Insurers have ALWAYS been able to drop a plan you liked. Always. I've had it happen many times long before the ACA existed.

The ACA did nothing to stop insurers from doing so. It also, however, did nothing to force them to cancel existing plans.

The insurers did something that they have always done.

Now, some folks seem to think that because an insurer can still do something they've always done, that's the ACA's fault.

Oh, the insurers have always been able to drop your favorite doctor from their network. Just one more long standing reality that the ACA did not create, for which its now blamed.

if they offer a plan to employees that
does not have contraception coverage.

I consider a $36500 a year fine,
essentially the same as forcing cancellation.

it was based on who needs what.

Young males pay way more for car insurance than older men, and women of any age. Is that discrimination? Of course not. Young men are more likely to have accidents. Their premiums reflect that. The alternative is to charge everyone the same. If middle-aged women had to pay the same premium teenaged males have to, there would be an incredible outcry.

am assuming that the company that did not offer contraceptives had religious reasons for refusing. If I worked at that company I would see this as them forcing their religious beliefs on me. My church does not legislate what goes on in the bedrooms of its members by denying birth control.

My son had a policy that didn't provide maternity coverage. Because that (very costly) care wasn't included, he paid significantly less for it than he would have if it had been included. If you had a "women only" policy, you wouldn't expect it to cover prostate exams, right?

The contraceptive thing is something else. It usually is based on an employer's religious beliefs, so does a law trump a First Amendment right? Should it? I'm just glad I don't have to make those decisions.

call it a healthcare plan if that is going to happen. With your reasoning only the sick should have to pay for a plan because the rest do not need it. Like my brother who was totally healthy UNTIL his motorcycle accident. Fortunately he believed he needed insurance.

As to the religious question - my question is: Does my faith trump yours? In our community the Catholic hospital does not play these games because they would not be able to hire enough workers to run the hospital. So because someone works for them should they have to give up their own faith? Well there goes freedom of religion.

We were paying for a plan for our adult son after he had to come off of my dh's group ins. It was BARE BONES BCBS, and intended for healthy people under the age of 30. No maternity coverage, no drug rehab coverage, no a-bunch-of-other-stuff-he'll-never-need. Dirt cheap, but was something that would keep him (and us) out of bankruptcy if he had a serious injury or illness.

Those policies didn't comply with the ACA, and were therefore designated for the trash bin. We got a one-year reprieve, but he got his cancellation notice a couple of months ago.

When I was in my early 20's. It was nice and cheap, didn't have the spinning rims and other crap I didn't need. I was able to use those savings to enjoy my 20's. I think in that time I got sick once, but I didn't use it.

to meet the requirements.

They did not need to cancel that plan, they could have fixed it.

They decided to cancel that plan.

Oh, and they could have cancelled his plan at any time prior to ACA passing, always could.

because the law REQUIRES it, and increase the premium to cover the expanded (unnecessary) services, then it is the same as a cancellation and rewrite. Just sayin'.

How "ObamaCare Cancelled Your Plan" is really an Insurance Co Scam to Rip You Off

snip//

However, Talking Points Memo has a story up today that all of us need to see, bookmark and start forwarding to each and every media outlet that continues to claim that the ACA has "Cancelled" anyones Insurance Plan.

Because it hasn't, that is A LIE - Obamacare didn't Cancel their plan.

Plans that were in place since March of 2010 (prior to the Affordable Care Act) were "Grandfathered" and excluded from many of the laws requirements so that they wouldn't be cancelled. ObamaCare doesn't FORCE those plans to remain, but it doesn't FORCE them to be cancelled either. TPM reports now that the Insurance Companies themselves have deliberately sent out these cancellation notices, along with automatic renewals into higher rate plans before Oct 1st as a means of preventing people from Shopping on the Exchange and finding better, cheaper plans.

In short, this is all an Insurance Industry Scam to gouge their customers, blame Obamacare for it, and prevent them from taking advantage of improved coverage and savings that the ACA actually provides.

MOre
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/04/1252957/-How-ObamaCare-Cancelled-Your-Plan-is-really-an-Insurance-Co-Scam-to-Rip-You-Off#

Special Investigation: How Insurers Are Hiding Obamacare Benefits From Customers

Donna received the letter canceling her insurance plan on Sept. 16. Her insurance company, LifeWise of Washington, told her that they'd identified a new plan for her. If she did nothing, she'd be covered.

