The unofficial Obamacare thread...

[BMAN]

why should that impact premiums at all? if anything a 26 year who otherwise would be uninsured should pull down the average cost, not raise it.

A big problem is pharmaceuticals.

Pharmaceuticals have jacked up rates of so many products, not because they are more expensive to make, but because they know they'll get paid no matter what they charge.

Edit: Another problem is insurance companies don't really care about the first problem. They base their rates on what they pay out, pay out more, they charge more, and people have to still buy it.

No, it's definitely the millenials faults.

 

[CommD]

That's what Obamacare did to the individual market. There used to be more options.

However, the truth is that if people want choice of doctors, health care systems, hospitals, etc., and especially the option for the more elite ones, that is going to make insurance more expensive than if it was run by the government in a single payer system.

People want Ferrari health care but bitch because it costs more than a Chevy.

The individual market before the ACA also had the option of not insuring people with pre-existing conditions at all.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Nm

 

[-Akronite-]

Odd phrasing from Senator Senility.

I don't mind that you're making this joke, but I hope Huber puts this in his journal the next time he gets up in arms over the way liberals treat GOP politicians, McCain specifically.

Obamacare was the polar opposite of a "bipartisan approach", and he just voted to preserve it.

Given that Republicans actually got to deliberate and amend and get a CBO score for ACA, still better than this shit.

I would hope, bit don't expect, that Trump would play hardball at this point. Let Obamacare remain, but don't put another penny into it. Let the exchanges death spiral until someone decides to compromise.

Love this approach. Squeeze the system and let people hurt for political gain.

 

[Sebastian]

I don't mind that you're making this joke, but I hope Huber puts this in his journal the next time he gets up in arms over the way liberals treat GOP politicians, McCain specifically.



Given that Republicans actually got to deliberate and amend and get a CBO score for ACA, still better than this shit.



Love this approach. Squeeze the system and let people hurt for political gain.

This seems to be a pattern.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I don't mind that you're making this joke, but I hope Huber puts this in his journal the next time he gets up in arms over the way liberals treat GOP politicians, McCain specifically.

If I thought he actually was senile, I wouldn't have made the joke. I do think there is something wrong with Pelosi, and I haven't criticized her at all for months.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Love this approach. Squeeze the system and let people hurt for political gain.

The system is squeezing itself, and this is the canary in the coal mine for what happens with every single government entitlement program. The political pressures to make it more generous will make it become financially unsustainable.

Again, the three major entitlement programs are already underfunded, and we have proven our inability to rein them in. Adding a fourth is economic suicide.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

The individual market before the ACA also had the option of not insuring people with pre-existing conditions at all.

Not in every state. That problem could have been addressed without everything else included in Obamacare.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

And how does insurance deny insulin to diabetics over price increases. All insulin manufacturers have been jacking their prices up pretty much in lock step with each other. Take a look at this graph of insulin prices from two supposedly competing companies.

.

Obamacare did not solve that problem. It actually got even worse as shown by the increasing slope of that curve.

]And look at this:

Specialists in infectious disease are protesting a gigantic overnight increase in the price of a 62-year-old drug that is the standard of care for treating a life-threatening parasitic infection.

The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager. Turing immediately raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars.​

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/...ncrease-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html

These aren't isolated cases.

Actually, Daraprim is an isolated case. It's why that specific story was reported so widely. And that guy is in prison now.

The system was massively broken before Obamacare, it's broken in new ways now. There's really no excuse for these massive money grabs from pharmaceuticals and others.

I agree that reforms were needed.

I've seen cases where that has flipped, where the uninsured get a much better rate. Charge the max insurance will cover for the insured, charge the actual cost of the service to uninsured. Pharmaceuticals play this game too when they have doctors give the uninsured massive discount coupons for their drug. Insurance companies only protest so much because their price hikes are tied to their expenses, and their profit is a percentage of that. In theory, the more they let prices drift up, the more actually money they clear going forward

I've seen that as well - it's a function of a first dollar -third party payer system.

