Comments on: Changes In Work Hours and Employer Insurance Not Borne Out

By: Perry

Perry — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 20:00:26 +0000

“As these papers underscore, the ACA is working.”

That’s funny, many of the patients I see in my Occ Med practice are middle to lower income factory workers. Many still don’t have insurance because they can’t afford it. Some are fortunate enough to have it provided through work, but not that many. There are also quite a few on Medicaid.
Then, when I talk to friends and colleagues who are higher wage earners, most have insurance but the rates and costs for medical care have increased significantly.
By the way, you can’t say that people are getting preventive care at no cost. It’s being taken out in premiums if not being paid out by the patient. Do you think providers are dong things for free? Do you think insurance companies are that benevolent?
17.6 million have insurance. Are these all new? Does this include marketplace and Medicaid? Are these estimates of those signed up only or those that are still paying premiums? Are these people all getting or able to afford the care they need?

By: anishkoka

anishkoka — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 14:07:28 +0000

There’s no question the ACA has expanded the insurance pool, and some of the dire predictions from conservatives about destruction of the US economy proved to be false. Yippee. The bigger question, though, is at what cost? I was/am a supporter of pooling risk among the uninsured, mandatory payments to make it work…but it has to be within a cost framework that makes sense. Maybe the ship will right itself but…the ACA has been almost singlehandedly responsible for bending up the health care cost curve (http://bit.ly/1mFP9e4), and the revenue in the form of various taxes (Cadillac tax, health insurance company tax, medical device company tax, reducing overpayment to medicare advantage plans – http://bit.ly/1kLHLMW) that was supposed to help fund the ~1 trillion dollar over 10 year cost of the ACA have (as of now) vanished. (https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2015/12/17/the-magical-world-of-aca-funding/)

So we have covered more people and there are fewer uninsured hospital stays, etc. by spending a lot of money. Great. Who is going to pay for all this?

By: Allan

Allan — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 21:06:03 +0000

The ACA is an abysmal failure and all those associated with the ACA should be ashamed. The ACA’s reduction in the uninsured relies mostly upon Medicaid and high subsidies, but didn’t do much good for most of the middle class that now pay more. Even some in the lower income groups can applaud the ACA for making them lose otherwise good insurance only to find themselves on Medicaid.