What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

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Obamacare's 'Cadillac tax' causing union strife
The draconian fee is targeted at high-cost health insurance plans, but unions are balking at reducing benefits. The result may be job losses.

f municipal employees don't accept lower-cost health care plans, the Cadillac tax may lead to job losses and stagnant wages among municipal employees, and even higher burdens on taxpayers, the report notes.


Here's how the Cadillac tax works: If an employer-provided health insurance policy costs more than $10,200 for an individual, the employer will be taxed 40% of what's considered an "excess benefit," according to insurer Aetna (AET +1.16%). The tax kicks in for $27,500 in spending on family coverage.

http://money.msn.com/now/post--obamacares-cadillac-tax-causing-union-strife


The Cadillac plan tax is on plans for individuals exceeding $10,200 per year or $27,500/yr for a family of four. $875 per month and $2,292 per month, respectively. I'm fine with unions and wealthy people having to "suffer" through very good insurance that's around this level. If they want to exceed it they can renegotiate compensation into a wage bump instead of uber-coverage or simply eat the tax.

Cadillac plans are stupid and they screw up the system. They usually have no copays, little or no deductibles, and encourage people to go to the doctor whenever they have a hangnail or just feel a little gloomy on a rainy day. Hogging medical services when others have to go without is a bad thing.
 
The Cadillac plan tax is on plans for individuals exceeding $10,200 per year or $27,500/yr for a family of four. $875 per month and $2,292 per month, respectively. I'm fine with unions and wealthy people having to "suffer" through very good insurance that's around this level. If they want to exceed it they can renegotiate compensation into a wage bump instead of uber-coverage or simply eat the tax.

Cadillac plans are stupid and they screw up the system. They usually have no copays, little or no deductibles, and encourage people to go to the doctor whenever they have a hangnail or just feel a little gloomy on a rainy day. Hogging medical services when others have to go without is a bad thing.

It's sorta amusing watching notorius union haters such as koalabottom wringing their hands over those poor cushy union benefit packages. I guess her hatred for Obama exceeds her hatred for unions.
 
The Cadillac plan tax is on plans for individuals exceeding $10,200 per year or $27,500/yr for a family of four. $875 per month and $2,292 per month, respectively. I'm fine with unions and wealthy people having to "suffer" through very good insurance that's around this level. If they want to exceed it they can renegotiate compensation into a wage bump instead of uber-coverage or simply eat the tax.

Cadillac plans are stupid and they screw up the system. They usually have no copays, little or no deductibles, and encourage people to go to the doctor whenever they have a hangnail or just feel a little gloomy on a rainy day. Hogging medical services when others have to go without is a bad thing.

^^StinkyMORON reply. *points and laughs*
 
HHS Trying to Shield Obamacare Outreach Funds from Sequester


Tough luck for the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Public Health Service: Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius said this afternoon her department has shifted its budget around especially to ensure that Obamacare outreach is not impacted by the sequester’s budget cuts. Most notably, Sebelius said traveling funds necessary for HHS officials to promote the law have been kept intact, explaining that such spending is “a critical part of bringing attention” to the law’s health-care marketplaces and therefore shouldn’t be affected by $15.5 billion reduction to the agency’s budget.

“This has been a significant priority area so we’re finding ways to limit other kinds of administrative costs [like] fewer conferences, looking at printing costs and other areas,” she said, according to the Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff. Sebelius admitted, though, that the cuts make traveling “more complicated.”

Sebelius also explained she believes Obamacare deserves the kind of marketing budget accorded a new Apple product or a summer blockbuster. “We’d love to have the money a movie studio has when its about to launch a new hit,” she said. (Such an effort for a major movie, by the way, could normally cost a studio $100 or $200 million — Obamacare’s outreach budget is likely to exceed that number easily.)
 
The Cadillac plan tax is on plans for individuals exceeding $10,200 per year or $27,500/yr for a family of four. $875 per month and $2,292 per month, respectively. I'm fine with unions and wealthy people having to "suffer" through very good insurance that's around this level. If they want to exceed it they can renegotiate compensation into a wage bump instead of uber-coverage or simply eat the tax.

Cadillac plans are stupid and they screw up the system. They usually have no copays, little or no deductibles, and encourage people to go to the doctor whenever they have a hangnail or just feel a little gloomy on a rainy day. Hogging medical services when others have to go without is a bad thing.

not the point

is it?
 
More Insurance Companies Exit Obamacare Exchanges


By Veronique de Rugy

August 5, 2013 6:33 PM


Over at the Washington Examiner, Philip Klein notes that one more insurance company has announced that it’s pulling out of the health-insurance exchange in the state of Maryland. Klein explains:


Aetna, one of the nation’s largest insurers, announced last Friday that it was pulling out of Maryland’s health insurance exchange after regulators demanded that it slash premiums the company had proposed by 29 percent, the Baltimore Sun reported.

The company, which recently purchased Coventry Health Care, said that it wouldn’t be able to cover its costs if it charged what regulators were demanding.

It is not the first time Aetna makes that decision somewhere, nor is it the only company to pull out:


As I wrote in a column last month, a number of insurers have been opting not to participate in the health insurance exchanges created by President Obama’s health care law and in some cases, they have been exiting state individual insurance markets entirely.

For instance, Aetna – along with UnitedHealth – has already announced it was pulling out of the individual market in California. On July 19, Anthem Blue Cross, California’s largest insurer of small businesses, pulled out of the Obamacare small business exchange.