 

[KI4MVP]

.

Obamacare did not solve that problem. It actually got even worse as shown by the increasing slope of that curve.

I know that and it's something that needs to be fixed.

The second part isn't as clear, you can't look at the slop of a linear chart of an exponential function to determine if the underlying rate of change is higher or lower.

One thing you can tell, though, his that either before or after Obamacare, the price of established drugs really shouldn't increase any faster than the rate of inflation.

Actually, Daraprim is an isolated case.

No, it's not. It's just the most extreme example. Here's more info:

Over the last year, the committee investigated four drug companies, which it said had all used a similar business model that included egregious price hikes to maximize profits.

The committee said that Valeant offered a program that covered the cost of co-pays for privately-insured patients because executives knew it would reduce patients’ “incentive to complain to the press about Valeant’s outrageous price increases.”

By increasing prices rapidly, but covering patients’ co-pays, the companies could still make big profits, the committee said.

They used the example of a drug priced at $100,000 that cost $10,000 to manufacture and distribute, leaving a potential profit of $90,000. If the company covered the patient’s $20,000 co-pay, the insurance company still paid $80,000 for the drug, resulting in a $70,000 profit for the company.

The patient assistance programs were a key method that Valeant used in raising the price of Cuprimine, used since 1956, and Syprine, developed in 1969, the committee said. Both drugs are used to treat Wilson disease, a rare condition in which the body cannot process copper.

Valeant raised the prices of Cuprimine and Syprine from about $500 to about $24,000 for a 30-day supply, the report said.

“The committee believes that these programs were driven not by altruism, but by Valeant’s desire to extract monopoly profits and then conceal that fact from the public,” the report said.

“In your thinking about this free market system you are describing, is it a factor … [that] … the absence of Syprine could lead to liver failure or a liver transplant or even death? Is that a factor?” asked Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat.

“It is,” Pearson responded.

The senators said they had evidence that other companies had used the same strategy to aggressively raise prices.
​

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-senate-drug-price-study-20161221-story.html

More examples, the cost of the EpiPen follows a trajectory similar to insulin, jumping from under $100 to over $600 in a decade.

And

A House of Representatives report found in 2014 that 10 generic drugs experienced price increases just a year prior, ranging from a 420% hike to more than 8,000%.​

Overall, prescription drug prices rise much faster than the rate of inflation.

And it's a US specific problem. One that existed before Obamacare and continues after Obamacare

 

[CommD]

.

 

[czvo]

Some news:

Trump will scrap critical Obamacare subsidy

President Donald Trump plans to cut off critical subsidy payments to insurers selling Obamacare coverage, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The decision to end the payments, estimated at $7 billion this year, marks Trump's most aggressive move yet to dismantle Obamacare after months of failed GOP repeal efforts on Capitol Hill. The move is likely to draw lawsuits and may put pressure on Congress to appropriate funding for the subsidies, which help insurers reduce out-of-pocket costs for low-income Obamacare customers.

The decision follows Trump's signing of an executive order earlier today that directs federal agencies to rewrite regulations to encourage the rise of a raft of cheap, loosely regulated health insurance plans that don't have to comply with certain Obamacare consumer protections and benefit rules. Trump touted the move as a step toward unwinding Obamacare.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/12/trump-obamacare-subsidy-243736

 

[Sebastian]

Some news:



http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/12/trump-obamacare-subsidy-243736

Good job. They can't pass a bill so they'll just fuck people over instead.

That, my friends, is leadership.

 

[Cassity14]

Good job. They can't pass a bill so they'll just fuck people over instead.

That, my friends, is leadership.

I wasn't a fan of Obama's liberal use of EO's either, and this is a negative result of it. Precedent has been set, and now you get goons like this guy in the office to follow it...

 

[TopGun]

Good job. They can't pass a bill so they'll just fuck people over instead.

That, my friends, is leadership.

This is hilarious. The health insurance industry has been rolling in dough since Obamacare was passed, and now cutting out government subsidies to them is considered fucking people over.