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State officials ready Obamacare

January 3, 2013

California’s newly-formed “health exchange” has been approved by the Obama administration and becomes the 19th such program nationally to gain endorsement from the federal government. (Sacramento Bee)

“Covered California” will provide subsidized coverage for hundreds of thousands of state residents who do not now have health insurance.

Starting in 2014, all Americans will be required to have health coverage or pay a penalty.

This state has received $237 million in federal grants to build this “marketplace,” money that will cover a new IT system to enroll subscribers, staff and marketing efforts.


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Will Obama care cover all the new injuries, deaths, and psychological wrecks from this?


Obama signs an enormous US defense-spending bill that will provide $633 billion to continue paying for the nation’s global wars. [The President says this is essential for “security”.] Telegraph 2013 Jan 3


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/9777275/Barack-Obama-signs-sweeping-US-defence-spending-bill.html


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Will Obama care cover the illnesses caused by GMO’s? Will California manifest the apparent good sense of New Mexico?


New Mexico has introduced legislation to label GMOs. [In spite of the recent defeat of California’s Proposition 37, public opposition to GMO foods continues to increase.] NaturalSociety 2013 Jan 3


http://naturalsociety.com/next-prop-37-new-mexico-law-calls-for-mandatory-labeling-of-gmos/


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How sad is it that we even ask a question such as “will the government make sure I’m healthy?”


I think common sense and personal responsibility left the building with Elvis way back when…


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In the simplest terms the cost of health coverage for the young and the healthy will have the largest percentage increases to subsidize the old and less healthy under Obamacare.


There is no indication single payer would actually bring health care costs under control as it has happened yet. Private insurers being paid on outcome based results are most likely to be able to get the crazy price of health care under control. Right now private insurers have zero incentive to get health care costs under control as their profit is a “cut” of the cost of health care as a percentage of the insurance premiums they collect. The higher the cost of health care, the higher the premiums charged, the higher the profits for the health insurance companies.


Simply put, the profit incentive model for the private insurers needs to be changed and I guarantee the outcome will quickly change. Chronic and often avoidable disease such as diabetes that is non-hereditary, which is most cases, cost phenomenal amounts of our health care dollars. Private insurers need to be paid based on their success at preventing such disease instead of the long term treating of the disease once it manifests itself.


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Those things that you recommend will only happen in the context of a free market.


When government gets involved, they sabotage the free market and throw the whole system into chaos. Then they bomb us with their insidious, fear-based propaganda on how they will “fix” the problems that they themselves caused in the first place.


There is NOTHING going on the medical treatment field which could not be resolved by the free market.


You let the government run it, and you will wish you hadn’t! They thrive on chaos!


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Gimlet, you are exactly wrong. A free market means there are always losers. That is what a free market is about, winners and losers.

In healthcare it is improper to have losers. Healthcare requires specific targeted profit incentives for the insurers to follow in order to maximize their profit and provide superior healthcare with no losers.


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SIngle Payer has a chance to be affordable, but the AHA is a poor stepchild thanks in large measure to our wonderfully-productive Republican Congress, which ensured that anything Obama put on the table would not be able to efficiently restructure the American healthcare system. My main issue with the AHA is that it didn’t go nearly far enough. The result will be chaos for awhile, and a lot inequity, until the logic of single-payer becomes self-evident. It’s ridiculous that employers should have to cover basic health insurance for employees. Everyone should have their own coverage, and at the basic care level it should be publicly-financed.


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Why do you think single payer will be affordable? and why do you think it’s a whole lot different than AHA? What has government ever done that is cost effective and effective at the same time. Nothing! The system is incapable of doing it. When government dictates what is covered wether it’s administered by insurance companies or not. Guess what it’s nothing more than a take over of the insurance companies. Just think of what the costs would be if they put everyone on medicare or some variation there of. Medicare is bankrupting the country an if it took over everything there is no way there ever could be enough money to pay for it.Prediction: Costs will skyrocket, then they will have to ration because there will be no other way to keep the country solvent, but it will be to late. The changes will not be able to be undone fast enough. It will bankrupt the country!


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What do you mean by “affordable”? Affordable for whom? Can you define that?


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I heard the same thing when calling around to anthem/blue cross, to get some answers….


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Wow, Russ, way to not think something through…


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How will the government enforce and fine violators?

Will there be mandatory registration by every citizen/ illegals and employers?


