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Obamacare Is A Disaster: Co-Op Insurers Across America Are Collapsing, And Now There Is Fraud
Two weeks ago we reported that in what at the time was still a rather isolated incident, Colorado's largest nonprofit health insurer (aka co-op), Colorado HealthOP is abruptly shutting down, forcing 80,000 Coloradans to find a new insurer for 2016.
At the time, we said that the health insurer had been decertified by the Division of Insurance as an eligible insurance company because the cooperative relied on federal support, and federal authorities announced last month they wouldn't be able to pay most of what they owed in a program designed to help health insurance co-ops get established.
In other words, one of the 24 co-ops funded with Federal dollars and created to give more policyholders control over their insurers - especially those who wished to stay away from various corporate offerings, had failed simply because the government was unable to subsidize it: the same government that spends $35 billion in global economic "aid" but can't support its most important welfare program.
Fast forward to today, when we learn that another co-op, this time New York's Health Republic Insurance - the largest of the nonprofit cooperatives created under the Affordable Care Act - is not only shuttering, but was engaging in fraud.
The fate of Health Republic Insurance was first revealed a month ago when the WSJ reported it would shut down after suffering massive losses "in the latest sign of the financial pressures facing many insurers that participated in the law’s new marketplaces."
The insurer lost about $52.7 million in the first six months of this year, on top of a $77.5 million loss in 2014, according to regulatory filings. The move to wind down its operations was made jointly by officials from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; New York’s state insurance exchange, known as New York State of Health; and the New York State Department of Financial Services.
In a statement, Health Republic said it was “deeply disappointed” by the outcome, and pointed to “challenges placed on us by the structure of the CO-OP program.”
Health Republic has about 215,000 members, with about half holding individual plans and half under small-business coverage, a spokesman for the insurer said.
Today we learn that not only was this largest Co-op insolvent, it had also committed fraud. According to Politico, the collapsing insurance company that is creating headaches for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, misled state and federal officials about its finances, and will not be able to remain in business through the end of the year as originally hoped.
Because incompetence is one thing, but corruption: now that's real government work, right there.
The accelerated wind down is clearly a problem: the more than 200,000 customers insured with the co-op will lose their coverage Dec. 1, and must find a new plan by mid-November, according to the state and federal government. Health Republic insures about 20 percent of the state's individual market.
As Politico adds, the plan had been for Health Republic to make it through the end of the year. As recently as last week, company officials said there was enough in cash in reserve. But that apparently wasn't true.
Health Republic's finances are "substantially worse than the company previously reported in its filings," according to the state Department of Financial Services, which oversees insurance in New York, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
One wonders just how much of the over $100 million "lost" in under two years was due to incompetence, and how much due to pure embezzlement by the co-ops operators. Somehow we doubt we will find the anwer where this taxpayer money has gone.
This does, however, lead to a more serious question: the implosion of Health Republic is merely the latest in what has become an epidemic of governmental failure. In fact, there are a total of ten co-ops, all of which were created by the Affordable Care Act and seeded with billions in federal funding, that have now failed, leading to questions whether the entire business model underpinning Obamacare is unsustainanble for everyone but a select few corporations.
For some more thoughts on this disturbing, if perfectly predictable epidemic, we go to Forbes' Edmund Haislmaier who answers "Why Obamacare Co-Ops are failing at a rate of nearly 50%"
Cooperative health insurers (or co-ops) created under a federal grant and loan program in the Affordable Care Act seem to be falling like dominoes.
It started in February, when CoOportunity Health, which operated in Iowa and Nebraska, was ordered into liquidation. In July, Louisiana’s insurance department announced it was shuttering that state’s co-op. The following month brought news that Nevada’s co-op would also close. On September 25, New York ordered the shutdown of Health Republic Insurance of New York, which had the largest enrollment of all of the co-ops. Then, within the space of a week in mid-October, the number of failures doubled from four to eight, as state insurance regulators announced that they were closing the co-ops in Kentucky, Tennessee, Colorado, and one of the two in Oregon. Last week came news that South Carolina’s co-op will be closed, followed this week by the announcement that Utah’s co-op is also being shut down.
In sum, of the 24 Obamacare co-ops funded with federal tax dollars, one (Vermont’s) never got approval to sell coverage, a second (CoOportunity) has already been wound down, and nine more will terminate at the end of this year.
So what is behind this, so far, 46 percent failure rate?
To start with, the program was a congressional exercise in not merely reinventing the wheel, but doing a bad job of it.
Far from being a new idea, member-owned insurance companies—called “mutual” insurers—have a long history. For instance, life insurer Northwestern Mutual has been in business for over 150 years. Health insurers organized as mutual companies include, among others, Blue Cross plans in 10 states. Indeed, one of them, Florida Blue, converted into a policyholder-owned mutual company just last year. If having more health insurers owned by their policyholders was the goal, then there was no need for federal government action.
On the other hand, if the goal was to increase competition by stimulating the creation of new health insurers, then the ACA’s co-op program was, like other parts of the legislation, badly designed.
* * *
The program offered federal loans and grants to startup insurers but required that they be non-profits, not have anyone affiliated with an existing health insurer on their boards, and not spend any of their federal funding on marketing.
Co-ops are also subject to another provision of the ACA requiring all health insurers to pay out in claims at least 80 percent of premium revenues, or refund the difference to policyholders. By law, insurers can retain no more than 20 percent , out of which they must fund sales and administrative costs before booking any remainder as free cash. That significantly constrains a non-profit carrier’s ability to accumulate capital needed for growth, as it can’t raise funds through equity or debt offerings.
