Republicans Sabotage, ObamaCare Succeeds

The Obamacare Shock

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 26, 2013

The Affordable Care Act, a k a Obamacare, goes fully into effect at the beginning of next year, and predictions of disaster are being heard far and wide. There will be an administrative “train wreck,” we’re told; consumers will face a terrible shock. Republicans, one hears, are already counting on the law’s troubles to give them a big electoral advantage.

No doubt there will be problems, as there are with any large new government initiative, and in this case, we have the added complication that many Republican governors and legislators are doing all they can to sabotage reform. Yet important new evidence — especially from California, the law’s most important test case — suggests that the real Obamacare shock will be one of unexpected success.

Before I can explain what the news means, I need to make a crucial point: Obamacare is a deeply conservative reform, not in a political sense (although it was originally a Republican proposal) but in terms of leaving most people’s health care unaffected. Americans who receive health insurance from their employers, Medicare or Medicaid — which is to say, the vast majority of those who have any kind of health insurance at all — will see almost no changes when the law goes into effect.

There are, however, millions of Americans who don’t receive insurance either from their employers or from government programs. They can get insurance only by buying it on their own, and many of them are effectively shut out of that market. In some states, like California, insurers reject applicants with past medical problems. In others, like New York, insurers can’t reject applicants, and must offer similar coverage regardless of personal medical history (“community rating”); unfortunately, this leads to a situation in which premiums are very high because only those with current health problems sign up, while healthy people take the risk of going uninsured.

Obamacare closes this gap with a three-part approach. First, community rating everywhere — no more exclusion based on pre-existing conditions. Second, the “mandate” — you must buy insurance even if you’re currently healthy. Third, subsidies to make insurance affordable for those with lower incomes.

Massachusetts has had essentially this system since 2006; as a result, nearly all residents have health insurance, and the program remains very popular. So we know that Obamacare — or, as some of us call it, ObamaRomneyCare — can work.

Skeptics argued, however, that Massachusetts was special: it had relatively few uninsured residents even before the reform, and it already had community rating. What would happen elsewhere? In particular, what would happen in California, where more than a fifth of the nonelderly population is uninsured, and the individual insurance market is largely unregulated? Would there be “sticker shock” as the price of individual policies soared?

Well, the California bids are in — that is, insurers have submitted the prices at which they are willing to offer coverage on the state’s newly created Obamacare exchange. And the prices, it turns out, are surprisingly low. A handful of healthy people may find themselves paying more for coverage, but it looks as if Obamacare’s first year in California is going to be an overwhelmingly positive experience.

What can still go wrong? Well, Obamacare is a complicated program, basically because simpler options, like Medicare for all, weren’t considered politically feasible. So there will probably be a lot of administrative confusion as the law goes into effect, again especially in states where Republicans have been doing their best to sabotage the process.

Also, some people are too poor to afford coverage even with the subsidies. These Americans were supposed to be covered by a federally financed expansion of Medicaid, but in states where Republicans have blocked Medicaid expansion, such unfortunates will be left out in the cold.

Still, here’s what it seems is about to happen: millions of Americans will suddenly gain health coverage, and millions more will feel much more secure knowing that such coverage is available if they lose their jobs or suffer other misfortunes. Only a relative handful of people will be hurt at all. And as contrasts emerge between the experience of states like California that are making the most of the new policy and that of states like Texas whose politicians are doing their best to undermine it, the sheer meanspiritedness of the Obamacare opponents will become ever more obvious.

So yes, it does look as if there’s an Obamacare shock coming: the shock of learning that a public program designed to help a lot of people can, strange to say, end up helping a lot of people — especially when government officials actually try to make it work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/opinion/krugman-the-obamacare-shock.html?hp&_r=1&

 

Now, comrades, let us all sing Kumbaya.

 

Coin always has the most constructive arguments. When he can't spin the facts around he resorts to posts like this. I have to assume 'comrades' is some sly way to allude to Obama being socialist. I guess you don't realize we've been living with socialism for over 200 years here, even (gasp!) under Bush and Reagan. Yes, things like public roads, public schools, public paid services like fire and police...the list goes on and on...are all socialistic programs. Pick up a book and learn something.

 

Obama? A socialist!?!?! Say it ain't so!! (Gasp)

 

If he is, we all are. Unless you're completely off the grid.

 

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I think Obamacare will have to be pushed back a bit while the BO admin panders for the all the money needed for it's funding....

 

You don't push back a law. It's the law of the land. You live under the law....PERIOD!

 

Interesting how often you propose not to follow the law. Do you need some examples?

 

But we can repeal bad laws, burdensome laws, right?

 

Most laws are burdensome to certain people or groups. The question is in what way and to whom, and what do said laws accomplish that outweighs they fact that some people are inconvenienced by them.

So tell me about these charitable organizations under whose auspices you do your good works. Maybe I could help out in some way.

 

The funny thing is, the same exact bill, nearly word for word, was written by Romney, put into effect in Mass under his governship, and works. If he had won and proposed the same exact bill, not one of these people opposed to it now would be opposed to it under those situations. Funny how that works.

 

a.) It was not written by Romney.
b.) Just who do you think believes that Romney did the right thing in Massachusetts?

 

The people that voted it in might think he did the right thing, especially those that couldn't afford health care before. Who else could you believe? It was written by the Mass General Court and then re-written with provisions by the State House, governed by Romney.

Its sad when people think taking care of their neighbors, family and friends, veterans, teachers and kids, is so despicable that they'll literally argue against something as basic as their health. What would your realistic solution be?

 

A whole laundry list of things too long for me tonight. Open insurance enrollment across state borders, less government paper work, restricted suing (losers pay the court costs?), more drug testing, etc. You know! Things that actually lower costs.

And it is sad when people misconstrue peoples attempts to help into denying health care to " neighbors, family and friends, veterans, teachers and kids". If you really cared, you would be against Obamacare before it bankrupts everything and then no one gets the care they need.

 

Is is funny, isn't it? We could also point out that Obama's Affordable Care Act is remarkably similar to what the "Socialist" Richard Nixon proposed back in the '70s. And there is the origin of the nasty totalitarian Mandate. For that we can thank the Heritage Foundation who came up with it as a means of providing affordable healthcare while at the same time guaranteeing the viability of the insurance industry.

 

Actually, "we" can't or at least it can't be done without bi-partisan support and I don't really see that happening anytime soon. Do you? So realistically, "we" live with the law.

 

Signed by Romney and written by the same people that wrote Obamacare. I think that the people of Massachusetts think Romney did the right thing.

 

Don't you just love it when the wing nuts hate something this good for the country? They have to twist themselves into knots trying to come up with every possible excuse, criticism, and obtuse argument to try and cast aspersions on something even before it is implemented all in an effort to protect fat-cat insurance companies that have been bilking us for decades in the name of profit. They defend tobacco companies as selling a "legal" product even though it kills thousands of people a year. It seems as long as there is a buck to be made off of human misery and suffering, they are in and defending the Capitalists that could care less about people. Now of course, they'll turn my criticisms to abortion and say that abortion doctors are paid to kill babies and that is profiting off of human misery. They turn everything into abortion. However, abortion is a medical procedure and it is they who define it as murder, not the law, or the medical profession, or most of society as far as I know. So their creating a definition of human misery does not make it so just because they say so while the selling of a known deadly product with no redeeming societal value purely for money is ignored as a choice people make.

 

Krugman has written nothing but an opinion piece tilted in a manner to give the false impression it is based in fact. When confronted with such information one should proceed with skepticism.