Single payer works. RT @ezraklein: In first month, the vast majority of Obamacare sign-ups are in Medicaid http://t.co/1jONGcsh1z
— billmonster (@billmon1) November 1, 2013
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The New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizza asks an actual expert:
While President Obama was in Boston on Wednesday to deliver a speech at Faneuil Hall, he was also scheduled to attend a private meeting with friends and supporters. One of the well-wishers in attendance was Jonathan Gruber, an M.I.T. economist and an architect of both Mitt Romney’s health-care plan in Massachusetts and Obama’s Affordable Care Act…
Gruber’s view is that, at the moment, the technical problems associated with healthcare.gov are only a “DefCon 4 problem”—mostly just a political headache for the White House. (Five is the lowest level of alarm on the U.S. military’s defense-readiness-condition scale; one is the highest.) In her testimony before a House committee on Wednesday, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius promised that the exchanges would be fully functional by November 30th. If she’s right, then this episode may be a mere speed bump, and one that will soon be forgotten, the same way that early problems implementing Romneycare were….
Gruber further estimates that 80% of Americans will be “more or less left alone”, 14% will be “clear winners: they are currently uninsured and will have access to an affordable insurance policy”, and even half of the remaining 6% currently buying their own policies “will have little change to their policies”..
It’s that final 3% — people who “will have to buy a new product that complies with the A.C.A.’s more stringent requirements” — that’s given the media (and the GOP) a short-lived chance to try and discredit the whole program.
Read the whole thing (it’s not long) for more details.
FlipYrWhig
Do people do this much squawking and moaning about having to buy car insurance that satisfies state minimums?
Steve M.
After you read that, read Josh Barro — he doesn’t really dispute Lizza’s premise, but he does question Lizza’s certainty about the numbers, including that 3% figure.
Belafon
Actually, the fact that Medicaid would outpace Exchange sign-up in the FIRST YEAR of implementation was predicted.
lamh36
Whatever Jon. Stewarts knows exactly how his critics will be received. Protesting now stupid.
SatanicPanic
@FlipYrWhig: I hear an awful lot of squawking about paying for maternity care. Which is telling both in terms of how GOPers feel about women and about their own chances of impregnating one.
mai naem
Okay, I was looking for a silver lining to this messy rollout and here’s one. Obama is going to be a lot more involved in next years and the 2015 open enrollments. If Sebelius is around next year she’ll be much more on the ball. As a result, it should be a whole lot smoother and that should impact the elections next year and 2016 in a positive way. Assuming O=care survives, it actually should give it a much better technical foundation.
Joseph Nobles
But more important than this for Ezra and all the rest: only six people signed up for Obamacare on the first day!!! (on the federal exchange – only losers think the individual state websites should count)
aimai
@Belafon: Yeah, why the shock about this? There are a lot of people who make too much to qualify for Medicaid and also need health insurance but there are a lot, lot, lot more of crushingly impovershed people at this point in the recession.
feebog
Every single time one of these 3%ers pops up on Facebook I push back. Yes, some of these folks are going to have to pay more for an upgraded policy. A lot of them have not had to actually use their junk policy to any extent, so they “satisfied”. If you are making 80K a year and had a junk policy with a 6K deductible, with premiums of $100 per month, you are going to pay 5 times your yearly premium with one trip to the hospital. Additionally, all most all of these junk plans have annual caps, so if you got really sick, or in a really serious accident that required an extended stay in a hospital, you were doubly screwed.
aimai
@lamh36: But maybe its a sign that he finally realizes that there aren’t going to be any bystanders at this point, least of all comics.
chopper
so, business as usual then.
Belafon
At Obama’s next presser, he should say “Now, I’m trying to do everything I can to help. I’m a lousy programmer, so I wouldn’t be much use on improving the website. I would answer phones to help people get enrolled, but if I did, all you reporters would do is call just to ask me how many people I have signed up. And my answer would be ‘zero, because you keep calling.'”
chopper
@lamh36:
LOL. the guy who’s job it is to clip other people’s statements is angry that other people are clipping his statements.