As if that wasn’t daunting enough, the law also required co-ops to focus “substantially all” of their activities on offering health insurance in the individual and small group markets—just as other provisions of Obamacare were thoroughly disrupting those markets by imposing new rules on insurers and complicated new payment arrangements for many of their customers.
Given all of the foregoing, 10 co-ops failing within two years is less surprising than the fact that 23 of them actually got to market in the first place.
As we pointed out two weeks ago, following this avalanche of failures, it will merely force even more individuals into plans offered by corporations, who as a result of the failure of their co-op competitors will have even more pricing power and premium hiking leverage.
Which means that "sticker shockers" such as the one below kindly informing them their health insurance premiums are rising by 60% crushing any desire to splurge modest "gas savings" on discretionary purchases...
... will only get worse, as the premium increase even more with every passing year, as more Co-Ops fail, as more of the publicly-held insurers merge, and as a single-payer system, one which benefits not taxpayers but a select handful of shareholders, becomes the norm.
Haislmaier's take: "The bottom line: Obamacare has made health insurance costlier and the business of offering it riskier. To survive in that new world, health insurers need to be cautious, or even pessimistic, and hope that their customers can continue to pay escalating premiums. It’s not a pretty picture."
It isn't but what are customers going to do: after all the "Affordable Care Act" is a tax (one which "boosts" GDP every quarter no less) and you must pay it by law; sadly the Supreme Court forgot that when it makes a service mandatory, corporations can charge any price they want.
And that's precisely what they are doing.
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This sort of thing (and the anonymous digital currency used to pay for it) were all speculated by the cyber/cypher-punk movement clear back into the 1980s. Along with a ton of other things -- seriously the stuff I read in the early 90s cyberpunk mailing lists seemed insanely speculative at the time, but it reads like a newspaper today.
The only thing they missed was the monoculture of syndicated criminality of today's ruling powers. Hell, I should rather escape to any of those GenX literary dystopias than live in this iron one, because they naively demonstrated that good leadership and hard work achieved things.
"The only thing they missed was the monoculture of syndicated criminality of today's ruling powers."
Snow Crash had that, although because they'd transferred so much power to other corporations the Feds were now a minor player politically.
An assassination market is a prediction market where any party can place a bet (using anonymous electronic money and pseudonymous remailers) on the date of death of a given individual, and collect a payoff if they "guess" the date accurately. This would incentivise assassination of individuals because the assassin, knowing when the action would take place, could profit by making an accurate bet on the time of the subject's death. Because the payoff is for accurately picking the date rather than performing the action of the assassin, it is substantially more difficult to assign criminal liability for the assassination.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market
"Hey, Boss, you gotta a new video game!"
"Don't touch that, Joe!"
"Why? You being selfish with your new toy? Damn, it's realistic!"
"It's the drone controller, you moron! You're already flying the drone back this way, towards the white hut! Dammit, if you crash that Reaper, I'm taking out of your paycheck!"
"Hey! What's this button do under this plastic cover?"
"It's the Hellfire missile!" Please don't tell me you pressed it!"
"Sorry, Boss, I--------------
This situation is starting to look uglier than a Walmart shopper's buttcrack.
F U G L Y
downright Fugly
the goldbugs are right. turn it all into gold. drop your insurance. stiff the hospital if you ever need it and make someone else pay. they raised taxes on the middle class AGAIN AND IT IS ONGOING!!
To bad America is a police state. And in countries like that, the governments never admit when a error was made.
And it's a big one because America's system isn't designed to offer safety nets to everybody.
Even in socialist Europe it's impossible and it's becomming clear with all those Syrian invaders.
But I don't believe it was ever meanth to be affordable and the people can only dream that one day a non corrupt president gets elected and gets to live long enough so solve some of those lobbyist problems.
"To survive in that new world, health insurers need to be cautious, or even pessimistic, and hope that their customers can continue to pay escalating premiums"
There is no hope in that. At some point it becomes mathematically impossible.
Everything. For Everybody. All the time and everywhere.
Can you fog a mirror?
Can you core a apple?
You are entitled.
It's says so, in the Constitution. Axe Bernie. He'll tell ya.
Or to put it another way... " if we gots money for all dat military shit, we gots plenty of money Fo da people"
A chicken in every pot. ( or just go to KFC with EBT)
40 acres and a mule. ( sounds likes works involved there, I'll pass, thanks)
Entitled.entitled. Entitlements. Your entitled. You are en- tite- eld.
You deserve it. We owe you. Hand up?, fuck that, gimme a hand out.
Free shit. Come get yours. There's plenty. More where that came from.
>Axe Bernie...
If only...
Standard Disclaimer: Face facts, Bernie is the old guy down the street you and your fellow neighbors would always refer to as a "crazy old coot"...
"I am a self-hating Zionist! Come to me, my huddled masses of young, military age Muslims, let me hug you all! Free shit for everyone! You, Achmedd, gimme a hug. I-Arrgggh! A knife?"
"Die, Infidel!"
Odd how this author keeps referring to generic "corporations" as the evil lurking behind this. This debacle belongs solely to the Democratic Party. That is the lurking evil - yet they somehow are never named as a repsonsible party. Anywhere. It's like this shitstorm just rose up out of the ground.
Why was this program set up to fail? Beause SJW politicians behind it don't know their collective ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to any type of business. Pay out 80% of all premiums and still operate in the black? Only morons would believe that could be done. The same morons who've made careers out of demonizing business - while never having to produce themselves. Atlas has indeed shrugged.
Will any of these thieves go to jail? Depends. Are they good Democrats? If so, they get the Lois Lerner treatment. Keep the loot and here is your pension.
