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"Going to have those reports finished by the deadline, Johnson?" "Yes sir, I just have to move the deadline back and make changes to what qualifies as a 'report'" "Excellent work, Johnson! Victory all around!"

In their defense, I've done that a dozen times...

 Easy E wrote:
Sebs, you are wasting your time. This thread stopped being anything useful on page 2.

No matter what story about ACA breaks, it will be a disaster and a sign that ACA is failing. That will be the narrative through 2014 and the elections at the minimum because the Conservatives don't have anything else to run with.

You mean like;
- a website that kept crashing
- a website that did not pass along the proper information to insurers
- a website that was shown to have massive security flaws that do not yet appear to be addressed
- the huge cost of the website that seems to have been a no bid contract, and the huge cost to repair it after it was found wanting
- a law that compels people to act contrary to their honest held religious beliefs, in spite of promises to the contrary
- not being able to keep your plan if you liked it
- doctors and hospitals not taking people under the ACA
- an employer mandate that keeps getting deferred and deferred unilaterally and with no oversight
- an Administration that only managed to meet its self imposed target of 7 million sign ups (for something that is pretty much mandatory) after pushing back the deadline time and time again

And all this before we get to the economy, the fight over immigration reform, and foreign policy?

Yet despite all of that:
- We no longer have pre-existing condition clauses
-Students (and others) can get insurance prior to employment up to 26
- Expanded Medicare in several states
-Some actual standards for what is minimum health insurance coverage
-Removed the Golden Handcuff where health insurance is tied to employment
- The first actual attempt at Healthcare reform since Truman brought up the issue in 1945

But yeah, we should throw all of that out because of a flawed roll-out for a website. That makes total sense.

Oh wait, I just fell back into your trap. I just responded and am letting you pull me into your insane world! What have I done!

 Easy E wrote:
Yet despite all of that:
- We no longer have pre-existing condition clauses

What's to say that Congress could do that w/o the ACA?

-Students (and others) can get insurance prior to employment up to 26

What's to say that Congress could do that w/o the ACA?

- Expanded Medicare in several states

Sounds great... does anyone understand the cost implication of this?

-Some actual standards for what is minimum health insurance coverage

ALL states already requires minimum coverages prior to ACA.

-Removed the Golden Handcuff where health insurance is tied to employment

Why is this Universally panned as a bad idea...???

- The first actual attempt at Healthcare reform since Truman brought up the issue in 1945

Que? It's been tinkered like no tomorrow... then BLAMMO, ACA fubar'ed it all up.

But yeah, we should throw all of that out because of a flawed roll-out for a website. That makes total sense.

Oh wait, I just fell back into your trap. I just responded and am letting you pull me into your insane world! What have I done!

I think most Democrats wished that they rammed through single-payer instead.

 Easy E wrote:
But yeah, we should throw all of that out because of a flawed roll-out for a website. That makes total sense.

That is fantastic, it is almost as if you read my post, and ignored half of it to put forward your own pre-prepared argument. Bravo.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Easy E wrote:
Yet despite all of that:
- We no longer have pre-existing condition clauses
-Students (and others) can get insurance prior to employment up to 26
- Expanded Medicare in several states
-Some actual standards for what is minimum health insurance coverage
-Removed the Golden Handcuff where health insurance is tied to employment
- The first actual attempt at Healthcare reform since Truman brought up the issue in 1945

Or we could have had all this, but without the current legislation and the problems that it has brought.

- We no longer have pre-existing condition clauses
***A good thing

-Students (and others) can get insurance prior to employment up to 26
***A decent thing I guess. Fly little birds fly! And get your stuff out of my disco lounge, er your former bedroom!

- Expanded Medicare in several states
***BAD (and its MediCaid actually, Medicare is for retired people and isn’t that bad actually). MediCaid is like Soviet Healthcare. Bad and you have to wait for it. We can’t do better then absolute garbage?