The design of Obamacare was premised on the idea that the new exchanges would attract many insurers, giving consumers a wide array of choices that would foster the type of competition that would drive down premiums. Instead, trends over the past few months suggest the law, if anything, will increase consolidation in state insurance markets.

And as an early an enthusiastic adopter of Obamacare, Maryland is a state that the law’s supporters are holding up as a model.

I suspect we will be getting more of such announcements as we get closer to the official launch of the law’s exchanges on October 1.
 
Aetna was never in many exchanges and struggles to match the prices of other insurers. The company is structured toward the provision of employer-sponsored health care and will remain that way. They've always sucked at providing competitive rates in the individual market, nothing has changed.

Aetna is also a nightmare for providers to work with, second only to Tricare. Until they get their act together, good riddance.
 
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Aetna was never in many exchanges and struggles to match the prices of other insurers. The company is structured toward the provision of employer-sponsored health care and will remain that way. They've always sucked at providing competitive rates in the individual market, nothing has changed.

STFU with the BS
 
Aetna was never in many exchanges and struggles to match the prices of other insurers. The company is structured toward the provision of employer-sponsored health care and will remain that way. They've always sucked at providing competitive rates in the individual market, nothing has changed.

Aetna is also a nightmare for providers to work with, second only to Tricare. Until they get their act together, good riddance.

What the G-dless J-w doesn't mention in his little cut-and-paste is that although Aetna is a giant in health care, they had sold only 13,000 policies in Maryland (population 5.8 million) in the past 10 years.

According to my Reality-based calculator, that's a market share of .00022.
 
Prayers Answered! You Can Now Open Your Very Own Obamacare Account…




What can you do with it? Nothing.


WASHINGTON (AP) — You can now open your own personal “Obamacare” account — but you’ll have to wait awhile before you can actually use it to pick a health insurance plan.

Just eight weeks before the Oct. 1 launch of open enrollment under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law, administration officials announced Monday that the Affordable Care Act is a step closer to reality for millions of uninsured Americans.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said consumers can now go online to healthcare.gov and create personal accounts by establishing a username and password.

However, serious shopping will have to wait until sometime in September, when details on insurance plans and premiums offered in local areas will become available through the new online marketplace.

While Monday’s announcement may sound like partial progress only, Sebelius quickly moved to put the law’s doubters on notice. “Let me be clear,” she said. “We are on target and ready to flip the switch on Oct. 1.”

The congressional Government Accountability Office and Treasury’s inspector general for the Internal Revenue Service have been among the nonpartisan oversight organizations warning of possible delays with the rollout of the law.
 
I told you, BLS=Bullshit Lying STOOGES

The Lie Must Go On: BLS "Catches" BLS At Misrepresenting 2013 Job Gains By Over 40%


Update: looks like Newport Beach is reading:


Gross: JOLTS data do NOT validate 200K #payroll prints. More like 125K. #Taper may be delayed if #Yellen has a big vote.

— PIMCO (@PIMCO) August 6, 2013

Many were surprised when last month we exposed the divergent lies at the Bureau of Labor Statistics when comparing two otherwise convergent data sets: the monthly all-important Non-Farm Payroll report and the (one month-delayed) JOLTS survey. Specifically, what we showed is that the Net Turnover from JOLTS (Hires less Separations) is now 40% below the trendline of cumulative job additions implied by the Non-Farm Payroll report's Establishment survey which has become the holy grail for both the stock market and the Federal Reserve's tapering ambitions. Following the release of the June JOLTS update, we can report that the divergence within BLS data series continues, and that the average monthly US job gain for the first 6 months of 2013 is either 198K if one uses the non-farm payroll data, or 30% lower, 140K to be specific, if one uses the JOLTS net turnover number.

The divergence in the two data series, historically convergent, can be seen highlighted on the chart below:



While from a distance the highlighted area may not amount to much, here it is zoomed in just for 2013. The difference becomes quite pronounced, and amounts to just shy of 60K jobs per month on average for 2013 alone.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2013/08/JOLTS%20June%203_0.jpg

Putting the above into words:
In April, according to JOLTS, there were 108K job additions. According to the NFP data, the job gain was 199K or 84% more than per JOLTS
In May, according to JOLTS, there were 109K jobs additions. According to the NFP data, the job gain was 176K or 62% more than per JOLTS
In June, according to JOLTS, there were 120K jobs additions. According to the NFP data, the job gain was 188K or 57% more than per JOLTS
Adding across for all of 2013 (through the end of June data), JOLTS would have us know that only 837K jobs were added (or 140K per month average). Compare this to the 1,185K new jobs according to the Establishment Survey (198K per month average).
.
-> A 42% difference!

Finally, the chart below shows that while until 2013 the divergence between two data series has been mostly cluster-free except for the Lehman collapse and the period just after it promptly normalizing thereafter, the past 7 months have seen a dramatic imbalance in data benefitting the algo-headline scanner moving NFP data, which on a 3 month trailing basis is almost as wide as it has been at any point in the past 5 years and just shy of the wides seens just after the Lehman collapse.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2013/08/JOLTS%20June%202_0.jpg

This means that either the JOLTS survey is substantially underrepresenting the net turnover of workers, or that once the part-time frenzy in the NFP data normalizes, the monthly job gains will plunge to just over 100K per month to "normalize" for what has been a very peculiar upward "drift" in the NFP "data."

And just like last month we will conclude with the same advice to the BLS: when manipulating data series across dimensions, make sure the manipulations foot across, and not just in 1 dimension.
 
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