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Obamacare To Double Cost Of Insurance For Average Californian
Last week, the state of California claimed that its version of Obamacare’s health insurance exchange would actually reduce premiums. But, as Forbes reports, the data that the executive director of California's 'exchange' released tells a different story: Obamacare, in fact, will increase individual-market premiums in California by as much as 146 percent. The exuberance that Peter Lee exclaimed over the 'savings' is a misleading comparison. He was comparing apples - the plans that Californians buy today for themselves in a robust individual market-and oranges - the highly regulated plans that small employers purchase for their workers as a group. If you're a 25 year old male non-smoker, buying insurance for yourself, the cheapest plan on Obamacare’s exchanges is the catastrophic plan, which costs an average of $184 a month; but in 2013, on eHealthInsurance.com, Forbes explains, the median cost of the five cheapest plans was only $92. In other words, for the typical 25-year-old male non-smoking Californian, Obamacare will drive premiums up by between 100 and 123 percent. The desperate spin of the PR disaster is incredible as talk of a 'rate shock' is now very prescient, "these extraordinary increases are up to 15 times faster than inflation and threaten to make health care unaffordable for hundreds of thousands of Californians."
Last week, the state of California claimed that its version of Obamacare’s health insurance exchange would actually reduce premiums. “These rates are way below the worst-case gloom-and-doom scenarios we have heard,” boasted Peter Lee, executive director of the California exchange. But the data that Lee released tells a different story: Obamacare, in fact, will increase individual-market premiums in California by as much as 146 percent.
...
“The rates submitted to Covered California for the 2014 individual market,” the state said in a press release, “ranged from two percent above to 29 percent below the 2013 average premium for small employer plans in California’s most populous regions.”
That’s the sentence that led to all of the triumphant commentary from the left. “This is a home run for consumers in every region of California,” exulted Peter Lee.
Except that Lee was making a misleading comparison. He was comparing apples—the plans that Californians buy today for themselves in a robust individual market—and oranges—the highly regulated plans that small employers purchase for their workers as a group. The difference is critical.
...
If you’re a 25 year old male non-smoker, buying insurance for yourself, the cheapest plan on Obamacare’s exchanges is the catastrophic plan, which costs an average of $184 a month.
... But in 2013, on eHealthInsurance.com (NASDAQ:EHTH), the median cost of the five cheapest plans was only $92.
In other words, for the typical 25-year-old male non-smoking Californian, Obamacare will drive premiums up by between 100 and 123 percent.
...
Obamacare’s impact on 40-year-olds is steepest in the San Francisco Bay area, especially in the counties north of San Francisco, like Marin, Napa, and Sonoma. Also hard-hit are Orange and San Diego counties.
...
How did Lee and his colleagues explain the sleight-of-hand they used to make it seem like they were bringing prices down, instead of up? “It is difficult to make a direct comparison of these rates to existing premiums in the commercial individual market,” Covered California explained in last week’s press release, “because in 2014, there will be new standard benefit designs under the Affordable Care Act.” That’s a polite way of saying that Obamacare’s mandates and regulations will drive up the cost of premiums in the individual market for health insurance.
But rather than acknowledge that truth, the agency decided to ignore it completely, instead comparing Obamacare-based insurance to a completely different type of insurance product, that bears no relevance to the actual costs that actual Californians face when they shop for coverage today. Peter Lee calls it a “home run.” It’s more like hitting into a triple play.
...
So, Forbes' Avik Roy summarizes:
Supporters of Obamacare justified passage of the law because one insurer in California raised rates on some people by as much as 39 percent. But Obamacare itself more than doubles the cost of insurance on the individual market.
I can understand why Democrats in California would want to mislead the public on this point.
But journalists have a professional responsibility to check out the facts for themselves.
»
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Yes they did!
I have this happy thought.
These radical liberal democrats that control the state of California, like the old Soviet Style Politburo, voted for this and forced it on the rest of the country.
Now let them eat shit and die.
how is it 'personal' that the USDJPY is anything?
Good point.
wasn't meaning to be a jerk, just brought it up. And actually it probably is 'personal' in a way perhaps to a forex trader as yourself.
Should be an interesting forex week. I'm trading crude more than anything now. 6E (euro) just a bit for scalps.
ACA support is motivated, and enabled by, wishful thinking, delusion, and reality-denial. In other words, facts don't matter, all that matters is the dream, and it is worth any price (why not? you're paying!).
For some, being able to say America has socialized, universal healthcare is worth the fact that it's a damnable, tragic, and total lie.
How much more proof is needed to realize he is getting paid to commit treason against the citizens of the United States of America.
