taxes first. (NY)

I am looking at surgical removal of a Ti implant in my elbow, causing strange symptoms. What will that cost, and will my insurance gatekeeper allow it?

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

... and that's why there needs to be choice as long as we don't have national health care.

Each of us is in a different situation, each of us should be able to optimize based on our needs.

up
0 users have voted.

Obama and the Democratic leadership clearly didn't give a damn about what happened in 2010, with the writing clearly on the wall starting with Scott Brown's election to Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat in January of that year.

After all, it was much more convenient to have a Republican-dominated House (and then later Senate as well) than to be held accountable for having strong Congressional majorities: people no longer expected Democrats to do anything useful (and certainly got what they expected).

up
0 users have voted.

... precisely because of all the ginned up hatred of a "government takeover of healthcare" that evil Barry imposed on you with no Republican votes. Plus, seems like millennials don't like to get out and vote in off year elections.

Scotty caught the Dem establishment here by surprise, promising to be the vote that saved us from Obamacare, while Dems ran the most centrist apathetic to campaigning Dem ever invented named Martha Coakley.

up
0 users have voted.

I haven't voted for, let alone otherwise supported, a 'New' Democrat since 2002: no DINOs for me.

My point was that the Democratic leadership really didn't much care about losses in 2010, and neither will Hillary in 2018.

up
0 users have voted.

Any one who wins will declare a mandate, even if they "won" by the slimmest of possible margins.

up
0 users have voted.
Bluesee's picture

The medical insurance industry must die, and helping people with medical problems should not be an open-ended capitalist dream. I believe that we can have a collective if we get the crazies out of the room. And the lobbyists. And money out of politics.

up
0 users have voted.

Bernie is a win-win.

smiley7's picture

up
0 users have voted.

... what's the plan, Stan?

up
0 users have voted.
Bluesee's picture

..of course.

up
0 users have voted.

Bernie is a win-win.

murphthesurf's picture

Single payer means no more free hookers, blow, golf, hunting trips, fishing trips, and no more expensive dinners with outrageous wine cellar bills....
Let 'em pay for it themselves!
Peace out.
Murph

up
0 users have voted.

... it's the hookers and blow I miss the most.

up
0 users have voted.
RantingRooster's picture

hanging on my credit report. It seems if you can't pay a 30 thousand dollar bill in 30 days, they fuck up your credit and make sure you can't ever get out of the money pit.

I think our biggest problem as a country is we don't believe health care is a human right, which is an out growth of the "corporatization" of our society. If you go back through out history and review the laws governing "corporations", it's like night and day.

Today people like Mitt Romney say that "corporations are people my friend". Once upon a time in this country, those would have been "fighting words", today both parties agree, and neither party believes in healthcare as a human right, which means corporations will continue control it.

No one is going to fuck with the business model of the Mafia, pay or die. At least not until we burn it down.

up
0 users have voted.

C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

riverlover's picture

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

Bob In Portland's picture

Pages