I am not worried about this. Strategically, it makes sense for the Democratic Party to allow the President to take whatever lumps are coming for this language error and move on.

Ultimately, this is much ado about nothing.



-Laelth

You nailed it. So let Hill run on single payer. will she?

I have no interest in catapulting Republican propaganda on this subject. Flaws in the ACA are a non-issue in my book. It's the law, and it's not changing any time soon. The President can safely take any flak that the law generates, and it will not seriously harm the Democratic Party.

What am I missing, here?



-Laelth

American people. We have a right to expect standards in health insurance coverage. The truth is that the people were scammed by the insurance companies. To me, it's like product safety laws or any other laws that protect the consumer from fraud.

What I don't understand is why people bought such inferior "insurance" in the first place...

The ACA has broken their monopoly hold on the American people.

http://www.insuranceclaimsconsult.com/Ins.Commissioner.htm

forever.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/10/why_are_insurers_exempt_from_a.html

<snip>
The McCarran-Ferguson Act antitrust exemption is very expansive with regard to anything that can be said to fall within “the business of insurance,” including premium pricing and market allocations. As a result, “the most egregiously anticompetitive claims, such as naked agreements fixing price or reducing coverage, are virtually always found immune.”

Concerns over the exemption’s effects are especially relevant given the importance of health insurance reform to our nation. There is a general consensus that health insurance reform should be built on a strong commitment to competition in all health-care markets, including those for health and medical malpractice insurance. Repealing the McCarran-Ferguson Act would allow competition to have a greater role in reforming health and medical malpractice insurance markets than would otherwise be the case.

The history here is that prior to the 1940s, insurance regulation was considered the sole province of the states. A Supreme Court case by the name of United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters appeared to call that into question, in part on grounds of antitrust. As Varney explains in her testimony, "the McCarran-Ferguson Act was designed to return the legal climate to that which existed prior to South-Eastern Underwriters by specifically delegating to the states the authority to continue to regulate and tax the business of insurance."

Insurance, however, is much more national now than it was then. The companies, for one thing, operate across many different states. They offer plans in competition with the national Medicare program. The House health-care reform bills contemplates quasi-national exchanges, the Senate Finance bill contemplates national health insurance plans, and all the bills contemplate interstate compacts that would allow insurers to sell a single product across an array of states. These moves are all likely to increase competition and make it less likely that antitrust enforcement is necessary, but they also make the presence of the exemption more dangerous.

....more

I didn't state my initial response to you accurately as McCarran-Ferguson is entitled but the states have created a form of regulatory capture.

This comes from NPR about a year and a half ago --

Georgia To Allow Cross-State Health Insurance Sales

<snip>
BURRESS: To find out why no company's signed on, we contacted Georgia's biggest health insurers - Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Humana, United Healthcare and Kaiser Permanente. All declined comment.

MILA KOFMAN: I'm a little surprised, but frankly it's a big relief.

BURRESS: George University professor Mila Kofman says no matter what the reason, insurers' lack of action is a good thing for consumers. She says cheap policies are cheap for a reason. They often don't offer adequate coverage. Insurance premiums are expensive because healthcare is expensive.

KOFMAN: When you think about health insurance premiums, really the only way that out-of-state companies could sell products that are cheap is if they cut corners, if the product doesn't cover what the Georgia regulated products cover.

But there's another reason cheap policies were cheap -- it's what people could afford.

When those people start seeing their premiums and deductibles skyrocket no amount of "Its better if you carry maternity coverage in your 50s!" talk is going to assuage their anger. They will have to cut corners in their household budgets to cover the substantially increased costs (read: won't be spending money elsewhere in the already fragile economy). Hopefully tempers will have cooled by this time next year but I doubt anything will come from congress. The GOP has every motivation to allow the pain to be fully felt. HHS has to fix this mess.

A large percentage of these types of individual policies were canceled every year, even before the ACA was passed.

we need lawmakers at every level of government to be accountable to all of the people, not just corporate ones...

than Florida's. Of course, nothing is worse than Florida.

western European countries, e.g. mostly government heavily subsidized insurance from "private" organizations (so long as they are non-profit) through a variety of ways but also those for profit companies that sell certain "extras" (e.g. private hospital rooms) so long as the service is not a basic health care need. One way or another the costs are borne through the tax base and everyone pays in, in a progressive, fair way.

People should really look at the type of insurance in Korea and Japan.

I'd rather give the money to my family, if it comes to that. And this way I don't have any faceless, careless, underpaid "employees" making health care decisions for me. If I die, at least it will be from my own mistakes.

But I finally got Medicare in 2010.

They really don't care about the living either. But when it comes to money - well, they are all over that, aren't they?

He did not lie. Why do we abuse words?

He never would have control of the insurance company side of the contract, but they could have dropped the policy long before the ACA ever passed. He was saying that from your end, you could keep it. Geez people. If he didn't think of or didn't mention that the insurance company might drop it, that's not a "lie."

trying to get 'to the bottom of it,' if that is even possible.
Your comment is interesting and I have a question; If what you say is true, why DIDN'T' he know companies might drop policies, or if he DID know, why didn't he mention it?
Surely Obama must know that health insurance companies are MOSTLY a bunch of crooks.

