Minn. health care exchange's rates lowest so far

[SMGS127]

finance.yahoo.com/news/minn-health-care-exchanges-rates-202909308.html

The lowest-cost option of $90.59 a month applies to a 25-year-old non-smoker who lives in the Twin Cities. The highest individual rate that’s listed in Commerce Department materials was $407.51 a month for a 60-year-old in the Twin Cities who opts for a “platinum” plan. The plans are divided into four categories — bronze, silver, gold and platinum, which are based on the percentage of an enrollee’s health costs that the plan will cover.
The rate structures are complicated and depend on participants’ ages, the number of people in their household and where they live.
Under the rate structure, a family of four with an annual household income below $31,300 would likely qualify for free health insurance. Free coverage would also extend to individuals earning between $15,000 and $17,000.

 

[St_Stoli]

finance.yahoo.com/news/minn-health-care-exchanges-rates-202909308.html

This is really super. I heard something about it in passing on television, but I was busy cooking dinner so I didn’t hear the whole thing. The broadcast mentioned that the costs nationally would be “much lower than originally projected.”

Thanks for the link! I really look forward to more good news on this.

 

[SMGS127]

This is really super. I heard something about it in passing on television, but I was busy cooking dinner so I didn’t hear the whole thing. The broadcast mentioned that the costs nationally would be “much lower than originally projected.”

Thanks for the link! I really look forward to more good news on this.

Yeah I’m hoping that more good news comes out too. A lot of scary projections about rates from the health care law have not come to pass. So here’s hoping that the birth control requirement gets slashed by the Supreme Court but the rest of the law stays intact .

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah I’m hoping that more good news comes out too. A lot of scary projections about rates from the health care law have not come to pass. So here’s hoping that the birth control requirement gets slashed by the Supreme Court but the rest of the law stays intact .

The proof is in the reality of it as it actually happens, not in the projections.

And if the abortifacient, contraceptive, sterilization mandate isn’t removed, are you still for it?

Something about this isn’t adding up. From the article:

“About half of an expected 1 million participants are expected to qualify for federal tax credits to help defray the cost.”

Half an expected one million participants? There are over five million people in Minnesota. What’s the story on the other four and a half million? Are they citing rates ONLY for those who qualify for the subsidies, and perhaps only some of those? Since the subsidies are a sliding scale based on income, I don’t see how this writer can say any rate applies to “a 25 year old non-smoker” or a “60 year old”, because their effective rates actually depend on their incomes.

The article says some people with incomes of $30,000 and under will get free healthcare.
That would be true for a family of four, but it’s Medicaid. Obamacare adds about 17 million people to Medicaid rolls. Included in that is a family of four making $31,000. People with Medicaid are already having trouble getting doctors to take them because the reimbursement rates are so low. And if 17 million more are added? Wonder how many of them had employer-provided insurance previously that WASN’T Medicaid. The article doesn’t tell us.

This article isn’t telling the whole story. One hopes it isn’t just a puff piece for Obamacare, but it has the earmarks of one.

 

[SMGS127]

The proof is in the reality of it as it actually happens, not in the projections.

And if the abortifacient, contraceptive, sterilization mandate isn’t removed, are you still for it?

I’m for 95%+ of it, and I’m against the birth control mandate. Why does everything have to be black and white?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m for 95%+ of it, and I’m against the birth control mandate. Why does everything have to be black and white?

Because the Church teachings are black and white. Do you know that Obamacare will require these nuns to purchase abortifacient, contraceptive and sterilization coverage for THEMSELVES because there are more than 50 of them and they serve the poor regardless of religion? If they don’t get that coverage, they will be levied fines they can’t pay. www.sistersoflife.org.

Read what they do in their ministry and what they say about the HHS mandate, if you can make yourself do it. Black and white. They’re choosing white. And you???

 

[_Abyssinia]

Yeah I’m hoping that more good news comes out too. A lot of scary projections about rates from the health care law have not come to pass. So here’s hoping that the birth control requirement gets slashed by the Supreme Court but the rest of the law stays intact .

