Los Angeles Times Reports, Obamacare Subsidies On Track To Cost Billions This Year

(via Los Angeles Times)

So, about all those subsidies for health insurance that fueled approximately 8 million sign-ups for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. They are on track to cost us billions of dollars this year, a new federal report indicates.

Nearly nine in 10 Americans who bought healthcare coverage on the federal government’s healthcare marketplaces received government assistance to offset their premiums.

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Here’s An Idea. Let’s Make Healthcare So Affordable That You’ll Need A Loan For Your Deductible.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard the parable of the tall man and the cat.

Maybe not, since I had to make it up in light of healthcare’s unending cost increase.

See in this allegorical village there was a group of citizens who were very upset with a man who lived there. This man was very, very tall, and he made all the villagers feel uneasy (they were insecure about the crowns of their heads, who knows why).

One night, a mob caravanned to the tall man’s house with tall, burning torches.

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Posted by: AtlasMD

May 15, 2014

Obamacare Exchanges Burn Taxpayer Dollars By The Truckload

Remember Cash for Clunkers? That program gave car buyers rebates of up to $4,500 if they traded in less fuel-efficient vehicles for new vehicles with better gas mileage.

But because a lot of the vehicles eligible for the rebate would have sold anyway, taxpayers ended up paying about $24,000 per additional car sale that these incentives produced.

And it looks like Obamacare is in a fierce race to beat Cash for Clunkers to become the poster child for mismanagement of federal taxpayer resources:

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Harvard Policy Researcher Says Obamacare Will Inadvertently Break Fee-For-Service Model

In Washington, Amitabh Chandra stood before a roomful of economists, policy makers and health care experts earlier this month. As director of Health Policy Research at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, he closed a presentation about the slowdown in health care spending over the last decade by citing an article in The New York Times.

“Changes in the way doctors and hospitals are paid — how much and by whom — have begun to curb the steady rise of health care costs in the New York region,” the article declared. “Costs are still going up faster than overall inflation, but the annual rate of increase is the lowest in 21 years.”

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Coverage Does Not Equate To Savings — Bronze Plan’s High Deductible Leaves Family Out To Dry

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Recently, we received a call from someone who wanted to learn more about our model.

Turns out, their ACA Bronze Plan no longer covers their medications, meaning they now will pay $600/mo until they reach their $6800 deductible.

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Oregon Spends Over $1,000 Per Cover Oregon Enrollee — Then Bails On Their Broken Website

Oregon went “all in” on health reform, firmly embracing the Affordable Care Act. They launched a very successful Medicaid expansion — a $2 billion federal experiment to prove the state could save money by managing patients’ care better, and, of course, the state’s own online marketplace to sell Obamacare insurance.

But that last point has been a huge problem.

The Cover Oregon board decided on Friday to ditch its troubled website and join up with the federal HealthCare.gov exchange instead.

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Is This The Start Of A New Trend? Covered California Patients Are Saying They Can’t See A Doctor.

While open enrollment for coverage under the Affordable Care Act is closed, many of the newly insured are finding they can’t find doctors, landing them into a state described as “medical homelessness.”

Rotacare, a free clinic for the uninsured in Mountain View, is dealing with the problem firsthand.

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If ACA Politics Leave People Without Coverage, Maybe It’s Time To Forget The Politics.

About 8 million people have signed up for Year 1 of Obamacare, but millions of others are still falling into the law’s “coverage gap.” They earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but they don’t make enough to get federal subsidies to buy private insurance on an Affordable Care Act exchange.

The human toll of the coverage gap can be found all too easily in Hidalgo County, Texas, where less than half of non-senior adults had health insurance in 2012.

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Direct Care Opponents Claim Our Patients Are “Exposed”? Tell That To A Surprising Proponent (The Healthcare Exchange).

In South Portland, Maine — Roxanne Pettigrow chooses not to buy health insurance. She visits her doctor in South Portland every few weeks, though, paying $50 up front, once per month for regular checkups, office visits and preventive health screenings. It’s care that those who lack health coverage often skip.

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Will The Uninsured Become Healthier Once They Receive Healthcare Coverage?

Conventional wisdom might tell you, The Affordable Care Act will save thousands of lives, as millions of uninsured persons* receive the coverage they lacked, and hence the care they need.

But although commentators make the assumption that the ACA will improve the health of the uninsured, the link between health insurance and health isn’t so clear.

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