And don't give me that "but the GOP is just as bad" crap. Of course they are. But not on this one. Obamacare and its attendant disasters, failures, frauds, crimes and thievery are wholely owned subsidiaries of the DNC.
You've been reading, NoTTD. There are lots and lots of other nasty tidbits in that legistlation. Lots of mandated costs and formation of things that I believe will lead to sick and/or complicated patients being discharged from many practices.
When I read the term "business model" in this article I laughed. There was no business model. Government doesn't know shit about business or running one. It never has had to. The VA, TSA, etc. are all simply demand side organizations. There are no P&L considerations, only expenditures and requests for ever more money.
They have stumbled into something they know nothing about and it is quickly showing.
But then the real goal, the real purpose is power, not health, not healthcare and not insurance or caring.
Bullshit!
Dems were in charge, the health lobby did its thing, the ACA passed. Republicans gained power, AND FULLY FUND the ACA TO THIS DAY!
Everything that Barry touches turns to shit. I am going to start referring to it as the 'Barry Touch'.
Midas touch, in reverse.
Go to any big city, you can see it.
Turns. To. Shit.
In the military, we used to refer to a person like that as Mr. Shitwrench.
Standard Disclaimer: and even the inferred color matches...
Hard data, because I looked it up from my AP database:
My monthly premium for 10/2005: $117.00.
Exact same plan's premium this month: $517.00. For chuckles, the BLS CPI increase for the same time frame is 21.8%.
So a 341% percent increase for the exact same plan over 10 years. That's basically a 12% p.a. inflation rate. Given that the CPI (and thus COLA adjustments, wages, etc) is so much smaller, obviously healthcare is taking a bigger and bigger bite for the same income, for the same services. In another 15 years at that rate, it'll be 18X higher and just the insurance premium alone will exceed the entire median take-home pay for the average use worker.
So that's not going to happen. Either O-care goes away, they try to force single-payer (which will fucking implode once everyone's on single payer and the financial vampires don't get their payments reduced), we go full communist or the country ends as we know it.
And that's just healthcare. You can do this modeling for a ton of other things, they're almost all just as fucked.
Buckle up, we're going on a wild ride.
You're also ten years older, which can account for maybe half the difference.
Actually the way my plan bins aligns almost perfectly with my age -- the plan bins in 10 year increments. My age added $50 a month to the last premium.
So no, it doesn't even come remotely close to accounting for half, but for 10 points of that 340% increase.
Sounds like college tuition as well.....
...and that's a 12% inflation rate in an industry where technology is a big player. Somehow, technology aggressively drives DOWN costs in every other industry, but in health care it seems to have entirely the opposite effect. Hmmmm.
It is just amazeaballs that it doesn't hold true in plastic surgery or lasik. Real competition drives cost and quality. Who woulda ever thunk that would be true???
Veterinary services also are not impacted by that inflation!
Except it is not the same plan, because now every unidonkey medical drug, device or procedure bills the insurance plan far in excess of the plan's actuarial tables and you are not in a position to tell them to f*ck off.
While you can perhaps control the fraud committed against you personally you are not able to control the fraud committed against you by other people.
You were just defrauded by shadows to the tune of $400+ a month...
Have a nice day!
Healthcare and finance the two biggest fraud industries in the usa
>One wonders just how much of the over $100 million "lost"
>in under two years was due to incompetence, and how much
>due to pure embezzlement by the co-ops operators
Sometimes you just can't tell them apart.
It was designed to fail.
It's actually one of his greatest accomplishments, I mean his handler's greatest accomplishments.
I love the implied "He didn't build that" in your comment. :)
It is funny when you ask a liberal to name one accomplishment of Obama's.
First they mention Obamacare, then agree with you that it was done wrong and ended up being a giant fraud scheme.
Then they wrack their brains trying to think of 1 thing since Obama was born that provided value to America and end up with...
Absolutely nothing...
And here I thought it was going to take molotov cocktails and pitch forks to start a revolt.
Can I expect Medicaid to be partnered with FEMA in the near future?
Corpse- man, corpse- man.....we got a man down.
Well played. ;-)
What's going on with the fraud and corruption in our government and up and down the aisles of America and world was predicted a long time ago. Won't be long now....
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. 9 But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone. - 2 Timothy 3
Can't wait for CNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC or some other fucking moron from ESPN to stick a microphone in Hillary's!-Pelosi's-Reids-Obama's face and ask them WTF!
Probably not gonna happen huh? ;-)
That'll be the day.
Buddy Holly & His Crickets "That'll Be The Day" on The Ed Sullivan Show - YouTube
al-Qaeda in Iraq does less damage than those other groups you mention...
Obama is a seriously sick corrupt son of a bitch.
The White Housenigger is nowhere to be seen or heard about 40%+ of these co-ops goin' BK. I recall a few nigger-noise photo ops and press releases when the Obamanation was rolled out. Yeah, that nigger cares about American quality healthcare.
Gee Wiz ... not a word of this on the Huffington Post.
Which is why you need to wander over into lala land every once in a great while and spray shit like a goose with diarrhea... Just keep copying and pasting. Check back in a few days and watch the faithful start speaking in tongues.
No Bell prize for medicine.
Anyone who falls for this shit called "insurance" better have their marbles checked.
I am a cancer patient. An appointment for me to see one of my specialists with insurance..$400 or more. Walking into the same doctor without insurance...$120. If I were a member of the special classes which includes all of those who do not contribute to society, their bill would be zero. Fairness??????????????
I'll bet doctors and health care professionals are some of the largest purchasers of wall & floor safes right now.
Who doesn't love a roll of shiny Platinum Koalas' for payment?