FlipYrWhig
@feebog: I don’t get why anyone would have this kind of loyalty to non-insurance that does essentially nothing except siphon money from their pockets. Instead of paying for nothing, you’re telling me I have to pay slightly more for something? Soc1alism!
Then again, I don’t get why people fall for Amazon Marketplace sellers who lower their sticker price and offset it by jacking up the shipping. I guess some people just lock in on the pricetag and don’t think about any of the other components to what they’re actually getting.
Marduk
I’d add that many of the people he puts in the 80% that will be more or less left alone may actually be getting a fairly large improvement in their situation. My new plan under the NYS shop exchange, mediated by my small business employer, is going to save me several hundred dollars next year, and will save him several hundred dollars as well. And it’s a better plan than I had previously. In fact THE MOST EXPENSIVE PLAN on the exchange is cheaper than my previous plan, and it’s with the same provider. Further, my insurer sent me a letter telling me that thanks to Obamacare my old plan was going to see a huge rate increase, so had we not looked at the exchange we would have likely been screwed thanks to their unscrupulous business practices.
TLDR, Thanks Obama, and screw you scumbag health insurer!
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: I still think he should apologize for that bit at the end of the Sebelius episode where he accused her of lying. Apart from when Jim Cramer was on, I’ve never seen him that aggressively negative. He sure as hell didn’t say that Alan Greenspan was lying when he came on the show to say that his economic forecasts were awry probably because he didn’t realize that people were greedy. A disciple of Ayn Rand didn’t think people were greedy? Come the fucking fuck on.
Matt McIrvin
I hate that even that guy’s analysis labels those 3% as “potential losers”. They’re people who are going to have to pay more because the product they were buying was dangerously inferior.
The person I’m currently scuffling with about this has fallen back on pure “who died and made YOU know everything, Mr. Smarty Pants” argumentation, and is asking to see my insurance premiums.
mai naem
Hell, I was watching the clip with Maria Baritiromo talking to the realtor in CA who was paying for a junk policy. Realtors usually aren’t idiots – I mean they have to understand mortgages and percentages and interest rates. This realtor sounded like she had been in the biz for a while. I was just wondering how she could be so stupid as to, first, not understanding that she bought a junk policy and, second, that she hadn’t gone to the CA exchange yet. The reporter who called her and went to the CA exchange on the phone while talking to her ound a non junk policy for like $20 more and she was surprised at the junk policy and the new policy.
FlipYrWhig
@Marduk:
I feel like this has been extremely widespread, and that it’s driving a huge proportion of the angsty stories from the past few weeks. You might consider contacting someone about that — a local media outlet or responsive politician.
Matt McIrvin
@Marduk:
And if you’d been a Fox News fan, you’d have concluded that Obama was stealing your money.
mai naem
I was listening to the Smerconish show yesterday and a youngish guy called in. He said he had a junk policy through ATT because that’s all they offered. He wasn’t worried since he was healthy. Long story short, he ends up in the ICU from complications from outpatitent surgery. Had blood clots in his lungs. Ended up with a $600K bill that he said is going to be with him forever. He said he had never understood when people talked about this stuff until it happened to him.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
They are also leaving out, in these discussions, the people who had cadillac plans. Those folks will see higher rates. Not all of them are CEO’s. Some are union.
Joel
@lamh36: That bit wasn’t so bad, actually. Started really well, in fact. It had the problem of being way, way, way too long, which is one of the reasons why TDS is hurting.
Xantar
WARNING: POLITICO LINK
However, I was astonished to see someone on Politico actually saying this out loud.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/the-obamacare-sabotage-campaign-99176.html?hp=f2
Matt McIrvin
@FlipYrWhig: If the state minimums hadn’t existed until now, I’m sure they would. These are the folks who whine about OSHA and wheelchair ramps.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@mai naem:
I think there are quite a few people out there who’ve never had anything BUT junk insurance, even through employers, so they don’t really get what the difference is going to be for them.