What projections have not come to pass?

 

[SMGS127]

What projections have not come to pass?

Written from a very left-wing editorial, but the facts in it are true:

forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/07/22/proof-of-politics-indiana-fudges-truth-on-health-exchange-rates-to-make-obamacare-look-bad/

A lot of states have intentionally made their #s look [falsibly] bad due to having Republican governors. Mike Pence/Indiana is the cream of the crop in doing so.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Written from a very left-wing editorial, but the facts in it are true:

forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/07/22/proof-of-politics-indiana-fudges-truth-on-health-exchange-rates-to-make-obamacare-look-bad/

A lot of states have intentionally made their #s look [falsibly] bad due to having Republican governors. Mike Pence/Indiana is the cream of the crop in doing so.

I do not know what is going on in Indiana and if they are fudging numbers that is inexcusable but do state governors really need to try hard to falsify numbers to make the Affordable Care Act look terrible, when study after study says premiums will rise?

 

[_Abyssinia]

In Minnesota, Obamacare to Increase Individual Insurance Premiums by 29%, Says Obama Adviser

In Minnesota, as elsewhere, Obamacare will drive up the cost of private health coverage, especially for those who buy insurance on their own. One of Obama’s key health-care advisers, Jonathan Gruber, found that by 2016, individual-market premiums in Minnesota will increase by an average of 29 percent. In addition, Obamacare will deeply cut Medicare Advantage for more than 380,000 Minnesota seniors enrolled in the program. And 25 percent of Minnesota physicians say that they will place new or additional limits on accepting Medicare patients. Read on for more details.
…
(DISCLOSURE: I am an outside adviser to the Romney campaign on health care issues. The opinions contained herein are mine alone, and do not necessarily correspond to those of the campaign.)

Individual-market premiums to increase by $1,270 per person per year

In November of 2011, the Minnesota Department of Commerce asked Jonathan Gruber and Gorman Actuarial to estimate the impact of Obamacare on the private insurance market. The Gruber-Gorman report makes clear, as do similar reports for other states, that Obamacare’s web of insurance mandates and regulations will dramatically increase the cost of individually-purchased insurance.

In 2016, according to Gruber and Gorman, average premiums in the individual insurance market would have been $4,360 under prior law, but will be $5,630 under Obamacare. That’s an increase of 29.1 percent, prior to the impact of the law’s subsidies.

Some Obamacare defenders try to argue that these cost increases don’t matter, because a slice of the low-income population will benefit from the law’s subsidies. But if you’re not eligible for subsidies, or only partially eligible, you will be exposed to the law’s dramatic increases in the cost of insurance. And remember that Obamacare has an individual mandate, which will force most Americans to absorb these higher costs.

Obamacare to cut Medicare by $9,212 per Minnesota retiree

Obamacare cuts Medicare by $716 billion between 2013 and 2022 in order to pay for part of the law’s $1.9 trillion in new health-care spending for younger people over the same time frame. My co-blogger Robert Book and Michael Ramlet have published a paper for the University of Minnesota showing that Minnesota’s share of those Medicare cuts is $7.6 billion. This year, Minnesota has 819,803 Medicare enrollees, which means that these cuts amount to $9,212 for every senior in the state.

Robert Book published another paper, this time with former White House budget official James Capretta, detailing Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare Advantage on a state-by-state basis. Robert and Jim found that, in 2017, Obamacare will cut $2,916 in Medicare Advantage services for every Minnesotan enrolled in the program: a 22 percent cut. And this is particularly important for Minnesota, which has one of the highest Medicare Advantage enrollment rates in the country: 47 percent of Minnesota retirees are enrolled in the program.

