“On a very obvious level, winners include young adults who can now remain on their parents health plans until age 26.”

This was already the case, my son turned 26 recently, up until then he had received coverage under my name.

You say that some will pay less in the new marketplace for better coverage. That is a big “SOME.” The truth is many more will pay a lot more. These plans have zero information regarding hospitals and doctors participating. You are going in blind. And daily you read about hospitals that won’t participate including doctors that are opting out.
The country, American people and those of us who pay taxes will be the biggest losers as this cost of this legislation will have a detrimental effect on our economy. But then isn’t that the goal. The employer mandate was extended for a year to limit the public from observing how many people will be dumped when that happens around election time. Imagine the fraud that will take place as a result.

The end game is government control over our lives making many dependent on the government ceding much power. Combine that with the systematic forced retirement of generals (don’t agree w/Obama) we will be helpless. This is called the fundamental change of American delivered as promised.
Coverage for the uninsured could have been accomplished in a much different way and at a much lower cost.

“The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza had an interesting piece this week in which he spoke to economist Jon Gruber, who broke down winners and losers this way:  About eighty per cent of Americans are more or less left alone by the health-care act—largely people who have health insurance through their employers.”

WRONG.  Husband’s “retiree insurance” through his company that he worked for, for over 30 years, is now going to cost us $150 more a month!  And they dropped vision for wife.

Company said it is because of “new health care laws enacted”.

One very big positive with Obamacare is that seniors with medications are paying less. Pre-Obamacare, Medicare Part D only allowed 30-day prescription purchases. Now with the Obamacare changes, seniors are allowed 90-day prescription purchases, which are priced considerably lower per month. Uncle Sam also pays less, too, so taxpayers are seeing a savings. My grandmother is now saving more than $100 per month in her medicines per month, thanks to this improvement brought by Obamacare.

The people who win are those with existing conditions and those who are subsidized one way or another. Those who lose are those who have to pay more in order to pay for that, and the taxpayers who will have to bail the whole thing out in the near future.

Why would the writers of this piece include “journalists” in their group of “smart folks”?  Seriously. 

Have you been impressed with the “media” coverage of the program?  Any more insights from this coverage than you, yourself, might have from watching CSPAN or reading the NYT and WSJ and the BBC website, perhaps?

Most media people turn out not to be journalists, and very few “media” organizations have any.

Those ” with lower incomes who live in states that decided not to expand their Medicaid programs” are no worse off than they were before.

Arent Medicare recipients ‘losers’ because Medicare reimbursements are taking a big clipping to pay for Obamacare?

With the expansion of the risk pool to include those people with preexisting conditions whom can not afford or are denied coverage, it is not unexpected that some costs might go up. Over the years the risk pool has been sliced and diced so that every little sub group can find some policy that will cover what they perceive as necessary for themselves. Of course this perception quickly changes after a heart attack or a biopsy that comes back positive. I have read people complain about having to pay for maternity coverage they don’t need.  I ask those people to ask their mother or sisters. Recently I saw a comment about a canceled policy that looked very good, only it had no “out of pocket max”. Any serious illness such as heart surgery, cancer treatment, organ transplant, major auto accident, birth of child with congenital defects etc. can run into the $100,000’s where deductible and co-payments would easily exceed the “max out of pocket” for the year.
One good thing about any sort of insurance is feeling you will not face bankruptcy if some unexpected events happen

The whole USA will win if it gets parallel public and private health systems up and running as we have had in Australia for over 30 years. The two systems compliment each other. The Public does most of the teaching with University links, and the private takes the bulk of the run of the mill stuff out of the always stretched public system plus cosmetic surgery. Those insured get their treatment more quickly and can choose their doctor. But everybody gets excellent treatment eventually. I’ve worked in this system for 30 years as an anesthesiologist and I haven’t met any Australians who don’t like it.

That 80% figure will be dropping as employers begin to fire full time employees and re-hire part time workers, to avoid having to provide insurance programs that will become too costly. The savings will be well worth the splitting up of firms into smaller companies, operating under the same roof. Filling all new positions with part time workers in preparation for making future policy changes, and using labor force providers will be typical. Unions will not be able to protect part timers. That equates to savings for the employer.
It has already been predicted by political commentators that a bill will be introduced to close these loop-holes to prevent employers from using these tactics as a means to circumvent Obamacare. It has been typical for small business owners that have a growing company to come to the point where they must decide whether to make a financial commitment to expansion. Now, it will be deciding how they can start another firm to support the first and therefor avoid the 50 employee threshold that will require providing insurance. Legislation will be like trying to cover all the holes in a sieve. Can’t be done.

Obamacare is going to hurt society, not help it. It does nothing to solve the high costs of medical care. It will be the cause of on-going expense that will be paid by the very people it was touted to help. We should be wondering why the politicians who support this debacle are doing it. Will they divulge how much money they received from the insurance industry?

I’m just over 136% of povert level. I can’t afford the co-pay and the montly drug regimen.  Penn. opted out and did not expand medicare. I will pay penalty first year and save up for next year and hope things change

We’re all losers.  Obamacare, its ameliorative qualities notwithstanding, will not address the primary problems of our so-called health care system: cost, systemic fragmentation, profit-driven payment system.  Australia can continue to be happy with their private-public model, we need expanded Medicare for all, or some variant thereof, paid with a progressive taxing scheme on individuals and business.  Bottom line: health care is not a business, it’s a human right.

