How long will it be before the tea partiers and the party that loves them stop referring to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as Obamacare? My guess is when the polls start telling them how popular the program is and how well it is working. When’s that? Just in time for the election is my guess. ACA is working, folks, and not a death panel in sight.
In the first quarter of 2011, 600,000 of the under 26 crowd joined their parents insurance. By the end of the year, they will number in the millions. Each one will become a reminder, if not an advocate, of the Affordable Care Act. There’s a big political multiplier here. Everyone will know someone out of college but still on their parents insurance. More people will be safer and healthier, thanks to ACA.
Not only is ACA bringing large numbers of the uninsured in the health care insurance system, as Mark Thoma notes, those big numbers are made up largely those needed in the pool of the insured: the young people who tend not to get sick. Paying for them helps spread the cost of insurance for those who get sick more regularly and reduces upward pressure on insurance costs.
Thoma quotes from Rick Ungar Forbes Magazine blogger (I can’t seem to get the Forbes page to work in my browser):
The provision of the law that permits young adults under 26, long the largest uninsured demographic in the country, to remain on their parents’ health insurance program resulted in at least 600,000 newly insured Americans during the first quarter of 2011. …
The Health & Human Services Department had estimated that the changes in the law would result in about 1.2 million new enrollees in 2011. However,… it now looks as if that number will be exceeded. …
Meanwhile, things continue to improve on the small business front where … there has been a significant uptick in small businesses taking advantage of the tax benefits offered by the ACA to provide health insurance to employees… According to a Kaiser survey, there has been a 46% uptick in businesses with less than 10 employees offering health benefits as compared to last year. … Further improving the outlook, the IRS has, in the past month, issued guidelines for small businesses which very much bolster the tax credits offered. …
Health care reform is working, folks – and we have yet to get to the really big benefits which kick in come 2014. … The time has arrived for even the most critical to take another look at health care reform. …
The presidential election will hinge on more than health care (or Tim Pawlenty pardoning sex offenders), but I, for one, am happy to see the President going into the 2012 cycle campaigning on something we haven’t seen in the last 10 or 20 years: a social program for the good of society.
Not I David, all my friends and acquaintances have jobs! Basically they don’t need mommy and daddy.
But hey that’s just me and the people I know. I still want to congratulate Obama though. Good job Mr. President, thank you for helping the sickest people that live among us. 😉
1. Pleased to know that the policies of President Obama and Governor Patrick have reduced the unemployment rate among your “friends and acquaintances” to zero. I trust you all are suitably grateful and will be working hard to see that President Obama is reelected in 2012.
2. Since we try to keep things reality-based around here, I’d suggest caution in extrapolating too far from personal anecdotes and observations to issues that concern many millions of people.
Well of course we try to keep things reality-based David. That’s why I had to comment. Mark-Bail made the blanket statement =>
That’s why I said =>
David I’m afraid it’s going to take a lot more than just you and me to police this bunch. For now I suggest we edit Mark’s post, and maybe issue him a warning. I haven’t made my final decision yet, I need to sleep on it. I’ll let you know in the morning.
a new troll zombie, but I stand by my extrapoloation that everyone will know someone between 21 and 26 on their parents insurance.
For the next few years, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people will remain on their parents insurance. The chance of everyone knowing someone still on their parents’ insurance is nor 100%, but it will be high enough to say everyone.
Assuming he is the same guy who previously posted under SchoolZombie, I think this is just the same old troll. If he follows the same pattern, he will get himself banned within a couple of weeks.
majority opinion on a particular issue?
as for those who disagree with the majority opinion … that would be you. And you’re still around.
Trolls, on the other hand, we don’t generally keep around. And anecdotes without data, empty sarcasm, and general vacuousness do tend to get banned.
Like I said before Charlie.
Mark Bail made the blanket statement that
That’s just foolish.
SchoolZombie was banned for childish, repetitive, anti-intellectual taunting. The original SchoolZombie repeatedly lied about his identity, saying he was a resident of MA, when in fact he was an out of state college student.
It is probably the same guy because I can’t think of any reason that someone else would want to pick a name of a known troll. Perhaps he has since learned how to behave like an adult, but his current entries, while not crossing the line in my opinion, don’t lead me to believe that we are going to offer much in the way of intelligent observation.
under a variety of spellings of “school” and “zombie”, too.
No Mark you are wrong.
If you can’t account for 100% than you can’t claim “Everyone”
Obviously you are too proud to admit that your comment was a little over the top. I get it, you don’t want to be schooled by the zombie in front of all your friends. However I will leave you with this little tid bit . . .
http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/rules/
As Hamlet said to the clown, “How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the/card, or equivocation will undo us.”
Add the word “virtually” to everyone if it makes you feel better. I’ve got better things to do than argue with a 12 year-old.
Way to save face Mark ; )
Does anyone actually believe that every single one of your acquaintances is employed with adequate insurance? I know that I don’t. Besides, which it is a cheap claim to make when posting under a pseudonym that has past associations with fabricated personal anecdotes.
