I don’t know whether or not Obamacare will be a huge political success or not. My guess is that most people won’t notice it one way or the other….but the people whose premiums just dropped 50% will be pretty happy with it:
Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New York State as changes under the federal health care law take effect, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Wednesday.
State insurance regulators say they have approved rates for 2014 that are at least 50 percent lower on average than those currently available in New York.
By the time Liz Cheney challenges Hillary Clinton’s reelection campaign, there will be signs at the rallies declaring “Don’t let the government get its hands on Obamacare!”
Heh indeedy.
Mnemosyne
I’ll be very curious to see what happens when premiums stay the same or go up in states that refused to have state exchanges while their citizens watch prices go down in states that do have exchanges.
I’m sure they’ll come up with some excuse why it’s actually better for them to pay higher rates than blue states, but it sure will be fascinating to watch.
rikyrah
I’ve been saying this for awhile..
if California, New York and the rest of the Eastern seabord, from Maine to Virginia actually get Obamacare right…
it will do a lot to cement it for the rest of the country.
ranchandsyrup
@rikyrah: Opponents could easily spin the successes in the coastal elitist enclaves as proof that it won’t work in flyover country. Of course they could spin anything and that’s a really low bar.
Belafon
@Mnemosyne: That’s easy:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Karl Rove has what seems to my biased eyes to be a weird ad about the “Obamacarenado”, I swear all the scary news clips– “seniors could pay more” “thousands could lose their insurance”– are the voice of Maria Bartiromo. I admit to getting caught up in CNBC back in the pre-NASDAQ crash era of irrational exuberance, but based on the recent Elizabeth Warren clip and a few others I’ve seen, I’m starting to think CNBC may be more partisan than Fox.
Xantar
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Which do you think is supposed to be scarier: sharknado or Obamacarenado?
Sibling Nonspecific Firearm of Random Adjective Followed by a Noun That Describes a Mental State (fka AWS)
OT, but Detroit just filed for bankruptcy.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: CNBC is HORRIBLE. Show after show of smirking plutocrats punctuated by smirking apologists for smirking plutocrats. It’s a sickening display.
Keith G
Changing the way medical care is consumed in this society (both quantity and quality) is an enormous undertaking. While almost anything we do would be better than the old, broken system, I am not certain that we yet have an idea about the metrics we should use to score the system.
wenchacha
Forbes had an article I saw today that noted the reduced costs for New Yorkers. For now. There was stuff about how other states won’t have such a great deal, etc. Local NYS news featured a small biz owner who claims this will cost her or her employees more than is paid now.
Forbes, or another finance site, also pimped the claim that all unions will rise up against Obamacare because it will ruin union benefits.
gene108
Businesses have spent so much time over the last 3 years to be compliant with Obamacare that if Republicans win and repeal it, the repeal will be disruptive to business.
I’m not sure why not business reporter ever points that out to Republicans.
gene108
@wenchacha:
How have her claims run this past plan year? Any catastrophic illnesses?
Does she have a fully insured plan or some sort of self-insured plan (there are some companies making these viable for small businesses)?
Prices do not rise in a vacuum and one company’s rate increase will be different than another.
Linnaeus
I’ve been without health insurance for nearly two years. Maybe I can get some now.
BGinCHI
I have BC/BS in HMO form, through the state (I’m a unionized state employee at a university). New fiscal year just started and this year’s deduction is 150% higher than last year.
WTF?
Anyone know anything about this? It’s galling to see the rates going down in NY and then mine doubling.
Chris
Q: How do you know you’ve won an argument with a conservative?
A: When they start claiming that the liberal idea was really theirs all along.
Yatsuno
@gene108: Some large corporation is gonna do the maths and determine that paying the penalty is less than offering insurance to their employees. That is when ACA is gonna have issues unless the exchange insurance is as good as what the employee had. That is really my big fear and why I wish there had been the public option. It could fold much easier into a single payer/Medicare for all scheme much easier.
cdmarine
Hey, any Detroit-area people around here?
Longshot, but if you’re in the Detroit area and you’re a baseball and/or theater fan, I have two tickets (including parking) to the play “Ernie” next Thursday evening (7/25) at the City Theatre, and I can’t use them. I’d like to give them to someone who will actually use them. They’re a printable PDF, so I can just e-mail them to you.