Concierge Medicine will get Massive Boost from Obamacare
'Concierge' medicine grows to meet patient demands and physician frustrations - WTOP
Actually, from my personal experience -- they're buying vacation properties in the boonies.
I've had three of the fuckers retire on me in the past five years. All great docs, and all were absolutely done with the current system. One of them came back part time at a concierge service like what you linked.
My guess when it all goes down these ancient docs will be rolling in it again. Don't forget their training wasn't nearly so specialized and they came from the era where a family physician was expected to do routine surgeries like appendectomies.
Back to 18th century battlefield medicine we go.
Or, it could be like Elysium, where the chosenites live forever.
Elysium. The future will be highly stratified
With obamacare now the money and security is good no matter which way you go as a doctor but doctors are getting tired of the government micromanaged assembly line. Some of us anyway. Concierge care will grow
Out of individualized medicine, will grow better medical techniques. {personal care}
Pharmaceutical empires will be questioned, and hegemonies reconsidered
Medicine in America, has devolved into millions of self delusional pill poppers.
I can't remember the last time I took an aspirin. I take allergy pills occasionally.[ last for 4 hours cheapos]
Happy Halloween
Nancy " We have to pass it to see what's inside it" Pelosi needs to have the entire 1000+ page book of regulations shoved up her ass sideways. But she is such a BIG asshole that you could probably throw in a couple of file cabinets and copy machines and still not hit the sides...Her statement is the MOST STUPID one uttered in the 18 or so billion years the Universe has existed. The level of stupidity of her words is INCOMPREHENSIBLE....
Vote Up--Anyone with a fucking ounce of sense saw this coming.
Vote Down---These are just "outliers". The Affordable care Act is sound.
Obama is the new Dr. Death assisted suicide doctor.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian, 1928-2011 - YouTube
the medicare system was invented, designed and intended to be defrauded
r
Fraud !, that can't be right, there must be some sort of mistake. Fraud never happens in the USA. Especially from Banks, Government, Government Agencies and Large Corporations, which is why it's Illegal to report Crimes by these companies.
Yeah. They must mean "Freund".
I think ZH is getting bad information. I saw a skinny kneegrow talking on the tv and he said everything is awesome
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They are holding his true citizenship document in front of him. The Monkey is a shoeshine boy.
The good news, anything he's passed into law is illegal and non binding.
katt williams? He is the Father of Lies, Sir!
Careful. And don't say "bigger", say "larger".
I learned this from reading your guys' posts here. This appears to be better than obamacare. Less restrictions but you do have a bit more individual responsibility but your deductibles copays and overall premiums seem better than obamacare. Check it out.
ACA compliant
http://www.libertyhealthshare.org/3-program-options
Thanks for reminding me of these programs, I'm looking into it. My insurance just went from 800 to 840/mo. for a family of four.
Might also want to check out the $100,000 deductible plan. Monthly premiums are only $175. Bwahahaha!
i tried to stop this kind of shit............so if you pissed off about go fuck yoruself. if you not pissed off about it you will be and then you can go fuck yourself
Oops
Obama 2008: Bypassing Congress Unconstitutional; I'll Reverse It ...
Updated: Israeli General Captured in Iraq Confesses to Israel-Isis Coalition
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/10/21/breaking-story-israeli-general-c...
Good news. Thanks for posting. MI6 and Scotland Yard will take these motherfuckers down. I feel it in my bones.
Enough of these Jewish pigs living off our taxpayers money. No more USAID to Isreali's. Theses are the same rat bastards who told us we cannot say Merry Christmas. Fuck them.
Up next...cash only doctor boom!
Don't pay.
Don't insure.
Take care of your own health.
Oh, and by the way... the number one killer of humans in the USSA is... doctor errors. And that statistic comes from the AMA (the doctor's union), so you know that is based on an egregiously low-ball "estimate".
The official medical "establishment" in the USSA is extremely dangerous. They flat-out killed one of my friends (no question whatsoever), and would have killed another if I had not taken matters into my own hands.
They also would have killed me at least once if I had not managed to perform research on my condition while in extreme pain and distress and nearing death.
ESCAPE the medical system. And refuse to pay.
Better yet, escape the entire evil empire.
i would rather be dead than fall into the clutches of the medical establishment and yet i pay and pay and pay for NOTHING. how stupid is that?
You just become a rat experiment.
Forget exactly, 5 or 6 grade. We feed one rat the 4 food group model. The other rat received junk food. My junk food rat died. We had to write a paper on daily feeding, amount of food portions, observations, and motor skills. The dead ringer was junk food rat hair turning from white to yellow.
This wouldn't ever happen in today's liberal education system. It was a great experience in my life. True story.
I'm a peaceful non-participant when it comes to this whole scam. I've been without health insurance since 2007. Lotsa funds available to pay cash to my favorite naturopath who gives me a discount! The only significant concession I made is to quit riding horses. Can't afford to get seriously hurt.
Article 1 Section 10 of the constitution gives me the right to contract and the right not to contract, and I don't contract with scam artists just because Obama tells me to.
The system set up by the Democrats was only ment to fail. It is the intention that it collapse so only nationailized health care becomes the only option.
Which will also collapse. But that's OK - part of the plan.
everybody says, "its part of their plan" but i've never seen them even plan a bowel movement in the last 40 years. government makes the 3 stooges look like einstein, bohr, and feynman
The liberal strategy is to feed money to government, the banksters, the military industrial complex and the health protection rackets while blaming conservatives for destroying the middle class. The conservative strategy is to go along with these scams while pretending they're going to shut down the government and stop them...one day.