-Some actual standards for what is minimum health insurance coverage
***No one had cited this as being a problem before, but ok, I’ll agree on this one.

-Removed the Golden Handcuff where health insurance is tied to employment
***It did the opposite by reducing the market of available competitors. You could always get private insurance and this didn’t change anything except reduce competitors.

- The first actual attempt at Healthcare reform since Truman brought up the issue in 1945
***Well you’re forgetting Medicare and MediCaid (1966) and the donut hole issue which was fixed under Bush.

 Frazzled wrote:
- Expanded Medicare in several states
***BAD (and its MediCaid actually, Medicare is for retired people and isn’t that bad actually). MediCaid is like Soviet Healthcare. Bad and you have to wait for it. We can’t do better then absolute garbage?

Source is 4chan, but it is an interesting read about how JUST the aging prison population will cost 82 billion
http://talesof4chan.org/2014/04/08/pol-discovers-an-82-billion-dollar-hole-in-obamacare/

 Frazzled wrote:
Which is what should have been done, or heaven's to Betsy, set up a team to stupdy the 5 best systems in the world and implement what they learned.

Many policy analysts have been paid to study the US healthcare system since healthcare reform became an issue in the 60's. And yes, they have studied the best systems in the world.

The problem isn't a lack of knowledge, it is a lack political support.

 Frazzled wrote:

 sebster wrote:

I remember you asking why you were supposed to care that millions of people who weren't you didn't have insurance. Now that ACA reduces the number of uninsured, you claim the problem is that it doesn't do enough of it.

People seem to forget I'm the guy wanting the Canadian system. More lies from the uninvolved Aussie.

You're really going to accuse someone making a statement from their own memory of being a liar?

Good luck with that.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
I'm a Libertarian and support a Canadian system, better then the gak we're fething with now!



Of course in return I think we need to dismantle significant other parts of government with a bulldozer packing flamethrowers

haha... yeah...

how obama messed this up, didnt make the system an "all in" real solution like has been shown to work in numerous countries,

yet its still "mandatory"

just the fact that the 30 million or so who are uninsured are now paying what is in essence a tax on those least able to pay taxes, is enough to be a problem not worth "white washing" as all these people who are just blindly supporting this act.

 Frazzled wrote:
People seem to forget I'm the guy wanting the Canadian system. More lies from the uninvolved Aussie.

In none of the ACA threads you didn't question why we need to cover the uninsured? I must have been thinking of someone else. My mistake then and I apologise, but no need to call it a lie.


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 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
You mean aside from people involved in fixing the website that was terribly designed, had serious problems, and lots of security flaws, and the insurance companies themselves who all said that there were issues with receiving the notifications of who had enrolled, and their details? Those people who voiced concerns that enrollee data was not being passed along so that applications could not be completed.

Yeah, the poor roll out of the website is totally relevant to the rate payment received by the insurance companies. Good job there.

So, back to my initial question which you seem determined to avoid as is habitual: do we have any numbers for the people who have not made their first payment? Yes or No.

85% have made their first payment. How do you not fething know that by now?

What we do not have is the percentage of people who have reached their first payment and made it.

It was claimed that we wouldn't know until 30+ days have passed, for those who enrolled at the start that deadline is long gone. So is the information there?

There is absolutely zero reporting of a material numbers of policies reaching their first payment and defaulting. Unless you believe the insurance companies are absorbing hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid premiums and not telling anyone about, there is no reason to believe that a material number of policies are reaching their first payment date and not making payment.

My side? You're going to have to extrapolate a little more on that Seb. Especially as this was not something I was making a huge deal about because of the constant pushing back of the enrollment date.
You mean the enrollment issue where the goalposts were shifted until it was almost guaranteed that the Administration would get the numbers that it wanted (still short of the number of actual uninsured)? If you want to count that as a victory then you are more than welcome to

Victory? See that's the damn problem, people like you picking and choosing arguments to try and score a 'win' for team 'boo aca'... and then assuming that anyone who disagrees with you must be cheering for team 'yay aca'.

