OBAMACARE revisited

[KEND]

As I said some while ago the introduction of the Obamacare package without a complete overhaul of the healthcare system is a new source of income for big pharma and could only end in disaster. From the outset the republicans made it a personal, even racist, issue, which hid the real deficiencies in the system. The following is an article referring to this
The big ObamaCare bubble
8/10/2016
Bryan Rotella, contributor
© Provided by The Hill
10/8/2016
Editor’s note: The opinions in this article are the author’s, as published by our content partner, and do not necessarily represent the views of MSN or Microsoft.
"No one can see a bubble. That's what makes it a bubble." That was Christian Bale's character's summation of a market bubble in last year's hit movie "The Big Short," which chronicled the few investors who saw the signs pointing to the mortgage market collapse. With terrorism, email scandals and race relations dominating the headlines, has a healthcare bubble been filling up quietly behind the scenes? Since the 2010 passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA or ObamaCare), the health care industry has seen record growth and increased revenues. Why? Illness, especially chronic, sadly is a moneymaking business. Illness requires more office visits, more hospitalizations and inevitably more bills. ObamaCare halted insurance companies' practice of rating premiums based on a customers illness history, or as more commonly known, preexisting conditions.
In the 2013 rollout of the ObamaCare exchanges, the promised result was that more people would have insurance coverage. Undoubtedly, this part of the law worked. By Jan. 7, 2016, more than 11.3 million Americans had signed up for ObamaCare; by March, 20.3 million were covered. A large percentage of these new insureds were high-risk. As NBC reported in April, "Last month, an analysis of medical claims from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association concluded that insurers gained a sicker, more expensive patient population as a result of the law."
While bad for insurance companies, this was very good for the bottom lines of the merging large healthcare systems and newly formed physician monolith groups. A drafter of the law admitted the law was founded on the belief that the "consolidation of doctors into larger physician groups was inevitable and desirable." With consolidation, the dollars have racked up. According to U.S. News & World Report, "from June 3, 2010, to June 30, 2015, the Russell 3000 Healthcare benchmark (an all capitalization index) posted a gain of 176.8 percent."
So there are profits, but where is the bubble? Joe Cortelli, a health insurance expert from the nationwide consulting group HIG, explains:
"We have done nothing to improve the outcomes of the 10% of the population that drives 80% of our claims costs. We have merely pumped billions of dollars into these [ObamaCare] exchanges masking the real problems. Unless the government can continue to pump money into these exchanges, the end result is not that hard to imagine. It is not a question of how, but when, this will all come home to roost."
The facts support this. Millions of previously uninsurable sick people are flooding the insurance market, driving premiums sky high. As noted in the Fiscal Times, "The combination of market forces and limitations imposed by the [ACA] will put enormous pressure on insurers to up their premiums." The pressure on insurers is undeniable, including the $650 million losses recently reported by UnitedHealth.
With these losses, rates on the exchanges are exploding. Exchange premiums in Michigan are set to jump up to 17.3 percent. Virginia average premium increases could go as high as 37.1 percent. Comparing the state monthly premium averages from 2013 to 2016, almost every single state has increased significantly. There is no stop-loss. In fact, two of three federal programs to manage this exact risk are due to expire in 2017. Without these programs to fall back on, many insurance companies likely will need to jack up their premiums even higher or bail out of the exchanges all together.
So how did we miss this? Like in "The Big Short," nobody asked those actually working in the doctor's offices their opinions. Dr. Tommy McElroy, CEO of an innovative concierge practice, Echelon-Health, is puzzled: "When the [ACA] was written, nobody came around to ask doctors what would happen when the most complicated patients were shuttled to the exchange plans. A small practice can't survive; that's why doctors are being bought up by hospital groups or abandoning insurance altogether for membership medicine."
With more doctors jumping ship and healthy patients choosing to take the annual penalty rather than buy extremely overpriced exchange plans, what's left to avoid a healthcare economic freefall? President Obama and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton both have recently touted a renewed push for a government funded "public option." What irony, as the "public option" looks an awful lot like the government bailout of the mortgage banks. Only here the big health systems and insurers are too big to fail.
"The Big Short" opens with Mark Twain's thesis, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Providing affordable insurance to the chronically ill is a dilemma. Those who were certain the healthy exchange customers would flock to pay for health insurance that is starting to cost more than their mortgages were just flat wrong. Hopefully a more humble answer is found before this bubble bursts.
Rotella is founder and managing shareholder of the Rotella Legal Group.

[Steve James]

Over there in 'Ol Blighty, they're having issues with the NHS. The cost of health care there is minimal compared to the U.S. There are no bankruptcies because of health costs. Yet, not everyone is satisfied.

The reason it's called Obamacare was to turn it into a sarcastic slur, and it was passed because it ensured profit for the insurance companies. I couldn't care less what they call it, even Trumpcare. I would love if those who say it doesn't work came up with something better that accomplishes the same goals. I'd vote for it tomorrow.