Within 5 years, you won’t be able to get those new, comprehensive policies out of their cold, dead hands, which is another reason the Republicans are fighting PPACA so hard. You can’t keep ’em down on the farm once they’ve seen Paris.
Lurking Canadian
It doesn’t matter how small that demographic is, if they are the only ones allowed near the microphone. You and I know it’s 3% of the population. The people watching the TV news think it’s closer to 100%, because it’s the only case they ever see. 3% of 300 000 000 means John Stossel won’t run out of sob stories anytime soon.
After all, the demographic whose taxes Obama wanted to raise is also only 3% of the population, and all we got were stories about how the struggling middle class earning only $300K/yr could barely stay afloat.
chopper
@mai naem:
most realtors i’ve met are mostly not into the ins and outs of mortgages. most in fact haven’t come off as too bright, tho i’m sure i’ve just had run-ins with the dumber ones. i’m sure there are some pretty bright ones out there.
i just went to a seminar on homebuying, and one of the presenters was a realtor and she just came off as not knowing shit about anything outside of ‘you need to buy RIGHT NOW! WITH ME!’
jonas
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Exactly. Here’s one example. I can understand why insurance companies can’t continue to offer these non-conforming junk policies and have to drop people. But how are these Cadillac plans supposedly also on the chopping block? Unless people really don’t have any idea how many holes there are in their policies, it seems like they’re being forced to trade down. What am I missing?
aimai
@FlipYrWhig: Absolutely. I hope this is a wake up call to him to stop acting like a fucking republican.
El Cid
David Fucking Frum whined about having to change a policy in ways he didn’t want and which would cost him money.
David Fucking Rich Shit Asshole Frum, who gained much of his fame and fortune being a paid hack for Bush Jr. and selling his neo-con fantasies of blowin’ up the Axis of Eeeeevil.
The amount of time that fucker should be whining about how much the gubmit is making him pay is never.
Elizabelle
You know who should be writing these Obamacare stories?
Freelance journalists — formerly employees of major newspapers and major broadcast companies — who are without their corporate-paid insurance bennies.
There are hundreds upon hundreds of them out there, in a bad job market, and they could report a better story than the Andrea Mitchells of the world who have not left the corporate dole for decades.
aimai
@jonas: The issue with the Cadillac plans is that they are used by businesses to give extra stuff to some employees while paying for them with tax reductions. These tax credits include (I think) the lower taxable income that the employee receives while they are recieving a cadillac benefit. If it weren’t for the weirdness in the tax code the employer would have to pay the employee more (taxable) and the employee would pay more for their insurance on their own. So people with Cadillac plans are getting taxed on the plans which makes them less attractive to the employer–that doesn’t mean they “have” to trade down, its just not as advantageous to the employer and not as abig a screw you to the taxpayers who are actually subsidizing these health care policies. Think of Ted Cruz’s wife’s policy? They admit to paying 40,000 a year to insure Cruz’s wife and family. That’s 40,000 a year that you and I are subsidizing since it isn’t considered taxable income.
Gypsy Howell
It should be no surprise to anyone that those who qualified for Medicaid would just go on and sign up for it as soon as they could. It’s not like they have a hundred choices to consider before they enroll.
Those who don’t qualify for Medicaid (people like me), are most likely still mulling over their options before they have to enroll by the Dec 15 deadline. I think I’ve narrowed my choices down to 2 plans, but I’m still not going to make my final decision until early December.
Of course, I still agree with billmon’s overall point – single payer would have been far more preferable, less complicated and quicker to enroll people in.