Which means people like me who just want to talk about the reality of the policy end up hitting a brick wall.

Not sure why you stuck a repeated reply to Frazz in the middle of replying to me

I just roll down the page, quoting as I go. If that causes a problem I can change my method.

Oh look, someone determined to miss the point and take an obviously humorous aside that was a reply to someone else as a "debating point"
Does Australian healthcare cover your sense of humor? If so you might want to go get yours checked

"Oh look, I gave a terrible argument that's exactly the same as nonsense I tried before, only this time I was joking haha fool on you for not realising this time I was being ironically stupid."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Easy E wrote:
Sebs, you are wasting your time. This thread stopped being anything useful on page 2.

No matter what story about ACA breaks, it will be a disaster and a sign that ACA is failing. That will be the narrative through 2014 and the elections at the minimum because the Conservatives don't have anything else to run with.

Yeah, you know that RAND corporation study - the one linked by Whembly with its claim that only 800k of the subscribers were previously uninsured. Well the actual report is out now, and it states that there is, to date, a net increase in insured people of 9.3m, and decrease in the rate of uninsured from 20.5% to 15.8%.

Funny that hasn't been linked to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
What's to say that Congress could do that w/o the ACA?

Oh we've been over this so many times. I mean come on.

Once again...

If you prevent insurance companies from denying people who have pre-existing conditions, then people will just wait until they're sick before they take out insurance. This is the New York screw up, and it's a proper death spiral - a lot of healthy opt out knowing they can opt in if they get sick, rates rise for people still in the system, so more healthy people leave, and so rates rise and so on... death spiral.

To prevent that you need to actually make healthy people buy in to the system. This means you need a mandate of some kind.

But lots of people can't afford insurance off their own bat - a household with income of 30 or 40k will find the cost of insurance crippling, and so you have to include subsidies so that lower income people can afford insurance.


And oh look, I've just described ACA. Now, there are other ways to build a workable healthcare system that bans denial for pre-existing conditions, but they all involve way more government interference and money. When ACA got decried as socialism, then I'm going to go out on a limb and say that offering a basic, universal level of cover for all citizens with a private system as an option above that is basically a non-starter.

85% have made their first payment. How do you not fething know that by now?

So its 15% short of being fully funding itself...

 Jihadin wrote:
So its 15% short of being fully funding itself...

And that 15% haven't paid because their first payment hasn't become due yet, because they've only enrolled in the last few weeks. As already explained dozens of times now.

This is the debate that doesn't end, yes it goes round and round my friend. Some people made up some nonsense months ago, not knowing anything about ACA, and they'll continue repeating that nonsense just because...

 sebster wrote:

This is the debate that doesn't end, yes it goes round and round my friend. Some people made up some nonsense months ago, not knowing anything about ACA[u], and they'll continue repeating that nonsense just because...

Case in point:

Some people made up some nonsense months ago, not knowing anything about ACA[u], and they'll continue repeating that nonsense just because...

Think you two need to research a bit more.

Example so far from a first hit

75% Fully Paid
10% Unpaid because payment isn't even due yet (Feb/March-start dates) (NOT a legitimate attack point...yet)
5% Unpaid due to internal Insurance Company technical/paperwork issues (NOT a legitimate attack point)
5% Unpaid due to Exchange technical/paperwork issues (legitimate attack point)
3% Unpaid due to Confusion about the Payment Process; shared responsibility between Companies, Exchanges & Customer (possible legitimate attack point)
2% Unpaid due to Deadbeat/Procrastinating Customers (possible legitimate point...but what was the industry average for deadbeats pre-ACA?)

That's from a left leaning site. I believe you two are going to stick with this one


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Since this is no longer insuring those who cannot get medical insurance

 Jihadin wrote:
Think you two need to research a bit more.