I thought the republican plan was to reiterate what made the USA great, make everybody think they would do it, then continue as usual.
The US has the most expensive health care system of any developed country. Health insurance firms basically serve as money handlers, taking 20-30% off the top. Health insurance premiums should be paying for healthcare, not astronomical salaries of insurance executives, rent for fancy downtown office space or overhead for Blue Cross, Aetna or other Health insurers. Obama care was designed to transfer more money from working people to Health insurers, for profit hospitals, big pharma, etc. This is who people in Congress work for.
and how about the salary of doctors? an average surgeon takes home over 400K a year, many takes home over a million, who pays for that? nowhere else in the world they would be close to that, it has never been a profession where you get to get rich.... and many countries, in my own experience, like Germany, France or Spain have better doctors...
In my experience (which is extensive in Europe) you are very wrong about them having better trained doctors. Top surgeons make what they make simply because there are VERY few people that can do what they do. Are you really telling me their salaries are what drive our healthcare costs? I guess baseball players should make a hell of a lot less too while you're at it. How much do hedge fund managers and bankers pull down every year? Scew you communist!
Goverment doesn't force us to buy season tickets or watch baseball games... yet.
I am not saying that overpaid doctors are the only cause, but surely it adds up... these 400 and 500k salaries are being paid by the patients. Sounds like you must be one or work on healthcare. I lived all over Europe and I would take any German or Finnish doctor over an american every day, even in Spain or Italy you have better healthcare. Granted that they may be some very specific areas like cancer research where you may be able to get something unique in US, like Houston, but the average doctor in America will listen to you for a minute and give you a bunch of pills you don't need to mask the symptoms without treating the root cause, to keep you hooked them and also get the kickbacks for the placement of whatever pharma company is trying to sell.
This huge sucking sound is not coming from the Oral Orifice this time.
nor the WH living quarters
If they took 5% of the energy used to ram it down everybody's throats to do careful planning and structuring, there was a remote chance it might have worked. But we see the results: typical government at its worst. OK, lets go back to the TV: YAY! FREE HEALTHCARE FOR EVERYBODY! YAY!
Who authored ACA?
Who benefits from it's failure?
That's all you need to know.
One answer for both questions... private, capitalistic, health corporations.
As TheTrump said, the USSA is run by people that just aren't very smart.
The wife & I each received a letter from our insurer, Health Net, requesting that we submit to a 45 minute in-home health consultation. It's not mandatory; won't reflect on your care in any way if you refuse, and results will be shared with your doc, but my thinking it they're desparate to gauge their exposure. That and they'll use the results to justify more premium increases. Fuck 'em.
Safe bet they aren't looking to lower your premium via a 'Gee, they are really healthy' visit.
It's to further spy. Period.
I dont drink and I dont smoke. Thats my story and I'm sticking to it. You admit it on the doctors office forms and you are fucked forever.
The Obamacare Phone# 1-800-F1UC-KYO
They tried to tell 'ya.
Isn't that even simpler on an Obamaphone? Like *7 simple?
BOYCOTT.
It's what the founding fathers would have done.
Don't forget that if you choose a health insurance plan from Cigna, business wise, personal or Obamacare plan, you have a new pharmacy benefit manager called United Healthcare. Cigna is about 8 years into a 10 year contract signed with the PBM and so how smart United was to gang in here and get some additional money for their bottom line. With the purchase of Catamaran PBM, United, aka Optum is the largest pharmacy benefit manager in the US, pay attention.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/10/if-you-are-insured-by-cigna-guess-what.html
This is not a first for United as they underwrote HealthNet polices in the northeast for about 5 years until recently as HealthNet was acquired. Back 5-6 years ago Healthnet, before their appeal was granted to stay, almost lost the east coast Tri-Care military contract. Once it was determined that Aetna cheated, the contract went back to Healthnet, but in the interim being a small insurer the lost of Tri-Care mean cash flow and money problems, so they had to immediately sell off their east coast business to United Healthcare who continued to under write the east coast Health Net policies and "let" the HealthNet name remain as well as manage the United policies, so they had a big grab here too. Here's some history if you are interested.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2009/07/health-net-and-humana-file-protests.html
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2009/07/unitedhealthcare-buys-portion-of-health.html
So it would seem that Cigna would be really motivated to get out from underneath the United/Optum pharmacy benefit contract by merging with Anthem so new policies could be written under the Anthem name and not have to be governed by United Healthcare with patient drug benefits as it stands now.
And don't forget if you pay cash for prescriptions, especially with Medicare Part D, you are now labeled an outlier if they can't find enough data about you to give you a flawed medication prediction adherence score. Pay attention to this as pharma and insurers buy these scores and at some point in time common sense tells you that the scores will in fact reduce your access to some drugs.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/07/patients-who-pay-cash-when-filling.html
That FICO-like scoring for compliance is the most Orwellian thing I've seen yet.
I have a really good relationship with my local vet. If I ever needed an Rx I think I'd just pay him a little under the table to fill it for my dog. (But I'm a total "outlier" to "The System" in the first place)
the gov can support foreign aid but not obamacare co-ops. where is it written that the fed gov is suppose tp help the 'people'...? anyone? the gov supports itself and the 1%....
I disagree that the health insurance racket was designed to fail in order to move to single payer...single payer would be a vast improvement over the nightmarish system in place right now.
The real strategy, in my opinion, is to feed money to the rackets as long as possible in the same way the Fed feeds money to the banking system. Failure is *inevitable*, of course, but failure is not the goal. That's like saying Charles Ponzi's pyramid game was designed to fail. Not at all...it was *doomed* to fail because it was financially unsound but it was not designed for that purpose. It was designed to make him rich.