Oh, and I’m one of those who got the big scary letter from my current insurer, and if I hadn’t gone to the Obamacare website, I’d be reeling from sticker shock too. The same damn plans on the website are much much cheaper.
boatboy_srq
@FlipYrWhig:
I keep going back to this. THIS is the real “scandal”: that for decades now the insurance industry has been hawking worthless paper to people who bought it assuming it was actual health insurance – just for the privilege of having the insurer tel the buyers that “Procedure X, prescribed by your physician, is not covered under this policy.” Now that ACA is in place, those insurers are being forced to offer a meaningful product – and thanks to the ACA’s requirements for competition and cost controls, that meaningful product is cheaper (often significantly cheaper) than the old snake oil. Without the exchanges, and the daylight they shine on this process, most people (and particularly most healthy people who’ve never had to make a substantial health insurance claim) would never have had this illustrated for them so clearly; and most of the uninsured/underinsured already know that what “insurance” is offered is too high-priced and too low-benefit to be worth buying.
Since most of the US either gets coverage through an employer, or is coverable under Medicare or Medicaid, this has gone unremarked all too often. But the individual market has been a mess, and would continue to be a mess if the GOTea had its way and left all those Other people (too lazy to find work and too poor to either buy a private policy or self-insure) to rot. If the Teahad is crying, it’s because all the insurance agents out there pushing the old, worthless policies, will suddenly have to a) compete against worthwhile products and b) offer something that meets the requirements at a reasonable rate; they’re not protecting Teh Ahmurrrrrcan Citizen, they’re protecting their own bottom line (and their vacation homes and private schools and club memberships).
Kay
@SatanicPanic:
It’s such a bad idea. First, everyone was born, so everyone got maternity care. Second, everyone was a child, so everyone got children’s health care.
Also, do they really want to go down this road? Where we all get to object to everyone else’s health care needs? That ends badly. I don’t care who you are, that ends badly. At some point, at some time, they will LOSE that fight, be on the wrong end. Inevitably.
Burnspbesq
@feebog:
Somebody should say that succinctly: “if your old plan is going away, chances are your old plan was CRAP.”
replicnt6
It is better that 100 people should die, than that 1 Republican should have to pay a somewhat higher insurance premium.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
What’s the likelihood that, through some combination of FUD and sabotage, they’ll be able to scare enough healthy people away from the exchanges that the programs collapse financially, there’s an embarrassing government bailout, and the conservatives get to say “I told you so”? I just read an article arguing that it’s not high, but it sounds like it might be touch and go.
I just heard Limbaugh is telling people that they should go off their health insurance and arrange their taxes to owe money to the IRS, because the IRS supposedly can’t deduct a penalty if they don’t get a refund. It’s getting perilously close to Carlos Yu’s prediction that they’ll be advocating pooping their pants because bowel control is a liberal value.
jonas
@aimai: Ok, I understand the tax issues with the Cadillac plans — but why are insurance companies dropping people with those plans (apparently)? Some, like the guy in the link I provided, complain that the comparable alternatives offered on the exchanges (i.e. “gold” and “platinum” plans) are not as good as what they have now (less coverage, higher deductibles) and cost a lot more. Is this just a loophole that a few well-off, self-employed individuals will fall through, or is there something about their current plans they’re not telling us?
Matt McIrvin
@Burnspbesq:
I’ve tried to. The answer is, approximately: “How do YOU know that the plan was crap, Mr. Know-It-All Genius? You think liberals know BETTER THAN US? Are you PSYCHIC or something?”
Original Lee
@Joseph Nobles: I told my carpool that this business of “only 6 people signing up on the first day” just does not sound right. If the site were that FUBAR, I think my IT friends would have been talking about it right away.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin:
Jesus, the levels of stupid on display here are staggering.
Kay
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Well, they won’t see higher rates if they take less of their compensation in insurance.
They shouldn’t have been trading wages for insurance anyway. It let them look like heroes negotiating, like they were delivering something for members, but insurance shouldn’t be a replacement for wage increases. That’s not even a good deal.
My observation when I was in a union was it was older members who were making that trade, because they had higher wages, they use insurance more than younger people, and they had time to be more active so had more clout. If you’re 35 with little kids and a mortgage, you need wages, money, not a promise to cover every possible health care need. I’ll buy my own eyeglasses, and take the money every week over an elaborate insurance policy.