Are you kidding me? You post a quote from the website I keep linking people to over and over again in this thread, saying exactly what I've been saying over and over again, as some kind of rebuttal.

What in the feth is going on here?


And if you want to talk about his breakdown of the numbers - they're total guesses. The text directly before the bit you quoted says;
"I think it's safe to assume that the breakdown is probably along the lines of:"

So is it a 2% delinquency... maybe, that seems about par for most industries, and any health industry specific data would basically be meaningless- "2.3% of enrollments will be delinquent because 2.3% of enrollments are always bad in healthcare" tells us nothing about ACA.

Point is, we don't have a breakdown for the 85% (note it's moved from the 75% figure as time has progressed and more people's claims have been processed and their first payments fallen due). Now, that doesn't mean that those numbers are a sensible chance of being totally outrageous and terrible - there is absolutely nothing indicating the default rates will be anything different to what they've always been.

The only reason anyone is talking about default rates at all is because some people posted a misleading figure, "85% haven't paid", some other people didn't realise they were being scammed, and are now inventing all kinds of weirdness to think their way out of the basic reality that they were sold a lie.

 Jihadin wrote:
So its 15% short of being fully funding itself...

It would be nowhere close to funding itself even if everybody in it was all paid up. Don't forget we're subsidizing a lot of those people.

I was waiting until SW spoke up on cost .

 sebster wrote:

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
You mean aside from people involved in fixing the website that was terribly designed, had serious problems, and lots of security flaws, and the insurance companies themselves who all said that there were issues with receiving the notifications of who had enrolled, and their details? Those people who voiced concerns that enrollee data was not being passed along so that applications could not be completed.

Yeah, the poor roll out of the website is totally relevant to the rate payment received by the insurance companies. Good job there.

I know you excel at missing the point at times in this topic so perhaps a refresher is in order;
You asked "What made you even think there was going to be some vast mass of people who would never make the first payment?"
And the answer as shown above was: people with a lot of experience and with a background in insurance voiced concerns about the website not passing along information so that people who registered may not get enrolled because of missing, incomplete data.

Clearly there is some correlation between an insurance company not getting details of people who have signed up, and people not making the first payment.

 sebster wrote:
85% have made their first payment. How do you not fething know that by now?

What we do not have is the percentage of people who have reached their first payment and made it.

So we do have that data. This was the question that sparked our current exchange, see how easy it would have been to maybe just address that instead of going down your usual invective laded rants?
Maybe it is because I'm tired but if we know that 85% have made their first payment (and the source for this please), what does your second sentence (about reaching the first payment and making it) mean?

 sebster wrote:
There is absolutely zero reporting of a material numbers of policies reaching their first payment and defaulting. Unless you believe the insurance companies are absorbing hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid premiums and not telling anyone about, there is no reason to believe that a material number of policies are reaching their first payment date and not making payment.

But 85% of enrolees have made their first payment according to you, so if the numbers are not there how did we arrive at 85% figure for people who have made their first payment?
I don't know whether the insurance companies are, or are not absorbing unpaid claims. All I want is the data to see if there is an issue with people being able to pay their premiums. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not even touching your Rumsfeldian evidence gathering technique

 sebster wrote:

My side? You're going to have to extrapolate a little more on that Seb. Especially as this was not something I was making a huge deal about because of the constant pushing back of the enrollment date.
You mean the enrollment issue where the goalposts were shifted until it was almost guaranteed that the Administration would get the numbers that it wanted (still short of the number of actual uninsured)? If you want to count that as a victory then you are more than welcome to

Victory? See that's the damn problem, people like you picking and choosing arguments to try and score a 'win' for team 'boo aca'... and then assuming that anyone who disagrees with you must be cheering for team 'yay aca'.

