Posted on 04/15/2016 7:33:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Remember how the last big increases in ObamaCare premiums took place last fall? Good times, good times. The Hill reports that insurers have begun warning that the financial model of ObamaCare remains unstable. Either they need to get approval from state regulators for another round of large premium increases, or they may bail out altogether. Even the pro-ObamaCare Kaiser Family Foundation says, “Something has to give”:
Health insurance companies are amplifying their warnings about the financial sustainability of the ObamaCare marketplaces as they seek approval for premium increases next year.
Insurers say they are losing money on their ObamaCare plans at a rapid rate, and some have begun to talk about dropping out of the marketplaces altogether.
“Something has to give,” said Larry Levitt, an expert on the health law at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Either insurers will drop out or insurers will raise premiums.”
This point from Levitt on the unlikelihood of a death spiral should have eyes popping:
“What we’re likely to see is more of a market correction than any kind of death spiral,” Levitt said. “There are enough people enrolled at this point that the market is sustainable. The premiums were just too low.”
Premiums were too low? Gee, that wasn’t what Barack Obama and Democrats claimed when they demanded government control over this marketplace to “bend the cost curve downward.” At the time, they claimed that they would save an average family of four $2500 a year in premium prices. Now, after three successive years of dramatic premium hikes — and let’s not forget astronomical increases in deductible thresholds — premiums are still “just too low.”
Why is that? It turns out that younger and healthier people aren’t enthused about spending thousands of dollars a year on a product they’ll mostly never use and can only access after spending thousands more to clear the deductible threshold. HHS brags about the 12.7 million enrollments in the system, but that’s a far cry below the supposed 40 million uninsured that ObamaCare was supposed to cure. The people who have signed up tend to be those who utilize health-care services more often, and the utilization curve has not smoothed out as the ACA’s designers assumed it would.
Now we have come full circle from You’re paying too much to Your premiums were just too low. Get ready for Who needs insurance, anyway? The government will handle your health care!
Music to my ears. I pray for Obamacare to die of its own weight before it destroys medical quality and innovation nationwide and kills us all.
As intended all along, leading to the path of single payer.
RE: Music to my ears. I pray for Obamacare to die of its own weight before it destroys medical quality and innovation nationwide and kills us all.
Actually if Hillary or Bernie wins on November, you will see something DIFFERENT altogether — the obsolescence of the Health Insurance Company.
” ... the financial model of ObamaCare remains unstable.”
That’s close, but it is something like saying that Charles Manson was unlikeable. The right word is “unsustainable.”
Americans pulling the wagon are becoming `unhappy’ over having to pay the bills for those riding who pay nothing.
“As intended all along, leading to the path of single payer. “
Absolutely. Pave the way for single payer.
Expect a TAX PAYER bailout from these uniparty MoFos to keep this crap alive just like they have done for the rest of the entire obummer agenda!
Go Trump Go!
Single Payer is all but inevitable at this point IMHO.
As is free college tuition, paid family leave, a $15 minimum wage, etc. The nation seems intent on taking a stab at being a European Social Democracy.
As Winston Churchill said, only after we’ve exhausted all of the alternatives.
If you are young, healthy and below a certain income, there is no IRS-enforced penalty for not getting health insurance.
The ObozoCare Premiums are SKY HIGH AS IT IS!....................
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3401341/posts
“UNWORKABLE”
“UNCONSTITUTIONAL”
“UNAMERICAN”
“UNFREAKINGREAL”...................
The problem has always been with the GOP, which has agreed to many fixes to Obamacare to make it less onerous and they have allowed Obama to violate the law in the implementation. They should have initiated impeachment proceedings over Obama violating the law he signed. No doubt, there will be a move at some point after the elections, to bail out the insurers again. It could even be done during the lame duck session. The dirty little secret is that the GOP really does not want to repeal Obamacare. It will never happen.
Correct. Medicare with 47 million and growing and Medicaid with 80 million and growing are single payer systems. Obamacare is a transition to single payer for the remaining piece of the pie just like Obama said it was.
Sure , private enterprise can't keep health care prices down as well as Government can .. RITE ! /s
Incidentally , where is my $2500.oo promised by the Liar-in-Chief ?
The next step towards single payer could likely be a move to drop the eligibility age for Medicare to 55. To cover all the gap situations where one spouse turns 65 and qualifies but the other does not. Then just slowly nibble away at it from there.
One way or the other they are intent on gittin’ er done.
Part of the goal behind Obamacare was that it was the worst of all possible worlds - a gateway to even bigger government. Private companies expected to profit off of mandatory customer purchases and huge government subsidies, but we actually have all the inefficiency of government with the overhead of profits for companies that are guaranteed a profit added onto that inefficiency. Even Single Payer would be better than Obamacare except that Single Payer would be successful enough that it would be impossible to kill.
Unfortunately, it won't end up being “a stab,” but rather a complete shackling of our once great country. Glad I've lived when I have, because there's really no future here with the direction we're headed. Allowing the world's trash to immigrate here will result in the end of America as we know it.
Single payer would kill our healthcare system and bankrupt us. Medicare has been running in the red since 2008. 40% of all Medicare expenditures come from the General Fund. The premiums for Medicare Part B only cover 25% of the costs, by law. The remaining 75% comes from the General Fund.
Medicaid is out of control. The states pick up 50% of the costs except for the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, which the Feds pay 100% of the costs for the first three years. After that it is 90% and subject to further reductions. The states will absorb more and more of the burden requiring higher state taxes.
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