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It’s going to be another series of forms on your income tax return. Your health insurance provider and employer will have to report what coverage you have. Your tax preparer will have to get specific information from you about health insurance and family structure. And ultimately everyone will charge more for doing the extra work. Even people not effected directly by this will have to perform more work to properly report all the related information (read this as costs will rise!)


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The framework is already in place (don’t you love progressives?): they will use the IRS. After all, even though they swore it WASN’T a tax, it suddenly became one when the SCOTUS heard it… and taxes are enforced by… yep, IRS.


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When you can play God, any option becomes available.


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You know how you can tell Obamacare is a bad thing? Check out the list of exempt groups! Count how many Unions in this list;

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2900475/posts.


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I’m confused is this a list of exempted companies or Obama campaign donors?


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Just because someone post’s a list in a comment on freep does not make it true.


Post real links to real info, not some anonymous comment.


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The Affordable HealthCare Act is not affordable for the average family. Maximum out of pocket expenses are now soaring beyond $24,000 per year per 2 person member. Health plans are no longer being “grandfathered” in. Mayhem is on the horizon.


God help us all.


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Spot on danika…

Our blue cross went up 52% this year and this is a personal policy we have had for forty years.

We wanted to change and have looked at all options for private insurance but they are all outrageous. And everyone of them has stated that obamacare is why the prices have skyrocketed… Nowhere on the letter I got from anthem was anything about making unsusual claims, missing a payment, or additional procedures. It did clearly state rising costs, additonal underfunded subscribers, and mandates. Obamacare…


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Funny you blame this on obamacare since it doesn’t start for another year. What you’re seeing is just greedy insurance companies. Did you know that obamacare, when it starts, will limit their profit and overhead to 20% of what you pay for “health” coverage? 20% you say! Well, that’s a lot less than they pocket right now!


But the real answer is single payer for all — that eliminates the greed you’re encountering, and uses the money put into the system to actually provide care, not fancy jets for $10 million a year insurance execs.


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Every single medical insurance comany we spoke to (and there are only a few in CA) claims they are getting ready for 2014 when obamacare is law and adjusting prices based on just that(obamacare).. Each one stated the same reasons for price increases, meaning they are going to pass on the obamacare uninsured to existing carriers, any new mandates and fees to existing carriers.

If you have an insurance company that is affordable and is not bowing down to obamacare please post it hee so we can take advantage it …

If you are self employed and self insured, you are screwed, your rerates are going up, your deductrible is going up, your coverage is going down. Get ready and get informed. Contact Athem Blue Bross if you doubt me, they hold all the cards and will dictate the terms…


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Key word, “dictate.” Thanks:–)


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Hijinks, parts of the AHCA, aka Obamacare, started well over a year ago. You are sadly misinformed and should research your statements a bit more thoroughly before making them. The rising costs now are a glimpse of just how truly unaffordable this bad legislature is making health care.


As long as our health insurance companies are for profit companies and unregulated by their respective States, they will continue to make as much money off of us as they can. Get while the gettings good.. And our President handed them the means to get us all good.


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danika, I share your concerns and worries over this.


However, I disagree on a couple of points.


You mentioned the factors of “profit” and being “unregulated.”


Businesses cannot operate at all without “profit.”


What these companies are apparently seeking is ROBBERY; their confederates in government are making this plunder legally possible under the color of law, i.e., the mere semblance of legal right, but in reality, in contravention of law.


As for “unregulated,” first of all, the medical industry is already one of the most regulated in the country. If anything, medicine is OVERREGULATED. It is this strangulation by overregulation which is causing two problems, shortly to be made worse under “Obama care”:


1. It is restricting a scarce resource, which automatically drives up prices (as you have acknowledged).


2. It is destroying what is left of the medical market.


Obama care is not a “market” (where free and independent individuals can choose to buy whatever, whenever, and wherever they wish). It is a command and control system in which we will be TOLD what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. PERIOD. It is the destruction of our freedom to exercise our Constitutional rights in a free market. There can be no freedom without a free market to go along with it.


A free market would mean that free people would be able to buy and sell, produce and consume as they see fit without interference from government (unless somebody commits a crime).


Profit is a necessity for the free market to work. The problem is that government interferes. That in itself is a crime.


Why does the government do this? For the same reason that it starts wars and creates money out of nothing: it wants complete control of things, i.e., power, money, empire, conquest.


This debate over “Obama care” is not really so much about medicine as it is about the exercise of raw power (over you and me). The “state” cares nothing for the “health” of the average “useless eaters.”