Are young, healthy people really “losers” just because they’re paying more for coverage? “Young, healthy” people still have accidents, still get infections, still need check-ups, birth control, etcetera.

Losers include all of those whose doctors have discontinued accepting any insurance (as a first-step to avoid having to deal with the ACA mess), have quit practicing and/or have joined ‘concierge’ practices…which charge patients an annual fee that, in Florida, averages $1,500-2,000 annual to ‘join.’

I personally know of seven (count ‘em, **7**, as the old marquees over strip joints used to blast out) physicians in the Fort Lauderdale/Boca Raton area who have stopped ‘accepting’ any insurance as a direct result of the ACA.  This is seemingly a quick ad hoc ‘safeguard’ against having to accept Medicare or Medicaid.

My previous two primary physicians have joined concierge practices. The issue with concierge medicine is that, in addition to the patients’ annual fees, all other costs are higher as the physicians are free from ‘insurance industry-negotiated’ fees. 

Medicare patients are especially suffering.  I have a friend whose physical therapy (necessary to mitigate a crippling condition) has been slashed by 45% since June as a result of the ACA.  The result is that the previous annual allowance for 70 sessions of physical therapy has been slashed to fewer than one per week.  Other budget cuts are spinning down the conveyor belt for Medicare recipients.  Also, Medicare does not reimburse any out-of-pocket fees paid to physicians who don’t participate in the Medicare program.

I lived and worked in London for a bank in The City and none of the management used the lauded U.K. national medical care; they paid for it with taxes but used only private physicians and private hospitals.

If we’re LUCKY, the ACA unintended consequences will yield the U.K. bifurcated medical system wherein the affluent (or thrifty and prudent) will have access to top-quality PRIVATE physicians and hospital care.  If we’re UNLUCKY, we’ll lose even that right and will be stuck with only one option…the residue of whatever is left over.

For years I bought only major medical (catastrophic) insurance and self-insured for all the basic things.  I was a non-smoker, non-drinker and healthy thus my premiums were titrated as I was deemed, actuarially-speaking, of lower risk for some of the usual medical crises.  That is, I was rewarded, financially, for having a perceived (and actual) healthy lifestyle and habits.  And I made my own risk/benefit analysis when buying insurance just I made any other risk/benefit financial calculations.

The ACA, which I’m happy to let be nicknamed Obama,- or Pelosi- or Demo-care for the step-parents who shoved this disaster onto American citizens through a fraudulent advertising campaign that didn’t even hesitate at outright lies to the American public, but I digress, prevents people from being financially rewarded for healthy personal habits, lifestyle and other risk-related variables.  I am a registered Independent who vigorously disagrees with the Federal government’s presumption that it knows what I value and need more than I do and with the penalty that I will pay, in increased insurance premiums, for all the people who live more riskily or capriciously than I do or my family do.  As an economic participant, my self-interest is sacrificed to the whims of others who have no concomitant legal, or financial, requirement to, at least, attempt to mitigate their own health risks.  For the first time in my life, the fact that I do not smoke, will not yield a lower health “insurance” premium, nor will the heavy-smoking, heavy-drinking, malnourished pay a higher premium for their lifestyles or choices.  That’s just counter to any rational economic system.

I peer thru smoke of crypto-logic magicians heralding current solutions of yard sale scrap. They’ve picked for us to drink a wine of rotten fruit; we taste their inbred designed failure. A bitter tithe for which they came, an iron hand in which to grab all they want and all they can. I hear the vacuous tube from which they feed; a slurping all consuming sonic boom, like the thumping of rusted hearts. Their bald tires slowly leaking shame fan the fires they ignite. They thru prostitutes throw cash upon flame to hear more flaming rock to throw. Reason trampled under boot, but fruit must die before seed takes root…. -amyq

http://www.facebook.com/amyq.band

How does anyone know what physicians and hospitals will accept certain insurance plans ? How will they know if their medications are covered and if they are how much it will be out of pocket ? What will visits to the doctor’s office cost out of pocket in copays ?

I would add to the Losers Column those who are already unable to avail themselves of the protected employer-sponsored group health plans because, well, uh, they are among the double-digit unemployed.

So the “Obamacare” bait-and-switch game will FIRST hurt those who are likely least able to absorb the premium sticker shock because they aren’t employed or eligible for what economists and policy-wonks have long considered among the best of “employee benefits”—participation in group health insurance that is, even better, subsidized by the employer.

To put the heaviest burden on those who already pay a stunningly higher premium because they aren’t members of insurance pools is, to me, the cruelest of Macchiavellian moves.  This administration has cut ‘deals’ for all kinds of groups with deep-pocket lobbyists and unions on their behalf and ‘leans’ the heaviest on the group that is LEAST able to buy access to Obama or any representation on their behalf.

The only ‘good news’ is that this group will be hugely augmented as more and more employers stop offering any health care group plans so, at least, over time, the numbers of ACA-injured will grow and, just maybe, will perform due diligence before they vote again.

As Obama has taught us, any president can float off infinite numbers of Executive Orders so possibly the next president will undo the unjustice of the “Obamacare” coup.

Very surprised no one has mentioned the fact that the data used for this “pie chart” was obtained from Mitt Romney’s former statistical adviser.  No other statistical resources were used.  Disappointed U of M was not scientifically ethical with the release of this data, but their one-source figures utilized to comprise their pie chart certainly defies the meaning of ethical research.  Hope grant money was not utilized for this so-called “research.”