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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on September 09, 2010, 05:22:54 AM
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HEALTH INDUSTRY
SEPTEMBER 8, 2010.
Health Outlays Still Seen Rising
www.wsj.com
By JANET ADAMY
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The health-care overhaul enacted last spring won't significantly change national health spending over the next decade compared with projections before the law was passed, according to government figures set to be released Thursday.
The report by federal number-crunchers casts fresh doubt on Democrats' argument that the health-care law would curb the sharp increase in costs over the long term, the second setback this week for one of the party's biggest legislative achievements.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that insurance companies have proposed rate increases ranging from 1% to 9% nationwide that they attribute specifically to new health-law coverage mandates.
Democrats signaled they would ratchet up pressure on the companies. "Insurers are using the consumer protections in health reform as a cover for their own greed," said Rep. Pete Stark (D., Calif.), chairman of the House Ways and Means health subcommittee.
Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, the top Republican on that committee, said the rate increases underscore why lawmakers should repeal the legislation and replace it with changes that make care more affordable.
Regardless of the health law, national health spending has been rising in recent years and economists expect that to continue. In February, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projected that overall national health spending would increase an average of 6.1% a year over the next decade.
.The center's economists recalculated the numbers in light of the health bill and now project that the increase will average 6.3% a year, according to a report in the journal Health Affairs. Total U.S. health spending will reach $4.6 trillion by 2019, accounting for nearly one of every five U.S. dollars spent, the report says.
"The overall net impact is moderate," said lead author Andrea Sisko, an economist at the Medicare agency. "The underlying impacts on coverage and financing are more pronounced."
The White House said the law will lower costs for insured consumers by removing the hidden price they pay to subsidize the uninsured.
In the next year, spending from private health insurance is expected to grow while out-of-pocket medical costs decline because more people will stay on Cobra insurance coverage for the unemployed, the report said.
The law's early provisions will increase overall health-care spending, the report says, while adding to benefits for consumers. The creation of new high-risk insurance pools, a requirement that children can stay on their parents' insurance plans until age 26 and other early provisions will increase U.S. health expenditures by $10.2 billion through 2013, the report says.
The new projections take into account other factors, including a delay in payment cuts to doctors who treat Medicare patients.
U.S. health spending is projected to rise 9.2% in 2014, up from the 6.6% projected before the law took effect.
New mechanisms kick in that year to expand insurance coverage. The report estimates 92.7% of U.S. residents will have health insurance by 2019, up from 84% this year.
Once the insurance expansion begins, U.S. health spending is expected to grow slightly more slowly. Between 2015 and 2019, the report predicts, it will increase 6.7% a year on average, down from the 6.8% projected before the overhaul passed.
Out-of-pocket spending is expected to fall sharply starting in 2014 when more people gain insurance coverage through new tax credits and an expanded Medicaid federal-state insurance program. But an excise tax on high-cost plans that takes effect in 2018 will increase out-of-pocket spending as insurance providers reduce their plan benefits to stay below the tax threshold. The law is expected to slow growth in Medicare spending by 1.4 percentage points because it contains lower payments to health-care providers.
Write to Janet Adamy at janet.adamy@wsj.com
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Meanwhile, everyones' rates are skyrocketing across the board because of this pofs law.
But let's bash Boehner - yeah that's real mature.
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Democrats signaled they would ratchet up pressure on the companies. "Insurers are using the consumer protections in health reform as a cover for their own greed," said Rep. Pete Stark (D., Calif.), chairman of the House Ways and Means health subcommittee.
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Unbelievable. Who votes for these morons?
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HEALTH INDUSTRY
SEPTEMBER 8, 2010.
Health Outlays Still Seen Rising
www.wsj.com
By JANET ADAMY
________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ___
The health-care overhaul enacted last spring won't significantly change national health spending over the next decade compared with projections before the law was passed, according to government figures set to be released Thursday.