Impeach him and the rest of the traitors before they destroy the world.
The system is fucked- impeach him and some other CIA stooge replaces the one in there now.
Look on the bright side, each day is a new chance for Hitlery to dope Dick O with some CIA poison, or throw a banana peel in his path.
Now it can be said. Obamacare is increasing the price of health insurance so it can pay for all the new Americans that are being brought in via waves of Third World Immigration - just as laid out in plans by the 1965 U.S. Immigration Act that virtually thwarted all imigration from Europe.
First, there was the massive increase in food stamps to take care of the Obama constituents – as the U.S. government enlisted the help of the Mexican government to get the word out about free food stamps through Mexico’s embassy and network of approximately 50 consular offices… “to ensure that Mexican-Americans and Mexican-nationals working in America were apprised of how to go about qualifying and applying for food stamps."
Or, as the Agriculture Department’s website put it: “USDA and the government of Mexico have entered into a partnership to help educate eligible Mexican nationals living in the United States about available nutrition assistance.”
And, now, there is the massive increase in health insurance costs to pay for the Obama voters.
However, there’s a slight problem building in California's transfer of wealth program; the white population has dropped to 39%.
Reported the SF Chronicle on January 31: “The number of Hispanic people in California will equal the non-Hispanic white population by the middle of the year and surpass it as the largest single racial or ethnic group in the state by 2014, according to projections released Thursday by the state Department of Finance.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Hispanics-soon-to-outnumber-whites-in-state-4241849.php#ixzz2V7NFzhoS
The population of the State of California was 38,041,430 in 2012: it is a major welfare state with a total 55 electoral votes out of 538.
California has turned into a hispanic Detroit or Tiajuana.
Native Californian. New found Australian.
my next gold purchase I'm planning on a Perth mint bar!
Well done
I'll be there as soon as that immigration office gets off it's ass.
I go to the
V A I see it as the future of health care in this country- only I can get all my care for about $0 i got glasses for free and if I want I can get a hearing aid for free etc etc
If its going to be like this why should I go across the street and pay exhorbant prices for the same thing!
So you see this as the solution-because to me this is a big part of the problem. Enjoy the free-shit army while it lasts.
I'm sorry, does anyone know why I'm grabbing my ankles?
because it's better than gabbing some elses ankles?
the "human caterpillar" is what I am envisioning.
NUMERO UNO: there is NO such animal as an "average Californian". NUMERO DOS: even if there WAS, the rest of the country would be paying for IT. like someone above said, you are either an ILLEGAL, or you work for the government. or you're an overpaid socialist "actor"........like the sign on a business said in LA, "gone fishin, forever, in Idaho"......................think all that acid is finally catchin up to Mrs. Browns little boy.
When my cobra ended (rip off) I went for the cheapest Kaiser plan I could get, $3k deductible at 39 years of age gets me for $248 a month. I go to the doctor about once a year so the $40 co pay really doesn't mean much to me, but am saving $100 a month over cobra. The drawback is no Mako fishing, and every time a barracuda comes to the rail (and is violently discarded) I just gotta be careful of slicing my knuckles open, or having a 8/0 treble hook buried into my hand or face. Either way, easy money for Kaiser, $3k a year to see me once or twice a calendar, maybe I should just pay the penalty and head to TJ when I got an issue!
I was on cobra for a short time- thank God because my youngest had to spend a week in the NICU when he was born-$$$$$$.
Here's what you need to know about all this healthcare crap.
This is designed to funnel as much $ as possible to the Health insurance cartel as quickly as possible.
The plans you can afford are basically "affiliation fees" to connect you to the network. The real cost of using the coverage is the co-pay for which you will be hounded until the ends of the Earth. Try to get a firm price on any test of procedure. You'll quickly see the inflation would make a whore blush.
Until we have single-payer healthcare this country is fucked.
"blushing whore" is damn near woody material...................but the rest of your response was okay too.
Do the Canadians really think their health care system is better than ours? Why do so many Canadians come to our country ( or used to) for their health care needs? Btw, how's the Cuba system working out for you?
exactly. Just watch Stossel 20/20 from few years ago on youtube. Titled Health care: whose body is it anyway?
more americans leave this country for health care than those who enter the country
A McKinsey and Co. report from 2008 found that between 60,000 to 85,000 medical tourists were traveling to the United States for the purpose of receiving in-patient medical care. The same McKinsey study estimated that 750,000 American medical tourists traveled from the United States to other countries in 2007 (up from 500,000 in 2006).
Thanks to liberals it is already f"ed. If amnesty passes then the police state will be permanent.
Look at the profits of publicly traded health insurance companies. That's not where the money's going. A big fat D- for you.
