How the Pubs sabotaged the ACA

[KingOrfeo]

Thom Hartmann:

When the ACA was rolled out, telling insurance companies that they had to insure anybody who signed up, regardless of previous conditions or sickness, everybody realized that the insurance companies would probably lose money in the first decade or so, until previously-uninsured-but-sick people got into the system, got better, and things evened out.

To get the insurance companies to go along with this danger of losing money, the ACA promised to make them whole for any losses in any of the first decade's years. At the end of each fiscal year, the insurance companies merely had to document their losses, and the government would reimburse them out of ACA funds provided for by the law.

The possibility of their losing money was referred to as the "risk corridor," and the ACA explicitly filled those risk corridors with a guarantee of making the insurance companies, at the very least, whole.

And then something happened. As The New York Times noted on December 9, 2015, "A little-noticed health care provision slipped into a giant spending law last year has tangled up the Obama administration, sent tremors through health insurance markets and rattled confidence in the durability of President Obama’s signature health law."

Rubio and a number of other Republicans had succeeded in gutting the risk corridors. The result was that, just in 2015, end-of-fiscal-year risk corridor payments to insurance companies that were supposed to total around $2.9 billion were only reimbursed, according to Rubio himself quoted in the Times, to the tune of around $400 million. Rubio bragged that he'd "saved taxpayers $2.5 billion."

And, indeed, he had. But the insurance companies were thrown into a crisis. And, with Republicans in Congress absolutely refusing to re-fund the risk corridors, that crisis would get worse as time went on, at least over a period of a few years.

So the insurance companies did the only things they could. In (mostly red) states with low incomes and thus poorer health, they simply pulled out of the marketplace altogether. This has left some states with only one single insurer left. In others, they jacked up their prices to make up their losses.

As Robert Pear in the Times noted, Rubio's "plan limiting how much the government can spend to protect insurance companies against financial losses has shown the effectiveness of quiet legislative sabotage."

To add to the political psychodrama, the first hack by Rubio was maintained by Republicans into the 2016 budget, meaning that things got even worse in October, 2016 – the first month of the federal fiscal year when these cuts hit the worse, and, no coincidence, the month before the presidential election.

Rubio's October Surprise was extraordinarily effective. October 2016 saw an explosion of stories in the news about how health insurance companies were either pulling out of ACA exchanges, or jacking their prices up wildly.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Rubio is one of the very very few politicians in America who makes Trump look better by comparison.

 

[OldJourno]

This paragraph from the OP sums up why the ACA is such a clusterfuck:

To get the insurance companies to go along with this danger of losing money, the ACA promised to make them whole for any losses in any of the first decade's years. At the end of each fiscal year, the insurance companies merely had to document their losses, and the government would reimburse them out of ACA funds provided for by the law.


OK, got the part about documenting losses and getting reimbursed by taxpayers? Now, do you also remember the rule that 80 percent of insurance company revenue had to be paid out in claims?
Hmmm. What would an insurance company do under such a constraint?
I know! Let's jack up the prices. If a simple $4,000 procedure suddenly costs $8,000, the insurance company's cut goes from $800 to $1,600.
Yeah, leave it to government to cut down the high cost of health care.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Thom Hartmann:

*sniffs*

Smells like denial in here.

Check the votes and which POTUS signed off on ACA .

(D)'s have to eat that one fair and square.

 

[Rightguide]

One last high for KO before work tomorrow.

 

[KingOrfeo]

*sniffs*

Smells like denial in here.

Check the votes and which POTUS signed off on ACA .

(D)'s have to eat that one fair and square.

We're not talking about that, we're talking about later legislation in 2015 and 2016, when Pubs controlled Congress.

 

[KingOrfeo]

This paragraph from the OP sums up why the ACA is such a clusterfuck:

To get the insurance companies to go along with this danger of losing money, the ACA promised to make them whole for any losses in any of the first decade's years. At the end of each fiscal year, the insurance companies merely had to document their losses, and the government would reimburse them out of ACA funds provided for by the law.


OK, got the part about documenting losses and getting reimbursed by taxpayers? Now, do you also remember the rule that 80 percent of insurance company revenue had to be paid out in claims?
Hmmm. What would an insurance company do under such a constraint?
I know! Let's jack up the prices. If a simple $4,000 procedure suddenly costs $8,000, the insurance company's cut goes from $800 to $1,600.
Yeah, leave it to government to cut down the high cost of health care.

And do you have any evidence what you describe actually happened before the risk corridor was closed in 2015?

 

[BotanyBoy]

We're not talking about that, we're talking about later legislation in 2015 and 2016, when Pubs controlled Congress.

Unless you can show where that pub controlled congress rewrote the law or passed something (with Obama's approval) that replaced it with failure, that's completely irrelevant.

(D)'s wrote it, passed it and implemented it.

(D)'s have to own it's failure.

 

[Mello_SixtyNine]

As written currently, it won't pass due to the Conservative freedom caucus (led by Rand Paul). Until Ryan removes the bullshit Obamacare crap that's in there, we've got a better chance of seeing McCain getting t-bagged by Putin.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Unless you can show where that pub controlled congress rewrote the law or passed something (with Obama's approval) that replaced it with failure, that's completely irrelevant.

That is exactly what they did in 1915 and 1916. If Obama did not veto it, well, every budget bill includes things repugnant to the president, but he has no line-item veto and vetoing the whole thing is usually not a viable option.

 

[Ms_Ann]

Socialism only works if it's totalitarian, and even then it doesn't work.

 

[OldJourno]

Sorry, KO, but I'm not seeing how the Republicans have any fingerprints at all on a health insurance policy that costs more than $1,000 a month in Arizona.