Another key objective is to further weaken the (largely White) middle class.
Stay healthy my friends...
That's what this charade is all about. Look at the payrolls for medical professionals, in non life threating care.
It's just a big TAX grab, to finance the ponzi.
Health Care worker "x" gets paid 20% PREMIUM OVER PRIVATE SECTOR, plus Rahm Emanual retirement program.
It's not about "health care". It's about graft, and extortion at an human beings most vulnerable point.
It's about extracting wealth, and resources from individuals that are in need.
What really sickens me, is the fact that most health care " on the spot" providers are being used, and don't even realize it.
I don't care for beer. Your headline caught my memory bank.
Stay thirsty my friends - YouTube
I read all your comments. You love "swashbuckling" land.
You better be ready to drink a few GMO beers if I come to visit.
I like my bang for the buck !
Unlike these imbeciles in Washington DC. I love people. We have to fastrack education to the millennials.
My non biological children are finishing up there last year at the University of Akron. Both are computer science majors.
I honestly don't know how they are going to manage upcoming technology changes. I had to learn Fortran, data processing crap in college. It doesn't exist anymore. They are both honor roll kids.
Nice to hear from you!!!
I planted a couple of Meyers Lemon- tree seedlings. Citrus loves the Fall. {lots of indirect light]
Anyhow the one seedlings is already 3-4 inches tall, and I accidentially nuked the other one.[ It was shaded, by the trunk of another tree]
Citrus trees are very special to me. My Grandfather taught me how to grow them.
Anyhow I have 2 more seedlings, for tomorrow. NEVER repot in direct sunlight. NEVER spray the roots.
No fertilizer.[one month] Seedlings like company. I start mine in strawberry plants. Strawberries love good drainage, and provide shelter for the seedling.
Enough botany Bitchez.
Your always welcome to our many houses YenCross.
We are winding down Marco Island FL. Have to go back to Charleston HQ and pay the bills. I love it down here. Will be down in Fort Myers in December.
Once the money is received on November 2, 2015:evicting them. This is my first problem in over 10 years. Never had to do this. It will be interesting.
It's unfortunate that the economy is primarily the issue for my tenant. Cannot house squatters living in a 4 bedroom /2 bath, 3 car garage w/lanai pool in gated HOA. I'll get assraped in regime fines.
Atomizer - I live in Fort Myers. Ill have a beer with you anytime. 603-953-3388.
I am in Healthcare publishing so I run ads. The problem with the market when it comes to code is the younger crowd were taught in school to use apps. When they have to code something it is as if they are being asked to take it up the ass.
I have a broker that is trying to transform itself into an ad agency. To keep the end clients scheduled helped them with there screwed up.code and told then that is it, no more cost pusong on us to pay for your learning curve. They tried it again anyways and I said, sure we will fix it for $125 per hour. They fixed it real quick.
To continue to grow wealth I turned.my small business into a micro business. One part time tech as a contractor during busy season snd I do the rest inclueing database management. Around Christmas as it gets slow Ill add another round of self training on PHP and HTML.
As for the Obamacare debacle it was correclty ruled as a tax. And yes, lobbying is the ultimate fall of any Republic. Ours dead so hedging for continued and accelerating pain is the only real strategy.
It's not about "health care". It's about graft, and extortion at an human beings most vulnerable point.
You are absolutely right! From the article:
. . . leading to questions whether the entire business model underpinning Obamacare is unsustainanble for everyone but a select few corporations.
Duh! Of course it's unsustainable for everyone but a select few! The damn Obama-Care bill was written by those same "select few corporations" that will ultimately benefit from it so what do people expect to happen??
I've found the solution to healthcare and other assorted government crap, but it's certainly not for everyone.
First, carry no health insurance. For 38 of my 40 adult years, that's what I did.
I also owned my own business for probably 30 of those 40 years, and used the tax laws to pay little to nothing in taxes. In fact, I have not paid federal income taxes since 1998.
Of course, that means living quite a bit on the edge of poverty, but, I've never collected a penny in welfare, unemployment or any other government program.
I've done it. The filing for hardship under O-care is means-tested. If the second cheapest plan is more than 8% of your AGI, you don't have to have insurance and you don't pay any fine.
Simply put, if you can convince the IRS and your state government that you're an absoute loser, you skate.
Of course, being an absolute loser helps. I do have that working in my favor.just in time for open season
Death is preferable to life under Obummercare.
FRAUD??? No shit... THIS WHOLE EXECUTIVE BRANCH IS FRAUD. Nuff Said.
I have THE solution for health care. All providers must list 2-4k procedures and their price. The insurance companies must list their premiums and payout for each of the procedures. The patient is paid directly, and he gets to pocket any savings. BOOM!
END OF PROBLEM.
When gov't mandates an increase in demand, supply stays the same....Guess what happens to price?? ECON 101.
Forced consumption. Unfortunately, someone messed up the math.
http://www.sltrib.com/home/3108049-155/utah-shuts-down-arches-utahs-nonp...
Happened in Utah too. Rural Utahns are forced to buy plans with no in-network hospital coverage
UTAH kicks ass. The High Sierras still win. Eastern slope.
They came, they lied, they stole. Oh wait, that's not what the Romans said.
Veni vidi veni. I came, I saw, i came again.
Slow motion train wreck. Wheels falling off the bus, etc. Ocare/ACA was back-loaded so it would appear palatable in the first years. Now that costs are ratcheting up, the "useful idiots" are finding out that they're screwed. Not only that but with the full force of IRS enforcement backing it, the gov't. has made them "an offer they can't refuse".
