Re: Wow. The ACA was a "social gain"?

Post #409,867 by Another Scott 5/6/16 8:32:58 AM 5/6/16 8:32:58 AM Reply	Re: Wow. The ACA was a "social gain"? https://www.facebook.com/ObamacareSavedMyLife/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/03/03/brents-letter-president-you-saved-my-life http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-another-benefit-of-obamacare-20150804-column.html https://www.balloon-juice.com/2016/02/09/esi-stability-and-cost/ Oh, but MM hates the insurance and medical care industries, so only burning them down will satisfy him... ;-p Cheers, Scott.
Post #409,873 by mmoffitt 5/6/16 9:09:02 AM 5/6/16 9:09:02 AM Reply	Um, no. Yes, I do dislike an industry that collects money from people that they spend in order to get healthcare and then profits by withholding that care. That is, I am opposed to people making money from our healthcare delivery system who do not contribute in any way, shape or form to the delivery of health care. If it weren't for Wall Street's influence in our government, this wouldn't be happening. 33 million people don't have health insurance, mostly because they cannot afford it. With guaranteed margins of 20% for private health insurers, who can blame them? We pay more and have worse outcomes than anyone and that's what I'm opposed to. Getting 1 in 10 regular access to our broken system is hardly cause for celebration. But I don't "hate" our medical care industry - if by that you mean the clinicians and support staff. I've no issue with them at all. It's these blood sucking fascists like Wellpoint, UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, etc. need to go away. The ACA was nothing more than YAN gift to the shareholder class. Several million previously uninsured Americans now have coverage because of Obamacare, but it could be argued that the people who have benefited most from the law—at least financially—are the top executives and shareholders of the country’s health insurance companies. Among those who apparently have not yet benefited much at all, at least so far, are owners of small businesses who would like to keep offering coverage to their employees but can no longer afford it. They can’t afford it because insurers keep jacking their rates up so high every year that more and more of them are dropping employee health benefits altogether. And let’s be clear, these insurers aren’t suffering. UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurer, reported last week that it made $10.3 billion in profits in 2014 on revenues of $130.5 billion. Both profits and revenues grew seven percent from 2013. United impressed Wall Street so much that investors pushed its share price to an all-time high. When the New York Stock Exchange closed last Thursday, United’s share price stood at $113.85, a record. To put that in perspective, United’s share price was $30.40 on March 23, 2010, the day President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. Since then, the company’s price per share has increased an astonishing 375 percent. That’s way more than either the Dow Jones or Standard & Poors averages has grown during the same period. https://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/01/26/16658/health-insurers-watch-profits-soar-they-dump-small-business-customers Care to defend this chart?
Post #409,889 by Another Scott 5/6/16 11:49:27 AM 5/6/16 11:49:27 AM Reply	Re: Um, no. https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/10/06/15867/obamacare-helps-millions-falls-short-many-ways (also by Wendell Potter): Although there is no shortage of critics of the Affordable Care Act — on the far left as well as the right — it’s hard to dispute that the law has benefited millions of Americans. And not just those who have become newly insured over the past year. President Barack Obama cited some of the impressive statistics last Thursday, the day after the one-year anniversary of the turbulent debut of the Obamacare-created online health insurance exchanges. "In just the last year, we’ve reduced the share of uninsured Americans by 26 percent," he said. "That means one in four uninsured Americans — about 10 million people — have gained the financial security of health insurance in less than one year." Approximately 8 million people were finally able to sign up for coverage on the exchanges after the many technical problems were fixed. Many others were able to enroll in health plans on private exchanges or by working directly with an insurance company or agent. As a consequence, the rate of uninsured Americans dropped from 21 percent in September 2013 to 16.3 percent this past April. Even though open enrollment for the Obamacare exchanges ended in April, people have still been joining the ranks of the insured since then. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the number of newly insured Americans will grow to 12 million by the end of this year. A significant percentage of those folks were not able to find affordable coverage in the past, and many were not able to buy health insurance at any price because of insurance industry business practices that were outlawed by the ACA. Before Obamacare, insurance companies were able to declare you “uninsurable” if you had a preexisting condition, even conditions you might have been born with. During the months that health care reform was being debated in Washington, I met many young people who told me they had not been able to buy an insurance policy because of congenital heart defects and other conditions they had had since birth. Now they can. That provision and other parts of Obamacare that force insurance companies to be more consumer-friendly benefit all of us, but those sections of the law are rarely mentioned these days, probably because many of them went into effect long before the exchanges were up and running. Here’s a partial list: [...] FWIW. Cheers, Scott.

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