Its monopoly protections for the whole predatory medical industry that's the problem.
This will surely be bullish...
Only on Tuesdays.
Hi folks but this is one of the little secrets that the media did not reveal in the 2012 presidential campaign. In Massachusetts they passed a law to require everybody to purchase health insurance so that the rising costs of health care could be mitigated. The result was that everybody's health insurance ran straight up the wall! The media did not look at the results of Romneycare at all. Well, I guess we will have to get all of our medical proceedures in a back alley. Unless we can convince Planned Parenthood to claim that all other medical procedures are related to women's health.
These rates hikes are really bad but theyre only half the equation.
Whats going to happen relatively soon (3-5 years) is that the reimbursements for these Obamacare plans are going to get so low that hospitals will have no choice but to not accept them. So we will see millions of people forced into buying expensive health insurance by force of IRS penalty that none of their local hospitals accept. That will be the political nuclear bomb.
This law will be scrapped as soon as Obama is out of office because the Dems will no longer have a reason to defend it.
so essentially--and predictably--it's just that Atlas will shrug.
Ahh..no. If the RINO Rubio-Obama-Schumer amnesty passes - the police state and ObamaCare are here for good. The dude saying - once obama is gone. Yeah we willmagically go back to pre-2008. I wish but I doubt it will happen. We all know we need a major flushing in this country to get anything back.
Oh and one more thing. Have you noticed that all of the cost increases are occurring in coastal, suburban and urban areas? I wonder what they will say when the cost hits the fan? I think they will say "it's Bush's fault!" It works for Obama!
Pent up demand
You guys just don't understand the post Obuster health care plan. Drop health insurance, pay the fine (it's not that much for the first few years), when you get really sick, get health insurance, they have to cover you at the same cost as everyone else.
PBS newshour had a segment about people choosing care plans on an exchange.
The prices were between $450 and $700 per month.
Unaffordable for a great majority of the populace.
Most will just not buy the insurance.
I won't. Can't afford it. I think the scenario goes like this: Can't afford to buy insurance, so I get to fill out some papaerwork- oh! you're low income! No worries, you get free health insurance! Bully for me, I sign up, get my biometric ACA card, RFID chip implant, and I'm good to go. Yeah, I think there is a reason the prices are so high.
I've averaged $309.09 in income per month so far in 2013. Where do I sign up for that $750 plan? I feel healthier already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bear? Why are you so fixated, with Jamie Coleman, b/s? I know the bearings crap.
Remember eur/jpy 2010? MaYOne thing about California. The hospitals for the poor and inidgent are the finest anywhere. They feture the latest equipment, best doctors, excellent operating records, and tremendous funding. They draw illegal aliens from all over the world. California private hospitals completely suck.
You got what you voted for! Enjoy!
Ummm....I didn't vote for this. Anyone here vote for this? Ummm, yeah.....nobody here voted for it. Post this on suckington post. You'll make new friends. Many apologists there for you.
Shoot and it could change again, as healthcare reform is all about raging models and algorithms on crash courses and of course this was all happening wiht insurers before Obamacare but now more of it and more complexities.
Sometimes you don't really know until everything is in place or there might be some new additional models added between now and then. There are such a large number of different types of plans out there too and insurers for the business provided insurance have over 100 private exchagnes to compete there...so....
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/04/not-obamacare-that-is-failing-its...
How many employees does it take to start a private exchange...3...former Humana exec example.. Again, keep in mind here that some of this relates to insurers not participating in very many exchagnes as they feel the money is not there for profit. Many life United go for big contracts, like the one they sued DOD to get for the west coast Tri-Care and they hired the former HHS director, Steve Larsen, credited with writing most o fthe healthcare law, so he sits at United as a VP now. Things that make one want to go hmmmm...so again as insurers can use models and change and adpt quickly who knows how this will all play out until it's here. The government is truly lacking in hiring and using any or enough model and algorithm sleuths and stalkers to keep up. Private industry has modelking bubbles in place all the time that can be changed at any time with their inhouse quants as needed. They do the math and models. Yup this example does show how the government really needs some folks who are good at math and modeling on board.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/03/one-more-insurance-exchange-start...
Why is there no senior's discount.
because it's their fault we're in this mess
ObamaCare is causing the cost of insurance to go to the moon. The money IS NOT finding its way into Dr's hands. Quite the contrary, my dad is making about 200k LESS since Obamacare passed and my brother is about to feel the brunt of this as well. 1st year out of medical school.
All of the docs by me are fucking rollin' in it. Their old ladies love the big Merc SUV POSs.