If you truly believe you really will use these, please e-mail me at cdmarine .at. gmail .dot. com. It will make me and 1000 baby Jeebuses cry if you take these tickets from me and don’t actually use them.
Chris
@ranchandsyrup:
You had me at “they could spin anything.”
Anyone who calls himself a Christian and believes that “greed is good” will believe anything if it comes from the right authorities.
I, Floridian
Bad @Sibling Nonspecific Firearm of Random Adjective Followed by a Noun That Describes a Mental State (fka AWS): Bad news. I hope Detroit can keep the Walmartians from ransacking the Detroit Art Museum for their own little vanity project in in Bentonville.
Belafon
@Yatsuno:
When we all end up on an exchange, then it’ll be pretty close to the public option.
Linnaeus
@I, Floridian:
They’re licking their chops over the DIA, among other things. Bet on it.
El Tiburon
My rates are going up about $130 in August here in Texas – self employed buying insurance for me and two rugrats.
Did have a $30,000.00 claim in the Tiburon Jr. for a 4-day hospital stay last year though.
ranchandsyrup
@Chris: Amen to that (pun intended)
Berial
I live in a very red state. All I hear non-stop about ‘obamacare’ is that it will 1) raise the cost of your health insurance and 2)businesses will stop hiring full time employees and only hire part timers to avoid having to cover their healthcare, or 3) businesses will have to cut employee pay to afford their healthcare costs.
It’s one of those 3 every time. Nothing good. EVER.
J.D. Rhoades
So employer-provided health insurance gets more expensive, but it gets cheaper to buy it individually. Won’t the trend then be away from the employer provided model, thus reducing people’s dependence on their employers and the number of people who won’t change even the shittiest jobs because they’re afraid of losing health insurance?
quannlace
“them to pay higher rates than blue states, ”
Yeah, well New Jersey is as blue as they come but Christie decided to fuck us over for political optics. Thanks, Guv.
Jeremy
@Belafon: True ! The public option will eventually be added to the law like new features were added to Medicare and Social Security after they were created.
Also, It’s better if companies gave a voucher for people to go purchase insurance on their own through the exchanges so they wouldn’t be spending so much money on healthcare which depresses the wages of workers.
ruemara
@J.D. Rhoades: Rather a bingo there.
Tom Q
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: CNBC is the reason Fox BusinessNews never got off the ground. Viewers of FoxNews could justifiably claim there was no other outlet giving coverage from such an angle (Democrats are evil, Republicans come from God). But “Wall Street is all knowing and all good” already had a loud voice on CNBC.
JPL
@Mnemosyne: Fox News will have a Breaking news segment, GA rates rise because of Obamacare. See that’s easy!
IowaOldLady
One of the problems I see is that people around me don’t know things they like are due to Obamacare. They think things like young adults on parents’ insurance or preventive care being covered are just one of those confusing changes that occur sometimes.
Gex
@Belafon: He’ll have a 1000 page Death Panels plan which will do it’s very best to make sure old white conservative Christians get unlimited top notch care while accusing the people who lose at the Death Panels of being moochers.
Berial
@JPL: THIS! This right here.
Red state voters do NOT see the relationship between the bad things that happen to them and the people they vote for.
“Politicians are all bad, except our guy. He’s sticking up fer us.” Every year, his guy wins.
“Politicians are all bad, and that son-a-bitch gotta go!” Every year his guy loses.
Notice that what happens after his guy wins NEVER matters only when he loses.
His ‘team’ wins bad things just happen. His ‘team’ loses, everything bad that happens, it’s obviously that other teams fault!
burnspbesq
I’m not sure he’s right, but one of the bright young lawprofs who blogs at Balkinization thinks that the wingnuts have shot themselves in the foot by refusing to have state exchanges, because the Federal exchange can ignore state laws that prohibit treating same-sex couples as married.
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2013/07/backstop-federalism.html
mai naem
@Tom Q: CNBC is horrible. Seriously awful. Joe Kernen with his shit eating sociopathic smirk, Maria Antoinette Bartiromo with her always but always “too much regulation and too many taxes” screeches, Michele Caruso Cabrera with her standard Cuban American crap, all rounded off with cokehead Kudlow.
Jeremy
@IowaOldLady: This is why the marketing/ media campaign will be essential because we can’t depend on the beltway press since they continue to be in the tank for the GOP.
