The Cellar - Impeding changes to our Health Care system

Part of the health care overhaul due to kick in this September could strip more than 1 million people of their insurance coverage, violating a key goal of President Barack Obama’s reforms.

Under the provision, insurance companies will no longer be able to apply broad annual caps on the amount of money they pay out on health policies. Employer groups say the ban could essentially wipe out a niche insurance market that many part-time workers and retail and restaurant employees have come to rely on.

This market’s limited-benefit plans, also called mini-med plans, are priced low because they can, among other things, restrict the number of covered doctor visits or impose a maximum on insurance payouts in a year. The plans are commonly offered by retail or restaurant companies to low-wage workers who cannot afford more expensive, comprehensive coverage.

Depending on how strictly the administration implements the provision, the ban could in effect outlaw the plans or make them so restrictive that insurance companies would raise rates to the point they become unaffordable.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38219.html

Redux

06-15-2010 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheMercenary (Post 663301)

Well imagine this. Just as was stated repeatedly....

Keep Your Health Plan Under Overhaul? Probably Not, Gov't Analysis Concludes

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnal...aspx?id=537208

If you don't like that link here is another:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

Two partisan opinions.

Here is one that presents both sides.

Quote:

Business groups gave mixed reviews this week to new Obama administration rules limiting how much employers and insurers can change their health insurance plans while remaining exempt from potentially costly new consumer protections.

Consumer groups praised the regulations, saying the rules would ensure that millions of Americans receive the full benefits of the new health care law....

...The rules, released Monday, spell out when plans would lose their grandfathered status, including if they make major increases in premiums, modest increases in co-payments or significantly cut benefits. The administration estimates that half of all employers, including two-thirds of small employers, could lose their grandfathered status by 2013.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/1...#ixzz0qxdGw1UQ

So....employers with plans that would allow major increases in premiums or co-pays or benefit cuts wont be grand-fathered and will change.

Sounds good to me.

TheMercenary

06-15-2010 04:50 PM

Bottom line this administration and the Demoncrats lied to the US taxpayers about how much this is going to really cost us in dollars and how much it is going to affect our current insurance. Just as I predicted, numerous time.

classicman

06-15-2010 09:44 PM

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnal...aspx?id=537208

Sorry, but I am certainly not opening that one!

classicman

06-15-2010 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheMercenary (Post 663319)

We all knew that those with health insurance would have their plan rates increased or lose benefits. It was a given.

Redux

06-15-2010 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by classicman (Post 663384)

We all knew that those with health insurance would have their plan rates increased or lose benefits. It was a given.

Or getting new benefits like free (no co-pay) preventive care, including mammograms and colonoscopy, no more exclusions for pre-existing conditions, limits on out-of-pocket expenses so you wont go bankrupt as a result of an illness/medical condition, a tougher dispute resolution process so insurers cant drop you on a whim, limits on premium increases (as percent of insurers admin costs)....

TheMercenary

06-16-2010 07:19 PM

Redux :lol2:

Your party fails...

And the electorate has noticed... :D

TheMercenary

06-21-2010 06:40 PM

Not that I didn't say this was going to happen or anything...

Prices jump for individual insurance premiums
77 percent of those who buy their own coverage have had cost increases

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37829862...h-health_care/

TheMercenary

06-21-2010 06:44 PM

Imagine this...

Doctors limit new Medicare patients

Quote:

WASHINGTON — The number of doctors refusing new Medicare patients because of low government payment rates is setting a new high, just six months before millions of Baby Boomers begin enrolling in the government health care program.
Recent surveys by national and state medical societies have found more doctors limiting Medicare patients, partly because Congress has failed to stop an automatic 21% cut in payments that doctors already regard as too low. The cut went into effect Friday, even as the Senate approved a six-month reprieve. The House has approved a different bill.

• The American Academy of Family Physicians says 13% of respondents didn't participate in Medicare last year, up from 8% in 2008 and 6% in 2004.