Obamacare is basically the coup de grace for a process that started long ago, of slowly subjecting the doctors more and more to the revenue-crushing grip of the insurance companies and pharmas. After 2, 3 years of this - if this mad scheme makes it that far - most current doctors will retire.
Well, I ordered some textbooks and a couple of sharp knives and super glue.
I'm ready for disaster.
Health insurance is more affordable than ever, for my cats.
Yep. About five years ago we adoped an ancient corgi/beagle mix. We ended up taking him to a VETERINARY neurologist, opthamalogist, dental surgeon, physical therapist, dermatologist and internal medicine specialist. Since he was too old to have much surgery at all, most of it was really reasonable. The neurological exam was about $150; that's pretty representative. I'm not sure how that veterinary neurologist is paying back her vet school loans, however.
When we take our current dog to an internal medicine specialist, the "follow-up" office visit cost is $75.
There's a lot of competition among veterinary specialists in Silicon Valley. It brings prices down!!!!!!!!
Funny how we can manage to pay for excellent care for our pets, with no insurance. But if we didn't have health insurance for ourselves, we could potentially be economically doomed.
(don't worry, we give plenty to diseased-poor-humans-overseas charities; we don't want to go directly to Hell when we die)
After re-reading my post about my Kaiser HMO experiences, and then this, I realize just how much better my pets' medical care is than my own.
I think I'll go off somewhere and throw up.
It's a dog's life!
Karen, Kaiser in California has always had a bad reputation in healthcare for what it delivered. When I worked in a Level I trauma unit, I had co-workers who picked up extra shifts at Kaiser because the workload was easier and the pay so much higher. They bragged about how easy the work was because no one expected them to do very much. If patients were alive at the end of the shift, good enough!
When I moved to surgery intensive care unit in the same city it was the same thing only on a larger scale: Lots of Kaiser ICU beds, lots of temp nurses.
But at the same time Kaiser gets wonderful ratings and do fantastically in rankings, in sources like Consumer Reports.
I guess it's all that "spacial" data; it makes them look great.
So where are the best countries to go to for outsourced medical care? Taiwan? Thailand?
I would guess all USA employees go to 30hr work weeks come Jan1.
My shithole job has already begun. That's EXACTLY what will happen.
Let's call it what it is: TYRANNYCARE!
Well. no shit Sherlock. By the time Chalky exits the people's house they will be lucky if it hasn't quadrupled. WTF did you expect, hope & change? Many of us tried to warn the masses to no avail - but hey Kim Kardashian is pregnant and that's way more important to the average dolt that inhabits Amerika today.
http://vegasxau.blogspot.com
If Obama and his gang say it's getting cheaper, you know you have lost a lot of purchasing power from that day on. If they says it's getting more expensive, you can hand them over your wallet.... They are big government and that always means big trouble....
The health cartel can't lose, as the bronze, silver, gold and platinum tiers
represent statutory profit boxes ranging from 60% MLR
(medical loss ratio) to 15%.
Their statutory profit box is fixed.
http://pages.citebite.com/i1y4m1t7o7pxu
In other words,
Market Controlled Insecticide
Related Fructose Foundational
GMO's Have An Implicit
Monopolistic Value Chain Box,
The Health Cartel A Stipulated
One, And The TBTF Banks An
Infinite One.
None of this
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-013-2460-y/fulltext.html
or this
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/05/coming-corporate-control-of-medic...
(except I advocate patient-doctor centric, patient care/bed to lab-lab to bed exalted,
"MARKET-PROGRESSIVE," rationally informed with epidemiology and clinical reality,
not union/state/hospital alone, doctor alone, state, cartel, whatever other
than patient-doctor, etc. centric.)
http://pages.citebite.com/f9g6i1b7rfvh
http://pages.citebite.com/d9u6v1v6jspj
(note is pdf (I wouldn’t want to near-crash anyone’s computer:))
http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2009/06/pdf/health_competitiveness.pdf
http://www.nomiprins.com/thoughts/2012/11/10/real-danger-of-obamacare-insurance-company-takeover-of-healt.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/business/despite-new-health-law-some-see-sharp-rise-in-premiums.html?ref=business&_r=2&
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/14/793112/-Schumer-Leahy-Take-on-Insurance-Antitrust-Exemption-Video-Added
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/05/obamacare-fowler-lobbyist-industry1?INTCMP=SRCH
http://pages.citebite.com/p8i5t8h6mphi
http://news.yahoo.com/insurers-nervous-over-prospect-romney-victory-115914066--finance.html
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5106i1yq5mL._SL500_.jpg
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/candleglance.html?aet%2Cci%2Cunh%2Cwlp
on day of my commenting, 6/2/2013, recent history stretchy very bubbly highs.