The report by federal number-crunchers casts fresh doubt on Democrats' argument that the health-care law would curb the sharp increase in costs over the long term, the second setback this week for one of the party's biggest legislative achievements.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that insurance companies have proposed rate increases ranging from 1% to 9% nationwide that they attribute specifically to new health-law coverage mandates.
Democrats signaled they would ratchet up pressure on the companies. "Insurers are using the consumer protections in health reform as a cover for their own greed," said Rep. Pete Stark (D., Calif.), chairman of the House Ways and Means health subcommittee.
Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, the top Republican on that committee, said the rate increases underscore why lawmakers should repeal the legislation and replace it with changes that make care more affordable.
Regardless of the health law, national health spending has been rising in recent years and economists expect that to continue. In February, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services projected that overall national health spending would increase an average of 6.1% a year over the next decade.
.The center's economists recalculated the numbers in light of the health bill and now project that the increase will average 6.3% a year, according to a report in the journal Health Affairs. Total U.S. health spending will reach $4.6 trillion by 2019, accounting for nearly one of every five U.S. dollars spent, the report says.
"The overall net impact is moderate," said lead author Andrea Sisko, an economist at the Medicare agency. "The underlying impacts on coverage and financing are more pronounced."
The White House said the law will lower costs for insured consumers by removing the hidden price they pay to subsidize the uninsured.
In the next year, spending from private health insurance is expected to grow while out-of-pocket medical costs decline because more people will stay on Cobra insurance coverage for the unemployed, the report said.
The law's early provisions will increase overall health-care spending, the report says, while adding to benefits for consumers. The creation of new high-risk insurance pools, a requirement that children can stay on their parents' insurance plans until age 26 and other early provisions will increase U.S. health expenditures by $10.2 billion through 2013, the report says.
The new projections take into account other factors, including a delay in payment cuts to doctors who treat Medicare patients.
U.S. health spending is projected to rise 9.2% in 2014, up from the 6.6% projected before the law took effect.
New mechanisms kick in that year to expand insurance coverage. The report estimates 92.7% of U.S. residents will have health insurance by 2019, up from 84% this year.
Once the insurance expansion begins, U.S. health spending is expected to grow slightly more slowly. Between 2015 and 2019, the report predicts, it will increase 6.7% a year on average, down from the 6.8% projected before the overhaul passed.
Out-of-pocket spending is expected to fall sharply starting in 2014 when more people gain insurance coverage through new tax credits and an expanded Medicaid federal-state insurance program. But an excise tax on high-cost plans that takes effect in 2018 will increase out-of-pocket spending as insurance providers reduce their plan benefits to stay below the tax threshold. The law is expected to slow growth in Medicare spending by 1.4 percentage points because it contains lower payments to health-care providers.
Write to Janet Adamy at janet.adamy@wsj.com
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Meanwhile, everyones' rates are skyrocketing across the board because of this pofs law.
But let's bash Boehner - yeah that's real mature.
Obama needs a new boogeyman, since the "Blame Bush" routine ain't working anymore. Of course, we have left-winged goofies like Ed Shultz and Cynthia Tucker. They're still doing the race-baiting thing, even though articles like this clearly show that Obama was full of bull, when he talked about this garbage reducing the deficit and people's premiums.
Well, liberals, we hate to be the folks to say "We told you so!" But.....
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ObamaCare 'Amnesia'
Long ago, in a political galaxy far, far away, Democrats passed . . ..
www.wsj.com
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'They're betting that between now and November, you're going to come down with amnesia," President Obama told a Milwaukee crowd on Monday, vilifying the Republicans who "helped devastate our middle class." But it seems as if the real case of amnesia—or maybe post-traumatic stress disorder—has struck the Democrats, who are now doing everything they can to help voters forget ObamaCare.
This is a remarkable turn of events for Mr. Obama's major domestic achievement that was also supposed to be a political winner. Facing a grim November, Democrats are now running on another quarter-baked stimulus plan and the specter of John Boehner's perpetual tan, instead of the bill they spent more than a year debating and hailed as the liberal triumph of the century. Democrats now barely mention ObamaCare on the trail—unless they're trashing it.