These are the same folks that voted for O, twice. Wow! Good luck with that!
“It isn't but what are customers going to do: after all the "Affordable Care Act" is a tax (one which "boosts" GDP every quarter no less) and you must pay it by law;”
“…sadly the Supreme Court forgot that when it makes a service mandatory, corporations can charge any price they want. And that's precisely what they are doing.”
“The enduring lesson of the 20th century is that socialism is a failure, and free markets are a success. But the politicians keep advocating just a little more socialism.” - Milton Friedman
“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.” - P.J. O'Rourke
“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand” – Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate Economist
OBAMACARE is a FUCKING JOKE. But he and his buds dont have to worry about it. We pay for their healthcare forever and ever and ever.
What a fucked up sheeple world.
. . . the same government that spends $35 billion in global economic "aid" but can't support its most important welfare program.
Maybe the USA should start by not giving the murderers in that country at the east end of the Mediterranean $5,000,000,000/year in overt financial aid (and all of the covert aid no-one hears about) and use that money to fund some of the health care co-ops that are going out of business because the federal government can't find the money.
Too bad the south did not succeed in leaving the union. The bad guys won and America is a rich man's paradise of corruption. You can see now why they wanted to leave.
All the problems of this country come from the 202 and 212 zip codes WA DC and NYC
Have either of these stories found their way to a prominent spot in any of the ZSM media in this country? You would think it would be front page news anywhere but in ziobizarro world.
We all dream of stringing up the crooks and the politicians and the cops, but I submit that it would not be necessary if the first thing done was to string up all the ZSM. IF we had unbiased and investigate reporting going on just think of how much of the crap that is happening would get exposed, and ended.
When you have ideologues and propagandists posing as news-people, is change really possible?
"as more of the publicly-held insurers merge, and as a single-payer system, one which benefits not taxpayers but a select handful of shareholders, becomes the norm.."
This was always the desired result and the way to get there was create a monster and have the public demand something better, and the people who created the problem also have the solution; just waiting for the public reaction.
I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories (at least not to large majority of them) but this looks exactly like this.
Consider it from the position of a few people in the know. They never need to utter the words. They can communicate the idea to like minded people by reading between the lines. "Now that is pretty good. Personally i think fully socialized healthcare would be perfect, but this is really great point John" etc. Than, they never need to get dozens of black ops operatives to comply in killing people they swore to protect - they just make exceedingly complicated demands on guys writing the proper law of Obamacare. For every next demand there is a "fairness" or "affordability" reason. The only conspirational thing is to insist on keeping all regulations, sub regulations and sub sub regulations in place. It guarantees that this law will become an unenforcable, incomprehensible monstrosity.
Than after some years, people get fed up with all this mess and the solution will be offered "let's just have 1 provider and 1 rate for everybody - wouldn't that be simpler?".
Pure manipulation of the masses, from the start.
What is this purple lipped little fuck in the White Castle going to fuck up next?
everything he touches; he's the anti-midas.
Only for anything that benefits us.
For the corporate and bankster puppeteers, the man is Midas.
Anyone remember the name of that nutty perfesser that got caught on tape explaining how bad the ACA was but that it had to be forced on people for the good of ........ well I guess for the good of the single payer beneficiaries?
It's Gods work we're doing, we're doing it for the children, its to help the poor......man what bullshit sheeple will believe anymore.
Hell, I don't know anyone who believed the hype and bullshit about Obamacare. Except for the diehard Democrats and takers.
Dr. MASSIVE FUCKING UPTHEASSHOLIOUS -
I think............
.
Stupid Obama
Comrad Putin have better universal healthcare
What problem?
Ok
here, have potato
HA HA
make joke
Canada Healthcare: Socailism for the average working people
US Healthcare: Here we pay the same taxes and premiums (many hidden) and it becomes Socailism for the already stinking rich private HC Providers!
Gotta love Socailism as long as it benefits the rich!
"HHS said Tuesday that the average premium increase for Healthcare.gov was 7.5%."
Hey, that's only about 5 times the rate of inflation! Well done, government.
It's time to get rid of the old guard. Yellen, fire her. Bring in Naomi prins. Get rid of these old bags......it's time to being on the new crew of realists. Putin has more appeal than all the republican and democratic candidates. Have we no leadership? Time to being on the real leaders. Move on all you old guard losers, move on!
It's time to get rid of the old guard. Yellen, fire her. Bring in Naomi prins. Get rid of these old bags......it's time to being on the new crew of realists. Putin has more appeal than all the republican and democratic candidates. Have we no leadership? Time to being on the real leaders. Move on all you old guard losers, move on!
wow ... $715 per month for health care!
I have 57 years on me. I recall taking an aspirin about 30 years ago. I work out a few times a week. Keep up with the 20 somethings, but i don't go for maximum weight, just enough to keep the ripped tone. I generally eat raw, rarely meat, lots of green drinks of many varieties. I fast every so often, no enemas, but some recommend them, but I do colon cleanses every 6 months.
I feel great, and look pretty good considering I am not 20 anymore.
My health care cost? $0
I stay away from crowds, and don't drink or smoke. Sometimes I drink, like a sangria, or red wine, but it is rare, special occasion, etc.
I never watch TV. Rarely listen to or read MSM. I pretty much hate MSM (I come here for headlines). I do my best to keep it positive and stay productive.
Ppl forget there was a time when they did not have all the whiz bang pharma of today. The clever folks were pretty good with plants and herbs though. If I ever need to see a doc for anything, it is exclusively a homeopathic specialist. But I never have the need.