A 56-year-old Seattle resident with a 57-year-old husband and 15-year-old daughter, Donna had been looking forward to the savings that the Affordable Care Act had to offer.

But that's not what she found. Instead, she'd be paying an additional $300 a month for coverage. The letter made no mention of the health insurance marketplace that would soon open in Washington, where she could shop for competitive plans, and only an oblique reference to financial help that she might qualify for, if she made the effort to call and find out.

RELATED: What Really Happens To People Whose Insurance Is 'Canceled' Because Of Obamacare

Otherwise, she'd be automatically rolled over to a new plan -- and, as the letter said, "If you're happy with this plan, do nothing." and accessed tax credits at the heart of the health care reform law.

If Donna had done nothing, she would have ended up spending about $1,000 more a month for insurance than she will now that she went to the marketplace, picked the best plan for her family and accessed tax credits at the heart of the health care reform law...

MOre..
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/insurance-companies-misleading-letters-obamacare

the insurance companies only want to profit, that Obamacare is just a set of laws regulating them?

Obamacare, the ACA is just a set of laws regulating, restricting the profit of and reducing the cost of, making the companies more responsible, these private health insurance companies...why is that so hard to message?

While making it all more affordable for millions more than before?

the truth. Bam.

Bet the Insurance companies hated the Can't be Denied For Pre-Existing Conditions, either.. thought they'd make up their money some way.. Thank you TPM!

Thanks Fred.

I've said it over and over. Problem is, not a single chickenshit talking head in the conservative mainstream media will say it.

health care in the hands of those same insurance companies. The ACA was sold to many people as a plan to FIX health insurance in America rather than a plan to TRY to limit SOME of the awful things insurance companies can do to their customers. While the ACA doesn't fix all the abuses, it does force virtually everyone into the system.

Until we drop the age requirement from Medicare and open it to all - no exceptions - we will be subject to the whims of insurance companies wanting to make it a profit.

It doesn't matter what we call the plan, if it includes a for-profit motive it is not in the interest of the country as a whole. Only the folks profiting.

"We know where his WMD's are. We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

tiny details, I know...

Still have equal insurance or better for a little less money than before the Law came to be. It's a good Republican smear line but quite divorced from reality.

My cost is up at least 20%, and my deductible has trippled. Barney Frank has also called out Obama for lying about the if you like your plan you can keep it, as well as many other democrats.

So I would bet YOU'RE divorced from reality. Health Insurance stocks are through the roof. Someone's paying for that.

a notice that they will be opting out of the exchange because they are going broke. They are telling her that her premium will now be $900 a month. She is scared to death. She does not think she has options because they are telling her she has only them.

The Obama people did not mislead anyone. They misled themselves by insisting their own plan was better than anything the government could give them.

My granddaughter teaches Navigators and my daughter is one so I asked what she can do and some DUers also helped find info. She needs to do what she should have done in the first place. The "keep your own plan" propaganda was just more anti-Obama bull.

yup

I know Frank is a moderate, but its not only the GOP who has said it

I think most American's know stuff like this goes on with the passing of any bills. But, per the job of Fox et al--they make it into a crime.... damm!


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/upshot/the-jonathan-gruber-controversy-and-washingtons-dirty-little-secret.html?_r=1&abt=0002&abg=0




......But here’s the dirty little secret: Mr. Gruber was exposing something sordid yet completely commonplace about how Congress makes policy of all types: Legislators frequently game policy to fit the sometimes arbitrary conventions by which the Congressional Budget Office evaluates laws and the public debates them.

In the case of the Affordable Care Act, that meant structuring the law so that the money Americans must pay the Internal Revenue Service if they fail to obtain health insurance under the law’s mandate is a penalty, not a tax. (The Supreme Court held that, though not a tax, the penalties were constitutional because they were an exercise of Congress’s taxing authority, which is the kind of distinction only a lawyer could come up with). That’s the reason the financial assistance the health law gives people to buy insurance is structured as a tax credit, not a direct payment, which would probably be simpler and more efficient.


And as Sarah Kliff notes at Vox, it is also why the law was structured to expand insurance coverage three years after passage. That way its cost estimate by the C.B.O. was kept under $1 trillion during the first decade after enactment. One trillion was the highest number that Democratic leaders thought was politically feasible.