 

[Hard_Rom]

This paragraph from the OP sums up why the ACA is such a clusterfuck:

To get the insurance companies to go along with this danger of losing money, the ACA promised to make them whole for any losses in any of the first decade's years. At the end of each fiscal year, the insurance companies merely had to document their losses, and the government would reimburse them out of ACA funds provided for by the law.


OK, got the part about documenting losses and getting reimbursed by taxpayers? Now, do you also remember the rule that 80 percent of insurance company revenue had to be paid out in claims?
Hmmm. What would an insurance company do under such a constraint?
I know! Let's jack up the prices. If a simple $4,000 procedure suddenly costs $8,000, the insurance company's cut goes from $800 to $1,600.
Yeah, leave it to government to cut down the high cost of health care.

Get rid of the insurance companies and make the whole thing non-profit. Viola ici!

 

[OldJourno]

Get rid of the insurance companies and make the whole thing non-profit. Viola ici!

Explain to me how putting tens of thousands of people out of work, and putting that work in the hands of bureaucrats, will work.
And WTF is so great about non-profit?

 

[KingOrfeo]

Explain to me how putting tens of thousands of people out of work, and putting that work in the hands of bureaucrats, will work.

It worked and works just fine in Canada, and tens of thousands is a speck in the national labor market, and anyone now working in the health insurance industry has transferable skills.

And WTF is so great about non-profit?

It removes the rent-seeking element.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Sorry, KO, but I'm not seeing how the Republicans have any fingerprints at all on a health insurance policy that costs more than $1,000 a month in Arizona.

Then you can't read fingerprints.

And then something happened. As The New York Times noted on December 9, 2015, "A little-noticed health care provision slipped into a giant spending law last year has tangled up the Obama administration, sent tremors through health insurance markets and rattled confidence in the durability of President Obama’s signature health law."

Rubio and a number of other Republicans had succeeded in gutting the risk corridors. The result was that, just in 2015, end-of-fiscal-year risk corridor payments to insurance companies that were supposed to total around $2.9 billion were only reimbursed, according to Rubio himself quoted in the Times, to the tune of around $400 million. Rubio bragged that he'd "saved taxpayers $2.5 billion."

And, indeed, he had. But the insurance companies were thrown into a crisis. And, with Republicans in Congress absolutely refusing to re-fund the risk corridors, that crisis would get worse as time went on, at least over a period of a few years.

So the insurance companies did the only things they could. In (mostly red) states with low incomes and thus poorer health, they simply pulled out of the marketplace altogether. This has left some states with only one single insurer left. In others, they jacked up their prices to make up their losses.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Socialism only works if it's totalitarian, and even then it doesn't work.

But social democracy works.

 

[Ms_Ann]

But social democracy works.

Ice cream socials are nice too, but they aren't free.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Ice cream socials are nice too, but they aren't free.

Neither is social democracy, but those who mostly pay for it are those who can most easily afford it, and nobody has to go to the wall.

 

[Ms_Ann]

Neither is social democracy, but those who mostly pay for it are those who can most easily afford it, and nobody has to go to the wall.

That's where "social anything" always breaks down. Just because they can "afford it" doesn't mean they want to nor should they necessarily be made to. But then, being a socialist yourself, you wouldn't understand.

 

[BotanyBoy]

That is exactly what they did in 1915 and 1916. If Obama did not veto it, well, every budget bill includes things repugnant to the president, but he has no line-item veto and vetoing the whole thing is usually not a viable option.

Maybe (D)'s should have tried doing a better HC reform than the sloppy super corp hand job they called ACA.

If (D)'s could set their pure, unadulterated GREED aside for 2 seconds and not butt fuck the middle/working class dry with extra sand like those corporate sell out turds always do, none of this shit would be happening in the first place.

If they were 1/10th as progressive as you like to pretend they are we wouldn't be having this conversation, all but like 8 states would have been cobalt blue, Obama a fuckin' hero, Clinton in office and the DNC in super majority control over the US for as long as they kept occasionally spitting on it first.

You and yours had the chance to cut the GOP's fuckin' head off for the next 30 years and ya sold out......(D)'s fuckin' blew it and now they get to have trump holding a gun to their head for the next 21 months or so.

I hope he pulls the fuckin' trigger but I'm betting just more of the same ol' shit.

 

[BotanyBoy]

But social democracy works.

Sometimes, and only for a limited time.

Eventually something will go wrong and the next thing you know the government is trying to stop parents from eating their kids.

 

[OldJourno]

Then you can't read fingerprints.

Shocking development. The Republicans put in place a measure that made individuals actually pay for the cost of the giant wealth transfer rather than hide the pass through taxpayer handouts.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The Democrats sabotaged it by ignoring reality and accepting a fantasy notion that they could force people to do things by instilling fear into them, the fear of the IRS, the same entity which was used to intimidate the TEA Party.

And once again, when a Socialist Plan runs amuck and fails, the Socialist reaction is always we were done in by an enemy. In this sad, shallow, self-serving case, they have merely substituted Republican for Jew.

 

[RobDownSouth]

The Democrats sabotaged it by ignoring reality and accepting a fantasy notion that they could force people to do things by instilling fear into them, the fear of the IRS, the same entity which was used to intimidate the TEA Party.

And once again, when a Socialist Plan runs amuck and fails, the Socialist reaction is always we were done in by an enemy. In this sad, shallow, self-serving case, they have merely substituted Republican for Jew.

#ThosePeople can go to an emergency room, just like #NotRepublicans like you do.