Coming from the person who demanded to know if I was conceding a point in the exchange just prior to this? And I thought the stereotype was that Americans didn't do irony. Maybe the English banned it from export to their colonies
Picking and choosing arguments? Really? Trying to reach for accusations of bad faith? I'd be curious to see examples of what you believe to be picking and choosing from myself in this thread. What I wanted is healthcare reform that works, whether or not that is the ACA remains to be seen - especially given the rocky start

 sebster wrote:
I just roll down the page, quoting as I go. If that causes a problem I can change my method.

Maybe proof reading?
(that was a joke)

 sebster wrote:

Oh look, someone determined to miss the point and take an obviously humorous aside that was a reply to someone else as a "debating point"
Does Australian healthcare cover your sense of humor? If so you might want to go get yours checked

"Oh look, I gave a terrible argument that's exactly the same as nonsense I tried before, only this time I was joking haha fool on you for not realising this time I was being ironically stupid."

"Oh look, I have egg on my face because I was determined to take a comment out of context and it backfired. Guess I'd better double down and try and pretend I have the moral high ground"
This is fun I can see why you do it when you're shown to be wrong. But if you keep wanting to believe that a joke comment to another user, complete with laughing Ork face, was actually a "debating point" then more power to you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihadin wrote:
Think you two need to research a bit more.

Example so far from a first hit

75% Fully Paid
10% Unpaid because payment isn't even due yet (Feb/March-start dates) (NOT a legitimate attack point...yet)
5% Unpaid due to internal Insurance Company technical/paperwork issues (NOT a legitimate attack point)
5% Unpaid due to Exchange technical/paperwork issues (legitimate attack point)
3% Unpaid due to Confusion about the Payment Process; shared responsibility between Companies, Exchanges & Customer (possible legitimate attack point)
2% Unpaid due to Deadbeat/Procrastinating Customers (possible legitimate point...but what was the industry average for deadbeats pre-ACA?)

That's from a left leaning site. I believe you two are going to stick with this one

 sebster wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Think you two need to research a bit more.

Are you kidding me? You post a quote from the website I keep linking people to over and over again in this thread, saying exactly what I've been saying over and over again, as some kind of rebuttal.

What in the feth is going on here?

And if you want to talk about his breakdown of the numbers - they're total guesses. The text directly before the bit you quoted says;
"I think it's safe to assume that the breakdown is probably along the lines of:"

Good question Seb, what is going on here. Lets look at your source:
http://acasignups.net/14/02/13/ny-times-supports-my-conclusions-80-jan-start-enrollees-paid

It appears that you've been linking to a site that only stands by a figure of 75% overall being fully paid compared to your 85% figure. Funny enough the 85% figure only seems to be mentioned in direct relation to Wisconsin (http://acasignups.net/14/02/13/how-many-have-actually-paid-revisited), not the entire country. Your source also concedes that people have not been able to make a payment in part because of the website which is a point you have been fighting tooth and nail.

And you have been telling us that everyone else is acting in bad faith and you only want to talk about reality, after you've picked and choose the evidence to suit your argument.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
Good question Seb, what is going on here. Lets look at your source:
http://acasignups.net/14/02/13/ny-times-supports-my-conclusions-80-jan-start-enrollees-paid

It appears that you've been linking to a site that only stands by a figure of 75% overall being fully paid compared to your 85% figure. Funny enough the 85% figure only seems to be mentioned in direct relation to Wisconsin (http://acasignups.net/14/02/13/how-many-have-actually-paid-revisited), not the entire country. Your source also concedes that people have not been able to make a payment in part because of the website which is a point you have been fighting tooth and nail.

And you have been telling us that everyone else is acting in bad faith and you only want to talk about reality, after you've picked and choose the evidence to suit your argument.

I don't think you're going to get through without a pithy image meme.

Though the broader question at play here is why this discussion even matters at this point. The people against it aren't going to magically turn into being for it because massive delays and expenditures just might have gotten enough people to sign up to hit the low target, because the program doesn't suddenly start working cheaply once that target's hit. What's going to happen to premiums next year? And, as a result, what's going to happen to our liability as tax payers to subsidize everybody when their premiums skyrocket?

