Thursday, October 24, 2013

The Real Obamacare News

Republicans are relentlessly attacking the Affordable Care Act over the healthcare.gov website (and the critics include more than a few liberals who should know better) but it's all an effort to hide the fact that the law is saving American taxpayers billions in lower premiums.  The Center for American Progress:

The Affordable Care Act is already working: Intense price competition among health plans in the marketplaces for individuals has lowered premiums below projected levels. As a result of these lower premiums, the federal government will save about $190 billion over the next 10 years, according to our estimates. These savings will boost the health law’s amount of deficit reduction by 174 percent and represent about 40 percent of the health care savings proposed by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform—commonly known as the Simpson-Bowles commission—in 2010. 
Moreover, we estimate that lower premiums will lower the number of uninsured even further, by an additional 700,000 people, even as the number of individuals who receive tax credits will decline because insurance is more affordable. 
In short, the Affordable Care Act is working even better than expected, producing more coverage for much less money.

But how can that be?!?   It's a failure because lawmakers are all top-end web portal system architects and they say so!

In an analysis of plans offered in the marketplaces, the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform found that new entrants into the market make up 26 percent of all insurers. These new entrants are introducing competitive pressures into the individual market. The McKinsey analysis found that new entrants tend to price their plans lower than the median premiums in their market. 
Moreover, in a preliminary analysis of plans offered in 18 areas, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that premiums are lower than CBO’s projected premiums in 15 of those areas. 
In March 2012, CBO projected an average family premium for the second-lowest-cost silver plan in 2016. This projection is equivalent to an average individual premium in 2014 of $4,700 (see sidebar). The actual average premium for the second-lowest-cost silver plan in 2014 turned out to be $3,936—16 percent lower than projected.

But 404 Healthcare Not Found error on the website LOL and stuff!  But horror stories!  But nobody can sign up!  But...it's all smoke and mirrors designed to take away from the fact this law is working better than intended overall.

Now why would you suppose web glitches would be the only news you're hearing daily about Obamacare?

2 comments:

  1. What I want to know is, how many readers understand the "Left turn at Albuquerque" reference? ;)

    ReplyDelete