Donut
Jesus-fuck, Doug – unless you’re one of the 30-40-odd MILLION who currently don’t have insurance, but now have access to it, and have to buy it, albeit at an affordable price.
Is there a reason why Joe Biden said this is a big fucking deal? Yes, yes, I think there is.
Berial
@burnspbesq: My governor and legislature did EVERYTHING they could to make sure the state has NOTHING to do with ‘obamacare’. If it comes back to actually bite them in the hindquarters, it would be the best irony I’ve ever seen.
Jeremy
@Donut: I agree. I think more people will notice after the media campaign and when the law is fully implemented.
Donut
@Jeremy:
One could fairly state that many lower-middle to upper class people whose employers currently provide insurance won’t notice much, and yes, the vast majority of us fall into that cohort, but this is gonna have a huge impact on the economy and thus on all of us. Maybe it won’t be immediately apparent to everyone, but it will be pretty damn quick.
TR
@Tom Q:
CNBC is Fox News discussing the world without worrying that poor rednecks are listening.
mai naem
There was a piece in Quartz earlier this week. Can’t find it now but it said that 900K people will leave the employment market because of Obamacare…but wait… not in the way McConnell and Boehner think…..a combination of people who hang onto their job because of the health insurance and are unable to get it because of preexisting conditions and people who will be able to afford it on their own with the subsidies but want to do their own thing. I don’t see how this can be anything but good. You should get the unemployment rate going down, at least minimally and you should have entrepeneurs sticking it out on their own creating economic demand in different areas.
Tom Q
@TR: That’s an interesting take. CNBC is like a meeting place for those Republicans who know they have to rely on the votes of the Tea Partiers but don’t want to actively associate with them.
gene108
@Yatsuno:
I don’t think large corporations that offer reasonable insurance for their employees are going to have issues with Obamacare. I think they would mostly be compliant already.
Employers with a lot of low wage workers will be impacted because of the limits on what they can charge employees for health insurance, along with the small to medium sized businesses that have high S125 deductions for employees or do not want to offer insurance to most employees may look to pay the penalty than offer insurance.
Maus
Ungh, I know we love our silly titles, but I never understood how the memes of any wifebeater like sheen got popular among decent folk. It’s like the Chuck Norris hatemonger fad.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Chris: yeah, except in this case it was.
furlyfly
“I don’t know whether or not Obamacare will be a huge political success or not. My guess is that most people won’t notice it one way or the other…”
Ball Juice concern troll Doug is concerned.
David Koch
This is a BIG FUCKING DEAL!
Why isn’t the liberal blogosphere trumpeting this success? Do they dislike the President that much?
And what do the people who wanted to “kill the bill” have to say to New Yorkers who will see over a 70% decline in their insurance payments? At least Rick Perry said “oops”.
David Koch
0
magurakurin
@Mnemosyne:
My understanding is that if the states opt out of running the exchanges, the Fed’s will do it. In 33 states that will be the case. There are positives and negatives to this situation, but it seems like having the Feds run the exchanges in anti-Obamacare states is probably a good thing. Medicaid opt is a different story, though, and a lot of people will get hurt by their dickhead Republican leaders in those states that have opted out of the expansion.
burnspbesq
@David Koch:
“But if it actually works we’ll never get single-payer WAAAHHH!”
/firepup
stinger
@Berial: Berial, I hope you always come right back with some of the positives that are ALREADY in effect, most of them for nearly 3 years now:
Children can stay on a parent’s plan until they are 26; no lifetime limits on coverage; no “pre-existing” restrictions for children (nor for adults, come January); you can’t be dropped from your plan when you get sick; basic preventive services are absolutely free, not even a co-pay — and many more.
stinger
@J.D. Rhoades: Yes, that’s one of the intended outcomes.
Bill Arnold
@J.D. Rhoades:
Freedom, including increased freedom to leave a job to start a business.
Matt McIrvin
I still don’t believe that any of this is going to happen. The people whose rates drop because of Obamacare will somehow become convinced that they were lower before and Obama made them go up. Nobody noticed that crime went down and nobody noticed that taxes went down, so why should they notice when insurance rates go down?
Half the country believes that there’s high inflation. Most of America still believes that when you go to a higher income tax bracket you take home less money, even though they somehow manage to do their taxes. Any political argument that involves perception of some kind of numerical reality is not going to work.