Survey: 19 percent of Minnesota doctors will stop accepting Medicare patients

Last month, the Physicians Foundation published one of the largest physician surveys ever conducted in the United States, with 13,575 respondents. They asked physicians a broad range of questions, including several about their views on Obamacare. 58 percent of Minnesota physicians said that the Affordable Care Act made them “less positive about the direction and future of healthcare in America.” Only 22 percent said it made them feel more positive.

If Medicare fees decrease by ten percent or more—as the Affordable Care Act will require—25 percent of Minnesota doctors say that they will place “new or additional limits” on accepting Medicare patients. 19 percent say they’ll stop accepting Medicare patients altogether.

The survey also has bad news for Minnesotans on other forms of insurance. 15 percent of Minnesota physicians say that they’ll place new or additional limits on Medicaid patients as a result of the Medicare cuts; 19 percent also say they plan to raise fees on those with private insurance in order to compensate for the cuts.

And then there’s Obamacare’s tax increases

Finally, it’s worth touching on Obamacare’s tax increases. From 2013-2022, Obamacare increases taxes by $1.2 trillion, which amounts to $15,796 for the average family of four. Minnesota’s share of those taxes is approximately $21 billion.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Written from a very left-wing editorial, but the facts in it are true:

forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/07/22/proof-of-politics-indiana-fudges-truth-on-health-exchange-rates-to-make-obamacare-look-bad/

A lot of states have intentionally made their #s look [falsibly] bad due to having Republican governors. Mike Pence/Indiana is the cream of the crop in doing so.

The writer of that article discloses that he’s the “lefty” writer for Forbes. But there are other articles. For instance: forbes.com/sites/gracemarieturner/2013/04/10/a-temporaray-insurance-program-foretells-exploding-obamacare-costs/

Not a pretty picture.

But what Obamacare really comes down to is a subsidy of part of the middle class by the government (those put on Medicaid whether they like it or not) and part of the middle class will be partly subsidized by the government, but mainly by other people in the middle class. If you’re not in the subsidy range, (and for some, even if you are) your costs are absolutely going to go up.

If you’re poor, your deal is worse than before because now there will be another 17 million people trying to get into a provider that really doesn’t like the number he/she has now, and turns a lot of them down.

If you’re elderly, your deal is worse because the chief actuary for Medicare projects that medicare will soon pay even less than Medicaid because of the reductions in Medicare funding forced by Obamacare.

It’s not all roses, though it undoubtedly is for a few at the low end of the middle class earning level. But not for anybody else.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Obamacare was passed three years ago. It was all deferred. Now, the big employer mandate has been pushed past the 2014 election. The cap on permitted deductibles has been deferred too now. So who’s really hiding things from whom?

The administration knows how bad this deal really is, and they know if it all kicked in at once they couldn’t have elected Obama again and they couldn’t use all the millions they are raising to try to get a majority in the House again in 2014.

 

[edwest2]

We’ll see what happens on October 1st. Raising taxes is all politicians want to do, no matter which football team is in power. Bottom line: Obama and his retail lobbyists friends will want to insure retail spending does not decline due to this not yet fully disclosed plan.

And if some people can’t get the health care they need, you’ll know who to blame.

Peace,
Ed

 

[SMGS127]

finance.yahoo.com/news/5-insurers-offer-health-plans-193613432.html

5 insurers offer health plans through NM exchange
Study: Insurance costs likely lower through NM health exchange than in many other states

According to the study, the lowest cost bronze plan in New Mexico for a 40-year-old in Albuquerque is $155 a month. That’s lower than in other states except Maryland, where it would cost $146 a month for a similar individual in Baltimore.

Premiums will vary among states because of differences in health care costs, insurance regulation and market competition, the study said.

Costs also will vary depending on a person’s age and within different regions of a state. Franchini said premiums will be lower in Albuquerque because it has more health care providers and greater competition. Premiums will be higher in rural areas and in smaller communities such as Silver City or Farmington, he said.

Bronze plans are to cover about 60 percent of health care costs on average, with 70 percent coverage for silver plans. Franchini estimated most plans purchased in the private marketplace cover an average of 50 percent of costs.