Original Lee
@Belafon: I can just hear him saying that. Have a nice shiny internet.
liberal
@chopper:
With no disrespect to anyone who’s a realtor here, I thought it was common knowledge that they ain’t necessarily the brightest bulbs in the drawer.
Perhaps _brokers_ (who they have to work under) are different.
All I know is that the whole realtor thing is a cabal that collects tons of monopoly rent.
Gypsy Howell
@Omnes Omnibus:
I for one will not be contributing one dime to the change jar on the checkout counter or the church bake sale when these uninsured morons go begging to have their unforeseen medical bills paid by kindly strangers.
StringOnAStick
@Gypsy Howell: I heard some commentary from a person who was intimately involved in the roll-out of the MA plan; he said that the people who think they have less of a need for health insurance (e.g. the young and currently healthy) are the ones who waited until the last minute to sign up. He expects the same to happen with ACA, so all the worrying over “OMG, only the poors are signing up!” is more media fear-mongering. The one difference between then and now though is a national media doing the rethugs bidding, and the possibility that it will do what they want it to do: depress the sign-up total in general.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gypsy Howell: Add in the stupidity about the IRS only being able to collect from a refund. If you arrange your taxes so that you owe, you’ll just owe more when they add in the penalty. If you don’t pay it, the IRS will know where to find you.
Berial
Listening to Marketplace yesterday got me a bit pissed off. They were trying to say the reason Sebelius wasn’t ‘REALLY’ taking responsibility is because ‘Elites are divorced from the repercussions of their decisions’. I’d have liked to ask that ‘EXPERT’ a question.
“What exactly would firing Sebelius do? You know that the Republicans are NOT going to allow another person to get confirmed for her position, so what do you expect the president to do? Take leadership away from the ACA completely?”
Being complete dickheads and refusing to confirm ANYTHING this president is ‘for’ has repercussions too. Wish the ‘media’ would point that out
more oftenAT ALL!catclub
@Gypsy Howell: “when these uninsured morons go begging to have their unforeseen medical bills paid”
People in states with no medicaid expansion, whose incomes are below the level eligible for subsidies,
are just screwed. Too bad that the subsidies did not go: Income at or below X, then subsidy is Y.
Higher incomes – lower subsidy.
But it is impossible to plan for the way crazy people will respond to even carefully written laws.
Kay
@Berial:
They know she was the Kansas insurance commissioner, right? Yes. she’s completely divorced from the reality of health insurance. In her ivory tower there in Kansas.
Berial
@Kay: Listening to that report(and the news in general) I’d say all they ‘know’ is that if they spread enough BS they can get a political scalp from Obama and THAT is apparently all the media cares about right now.
ericblair
@liberal:
It’s a sales job. The realtor’s job is to babysit a pretty standard transaction, and any financial or legal complexities get passed off to the banks or lawyers. The hard part of the job is maneuvering yourself into that transaction, which is where all the business development and people skills come in. That doesn’t have anything to do with being able to understand an insurance market.
I’d guess that a lot of sales people tend Republican, because it meshes easily with the go-gettem all-you-need-is-drive sales culture with the tantalizing image of unlimited cash just around the corner, and if you’re a complainer that just means you’re not trying hard enough. Of course you don’t want to put any pressure on rich people, because obviously you’re going to be stinking rich next year, just you wait, so why hurt yourself?
Gypsy Howell
@catclub:
Catclub, I was referring to Rush’s listeners — those who swallow his bullshit and decide not to buy insurance out of spite for Obamacare. If you cut off your nose to spite your face, don’t expect me to help you pay to sew it back on.
Of course, the poverty-level people who won’t receive medicaid because they have the misfortune to live in a state with an immoral douchebag Republican governor, that’s a whole other story. Those people I really feel for.
LanceThruster
What’s wrong with me that I am pleased that fellow citizen’s are finally having access to affordable medical care?
Does the ACA cover empathy being surgically removed?
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig: Silly comparison. A lot more money is involved.
Elizabelle
@chopper:
A CPA friend made a good living managing personal investment portfolios for physicians.