This kind of gamesmanship is very much a bipartisan affair. President George W. Bush’s expansion of Medicare in 2003 was carefully designed so that its costs were backloaded, rising sharply just after its 10-year mark. Estimating costs in the 10-year window is an (arbitrary) convention for C.B.O. scoring of pending legislation. The design of the law made it seem less costly than it was expected to be over a longer time period........

As usual, the Obama "scandal" isn't much of a scandal at all.

Obviously we'd have been far better off with Single Payer, but Joe Lie-berman and a few other traitorous senators prevented that. We're left with an admittedly less than perfect law that is at least better than what we previously had, and which reigns in some of the insurance industries worst offenses against its customers. Now that the GOPers have full control of Congress they'll do anything possible to reverse even this little bit of progress.

them-that poison word--they and RW toss about the airwaves.

Gruber said something about voters being stupid.

He was right.

Look at the results of the last election.

If I had my way, students would get all of their HS years, an in depth course in current political events, the political system itself, and the role that media has taken in spreading disinformation and manipulation. It would not be an elective because it is the only way to protect a Democracy!

Gruber was talking about those he knew would support the ACA--the same people who have been voted out of office in 2010 and 2014.

bankster friends.

"It''s too complicated, just give us your money. We are not crooks"

They really are liars, with excuses made by their lap dogs.

Discussed here, of course.

Good, though! We agree that where it is about providing health _care_ it isn't about greed. (Greed is a specialty area, kind of a niche field for some, and they don't pal around any worker bees I have ever had the pleasure of working with).

But health "insurance", ah, now there we go, veering right into a cesspool of personal greed again.

I'm gonna go, don't have my boots with me.


ymmv.

understand. Especially when you have both the insurance companies, the media and the Rs distorting it to the fullest of their ability.

complication comes in when they allow the insurance companies in on the deal. Shopping on the free market is also not easy when you do not know all the rules. It is like going down the supermarket cereal aisle trying to find the best buy when you cannot read.

Plan B, limitations of the drug plans, what Part B doesn't cover, and what part A and part B cover, and penalties if you don't sign up, etc., and even the fact that in many cases the Medicare Part B is usually deducted from their social security payment, if they are collecting social security

There are all kinds of complications built into Medicare, and because you are well informed, and educated yourself it probably isn't difficult for you. For that matter, if you go to the CoveredCalifornia site for the ACA it isn't any more complicated or not complicated than Medicare.

In addition, Medicaid is not always straight forward either. If you have a home:

"The home is an excluded resource in determining Medicaid eligibility, regardless of its value. Medicaid policies protect the home for the use of recipients and certain close relatives."

However,

In 1993, Congress passed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA 93), which required states to recover Medicaid long-term care expenses from the estates of persons who received Medicaid services.

That does not mean it is a bad thing, but there are a lot of parts in both Medicare and Medicaid which can be complicated.

Obviously you have done your due diligence and homework and are well informed, but just the fact that when people first sign-up for Medicare, a lot of those folks need advice on the different options available, deadlines, etc. You have Supplemental plans, Medigap, Medicare Advantage, Prescription drug plans, etc. For some it can get quite confusing.

I agree, having insurance companies does complicate things, but so does the law itself

to understand a law or its nuances. I also think the problems were sowed when this whole thing was touted as 'healthcare reform' when, in reality, at most it was 'health insurance reform.' Universal single-payer, now that is healthcare reform. ACA, while many of its particulars are laudable, merely reforms an already-extant system but does little or nothing to modify the deep structure of healthcare in this nation. (At least that's my layperson's self-taught understanding.)

least have an opportunity not only to get coverage, but to also get preventive care and vaccinations

it was going to be complicated based on the simple reality that it is a LOT of people.

Add in that single payer, the more common sense, basic and simple system was ruled out from jump street because for some god unknown reason the people of this country need to have insurers making money as the middle men, and that makes it even worse.

that was really just campaign rhetoric I suppose.

they would have pressed their elected officials to support a single payer system not to mention the republicans wouldnt be in control of congress and soon the senate as well.

Deal with HR 3200, this bill did not pass but they are still lying.

to Rahm's brother about not writing OPs in which he advocates dying at 75. You are just giving them ammunition.