“You Can Keep Your Doctor” Update
By Mitch Berg
Next year, if all proceeds as expected, one out of six Americans will have exactly one option in their Obamacare exchange:
According to an analysis done for The Upshot by the McKinsey Center for U.S. Health System Reform, 17 percent of Americans eligible for an Affordable Care Act plan may have only one insurer to choose next year. The analysis shows that there are five entire states currently set to have one insurer, although our map also includes two more states because the plans for more carriers are not final. By comparison, only 2 percent of eligible customers last year had only one choice.
The conspiracy theory that Obamacare was intentionally designed to wreck the system to make single-payer inevitable looks less and less far-fetched every day.
August 23rd, 2016 at 8:15 am
Many (most?) conservatives have been saying that Obamacare was never really enacted to succeed, but enacted to be a mess, so then we can have gov’t run socialized healthcare (sic) instead.
Paranoia? Many Democrats are saying that now. Including Robert Reich.
August 23rd, 2016 at 9:34 am
Things that make me insane: The ACA is REGRESSIVELY FUNDED and the GOP never says ANYTHING about it. The DEMOCRAT PARTY has a regressive funding scheme for healthcare and no one knows.
No one ever talks about the Swiss system or the Purple plan. IMO, that is the only way out. Progressively subsidized, choice, and the private insurers aren’t destroyed.
Stop talking about Health Savings accounts. People that want this know about them. The point is there are ways to help people manage big deductibles with financial engineering or concierge medicine. Big deductibles will shrink the costs.
August 23rd, 2016 at 11:31 am
When there is only one Obamacare policy to choose from – they win! They can go to Congress and say x-million are under-insured and getting sub-standard health care and, therefore – everyone must pay!
August 23rd, 2016 at 12:02 pm
Only one insurer, and increasingly major healthcare providers (e.g. Mayo) are saying “thanks, but no thanks” to the proposals from these insurers–they simply don’t cover costs. And for reference, Mayo is NOT by and large a high cost provider. Last few bills I’ve gotten showed no discount vs. what Mayo billed–which means they’re coming in already where MY insurer is willing to pay.
August 23rd, 2016 at 12:08 pm
A few years ago when I was looking at knee replacement surgery I was surprised to find out that the Mayo actually charged LESS for the procedure than the multiple hospitals in my network that are located in the Twin Cities.
August 23rd, 2016 at 12:48 pm
NW: think of the capital utilization that they can achieve. To draw a picture, when I was done with my colonoscopy, I was in a room with several other people as they made sure we were recovering nicely. Think “more beans, Mr. Taggart” as a word picture. I did my fart, I mean part. It also helps that a lot of wealthy patients aren’t satisfied with just paying their bill. For example, the entire Gonda building is a gift of one family.
Back to the subject, when a group that uses capital as well as Mayo does says that your payments are totally insufficient, that means your insurance model is in seriously in trouble. Other insurers shown the door by Mayo (in part at least) include Medicare and Medicaid.
Which is to say that the entire Obama model of putting people into Medicaid as a way of “getting them healthcare” is in big, big trouble. More or less, good luck persuading people to get a 3.8 GPA in college, then spend four years in medical school and at least three more in residency, without actually paying them for all that time and work.
August 23rd, 2016 at 2:38 pm
And don’t forget the additional paperwork. More mandates from Mother Government in DC.
August 23rd, 2016 at 3:02 pm
I sincerely believe that unions that are striking over healthcare (like MNA at Allina) are also doing this to disrupt, make employers decide not to provide insurance, and set a stage for single payer health insurance as well. I’d love to se Republicans offer up alternatives to employer based insurance, such as buying on the free market individually, like we do with auto insurance, and offer some portability.
I’m amazed at single payer advocates, especially those that work in health care. There will not be as many health care workers under a single payer system and wages will not be as high. Though, I guess if you think everyone, from the janitor to the doctor deserves just $15 an hour, but you see yourself as someone who is going to get out of manual labor and have a cushy office job administrating the beauracracy of single payer insurance, then maybe then you can get behind single payer health care.
August 23rd, 2016 at 3:18 pm
I wonder if people realize just how much control over their lives “single payer” would give the government.
Suddenly, your life choices become a matter of public interest. Smoking is not only bad for your health, it is costing your neighbors more to insure you…smoking must be made illegal.
Driving a car? Well the stress and danger is affecting your health and costing too much; your driving must be regulated.
Guns? Are you frickin’ kidding me? Hand them over!
But hey, you might think; what about the cost of AIDS? Millions in maintenance drugs which allow the gay to continue to spread the disease! Surely buggery will be made illegal again. Not a bit, and just thinking that proves right wing propaganda has driven you crazy. The cost of mental health care must be kept low…Right wing propaganda must be banned.
Socialized medicine must be stopped, and stopped with extreme prejudice.
August 23rd, 2016 at 3:25 pm
Swiftee says “I wonder if people realize just how much control over their lives “single payer” would give the government.”
Most people are very ignorant about how the gov’t works. Look at schools. A bureaucrat sitting in an office in DC is making the weekly lunch menu for every school in the nation. If the federal gov’t takes over our healthcare, imagine the mandates. You think the DC folks telling middle schools in Illinois that they have to allow boys to shower with the girls is crazy…….wait until you go in for a checkup, have a health issue, and the doctor has to consult his government rulebook before he can present you your options.
August 23rd, 2016 at 3:43 pm
I want to be in the grocery store check-out line behind Swiftee when the clerk says “I’m sorry sir, I can’t let you buy these Hostess Ho-Hos. The computer says they’re not on the list of foods approved for your diet by your health care provider.”
August 23rd, 2016 at 4:00 pm
Me, too.
August 23rd, 2016 at 4:10 pm
Damn it, JD!
I just spewed coffee all over my monitor and keyboard.
I would actually pay to see that!
August 23rd, 2016 at 4:44 pm
I’d love to see that, too, though I wouldn’t accuse Swiftee of buying Ho-Hos. Maybe the waitress at Waffle House could tell him he couldn’t have his waffles with real syrup or something? :^)
Seriously, I think MJB is on to something, though I can’t figure out for the life of me why anyone would want single payer. Make your whole life life working at the DMV? Give medical care to the same system that gave us the Trabant? Seriously? Almost all of the great innovations in medicine are private sector, so going to single payer could very well be lethal for a lot of us, including those who work for the system.
August 23rd, 2016 at 9:14 pm
[…] [Updated] Shark Tank: Democrat Annette Taddeo’s Big Oops! TV Moment Shot In The Dark: “You Can Keep Your Doctor” Update STUMP: Public Pensions Returns – Can Public Pensions Beat The Market? The Jawa Report: Feel […]
August 24th, 2016 at 8:56 am
Dude, for some folks Trabant was a luxury! It is all about perspective.
August 24th, 2016 at 9:35 am
JPA: yes, I visited that country in 1989, just before the Wall fell. In that same place, you would also find that Hershey’s would have been a primo chocolate, and Sam’s Club cola would have been a premier soft drink. I know that from bitter, grainy experience.
(and I’m no big fan of either Hershey or Sam’s–Lindt or Scharffen-Berger and Coca-Cola for me, thanks!)