Poll: Healthcare Insurance

[Big Boss Man]

The government is running ads stating that everyone deserves healthcare. Just one step away from saying healthcare is a Right. I predict this will become a new third rail in American politics like Social Security. http://youtu.be/5XOIGGdnizY.

In fact, according to Wikipedia, healthcare is a third rail already in Canada.

Ted Cruz was right. Once it starts it cannot be taken back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail_of_politics

[Tres3]

ObamaCare can't be repealed

They said the same thing about Prohibition, and it was a much more difficult to repeal Constitutional Amendment.

Tres3.

[Esten]

It's amusing to see Jax attempt to deflect the strategies that are the core of right wing politics onto liberals. The internet is littered with right wing spam, biased polls and so-called "news outlets" that are fronts for disseminating their false or deceptive narratives. This is the right wing "echo chamber" where, if you get enough people saying something, other people may more likely believe it to be true. They further try to reinforce their positioning by declaring themselves "Fair and Balanced" and "The Spin Stops Here". Only true LIVs fall for this stuff. Anyone remember the birther theory? Yep, these are the same people, and right wing political strategists know it. So do the numerous right wing media entrepreneurs who have made fortunes off them.

[Jackson]

Ted Cruz asked more or less the same question on his Facebook page "Obamacare was signed into law four years ago yesterday. Are you better off now than you were then?"

Overwhelming response - Damn right we are! Not pleasant reading for the Obama haters.

Bullshit,

You know how this works. Any time there is any sort of online poll, the liberal bloggers quickly spread the word and their zombie sycophants flood the poll with leftist responses.

Of course, the LIV is blissfully ignorant of these strategies, and given that they will only glance at the artificially manipulated poll results, the liberals will have yet again scored a disinformation victory.

Thanks,

Jax.

[Esten]

Yes I kept my employer sponsored health plan.

BTW, I just had a look at Ted Cruz's page ( https://www.facebook.com/SenatorTedC...17779935000978). LOL, it's full of positive anecdotes! Here's a few.

Yes! Everyone in my family has a pre-existing condition that range from minor to serious. We were uninsurable on the individual market. Now we've got great coverage through healthcare.gov. We did NOT get a subsidy but it still fits our budget!
835 · March 24 at 3:19pm

Yes. Costs stopped climbing. I'm a small business guy and I don't have to worry because insurance companies can't drop us anymore. 793 · March 24 at 3:14pm

I don't have Obamacare, but someone I know who had bad mouthed it for the past for years, recently had to get coverage after her husband recently passed away. The first words out of her mouth, "Thank God for Obamacare." She is a staunch Republican and believes everything she hears on Fox News. And those who are saying they won't comply are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Wake up! 759 · March 24 at 1:49pm

YES, best law ever! And way overdue! I spent all my retirement savings on overpriced insurance in order to save my life when I got cancer in 2005. I had no income and now have no savings. If it had been in place back then, I wouldn't be looking at a poor retirement, but at least I am not worried about having care anymore.

Yes Ted. In spite of your empty pandering rhetoric I am better off now that I was four years ago. I now have an insurance plan, purchased from a private company, that must insure me rather than suck profit from me. Before, I was dumped from insurance for using it. Now I can use it and cannot be dumped for actually making a claim. YES TED, WE ARE BETTER OFF!!! Single payer and the elimination of the for-profit insurance racket would be an even bigger step for the Citizens of the country. But you aren't interested in the Citizens, you are only interested in campaign donations and personal enrichment.

[Jackson]

Love it, hate it or fear it. . . Obamacare is here to stay. Six million Americans have signed up for it.

The new mantra of the left: ObamaCare can't be repealed!

Let me see if I understand your logic:

We can't eliminate ObamaCare because it's butt-fucking 6 million people?

ObamaCare was legislated into law, and it can be legislated out.

It's not complicated. All they have to do is make ObamaCare optional. If you like your ObamaCare policy, you can keep your ObamaCare policy. Otherwise, you can buy or not buy whatever policy you want.

Remember when this used to be free country?

Thanks,

Jackson.

[SteveC]

Ted Cruz asked more or less the same question on his Facebook page "Obamacare was signed into law four years ago yesterday. Are you better off now than you were then?"

Overwhelming response - Damn right we are! Not pleasant reading for the Obama haters.

[Easy Go]

I changed plans this year because my employer changed the price and coverage of the three different plans I was offered. I'm sure some of the changes were because of the ACA. Does that count as losing my plan because of the ACA or is it just one of the multiple times I've had to change plans over the years either because I changed employers or because my employer decided that it was in his best interest to unilaterally change the plans I was offered? Does it even make any difference as long as I ended up with a decent plan?

If somebody lost their current plan and decided that the other options available plans were unacceptable for whatever reason, does that mean that they lost their insurance because of ACA?

Since the poll question didn't really answer these questions, I decided to rephrase to "Do you believe that your health insurance options are significantly worse because of the ACA?" and my answer is no.

[Yujin]

Love it, hate it or fear it. . . Obamacare is here to stay. Six million Americans have signed up for it. Even if the GOP gains control of the White House and the Senate, I just don't see how they're going to be able to repeal Obamacare without a viable alternative and with all the infighting in the GOP, that's not going to happen.

Here's an interesting article in today's newspaper:

Despite concerns about Obamacare, big employers not abandoning health benefits.

Companies use health benefits to attract and retain workers with key skills.

By Guy Boulton of the Journal Sentinel.

March 29,2014 5:53 pm.

