Growing Number Of States Are Reporting Lower Than Expected Health Care Premiums

So the GOP has voted to repeal Obamacare yet again because apparently they don't want so many people to have health care and certainly not at lower rates. What a sad group of losers they are.

Health premiums in Maryland’s exchanges will be “among the lowest of the 12 states that have available proposed or approved rates for comparison,” the state’s exchange — Maryland Health Connection — announced Friday. The news comes just as New York,Oregon, Montana, California, and Louisiana are also reporting lower than expected premiums.
In Maryland, a 25-year-old will be able to purchase a plan that is more comprehensive than policies currently available on the individual market for $114 per month, while a middle aged adult will have to pay approximately $260 per month for insurance. A 21-year-old non-smoker can start as low as $93 a month. Officials say they used their authority to deny rate increases to reduce the proposed premiums by “more than 50 percent.” Thirty other states have have similar authority.
The prices Marylanders will pay are lower than the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) anticipated, but do cost more than the bare-bones plans that are available today. Residents will have a choice of nine insurance carriers and three out of four people purchasing coverage through the exchange will qualify for tax credits, further reducing the cost of coverage. Nationally, 6 million out of the 7 million people who are expected to enroll in 2014 will receive subsidies.
“Historically, insurance carriers have been allowed to turn down people with pre-existing conditions and allow only the healthiest individuals into their plans,” said Rebecca Pearce, Executive Director of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange. “In 2014, that will change, and 740,000 Marylanders will have new access to health coverage with more robust benefits.
Earlier this week, the Connecticut exchange announced that since a new insurer lowered its projected premiums, “the average cost for an individual-market HealthyCT plan dropped by 36 percent, from $427 per month to $271.” In Nevada, preliminary costs find that strong competition between insurers in some areas of the state will lower individuals’ premiums.
The news is on track with a report from the Department of Health and Human Services, which found that “the lowest cost silver plan in the individual market in 2014 is, on average, 18 percent less expensive” than past projections.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/201...ing-lower-than-expected-health-care-premiums/

 

"Lower than projections"?
I think most people are more concerned with the reality!
Are those working poor who couldn't afford to purchase healthcare before Obamacare, now magically, able to afford it to meet the bill's individual mandate?

 

Still looking for that dark cloud in the silver lining I see. "Lower" refers to the reality of the cost over what was originally projected before all the details could have been known. It's good news dummy! Try and accept it.

Yes, yes they are, AND, they'll get their health care cost subsidized on a sliding fee scale to make it more affordable which will ultimately lower health care costs. No magic, just sound market principles. But please, continue to seek out any negative aspect you can. It's going to be a fool's folly with diminishing returns as the new law finally kicks in and benefits more and more people.

I'm still waiting for you nuts to tell me how the government is "running" health care. I suspect that I'll never get that answer. Is the government regulating health insurance, oh yeah! Just like they regulate thousands of other industries that don't even have a thing to do with the health and well being of the citizens of this country. If the government can regulate the roads we drive on to make them safer for everyone, they certainly can regulate access to the health system we all need to stay healthy. It just makes sense.

 

As I stated before, try asking Sarah Murnaghan. The government tried to kill her.

Am I reading that right? You are advocating death panels! REALLY!

 

...people who couldn't afford insurance to start with will now be required by law to purchase a policy- a policy that costs more now than it did previously. Now, in BO's "new normal", jobs are being eliminated and hours are being cut in order for employers to escape the massive expense of Obamacare. None of the promises regarding Obamacare have proven to be true (except the tax increase, of course) and every democrap politician knows their only shot at re-election is to distance themselves from Obamacare. Oh, did I mention the unions have changed their minds on Obamacare now that the reality has set in?

 

Apparently, you're wrong since the promises are coming true. Cheaper rates, more folks insured, preexisting conditions eliminated, the list goes on and the law hasn't even kicked in fully. You can keep believing the old lies all you want but the reality is that this will benefit millions of formally uninsured people. Just because you are incapable of understanding something that you are against doesn't make it bad or even wrong, it will, with minor adjustments along the way make the health care system work for the entire country not just the privileged few the way it was formally structured to primarily benefit the insurance industry.

Oh and by the way...

Democrats' 2014 strategy: Own Obamacare


Scarred by years of Republican attacks over Obamacare, with more in store next year, Democrats have settled on an unlikely strategy for the 2014 midterms: Bring it on.
Party strategists believe that embracing the polarizing law — especially its more popular elements — is smarter politics than fleeing from it in the House elections. The new tack is a marked shift from 2010, when Republicans pointed to Obamacare as Exhibit A of Big Government run amok on their way to seizing the House from Democrats.

But the Democratic bear hug, reflecting a calculation it’s probably impossible to shed their association with the law even if they wanted to, is still a high-wire public relations act. The White House has consistently struggled with messaging on Obamacare, hoping the public would gain an appreciation for the health care makeover as its benefits became apparent. That never really happened, but Democrats seem to be banking that it finally will.