Only a group of psychopaths would attempt such an insane scheme.


Resist it.


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Gimlet, the DOI does not have authority to regulate pricing by Health Insurers. That means Anthem Blue Cross and others can and will raise premiums as they wish without regulation. In my professional opinion, there in lies the problem. That and the very companies who provide health insurance to individuals and group received a waiver to not have to provide coverage to their own employees!


Again, God help us all.


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I see it differently.


NO ONE should have the authority or power to “regulate” prices.


Government regulation just makes the situation worse.


The root of the problem is that government interferes.


This sabotages the market so that its forces of discipline don’t work.


A truly free market would eventually bring the service providers into line because they would have to service the AVERAGE PERSON in order to survive. They can get away with NOT servicing the average person right now because of GOVERNMENT REGULATION.


Government regulation grants the bigger componies monopoly privileges which enable them to forget about the average person and to target wealthier persons.


Get the government the hell out of the picture, and you won’t have that problem.


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I think that you are quoting the “party line” on this without investigating the reality. Single payer would have been better (although not much less expensive in terms of overall costs. The Obama-led Democrats were so desperate to get something that looked like Health Care Reform enacted that they passed a bill full of compromises and payoffs that is worse than either the existing system or a true single-payer one. The only redeeming feature in it is the outlawing of rejection for pre-existing conditions and even that has costs associated with it.


I say this as a person who is unable to afford health insurance and will have to further erode my savings to pay any medical bills beyond routine office visits. I don’t like the existing system with its corrupt/greedy insurance companies but I am under no illusion that the AHCA is going to make health care more affordable on average. If some benefit from it (including possibly me in the future) it will be because others will be paying more as either policy holders or as taxpayers.


Real substantive medical cost control will involve nationwide changes in eating and exercise habits and in changed expectations of medical care that includes realistic understandings of the costs/practicality of some medical procedures. As bad as the health insurance companies are in other aspects, I suspect that they do better than the government in discouraging unrealistic expectations.


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OnTheOtherHand, thanks for facing up to the hard economic facts in spite of your difficult situation. Evading reality will not help us, will it?


There’s no replacement for a free market in medicine, or in any other industry.


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How does this work for the companies that already provide health care to its employees. Do they see receive a monetary incentive or reimbursement etc.?


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I have a friend who just got laid off from a local firm along with thirteen others in anticipation of the Obama Care >50 employees mandate. How’s that Hope and Change workin’ out for you?


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Or as in my case the employee cost of my employers healthcare just went up $100 a check, and this is just for me. If I had a spose or family on my plan the increase would have been $500 or more. I guess someone has to pay for the newly covered people.


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*Yes, someone does. I guess Obama forgot to mention that.


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You’re not paying for “newly covered people” because there aren’t any for at least another year. What you’re paying is for bloated overhead and profit for the for-profit insurance companies. Their overhead and profit often run 30% or more, more than 40% for LTC insurance. That’s what you get by turning medicine into a business instead of a service.


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So who is paying for the kids on their parent’s insurance policy till age 26, and the no limit on coverage, and the pre-existing conditions and then let us not forget the “free” birth control, abortions, etc. that is already free through Planned Parenthood, but lucky us, we will pay twice for this service which have already gone into effect. I’m sure you don’t think the insurance companies are just going to absorb these costs. As of January 1, 2013 there are also 22 new taxes that went into effect. Welcome Obamacare, everyone love this. California just hired 5 public relations agencies to start advertising Obamacare (as if anyone is not aware of it) for $78 Million. We have not even started to see the actual cost of the controlled costs of health care. God bless America and Mexico!


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When has medicine ever not been a busniess?


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Never. There is no free lunch.


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Excuse me, what is the difference between a “business” and a “service”? Aren’t you making an artificial distinction here?


Maybe you would like to give a few nice little testimonials on all the good service you have received in government offices through the years? Tell us about it! Go into detail!


Don’t you realize that the medical needs of the masses cannot be efficiently met with the highest quality at the cheapest price in any other way than by the FREE MARKET.


There is no replacement for a market in which FREE and VOLUNTARY exchanges take place. Anything else is collectivist and, therefore, totalitarian.


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“I guess someone has to pay for the newly covered people.”


This is the reality of it all.

Those who have will have to pay more than they have paid for the same insurance.


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“I guess someone has to pay for the newly covered people.”


This the main reason for the increases from all whom I spoke to…


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