Similarly, the people who are for it aren't going to suddenly turn against it just because it proves to be more expensive and less successful than promised. If nothing in the past three years has convinced them everything's not as above board as claimed, nothing happening now or coming in the future will do so.

 Seaward wrote:
I don't think you're going to get through without a pithy image meme.

Funny, I have a particular one in mind too

 Seaward wrote:
Though the broader question at play here is why this discussion even matters at this point. The people against it aren't going to magically turn into being for it because massive delays and expenditures just might have gotten enough people to sign up to hit the low target, because the program doesn't suddenly start working cheaply once that target's hit. What's going to happen to premiums next year? And, as a result, what's going to happen to our liability as tax payers to subsidize everybody when their premiums skyrocket?

Similarly, the people who are for it aren't going to suddenly turn against it just because it proves to be more expensive and less successful than promised. If nothing in the past three years has convinced them everything's not as above board as claimed, nothing happening now or coming in the future will do so.

What gets me is people claiming that the discussion is over, that because the ACA hit the low low figure of 7 million sign ups (after numerous deferments) it is a success. The true impact has yet to be felt. And provisions like the forever delayed employer mandate have yet to go into effect. Not to mention the various law suits still pending.

Can't we just do simple math?

At one point, 40 million people were w/o insurance.

I remember reading an study (I believe by RAND) that 1.7 million of the 7.1 millions "signups" didn't have insurance prior to the ACA.

1.7 out of 40 million...

Not exactly something to be proud of...

We can do better.

 whembly wrote:
We can do better.

Which is, I believe, what most people want. People want those without insurance to be insured. The issue is that the ACA does not seem like the vehicle to do it.

But pointing this out in some circles means that you don't want people to have healthcare, or you're just an evil conservative

Dreadclaw's evil!

 whembly wrote:
Can't we just do simple math?

At one point, 40 million people were w/o insurance.

I remember reading an study (I believe by RAND) that 1.7 million of the 7.1 millions "signups" didn't have insurance prior to the ACA.

1.7 out of 40 million...

Not exactly something to be proud of...

We can do better.

Does that count the people who lost the plans they could keep?

 Frazzled wrote:
Dreadclaw's evil!

Only before my morning coffee


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Does that count the people who lost the plans they could keep?

Well, if you make previously insured people uninsured and then force them onto ACA plans then surely that makes them uninsured

(Seb, please note that this is a joke and not a debating point)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sebster wrote:
So is it a 2% delinquency... maybe, that seems about par for most industries, and any health industry specific data would basically be meaningless- "2.3% of enrollments will be delinquent because 2.3% of enrollments are always bad in healthcare" tells us nothing about ACA.

I like that the 2% delinquency for "Deadbeat/Procrastinating customers" you refer to manages to ignore the figures above it, namely the 5% [u]npaid due to Exchange technical/paperwork issues, and those unpaid due to the confusion over payment (3%) which may in part be due to the complexity of the ACA.

Remind me again Seb who was picking and choosing what again?

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 whembly wrote:
We can do better.

Which is, I believe, what most people want. People want those without insurance to be insured. The issue is that the ACA does not seem like the vehicle to do it.

But pointing this out in some circles means that you don't want people to have healthcare, or you're just an evil conservative

I know... I may want everyone to have universal health care on par or better then my countries, and despite me only ever voting LIBERAL,

my questioning of effectiveness/viability of the ACA and my absolute disgust at the fact that it imposed a tax/fine on those least able to afford insurance, let alone another fine/tax,

makes me an evil republican tea party nixon clone who sleeps with hitler.

Alright After much Goole-Fu'ing and word play to get Google search to come up with break downs. On quite a few, and its quite a few pages/source. One can no longer enroll into ACA for the year? Almost midnight when I was looking so my reading comprehension might have been off..

You can still enroll if you have a Life Change.

(Get married, lose your job, get a job)

I wonder how many people are just refusing to comply.