In Milwaukee, the President made a few desultory mentions of "health care that will be there when you get sick." And in Cleveland Wednesday, his list of the iniquities from which he saved the country included "health insurance reform that stops insurance companies from jacking up your premiums at will."
But what about all the grandiose ambitions of universal coverage? What about bending the cost curve? The parade of horribles that would occur if Congress failed to act? "Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result," as Mr. Obama put it in a speech to Congress a year ago.
The only politicians who today are finding any redeeming electoral value in ObamaCare are Republicans running on reform alternatives and the Democrats who voted against it. In South Dakota, four-term Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin is running ads that tout her vote against "the trillion-dollar health-care plan." Mrs. Herseth Sandlin won in 2008 with 68% of the vote but now is in a dead heat against GOP challenger Kristi Noem.
Idaho freshman Walt Minnick says in one TV spot that "I've had to say no far more than I've said yes. I've said no to more government spending, no to President Obama's big health-care plan," because "standing up to what's wrong in Washington is right for Idaho." Pennsylvania's Jason Altmire, class of 2006, features constituents who say things like, "You saw when he voted against health care" and, "He's not afraid to stand up to the President."
Frank Kratovil from Maryland's eastern shore says he voted against ObamaCare and sundry other White House priorities because it was merely "common sense and doing what's best for our families." All these Members would be better off had their party used its historic majority for something else, but then again at least they're better off than Blue Dog colleagues like Earl Pomeroy (North Dakota) and Tom Perriello (Virginia) who voted for it and are in danger of defeat.
The Barney Franks and Pete Starks can continue to plug ObamaCare from their safe liberal redoubts. But the marginal seats are the ones that matter for controlling Congress. At any rate, even among the 219 House members and 60 Senators who voted for final passage, the new Democratic triage strategy seems to be to claim the bill is not perfect and could be improved, but it still has a heart of gold.
Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, who wrote most of the bill, attempted this line at an August townhall in Billings, Montana when he tried to calm an angry voter by saying, "Mark my words, several years from now, you're going to look back and say, 'Well, that wasn't so bad after all.'" Now there's an endorsement.
This public revolt comes despite the millions spent by Big Pharma and the Obama Administration to promote the bill since its passage. The Administration even rolled out ol' Andy Griffith of Mayberry for a plug, which has only hurt his reputation. This week two new pressure groups are forming to try again, the Health Information Center and the Health Information Campaign. These outfits were founded by former White House communications director Anita Dunn and Democratic strategist Andrew Grossman, formerly the executive director of Wal-Mart Watch, the Service Employees International Union-backed antibusiness outfit.
They plan to spend $2 million on TV advertising before the election to rebut ostensible "myths." Perhaps they have in mind the 1% to 9% premium increases that insurers nationwide are planning for individuals and small businesses to cover the cost of new mandated benefits, as the Journal's Janet Adamy reported.
These and many other emerging consequences of the bill—all of them predicted by opponents—are the reason it remains so unpopular. Democrats convinced themselves they could ram ObamaCare through Congress on the liberal noblesse oblige theory that the public would eventually come around, but their own campaign strategies now show how wrong they were. If Democrats are victims of their own success, so is everyone else—because despite the political second thoughts, the country is still stuck with this policy debacle.
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HHS to insurers: Don't blame us for your rates
Yahoo ^ | 09/10/10 | RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
President Barack Obama's top health official on Thursday warned the insurance industry that the administration won't tolerate blaming premium hikes on the new health overhaul law.
"There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a letter to the insurance lobby.
"Simply stated, we will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections," Sebelius said. She warned that bad actors may be excluded from new health insurance markets that will open in 2014 under the law. They'd lose out on a big pool of customers, as many as 30 million people nationwide.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
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So now the government is making threats to insurance companies? That is some bold shit right there.
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Kazan - my utter hatred, contempt, loathing, and disgust at all things Obama, and anything or anyone supporting him or his admn is beyond anything at this point, especially after the press conference today.