ZH is a little problematic, because its tone is really negative. I feel the rage, don't get me wrong, but part of staying healthy is being careful with negative inputs.
If you want to move away from big health insurance and to real health, just search about raw food. That will take you to many web sites, and they all have many great things to say. I am not 100% raw because it is hard to pull it off. Luckily there is a raw cafe near my house. One guy's wife, who is OMG super hottttt, she prepares all his raw meals, and let me tell you they are delicious. This couple are in their 50s, and they have the answer to a healthy life.
I can't give you the name here because they sell stuff, but they have a lot of vids on YT, and I learned a lot from them.
I am ~80% raw, and eat salmon, cooked at low heat. cooking food is the real killer, because the heat kills off the nutrients. They have these dehumidifiers (I think that is what they call them) and there are some recipes (get an un-cook book, you will be amazed at how good raw food can be) where you can cook stuff, but the temperature has to be less than 120 degrees or something.
But anyway, what goes in is what you get back. All inputs matter. What you read, what you look at, what you listen to, of course eat, your habits, concepts, beliefs, all of it. Staying healthy is not really that hard, but it takes a little discipline.
Oh, right, and I am big fan of the alkaline water. 9 PH etc. I get lazy and buy the bottled water so I mix it up. But pure water is a big deal too.
The whole world system is so bad, you really have to figure out how to be in it but outside of it at the same time. It is very important for you to gt it together and get whole, and really healthy, because you need to teach others to get well. It is in our best interest to be surrounded by healthy people with a good vibe.
Being here at ZH reminds me of the days i was always at this site called libertyforum.com. It was cool and everything, shut down now, not sure what happened, but that was way back in like 2002. Time passes so fast, wow. 13 years ago.
Anyway, the posters there were a lot of angry men. I got what they said, but I lost interest in always being outraged all the time. So I wrote a program to hit on girls at 5 different sites to run all day long. Now *that* was a lot of fun!
I was hitting on 20,000 babes daily all over the world, and programmed it to pick the hottest ones based on site ratings. Then I get massive response, and wrote code to correspond with them. Then I would personally play with the really smokin hot babes and flew around the world enjoying the good life.
I miss those days. Esp this one girl I spent 2 months with in France.
So, whatever, the point is, try to keep it positive and not get overwhelmed. This site is pretty intense so you have to be careful that is doesnt affect you. Anger, rage, etc, raises the cortisone levels, so its like you give yourself cancer from being too angry too long.
It's OK to be informed, but you really have to focus on being the solution, bringing the solution, or some part of it, so that way you can effectively be positively useful despite the headlines, that have their place, just make sure it doesn't take over your life. Bad news can kill you :)
On a SLOW carb diet, have dropped 15kgs so far, never felt so good, all veges and some, meat,chicken,fish etc.
Thank You, Jack Lafucking Lane
The first part of your post makes you sound......soul crushing boring.
No liquor? Jesus man...chew on something...rub something on your belly. Fuck...smoke a joint.
You peeked my interest as to the bushel of babes though. Where's that program link, Mr. Helpful...or is this some internet braggadocio, hmmmm?
Remember these axioms Jack;
"Eat healthy, exercise..stay in shape.....die anyway" - Neil Armstrong <paraphrased>
"Father Time Is Undefeated" - recently, Charles Barkley
Speaking of Jack La Lane, the day he died he did his usual 200 morning pushups. 96 years old.
The telomeres got him more than likely.
Either way, do you want to live a long lingering death, or slip away in the night feeling good that day, like every other, it was just that the signal to the heart from the brain sent its last, and off you go.
Not internet braggadocio. I surely did write the prog, and even tried to market it. But the maintenance of the code would have been a customer service nightmare. I was using macros in Excel. I know a lot of PHP now, so I would use that instead. Or Visual Studio and compile an exe for a desktop.
But you can write your own. You just have to figure out all the BS steps you have to go through to 'hit' on a girl at one of these dating sites, and use code to automate each step. I haven't done that for a long time. Sites were easier to exploit, using basic HTML back then. Getting to the source code with all the ajax and flash and captchas makes things harder. It does take time. You have to read the headers for all the web pages. Think of it as an IQ test. YOu are smart if you can figure it out, dumb if you can't. I had very little knowledge of coding when i invented the prog. Not making it up.
And there is no braggadocio because think of it - 20k a day and I ended up with only a few hundred babes to correspond with. That means online dating, and to get the finest babe you can, well, it is *definitely* a numbers game.
I ran the prog for about a month. It would break down because if connection issues, or excel could not handle all the incoming data, or the sites would change their source code, so i would have to get in and fix it.
Boring typically means not self destructive. I am definitely a genius, very interesting, a master trader (futures), and can pretty much do anything. I have been all over the world enjoying my time with beautiful girls and happen to have one with me right now :)
I am very healthy, and in demand as a consultant for mortgage bankers, marketing and law firms.
My house is in so cal very close to the ocean with a prime ocean view, i drive a very nice and very fast car, i have no debt at all, with a net worth that is pretty good.
And the spelling is 'piqued'
So, yeah, I am boring in that i dont find myself walking down the Lamar Odom road. But i am productive, successful and popular. Better that than a pot smoking alcoholic wasting their time and life, watching the clock and waiting to die.
Colon cleanses? Ph water? What, no Herbalife?
he doesn't need it, or the colon cleanse, he's fucking 20,000 hot babes every day right through his computer. (he does have trouble picking all that glass out of his dick. he could use a recommendation for a good rinse; something without fluoride.)
Is road kill jerky considered cooked food .... asphalt temps in Sonora can reach 160° F .... enuff to fry an egg .... guess I answered my own question ?