​

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/dems-2014-strategy-own-obamacare-92172.html#ixzz2aSSirniE​

​

​

​

And....​

​

​

Dem Pollster: Running Against Obamacare Won't Work for GOP in 2014​

​

By Alexis Simendinger - July 23, 2013​

Republicans of all stripes are united around a shared hostility toward "Obamacare," but a prominent Democratic pollster said Tuesday that new data makes him doubt that victory is assured next year for opponents of President Obama's signature legislative achievement.​

"They're likely to run this election on it, and they may run the presidential election on it," Stan Greenberg told reporters as he unpacked the results of a national survey designed to help Democrats in "exposing, monitoring and confronting the Republican Party."​

Greenberg said the GOP effort to defeat Obama and other Democrats in 2012 based on opposition to the Affordable Care Act did not succeed, prompting him to doubt that a similar assault on the law will have the potent impact against Democrats that Republicans imagine.​

Congress and Obama enacted the Affordable Care Act in 2010 to provide the uninsured with less costly options for quality health coverage, and—its backers say—to lower the costs of health care over time for most Americans. The law has been gradually implemented each year since passage; next year private insurance policies will become available to the uninsured through new, state-based​

​

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/07/23/dem_pollster_running_against_obamacare_wont_work_for_gop_in_2014_119347.html#ixzz2aSTN06M4 ​

Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter​

 

Uummmm...no. The average cost per person to obtain private health care was in excess of $400 a month per healthy individual under age 25. And that was per a standard, no frills, HMO...or, to put it simply, crappy healthcare, which is why most people who weren't covered by employee plans didn't have insurance.

 

Uummmm...no. The average cost per person to obtain private health care was in excess of $400 a month per healthy individual under age 25. And that was per a standard, no frills, HMO...or, to put it simply, crappy healthcare, which is why most people who weren't covered by employee plans didn't have insurance.

 

Sorry, but I do not follow how this in any way belies "...people who couldn't afford insurance to start with will now be required by law to purchase a policy- a policy that costs more now than it did previously." And that is assuming that the figures you give are even factual - especially today.

 

Because the cost under Obamacare is not more than it was before.
http://www.statisticbrain.com/health-insurance-cost-statistics/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2013/05/22/annual-healthcare-costs-surpasses-22000/
My figures were conservative at best. I'm not a fan of the National Healthcare bill, but I am a fan of healthcare for all, because if those without don't pay for it, I have to. Hmmm, something I'd think all conservatives would agree with, but don't for some reason.

 

Because the cost under Obamacare is not more than it was before.
http://www.statisticbrain.com/health-insurance-cost-statistics/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2013/05/22/annual-healthcare-costs-surpasses-22000/
My figures were conservative at best. I'm not a fan of the National Healthcare bill, but I am a fan of healthcare for all, because if those without don't pay for it, I have to. Hmmm, something I'd think all conservatives would agree with, but don't for some reason.

 

What the Right wing haters can't or simply refuse to understand is that there is no perfect solution to the problem of millions of uninsured people surviving on no or inadequate insurance coverage for even basic medical costs in the current for-profit system. They and their Right wing hate machine have yet to offer any plan whatsoever to address this problem but they can endlessly criticize, politicize, and demagogue a plan that has yet to be fully implemented and worse is actively being undermined by republican governors, House Reps, and Senate ideologues from the Right.
Come up with a better plan or shut the F*#@ up! Let's hear it right now. What exactly is your plan to address the millions of uninsured hardworking Americans?
What is it they say..., Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. You have no plan, you are unwilling to follow the only plan out there, and obstruction isn't a solution. Now what idiots?

As proof of what I say, I give you this...

The Associated Press also picked up on the absence of a GOP health care plan the other day.

Three years after campaigning on a vow to ''repeal and replace'' President Barack Obama's health care law, House Republicans have yet to advance an alternative for the system they have voted more than three dozen times to abolish in whole or in part.
Officially, the effort is ''in progress'' -- and has been since Jan. 19, 2011, according to GOP.gov, a leadership-run website.
But internal divisions, disagreement about political tactics and Obama's 2012 re-election add up to uncertainty over whether Republicans will vote on a plan of their own before the 2014 elections, or if not by then, perhaps before the president leaves office, more than six years after the original promise.​

 

First one is comparing apples with oranges (Single Coverage/Family Coverage (i.e. insurance costs only) versus "average annual health care spending (not just insurance premiums) per capita") and none jive with you $400 per month.
Your second link shows the costs continuing to increase. I still have no idea what you are trying to say.

 

Their plan - not setting up death panels! What else would you like?

 

You're right..it shows the cost increasing yearly WITHOUT a national healthcare plan in effect, NOT because of it. Don't spin facts.

 

You're right..it shows the cost increasing yearly WITHOUT a national healthcare plan in effect, NOT because of it. Don't spin facts.

 

Oh for God's sake! Will someone with a brain that doesn't channel Sarah Palin please respond?

Only one moron, perhaps two or three, on this site would actually still be spewing what PolitiFact called the "PolitiFact's Lie of the Year: 'Death panels'."

Serious participants only please.

 

View attachment 1870

http://www.lifenews.com/2013/07/29/...re-includes-death-panels-wants-them-repealed/

 

Conservatives are against death panels now?! What the hell is this country coming to when a conservative doesn't support killing everyone by committee, unless of course they're still in the womb? I heard they were going to have nice white robes with hoods and everything...just what you guys like.
(sorry for the double posts....something with my internet)