• The American Osteopathic Association says 15% of its members don't participate in Medicare and 19% don't accept new Medicare patients. If the cut is not reversed, it says, the numbers will double.

• The American Medical Association says 17% of more than 9,000 doctors surveyed restrict the number of Medicare patients in their practice. Among primary care physicians, the rate is 31%.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...medicare_N.htm

TheMercenary

06-21-2010 07:07 PM

Interesting assessment. I wonder how it will play out between now and 2014?

Quote:

Healthcare reform's high-risk insurance pools could end up excluding hundreds of thousands of Americans or costing three times more than what's budgeted now, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday. In a letter sent Monday to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee ranking Republican Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), CBO Director Doug Elmendorf laid out the stark choices facing a program that's meant to help cover sick Americans until the nation's healthcare system is overhauled in 2014.

The program's $5 billion budget will probably run out before 2013, Elmendorf writes. Extending it until 2014 to the 600,000 to 700,000 eligible Americans who are likely to enroll by then would cost an extra $5 to $10 billion, for a total of $10 to $15 billion. Several million people would be eligible for the program, he adds, but most are not likely to enroll.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also has the authority to cap enrollment.

"On that basis, CBO expects that the number of enrollees in the program will average about 200,000 over the 2011-2013 period," Elmendorf wrote. "If, instead, more people are allowed to sign up initially, the available funds will probably be exhausted prior to 2013, but total spending for the program will still be capped at $5 billion."

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch

classicman

06-21-2010 08:31 PM

Quote:

"On that basis, CBO expects that the number of enrollees in the program will average about 200,000 over the 2011-2013 period," Elmendorf wrote. "If, instead, more people are allowed to sign up initially, the available funds will probably be exhausted prior to 2013, but total spending for the program will still be capped at $5 billion."

Are you/they implying that they will then refuse admission to the plan when the cap is reached?

Redux

06-21-2010 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheMercenary (Post 665199)

A survey (poll) of 1,000 people? You dont accept polls of 1,000 people as valid, if I recall.

From your article:

Quote:

Policy analysts say some aspects of the new law could slow premium growth, while others might increase it.

The law does not grant federal authority to reject premium increases. It does, however, call for insurers to justify any deemed “unreasonable.” Regulations that would define unreasonable are being developed. Federal regulators, working with the states, can also recommend barring insurers with a history of unreasonable increases from the new marketplaces for insurance sales, called exchanges, which are set to open in 2014.

Premiums could be affected by other provisions in the law, such as one barring insurers from charging higher premiums based on a person’s health, a rule that begins in 2014. That could mean lower premiums for those with health problems, but higher rates for those who are younger or healthier.

Insurers must also spend at least 80 percent of their premium revenue on direct medical care for individual policyholders — or pay rebates, starting next year. Rules about what counts as medical care are still being developed. The requirement could shed more light on what insurers pay out — and how much they keep for administrative costs and profits.

Until we have regulations...until the Exchange is created....until we know the level of subsidy for millions (up to 4x poverty level).....

We wont know how many of those currently not in a large group program will have lower costs (millions with the subsidies) or how many might face higher costs.

TheMercenary

06-22-2010 06:07 AM

Bottom line. This administration and this Congress lied to the American people as to how much this was going to cost us in real dollars. To on the one hand sell it as giving us lower costs and now modifing the propaganda to now "how many might face higher costs is a far cry from what was being sold previous to the passage of the bill.

As I have stated numerous times, and now it's coming to a reality near you...

Redux

06-23-2010 05:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheMercenary (Post 665307)

IMO, the first regs for the Affordable Care Act, being developed as a patient's bill of rights, lays out the reality of the law to most consumers:

http://healthreform.gov/newsroom/new...of_rights.html

Others will likely describe it as propaganda...so whats new.

TheMercenary

06-23-2010 05:25 PM

What's new is that the issues that many of us stated would come to be due to the passage of the bill have begun to occur. What's not new is that this Administration and esp this Congress lied to the American people to get the bill passed. And the costs to the American public are going to be much more than what was sold to the voters.

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