Patrick Hansen, the chief financial officer of Strattec Security Corp., has no pretensions of knowing how the Affordable Care Act will affect employers years from now.

But for now, Strattec, based in Glendale, has no plans to stop offering health benefits to its employees.

"We'd have a hard time recruiting," Hansen said.

Opponents of the Affordable Care Act — among them Wisconsin Republicans Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Ron Johnson — have contended that the law will result in employers no longer offering health benefits. Now Ezekiel Emanuel, a physician and former adviser in the Obama administration when the law was making its tortuous way through Congress, is contending the same.

In his new book, "Reinventing American Health Care," Emanuel, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a steadfast defender of the law, contends the Affordable Care Act will lead to a sharp drop in employers who offer health benefits.

Most supporters of the law — and some policy analysts and economists ambivalent about it — don't see that happening.

"At the margin, it is not going to have a big impact on whether employers drop coverage," said Robert Town, a health economist at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Hansen noted one commonly cited reason: Employers offer health benefits to retain and attract workers with the skills needed to run their businesses and organizations, and health insurance is a prized benefit. The Affordable Care Act doesn't change that.

Another is that the tax code bestows generous tax breaks for health insurance obtained through an employer.

Consider the math. Nationally, the average premium for family coverage through an employer was $16,351 last year, according to an annual survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation / Health Research & Educational Trust.

Workers paid an average of $4,565 toward the cost.

The share of the premium paid by employers — roughly 72% on average for family coverage — was tax-free compensation for a worker. And workers can pay their share of the premium with pretax dollars.

People who buy health insurance on their own don't get that tax break.

This means people in the 25% tax bracket who bought family coverage on their own for $16,351 would pay about $4,087 more in taxes — not including state taxes.

That provides a strong incentive for health insurance to remain a prized benefit.

"It's huge," Hansen said, "especially if you had to buy a family benefit.".

Massachusetts model.

There are others reasons to expect employers to continue to offer health benefits.

To retain the tax benefits, a company must offer health insurance to all its employees, from the CEO on down. The Affordable Care Act also requires employers who don't offer health benefits to pay a penalty or tax of $2,000 for each full-time employee.

Employers in Massachusetts didn't stop offering coverage after the state put in place health reforms that were a model for the Affordable Care Act. The reverse happened. More employers began offering health benefits.

Emanuel acknowledged in an interview with The New York Times that what happened in Massachusetts is the best argument against his prediction.

Surveys by benefit consultants haven't found any signs that employers will drop health benefits. In February, Aon Hewitt said a survey of 1,230 employers found that 95% plan to continue offering coverage in the next three to five years.

Matt Weimer, director of employer benefit operations for Diversified Insurance Solutions in Brookfield, said he can't name any clients who have said they plan to drop coverage.

But he expects small employers — particularly those with fewer than 10 workers — to stop offering benefits.

"Those groups really have struggled for some time to offer benefits," Weimer said.

Only 45% of employers with three to nine workers offered health benefits last year, down from 57% in 2000, according to the Kaiser survey. The same trend can be seen among employers with 10 to 24 workers: 68% offered health benefits last year, down from 80% in 2000.

Nearly all employers — 99% — with 200 or more employees, in contrast, offered benefits.

Restaurants, hotels, nursing homes and other employers with a large percentage of low-wage workers — who may value larger paychecks more than health benefits — also could stop offering benefits over time, Weimer said.

In March 2012, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 3 million fewer people would get health insurance through their employers in 2022 because of the law. By comparison, an estimated 159 million would get health insurance through an employer that year.

That is just a projection. Under different scenarios, the Congressional Budget Office estimates range from a reduction of 20 million to a gain of 3 million people with employer coverage.

"We surely should expect that some employers are going to stop offering coverage to their employees as a result of the Affordable Care Act," said Craig Garthwaite, a health economist at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. "That is going to be a good thing for those employees and for the employer.".

Low-wage workers would be eligible for federal subsidies if their employer doesn't provide affordable health benefits, he said. In some cases, they would be better off buying insurance on their own through the marketplaces.

The employees would lose the tax benefit. But low-wage workers pay relatively little, if any, federal taxes.

Garthwaite also said employers' responses will vary by company and industry.

"Remember, ultimately what the employer wants is to craft the most cost-effective package they can give to get the quality of employee they want," he said.

Easier to shop.

More employers can consider dropping health benefits because the new regulations imposed on health insurers makes it easier to get coverage outside the workplace.

Insurers no longer can deny coverage for someone with medical problems, for example, and are limited in how much more they can charge older people than younger people.

In the past, when an employer dropped coverage, workers with health problems may have been unable to buy health insurance and older workers would have had to pay much higher rates.

"My employer is not giving me insurance," Garthwaite said. "I am just taking my compensation in that form.".

All this depends on how the marketplace evolves: how the health plans compare with employer coverage, what the plans cost, whether the marketplaces make it easier to shop for insurance.

"We don't know the answer to that yet," he said.

But he expects that the marketplaces eventually will be easier to use and will give consumers more and better information.

"We've never done this before," Garthwaite said. "Over time, we will get better at it.".

Town, of the University of Pennsylvania, even goes a step further. He expects the Affordable Care Act to affect the economy only on the margins. And he makes a prediction of his own.

"Years from now," he said, "we will think, 'My God, we talked a lot about that.'.

[Tiny12]

This is a question for USA citizens or residents who had American health insurance in the year 2012. Did you or will you lose your healthcare insurance policy as a result of Obamacare? If you don't know yet, please don't answer.