Doctors are hardly innumerate, yet they often have neither the time, inclination or expertise to be really savvy investors.
LanceThruster
@SatanicPanic:
Yeah, because if it’s not consensual, they’ll never get preggers, as Dr. Akin explained.
Elizabelle
@ericblair:
Another thing: most of the realtors I know? It’s the second income for the family. Prime breadwinner has the major job, which brings or pays for the health insurance.
negative 1
@chopper: What’s really f&*king frustrating is that these numbers were predicted at the outset (as in more than a year ago) as exactly what would happen. They predicted that somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% of people would have to pay more for insurance (I count 3% as somewhere in the neighborhood of 2%). However, now it’s a talking point so it’s a scoop! to the news so it’s a scandal! because Obama lied!
Hold your breath wondering if they’ll report how many newly insured there are, or what the percentage of people with health insurance is now versus a year ago.
Elizabelle
A link from the New Yorker reader comments.
Rescission — the retroactive cancellation of health insurance policies once the subscriber gets expensive to cover — is illegal under Obamacare.
Reporter Lisa Girion did a lot of stories for the LA Times on Californians who thought they had good insurance, with major insurers, and then got dumped. Insurance company attorneys were keeping the cases out of court, so the practice’s prevalence would not be noticed.
Good read.
negative 1
@Elizabelle: As a CPA who used to work in public I quibble with your assessment that they are not innumerate. Most are also ridiculously bad with investments. They are, however, as a group, pretty conservative and read very conservative media (WSJ seemed to be a favorite, but don’t forget the neo-fascists at Investors Business Daily). My prediction is that the next Obamacare scoop! and scandal! will be that doctors are just so broke that they can’t afford to practice, because Obamacare stepped on their fees. Just remember that this is hardly going to be an unbiased assessment.
MomSense
@Burnspbesq:
Not only was your old plan CRAP but for many people on the individual market, major changes, cancellations, and huge premium increases were a yearly occurrence. There is a strong desire to blame chronic health insurance problems on ObamaCare even though they were pre-existing conditions.
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: Most of his listeners are actually on Medicare anyway; somehow I doubt they’d seriously entertain the possibility. But you never know.
negative 1
@Matt McIrvin: Just say yes. I will guarantee you that they will not be able to prove you wrong. You’ll never win their hearts, they have no minds, so just win the argument.
Kay
@Berial:
I tend to agree with the idea that they went so stark raving mad because last month was “attack Republicans” and they have to even it out.
They’re contractually obligated to even it out :)
It’s news, it’s a story, but NBC really set the tone with that ridiculous “what did he know and when did he know it” breathless blockbuster and they all piled on. Insurance is dead boring. They probably felt they had to add intrigue and bad intent and skullduggery.
MomSense
@Gypsy Howell:
Can you imagine if we actually had journalists who ran nightly stories on the working poor people who can’t get access to health care because of Republican governors? Can you imagine if they profiled the people who are working 1 or 2 or 3 low wage jobs and just can’t scrape enough money together to buy insurance?
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Not for the most part. My wife has very good coverage through her union (she is a staffer) and she won’t see an increase. Even if so, they can bargain.
Applejinx
@lamh36: Jon Stewart needs to call out the obvious, necessary strategy here to make everything better:
Kathleen Sebelius needs to shoot Harry Whittington in the face.
Think about it! That is clearly what one would call the ‘magic bullet’ for making everything okay. If the rightwingers are angry with Sibelius and claiming that Jon Stewart jokes are grounds for her dismissal, let’s look at what she’s left un-done. Send her a shotgun and let’s get this party started, Sebelius can be redeemed!
If that doesn’t work she can shoot an unarmed black child in the face. Go big or go home. Does she want a ‘get out of being held responsible for amusing Jon Stewart’s audience’ card or not?
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@jonas:
Robert Laszewski is a paid anti-obamacare schill. Don’t link to him as a credible resource.
ericblair
@negative 1:
There are a lot of doctors who will be in trouble, because they’re hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from med school. The insane runup in tuition is another massive American clusterfuck that comprises the interlocking financial madness that has to be picked apart (retirement is the other big one).
