Even people opposed to Obamacare are signing up for it, sometimes without knowing that they are.
Kevin Drum recently highlighted a great story from Time about how people who don’t like president Obama or his signature health care law are none the less signing up for it. Time highlighted a family out of Ohio, the Recchis, that were in desperate need of health insurance but wanted nothing to do with Obamacare:
The Recchis now know all that, and they’re fully insured for 2014. But it took a while. When we spoke in October and Stephanie told me she didn’t “think Obamacare will help us,” I suggested that she might be mistaken and that if she was unable to get information from the then sputtering website she should consult an insurance broker. (Insurers pay the brokers’ fees, not consumers.)
“When they came to my office, Stephanie told me right up front, ‘I don’t want any part of Obamacare,’ ” recalls health-insurance agent Barry Cohen. “These were clearly people who don’t like the President. So I kind of let that slide and just asked them for basic information and told them we would go on the Ohio exchange”–which is actually the Ohio section of the federal Obamacare exchange–“and show them what’s available.”
What Stephanie soon discovered, she told me in mid-November, “was a godsend.”
This sort of political dynamic gives us a good idea of what the end game of the Obamacare Wars might look like. Plenty of conservatives and others will continue to oppose the idea of “Obamacare” in polls and interviews while also taking advantage of things like the new online exchanges to compare plans or the new rule allowing children to stay on their parents plans until they are 25. This won’t make the term “Obamacare” poll any better as time goes on, but even when president Obama’s political opponents refer to the effects of his signature domestic achievement as “a godsend” it sure seems like a repeal will be impossible.
Obamacare is here to stay. Health care will still remain a major issue in American politics but future political battles around health care will be about how to change the current system that includes things like exchanges, individual mandates, and subsidies. The same way that the health care battles in 2009 and 2010 were about changing a system that included things like Medicare and COBRA. But that doesn’t mean the term Obamacare will become popular anytime soon.
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One of the things that’s bothering is that when some of us present documented information which counters that which is presented in an article, the conversation stops.This venue is that which should promote a dialogue between people with differing views.
ACA is headline news, statistics are showing that a majority of Americans have issues with it, yet there is pretty much silence from the GMP readership. It’s mind boggling to me.
Crickets often chirp when someone comes with hard data.
I do think it’s just common decency to at least respond when someone complies with your demand to provide empirical evidence. I don’t expect anyone to change their mind on a dime, but saying something like “Thanks, I’ll consider it” and then actually considering it would be nice.
However, I’ve learned not to hold my breath. The type of person who would approvingly link to Think Progress is typically not an honest broker. I respond for the sake of others who might be reading. I don’t want to leave the impression that there is no answer to such viewpoints.
Thanks to everyone for commenting on this thread. I guess in response to these criticisms I would say that I don’t think some epic back and forth comment thread over the merits/horrors of Obamacare is some vitally necessary thing. Much of our political media has been doing this for years now and though I am willing to go once more around the barn on this, that’s not exactly a major priority of mine. The big point about links is not to prove or disprove the arguments about the Affordable Care Act or whatever, rather it’s a point about better comments… Read more »
I appreciate you getting back to me, even if it took a few days. I make an effort to use facts I know I can back up if needed, but if I were to cite every single fact I use, it would take far more time than it’s worth, particularly if we’re talking about facts that are common knowledge. Still, if someone’s skeptical and asks for a source, I’ll gladly find it. “Likewise I didn’t respond to most of these comments cause they didn’t strike me as being really germane to the article or what I’d said. Like when I… Read more »
Evan said ” The problem is that Medicaid reimburses much lower than private insurance in most states. Depending on which state you live, that can make it awfully hard to find a doctor and if you do, well, someone has to pay the difference, whether it’s the doctors themselves, the hospitals, or non-Medicaid patients.” This is called cost shifting and it’s been happening for years. Accordingly, “cost shifting” ultimately results in an increase of “usual and customary” costs for services in the private sector.
Something that was very telling is “Men will face the steepest increases:77, 37, and 47 percent for 27 year olds, and 64 year olds, respectively. Women will also face increases but to a lesser degree: 18%, 28% and 37% for 27 -40, and 64 year olds”
Another thing that was mentioned was President Obama changing the law. Once it became law, president or not, he has no authority to do so.
Some numbers are in- 24 percent of enrollees on the exchanges are young adults between 18 and 35, they needed 40 percent of exchange sign-ups to come from this age group to hold down premiums.
Also- Moody’s just downgraded health insurers due to the risks created by this abomination of a law- thats not a good thing unless you are one of those people who believe the ACA was some kind of a long con leading down the path to a single payer (which they could have passed anyway because the ACA passed without a single R vote)
Colo. Division of Insurance confirms ACA cancellations 34% higher than previously believed, now at 335,000 cancellations. So, ACA was to cover the “uninsured” but I’m not sure that its intent was to increase the uninsured.
The numbers are not in and given that we now have a transparent government, I presume we will see true numbers soon.
John, you mentioned the medicaid expansion …. this means the plans are going to be subsidized. Where do you think this money comes from?
If people have been kicked off their old plans after a certain fraud promised otherwise, they won’t have much choice but to enroll in the exchanges. And of course you can find some people who are better off mostly thanks to subsidies on the taxpayer’s dime. You can also find a lot of people who are seeing their premiums double or worse with increasing deductibles, some of whom were supporters of the law. There are a lot more losers in this system than winners.
Do you have empirical evidence to back that up? I’ve heard these sorts of claims a million times, but nobody ever links to anything. For example the law has already cut West Virgina’s uninsured population by a third: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/01/21/3184311/west-virginia-medicaid-expansion/
My deductible went from 2500 to 6750.
JTCC, your story is similar to many. I’m not sure what “affordable” is supposed to mean.
Empirical evidence? Sure. As for using the term “fraud”, there are a million videos of Obama unequivocally promising that nobody who likes their insurance will lose it. He in fact went out of his way to be unequivocal. I doubt I need to post any Youtube links. They’re easily available. In 2010, HHS released guidelines for grandfathering restrictions and estimated that 10s of millions of people would end up losing their insurance. The House tried to force them to loosen the guidelines, but Democrats opposed it. If that is not fraud, then the word has been stripped of all meaning.… Read more »
Evan just gave you data on all 50 states. I think that trumps your WV link.
You People ™ lost the election. Twice. You People ™ lost in court. The rest of us are evolving into mammals. Join us!
“You people?” Making some assumptions, aren’t you?
In other words, might is right? That’s a poor defense of a law that is doing the exact opposite of everything we were promised.
I’m not sure of the point of the article.