I am not questioning you comment at all, just.. there are always so many layers to the onion...
Thanks..

People are resistant to change sometimes, even if it would benefit them. IMO a lot of employed people who don't get sick just want to think they are covered and not mess with it.

It's also fair to take into account that people should know this and not need to be told it - after all these are the same people who consider themselves successful in the free market, so why wouldn't they realize a contract is between two sides? But in reality people don't realize they've made a contract with an insurance company and don't realize or accept what they agreed to should it turn out not as good as they expect it. They feel "cheated."

Consumer protection laws of all kinds realize they are not equals in the bargaining involved. Especially when your employer did the "bargaining" for you. In a culture where we just pay without bargaining with the seller, we tend to think some magic hand sets prices "fairly" and assume that the market is doing it and the government has no hand in it.

The funny thing is people that think the free market is all that would be upset if they lived in a real one, where every penny they spend is on them, caveat emptor and there's no sympathy if they got tricked by a seller.

George W. Bush lied over Iraq's WMD but they were White lies.

Gee. Who would have thunk it? Let's just jump on that bandwagon with them and grab a instrument. Bang away on that drum. The noise will sure as hell detract from educating the public about the ACA and the egregiou ls gouging of Big Insurance. It will so detract from tweaking the law to improve it. Bang away.

I guess some do not see it?

I got your point.

How am I to go on living?

and that you have a fun time here!

"insurance companies... refused to give their customers their same policy with the added benefits of the new law"

They didn't have to add new ACA benefits to the old policies - not the major ACA benefits anyway:

https://www.healthcare.gov/what-if-i-have-a-grandfathered-health-plan/

What grandfathered plans do and don't have to cover
Here's a quick look at the consumer protections that do and don't apply to grandfathered plans:

All health plans must:

End lifetime limits on coverage
End arbitrary cancellations of health coverage
Cover adult children up to age 26
Provide a Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC), a short, easy-to-understand summary of what a plan covers and costs

Hold insurance companies accountable to spend your premiums on health care, not administrative costs and bonuses
Grandfathered plans DON'T have to:

Cover preventive care for free
Guarantee your right to appeal
Protect your choice of doctors and access to emergency care
Be held accountable through Rate Review for excessive premium increases

In addition to the above, grandfathered individual health insurance plans (the kind you buy yourself, not the kind you get from an employer) don't have to:

End yearly limits on coverage
Cover you if you have a pre-existing health condition

Unless I am misinterpreting...

...did those only apply to those policies bought before 2010??

Individual plans are usually sold on an annual basis is my understanding and why would these companies have sold these deficient policies after that date, knowing they would not be grandfathered? I think the simple answer is profit motive.

Your point is that insurance companies sold new junk plans after 2010, knowing they couldn't last. And now customers are getting the impression that their "old plans" are being cancelled - even though the plans aren't really old old. It seems like people are making Obama out to be a liar when the problem is really that the ACA has been delayed for so long. Obama was telling the truth several years ago when he said you could keep your old plan. But ACA implementation has been delayed for so long that now newer plans - ones created after the President started saying that and after the grandfathering took effect - now actually seem like old plans.

Is that right?

company.

Very few people kept their same plan at the same price, with the cost of insurance going up every year at extraordinary rates.

Republicans don't know a liar when they see one.

Well done as usual

People were deluding themselves that paying $60 a month for health insurance actually bought them anything. It was great...up until they had to use it.

So now they are whining about having to pay a little more because, guess what, it covers more! It has to by law.

Blame the insurance companies for this entirely. They don't have to charge what they do. They could take a little less profit, but I guess that's asking too much.

Say, if we had single-payer, none of these problems would exist.

I fucking HATE how they twist the truth and forget their own evils.......

the free market will always find ways to liberate you from your money if you let them.

Last edited Sun Nov 3, 2013, 01:31 PM - Edit history (2)

I think he was speaking from the Government's perspective, and he failed to make that clear because he thought it was obvious! Most rational people, however, would have assumed he could only speak for the Government and not every insurance broker out there.

And after having heard the basic tenants the Affordable Care Act required for three years, one would think if anyone had a policy that did not meet those standards, he or she would know either the broker would have to update that policy or discontinue it. Really, it shouldn't take a mental giant to discern that if his or her policy did not cover the parameters outlined, that policy would have to be brought up to those standards or be discontinued. For instance, any policy that did not cover pre-existing conditions would have to be amended to do so or it could not be grandfathered into the ACA.

Sam

apples and oranges, are you saying you don't think President Obama saw this coming? You're saying that he AND his advisors were taken completely by surprise here? Every message board, restaurant and bar in America was full of people who saw it coming, and you truly believe that someone as bright as the president and the people he chose as his advisors were caught completely unaware?