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Imam Obama never wanted it to cut costs.He wanted to destroy another sector of America.
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Citizen Cohn
From the Press Conference: Does Obamacare Bend the Curve?
Jonathan Cohn
WWW.NEWREPUBLIC.COM
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Does Obamacare Bend the Curve? Programming Note: Obama Press Conference Judge Throws Out Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell. So Now What? September 10, 2010 | 12:24 pm
A few minutes ago President Obama got a question on health care reform, based on new projections that supposedly show it will fail to “bend the curve” on costs. But that’s not what the projections show. I was going to write a long post on this—and, sometime soon, maybe I will. But let me quickly go over this, because it’s understandably confusing but very important.
The projections, based on government estimates and published this week in Health Affairs, are an update of projections the government made earlier in the year, while Congress was in the final stages of debating the Affordable Care Act. And the basic storyline hasn’t really changed.
The Affordable Care Act has two basic components.
There are, first, provisions to cut the cost of care—like reductions in what Medicare pays some providers, cuts in subsidies for private insurance companies, and a tax on generous health benefits that economists believe will reduce private health care spending. These features come on line quickly (except for the tax) and, year after year, will reduce what we spend on health care.
The second group of provisions would make insurance more comprehensive and more accessible. These include expansions of Medicaid as well as the creation of subsidies for lower- and middle-income people who buy private insurance. These mostly come on line in 2014 and, when they do, will cause a one-time jump in health care spending.
Put these components together and you get a steady reduction in spending growth, interrupted by a spike in 2014. Here’s what it looks like graphically, from that Health Affairs article:
The sum total of spending between 2011 and 2019 is slightly higher than it would been without reform, but the difference is miniscule—and, arguably, a tiny price to pay for the extra security reform brings to tens of millions of Americans. No less important, the annual rate of growth in 2019, the final year in the projection, is slightly lower than it would have been without reform.
I do mean "slightly": We're talking 6.7 percent growth in national health expenditures versus 6.8, which is basically a rounding error on these sorts of projections. Still, when we talk about “bending the curve,” that’s what we mean--reducing the rate of growth, so that we spend less money in the future. And the curve is bending in the right direction.
Would it be better to reduce the rate of growth--i.e., “bend the curve”--significantly? You bet. But this is still a change for the better.
Huh, I guess that was a pretty long item after all. Still, if you want to read more, read Igor Volsky and Ezra Klein.
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More freaking lies by this idiot POTUS.
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Bill for Obamacare is just beginning – 1% to 9% premium increases
September 8th, 2010, 11:15 am · 8 Comments · posted by Mark Landsbaum
www.ocregister.com
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THE REAL FACE OF OBAMACARE
Remember how Obamacare was going to lower everyone’s health insurance costs? Oops.
“Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Emphasis ours: Inurance companies are preparing to raise their premiums for some Americans “as a direct result of the health overhaul,” the Journal reported. The increases will roll out in the coming weeks, which the Journal notes complicates “Democrats’ efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections.”
Considering that the Democrats shoved Obamacare down America’s throat against the will of the majority of people, the added costs should rile up folks even more. Of course, expect plenty of disinformation specialists to suggest the higher rates are the reason you need Obamacare – rather than Obamacare being the cause of the higher rates.
“The rate increases are a dose of troubling news for Democrats just weeks before an election in which they are at risk of losing their majority in the House and possibly the Senate,” reported the Journal.
Given the compliant nature of the mainstream media, Dems probably will persuade more than a few people that insurance companies are evil, jacking up their prices to gouge customers.
In fact, it’s the Democrats’ centerpiece legislation Obamacare that is jacking up these premiums.
“In addition to pledging that the law would restrain increases in Americans’ insurance premiums, Democrats front-loaded the legislation with early provisions they hoped would boost public support. … Weeks before the election, insurance companies began telling state regulators it is those very provisions that are forcing them to increase their rates.”
And this is just the beginning. Do you like your Obamacare coverage yet?
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The idiots who supported this need to off themselves.