I've nothing against business success. I am against undue market control.
The advancing inability to afford health care, partly owing to the
monopolistic architecture itself, advances customers toward subsidy
eligibility. Thus, "affordable care" starts looking more like
"what are you good for care."
Modified adjusted gross income figured on present earnings,
with app's required by April 15, is obviously aimed at avoiding
entitlement status, with cost shifting captured monopolistically
but leaving many underinsured or uninsured, and with
the medical collections business obviously in tact.
ObamaCare would be the health care delivery program that
the Simpson-Bowles Commission would have gladly called
its own.
However, it WILL extend coverage, and it WILL eliminate
exclusions. It WILL enable moving to Vegas for job/r.e.
op's w/o losing coverage. It does eliminate for many their
inevitable choice of "go naked" or "premium death spiral."
But, it's blanket-applied monopolistic architecture, that promises
much clinical rationalization, and likely will deliver some as the
government assists a cartel in playing its monopolistic
profit box-affixed captive Siamese twin patient audience
for what they're worth, but which, nonetheless, will do so in a cartel
centric, not patient-doctor centric fashion, lavishly supporting
thousands of gatekeeper new-hires, the cost of which, along
with the cost of monopolistic privilege of which, could better
be applied to reverse engineering from the economic efficiency
represented by patient and physician satisfaction.
Cut the psychobable .... you're a single payer socialist moron ! Sabotage the free market .... so socialism looks like a reasonable alternative .... sabotage health care delivery .... so single payer looks like salvation .... sabotage and switch !
Anyone intelligent will not pay anything... pay the fine... then when you get sick... get insurance (they can't refuse you under Obamacare)... then when you're not sick anymore... get off insurance... WINNING!
AFFORDABLE Health Care Act. What did you expect?
"Obamacare To Double Cost Of Insurance For AVERAGE CALIFORNIAN"
So zero x 2 = zero.
No problem...shit's free, compa.
"Admiral-General Aladeen, Cloward-Piven is working as planned."
"Thank you, minion."
Obama is a rent seeking racist ! Let's send him back to Laggos, Niggeria ! www.obamasrealfather.com
To serve and protect - Turkey
http://dehabertr.blogspot.com/2013/06/bodrumda-vahsi-saldiri.html
Last week, Forbes blogger Rick Ungar admitted he was wrong about Obamacare and insurance rates, following the news that California's rates were actually less than expected.
Yes, we should all just grin and bear the tyranny of being forced to purchase a product by our Govt, who BTW through previous socialistic legislation (for the sheeple), caused a lot of the problems we see in skyrocketing costs.
Fuck you, Obama, Bernanke and the entire cesspool in D.C.
Draw and quarter is too good for them.
Just for the fun of it! Rate Shock: In California, Obamacare To Increase Individual Health Insurance Premiums By 64-146% - Forbes
Did I say a short squeeze was coming?
Those rates aern't going up, they are going down. Those temperatures aern't going down, they are going up. Keep calm and listen to your betters.
Hopey Changey rocks it again!!!!
Too late for amputation?
the solution is obviously Obama Care II
although by the time it passes it will probably be Biden Care
as Joe would probably say - "I wouldn't be caught dead going to one of THOSE doctors!"
The reason this is double in CA is because you're paying for an illegal to have insurance too.
WHEW....that was close....
Glad it's JUST CALIFORNIA!! lol.....
just wait folks...just wait.
From Futurama Parasites Lost :
Zoidberg: "Ahh, the hypochondriac's back, so what is it this time?"
Fry: "Well my lead pipe hurts a little"
Zoidberg: "That's normal, next patient!"
It's funny 'coz its true.
(Had a quick look, couldn't find a link to the video, dammit! Anyone got more time than me? Anyone? )
"How to increase your corporate bottom line for dummies" - a one sentence book that is a best seller year after year: : Dial the Capitol switchboard [1-866-220-0044] and ask to speak to a congressman or senator - it's so easy, even a caveman can do it!
"the catastrophic plan, which costs an average of $184 a month"
vs.
"median cost of the five cheapest plans was only $92"
Comparing an average to median? Averages are sensitive to outliers; median is not. Either the person making the comparison doesn't understand basic statistics or is using them to stretch their point. Either way, everything that came after was suspect.
ObamaCare - Expect Less, Pay More
It's pretty much a scam to be honest with y'all. No, not "obamacare", that's not the scam, at least not all of it anyways. When there's suddenly a mandate to hand over money to insurance companies, all that means is the insurance companies will charge more and more and find any excuse to do so. Despite costs actually going down.