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Yup. It feels like the same logic by which referees make a call that upsets one team, so later they find a way to flag the other to even things out.
Mnemosyne
@Gypsy Howell:
As I was saying yesterday, I think a LOT of health insurance companies are grabbing this opportunity to upsell people to gold or even platinum coverage that they may not want or need, because the media is giving them coverage to say, Hey, it’s not our fault, it’s OBAMACARE! when, no, it’s the same old game of health insurance companies ripping people off.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
IMO, not very likely, especially if they can get the federal website up and running. People aren’t complete idiots, and the number of people willing to deliberately shoot themselves in the foot for “principle” is actually very low. Vocal, but low.
ETA: Keep in mind, the “programs” you’re envisioning collapsing are for the most part insurance companies, not government programs. Medicaid isn’t going to collapse based on this new enrollment, but Blue Cross/Blue Shield might start whining.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Matt McIrvin:
Close enough to zero that it might as well be.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I’ve been all over the area for the last three weeks, a combination of work and helping the local Republicans with the school bond issue, and I haven’t heard that much about the health care freakout from people – even in my “home court”, social services agencies, probation, etc. On my regular rounds.
I don’t know what to make of it. They complain about all things Obama to me. It’s odd.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
One nice thing that will eventually happen with the health care law is large low wage employers will stop stealing from their employees.
I saw a health insurance plan that a local McDonald’s “provided” to their managers and it just made me enraged. An absolute rip-off, in every sense of the word. McDonald’s managers are paying an insurance company that McDonald’s contracted with for garbage.
It is shameless. Halfway thru my rant to the owner of the policy (who wondered why it didn’t cover anything, which is why I was reading it) I realized she had an enormous amount of pride in her ability to provide health insurance to her children because she rose to “manager”, so I shut up. That makes it worse. You really want to strangle someone.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
That’s heartbreaking. About the McD’s employee so proud of being able to provide insurance for her family. But it’s not what she thinks.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@ericblair:
Family physicians start at $189K. Emergency physicians and cardioloists start around $300K. A recent graduate from our cardiology fellowship now owns a R8 and a 911 (his winter beater). I’m not feeling sorry for physicians in this.
GRANDPA john
@Omnes Omnibus: anybody who would take tax advice from that POS deserve what ever penalties they get
GRANDPA john
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): Well that’s true, but the sure as hell can add a penalty to what you already owe.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
No, she (now) knows it’s bad, so she wouldn’t have been one of the “I lost my insurance” people. She’s with an employer who has more than 50, also, so she’d be in a later group dealing with Obamacare.
It was just infuriating because she was offended that I was telling her her insurance was terrible and to stop buying it. That’s what she asked me, “is this worth buying?” The answer was “no”.
It was that bad. She would be better off taking a chance than paying 500 dollars a month for absolute garbage. But I stopped talking, because I was offending her, telling her this “benefit” wasn’t a benefit at all.
McDonald’s can FIND a catastrophic insurance policy that doesn’t blatantly rip their employees off. They CHOSE a bad plan for her, probably involving some gross deal where they both profit off the manager who works 55 hours a week.
Elizabelle
@Applejinx:
I don’t think that joking about shootings is very funny.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
That would make a GREAT news story, maybe OBE once January 1 rolls around.
But what kind of insurance does McD’s provide for its managers? What does Wal-Mart or Target provide?
Are these companies, that are worth billions, playing fair with the people they depend on to work odd hours and holidays and Black Friday (means trashing the employee’s Thanksgiving Day with his/her own family)? And managers have it worse than the new hire employee.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: That’s interesting.
What I’ve been seeing is Republicans of the bash-Obama-daily-on-Facebook type relaying the “Obama lied” talking points and crowing about how they’re winning now. “Even the liberal New Yorker…” etc. I suspect they’re not directly affected much by the ACA, so it’s all political games.