The federal subsidies are based on the second-lowest-cost silver plan in a local area. The silver plan would cost a 40-year-old in Albuquerque $212 a month before any tax credits are used. The study said that’s lower than in all but Oregon, where a 40-year-old in Portland would pay $201 monthly. On average nationally, the premium for a similar consumer is estimated at $320 a month.

Federal tax credits will be available to people with incomes from about $24,000 to $94,000 annually for a family of four. In New Mexico, the study estimated subsidies would drop the monthly premium of the second-lowest-cost silver plan to $193 from $212 for a 40-year-old in Albuquerque. The lowest unsubsidized silver plan premium for that consumer is $189 a month.

 

[edwest2]

What about small businesses (under 50 employees) that already provide some insurance coverage? What will they have to do?

Peace,
Ed

 

[Ridgerunner]

finance.yahoo.com/news/5-insurers-offer-health-plans-193613432.html

Anything that’s subsidized is cheaper than something that isn’t, most other things being equal.

That’s why you can buy a Volt for $30,000-$40,000 instead of the $200,000 it really costs to make one. Other people, the taxpayers, pay the rest.

Regardless, the article is a deceptive one, because there is no particular premium for a “40-year-old”, not in Arizona or anywhere else. Under Obamacare, what the 40 year old pays will depend on what his income is and how many family members he has.

Undoubtedly this propaganda piece of an article picked out the most subsidized premium a 40 year old can have. It’s like saying a Chevy Volt “costs $30,000” when it really costs almost a quarter million.

Somewhere on the subsidy continuum, the premium will be the same as it is now, and it will go up from there.

Obama supporters, like the writer of this article passed Obamacare on deception and now tout it on deception.

But one has to ask oneself why they put off the full effect for years. It’s because the result is going to be really bad for most people and they had and have some elections to win before people learn the awful truth.

 

[seekerz]

If half the energy spent on pooh-poohing Obamacare and predicting doom/gloom, had been spent instead on implementing a good alternative to expand healthcare coverage during the time conservatives ran things, then maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It is much easier to criticize and oppose than to actually feed the hungry and care for the sick…

None of us has seen the results of the full implementation of Obamacare, but considering the alternative (Romneycare), I’d say we are at least no better or worse off that we would have been had this health care law not been passed.

 

[SMGS127]

If half the energy spent on pooh-poohing Obamacare and predicting doom/gloom, had been spent instead on implementing a good alternative to expand healthcare coverage during the time conservatives ran things, then maybe we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It is much easier to criticize and oppose than to actually feed the hungry and care for the sick…

None of us has seen the results of the full implementation of Obamacare, but considering the alternative (Romneycare), I’d say we are at least no better or worse off that we would have been had this health care law not been passed.

Also, if only conservatives had actually attempted to negotiate at all rather than demand the entire bill be scrapped for tort reform and interstate deregulation, we could have taken out horrible stuff like the birth control requirement before the bill passed. I have no doubt Republicans were only thinking about the 2010 election though so .

 

[ProVobis]

Also, if only conservatives had actually attempted to negotiate at all rather than demand the entire bill be scrapped for tort reform and interstate deregulation, we could have taken out horrible stuff like the birth control requirement before the bill passed. I have no doubt Republicans were only thinking about the 2010 election though so .

In retrospect, it sure seems that way. And now even some claim that interstate deregulation was a bad idea as that would have put more onus on the federal government instead of the state regulators where it is now.

 

[ProVobis]

In Minnesota, Obamacare to Increase Individual Insurance Premiums by 29%, Says Obama Adviser

(DISCLOSURE: I am an outside adviser to the Romney campaign on health care issues. The opinions contained herein are mine alone, and do not necessarily correspond to those of the campaign.)

This was SMGS127’s point, wasn’t it?

As far as Medicare Advantage goes, that was supposed to have been cut immediately but as those on Medicare know, they still have the option. And there are good alternatives in case they don’t.