End Obamacare; Begin Better Care.... and skip the kiddie name games.

[windwalker]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QydN6uOLmxU

"its designed to break the ins companies, to lead to a single payer system"

[chud]

ObamaCare should be called SCOTUScare.
But whatever you call it, it needs to be fixed.

[Steve James]

It should be called the Affordable Care Act, which is its name.

Ken's article predicted a bubble, which suggests an expectation that costs will rise. Fixing the ACA means ensuring that health care is affordable, or free. The need for health care is inevitable; it is not political.

[chud]

It should be called the Affordable Care Act, which is its name.

Technically yes, but...good luck with that.

Ken's article predicted a bubble, which suggests an expectation that costs will rise. Fixing the ACA means ensuring that health care is affordable, or free.

Costs have risen, and continuing to do so. The ACA needs to be fixed.

The need for health care is inevitable; it is not political.

On this at least we can agree. I do believe in some sort of affordable health care. available for all citizens.

[KEND]

I agree that a universal care system should exist in the USA so that people are not bankrupted or able to afford to be treated, but the present system , with astronomical costs[a friend spent a week in hospital for observation, no tests, no procedures 20k] will eat up more and more money and end up being financed by tax dollars. The drugs and surgery mentality has to be replaced by some system that pays attention to lifestyle, the effects of fast food and sugar on the health of individuals and other factors which are proactive.
Incidentally I am experiencing the NHS first hand and it appears to parallel the US system with medication taking preference over other factors

[Steve James]

My point is that any good system requires a desire for a good system in the first place. The ACA here as it exists was not the original idea (of a single-payer). It was/is a compromise. However, for the last eight years, Republicans have not tried to replace it with anything better. It's been "get rid of Obamacare."

And yeah, maybe some people are paying more for the same care. When it comes to advanced medical care, that's irrelevant because no one can afford to pay over a $1K per day, which is typical. People go bankrupt because the gov't makes them use every cent they have before it will cover costs. Congressional representatives, etc., get first class health care for life. Why? Or, why them?

Changing the profit motive would do more than any plan; but, pharmaceuticals, etc., are not going to be privatized. Anyway, we need to start from the premise that everyone should get it, and then find a way to divide the costs equitably among everyone.

[yeniseri]

Obamacare was neither created or envisioned or otherwise initiated by Obama.
This is what I see Obama did, of which, he was never the originator. His administration sought to have a system where all citizens could/should get the care they needed without selling their property or other assets. As follows:
a. Obama's team used the Heritage Foundation template and tweaked as much as they could to get something passed within the timeframe needed and despite the obstructionists who even refused to do their job while voting at least 50 times to attempt to abolish it. They did find time for the latter yeh those other folks
b. Romney's term as governor of MA initiated the exact same version but the state tweaked this pre-Obamacare template and it has served well the people of the great state of MA
c. It is only is socialist 'economies' where the state demands the business entities enforce said policies. POTUS Obama has done no such thins regarding mandate to insurance/health care organization to interfere with premiums. Corporations did that on their own
d. It is only in USA where the vocal obstructionists want to see socialized medicine in the full meaning and context of the word and they are clueless in their pronouncements

[Bob]

FWIW

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/upsho ... front&_r=0

Obamacare Appears to Be Making People Healthier
Margot Sanger-Katz @sangerkatz AUG. 9, 2016


Obamacare has provided health insurance to some 20 million people. But are they any better off?

This has been the central question as we’ve been watching the complex and expensive health law unfurl. We knew the law was giving people coverage, but information about whether it’s protecting people from debt or helping them become more healthy has been slower to emerge.

A few recent studies suggest that people have become less likely to have medical debt or to postpone care because of cost. They are also more likely to have a regular doctor and to be getting preventive health services like vaccines and cancer screenings. A new study, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, offers another way of looking at the issue. Low-income people in Arkansas and Kentucky, which expanded Medicaid insurance to everyone below a certain income threshold, appear to be healthier than their peers in Texas, which did not expand.

The study took advantage of what Dr. Benjamin Sommers, an author of the paper and an assistant professor of health policy and economics at Harvard, called “a huge natural experiment.” . . .

[chud]

These problems are coming to light this year, as insurers get their first full look at ObamaCare customer data. Some, like UnitedHealth Group, say they’ve seen enough and are already vowing to leave the exchanges.

Levitt and other experts warn that if the numbers don’t improve this year, more insurers could bolt. That would deal a major blow to marketplace competition while also driving up rates and keeping even more people out of the exchanges.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/291056-next-president-faces-possible-obamacare-meltdown

[Steve James]

If they leave, it's because of their profit margin. The problem noted is not that it's not working for the people who need health care.

[Steve James]

One can google to find out how the ACA has affected people who did not have insurance previously. But, it's fairly obvious that the problem is that profit is more important than people. Anyway,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TguNDDChZcY