It is really lame to attack people for hyperbole when you are so frequently guilty of it oneself.
You again?
Look hrs-kevin it’s the truth and that’s all that matters to me. Mark Bail made a horribly inaccurate claim and I corrected him. And that’s that. [Snapping finger]
Come on now, how is anyone to believe that you genuinely care for “the truth” when you are so quick to lie in order to support your point? As SchoolZombie you repeatedly lied. Why should anyone believe that anything has changed? You do know the fable about the boy who cried wolf, don’t you?
I would still like to know how you can honestly claim that you are fully aware of the insurance status of every one of your acquaintances? Are we to believe that you quiz everyone you know as to their employment and insurance status? Or is it that you know very few people?
Well actually hrs-kevin, the only friends I have are the couple guys I work with and since our company offers Health Insurance and we are right here in MA . . .
Have you ever even visited?
Yes, you have those young folks who tend not to get sick; however, under this schema they’re being added to a family plan, which results in most cases as $0 extra premium revenue. I’d actually venture that what you’ve done is increase costs significantly with no additional revenue. Working maybe, but not for long.
and I do know I don’t know enough to refute it.
The health care system is coherently unworkable. Until we make the wholesale change to a workable system, things like this will occur.
Oh but I am David. Really I am.
I owe it all to Obama! I don’t want anyone on this site to think I’m not grateful to “The One.” Before Obama came along I had to worry about bills and finding a job after graduation. Please please PLEASE don’t think I am not eternally grateful to “The One.”
are these being moderated now before posting? First comment on 3.0 version submitted a couple of times, got the duplicate post message, but never showing up. Am I doing something wrong here?
anything particular other than a blockquote and returns between paragraphs (or do I have to put on a tinfoil hat and think that replies that go against the grain are being ignored?)
I’ve restored the comment. Sorry about the confusion – we are working on fixing.
Realiz there always kinks in new programs. BTW, new site does seem to be better on my mobile phone (BB running OS 6). Curious as to other’s experience with their smartphones.
As an actuary, I’ll agree that this is indeed bringing in the young heatlhy uninsured; however, they’re being added to existing family plans, so you’re not seeing any new premium revenue. Will “work”, but not for very long.
One of the main reasons for requesting a waiver cited is this facet – that post-college remain on parents’ plans. (Full disclosure – I always thought it SHOULD be age-based, as colleges themselves have student plans, while the jobs for high school graduates usually do not). These entities – many of them unions – don’t want to have to pay the additional employer share on the kids, and get waivers.
seems to be of right-wing manufacture. The idea is to suggest that Democrats passed ACA and now give breaks to their cronies (unions, businesses in Pelosi’s distrit) by waiving the law’s requirements. This meme is part of the larger, ongoing strategy of painting the Dems, unions, etc. as hypocrites.
There’s good info and refutation at Mother Jones which links to a Crossroad’s GPS’s video.
For the record, the main raison d’etre for the waivers is that compliance with ACA would lead employers to drop mini-med’s–low-cost, limited health insurance. If this were to happen, employees covered by these plans would lose, not gain, insurance. The waivers exist to let this coverage remain until 2014.
http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/approved_applications_for_waiver.html
Is it your contention that the IBEW, Teamsters and municipalities listed were offering ‘mini-plans’? If it’s due to collective bargaining, why aren’t ALL unions and municipalities exempt until the next contract – why the need to apply for a waiver?
Point is – these listed do NOT cover kids until age 26, so it really shouldn’t be touted as a universal benefit.
Putting aside my doubt that HHS wasn’t your first or primary source for your opinion, let’s get some facts straight.
1. Union locals are not not the national unions they belong to. An individual local is part of the larger organization, but not equal to the entire union. Across the country, I would guess there are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of union locals. Unlike the state and national organizations, it’s the locals that do collective bargaining and shape working conditions. For example, there are only two state-wide teacher unions in Massachusetts: the MTA & whatever the state AFT union is called, but there are probably about 300 union locals representing teachers in the state.
In point of fact, the IBEW and Teamsters did not receive waivers. A handful of union locals–27 to be exact–may have, but not tens or hundreds of thousands of people represented by the Teamsters and IBEW.
2. Not all unions are the same. The waivers you speak of were granted (and limited to) non-Taft-Hartley unions; in spite of goggling, I still don’t know what those are, but they don’t seem to have all the rights and benefits of unions falling under the Taft-Hartley Act.
3) Waivers to Protect Existing Insurance Plans. The over-arching reason for waiversis to preserve existing health care plans until the everyone is required to meet the requirements in 2014:
So what is the problem again?
And I read things like the HHS web site for fun.
Carry on.
already covered by plans that don’t meet the minimum coverage of $750,000…
allows for individuals and families, not couples. If my kids were to fly the coop (which would be years away), I’d still pay the family price. So employers pay less the way our contract is set up.
I’ll be back at lunch to respond to the rest of your question.