Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

John wrote:

CrosstimbersOkie wrote:

Obamacare was designed to deliver both affordable premiums and reduced costs, and as implemented it will do both if properly implemented as intended. Obamacare does provide cost savings to employers and insurance companies by permitting massive annual deductibles for Bronze level plans - this shifts the costs of getting sick from the insurance company, and from the employer, to the patient. The premiums to the patients for bronze level plans are also very affordable.

Platinum and Gold level plans provide marginally lower, but still very large, deductibles and co-pays, but the premiums sky rocket.

Nice bit of sarcasm! I love it. It almost sounds like the insurance companies are the actual force behind Obama Care... Surely not.

The insurance companies are facing financial disaster because the only
new people signing up are sick and have pre-existing conditions. The
state budgets are facing financial disaster because there are hundreds
of thousands of people signing up for free Medicaid. The web site has
no chance of working well by Dec 1. Nixon's wage-price controls were
a disaster for the economy, but this is much worse. The stupidity of
anyone who thought this would ever work is cavernous, and the people
who continue to push this program are nothing but criminals, and
deserve to be jailed or shot.

Reality Check wrote:Generational divide on the Obamacare issue is striking.

Generation X Democrats, like those in the White House, have gone into attack and outright lies mode on this one.

Generation Xers are attacking those who have their insurance canceled, and complain about it to the press, as a moronic minority of a minority ( some part of 15 Million people - which is less than 5% of the total population ) so the press should ignore them.

Generation Xers have also labeled all the policies being canceled as "junk policies" that "sometimes" ( the sometimes is usually omitted from the attacks when repeated by the press ) do not even cover hospitalization. The owners of these policies being canceled are also too stupid to appreciate that Obamacare has saved them from these junk policies and too lazy to shop around and locate "quality insurance" policies to replace them.

The big lie in all this is that the policies being canceled are mostly junk policies. Insurance companies manage risk and some individuals do not abuse insurance, even if they have a chronic illness, and they are good risks, and their premiums are lower than the premiums of say a habitual drug addict might be. Replacement policies must accept drug addicts with many serious health issues and long time good customers at the same premium levels.

Older Democrats, like the talking head consultants on news programs, are admitting that the Obamacare is causing "disruptions" in the insurance market, and that it is "unfortunate" that the President of the United States misled this minority into thinking they could keep insurance policies that they liked and that worked for them. The President meant well, but he should have used more "precise" language. The Older Democrats are also admitting that when change happens sometimes good people get hurt. It is just "a price we have to pay" to get beyond these disruptions to the promised land of Obamacare.

Different ways to put lipstick on a pig.

Reality Check wrote:
The insurance companies - and large employers with large historic employee health care costs - appear to be the winners in all this.

They had three years to prepare. They are still fee enterprise entities and they are free to take advantage - or make mistakes - when change is imposed. But both the large Employers and the Insurance Companies that were smart about managing this change are set to make huge profits off this.

Growth of small companies - the low cost competitors of large companies has been stunted by Obamacare.

Smart, productive, employee have stayed with the big companies due to fear of the unknown, and because small competitors were not hiring full time employees.

Obamacare has given large employers the excuse to massively increase annual deductibles and co-pays, thus shifting health care costs from the employer, to the employee, and driving most employees away from going to the doctor and hospital except when they are extremely sick, and in addition it has become acceptable for large employers to drop health care for part time employees, and cut the hours of part timers back to less than 29 hours a week. Taken together all these changes will cut large employer benefit costs drastically and boost the profits of large employers.

Insurance companies have been able to use this as an excuse to drop expensive hospitals and expensive doctors from their networks, not only for those on Obamacare, but also for those on Medicare, and also for those on Employer sponsored health care plans, and for those insurance companies who play in the Medicaid Market, they can do the same for Medicaid in some states.

At the same time insurance companies have been free to stop issuing policies on a selective county by county, and a state by state basis. Some will guess right and some will guess wrong on these actions. There will be winners and losers. Insurers were free to cancel policies and use Obamacare as an excuse. Their replacement policies being new policies, fall under a different set state rules, in those states where insurance premium rates are regulated, such as California, there will be no premium increase requests to be approved, limited, or disapproved ( the new Obamacare policies were different beasts with no history - and thus - no increase ).

State insurance regulators were out of their league on these changes. When the annual deductible goes up by a factor of five ( 5 ) times and the premium goes down by a couple of dollars a month - is that a rate decrease? Maybe under state rules, but it is a massive profit increase for the insurance company - and that is exactly what is happening in the individual insurance market.

The largest part of the insurance market, by far, is the employer plans ( 80% of the market ? ), many of these plans will keep the same premiums from last year while doubling or tippling the out of pocket costs for health care. Even after sharing some of those savings with some of the more savy employers, the profits of the insurance companies serving that huge section of the health insurance market will surge. As will the profits of the self insured employers.

Even though the insurance companies stand to lose some policies from people who they canceled , andjust go without insurance, the profit increases for the insurance companies should be massive.

CrosstimbersOkie wrote:
This Gen Xer, and nearly all the ones he knows, are a bit Libertarian and have little use for Obama or his care.