Politifact rates "Obamacare death spiral" as FALSE.

I fear that since the GOP is predicting a death spiral ->
The GOP is in charge of the government ->
They're going to create the death spiral

GOP would have to either remove the %-of-income caps or instead "block grant" the medicaid subsidy to the states (and have the states deal with the problem). Either way requires a vote that would be unpopular. Importantly, Trump's refusal to enforce penalties for people opting out of Obamacare doesn't seem to have any effect on the system.

@Hauta

"Republicans claim that increasing premiums cause ->
healthy people to leave the system, causing ->
premiums to rise for everyone else, causing ->
more healthy people to leave the system...

...however, this ignores the fact that for lots of people, Obamacare premiums are capped at a certain % of income. If premiums rise above that amount, that's where the federal subsidies kick in. Thus, these people don't feel premium increases and never leave the system."


but insurance companies don't like being proxies of the government, so instead of accepting subsidies, they raise rates on people with low risk (healthy, younger people), to try to not operate at losses.


"GOP would have to either remove the %-of-income caps or instead "block grant" the medicaid subsidy to the states (and have the states deal with the problem). Either way requires a vote that would be unpopular. Importantly, Trump's refusal to enforce penalties for people opting out of Obamacare doesn't seem to have any effect on the system."


i don't blame Trump for not forcing people to pay for health insurance, if they do not want it

Obamacare is pseudo-nationalization via subsidies, but these private insurance agencies don't want to be government controlled.

If you want single-payer, just come out and push for it. Obamacare's middle of the road plan has not worked

(no, it's COINCIDENCE that we've seen massive premium and deductible spikes)

Dems are for single-payer and fwiw I think they are pushing it. But obviously, it won't go anywhere in Congress. But you can't just say Obamacare hasn't worked. There's nothing to back that statement up. Is it really a massive premium spike if you don't have to pay the increase? It is a new entitlement, and one that will limit how much of a tax cut the rich can give themselves. That's the real rub.

Food for conservative thought by a Republican who worked for Dubya:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/the-republican-waterloo/520833/

I'll say this for David Frum, author of the article (and who I disagree with many times) -- he's an independent thinker, not a talking points guy.

Ignores the old system:
Healthy people don't get insurance.
Rates rise for those covered because of a smaller pool of people making claims.
Really sick can't afford insurance because of higher premiums,
When healthy people need insurance they pay higher premiums because now they have a pre-existing condition.

"but insurance companies don't like being proxies of the government, so instead of accepting subsidies, they raise rates on people with low risk (healthy, younger people), to try to not operate at losses."

Which health insurance companies are refusing Obamacare subsidies?

@JamesYanik: we haven't seen massive premium and deductible spikes; in fact we've seen a slowing down of the trends that have been going on for many years. And your comment about insurance companies turning down government money on principle is mystifying. That isn't happening, and it's obvious to anyone who has lived in the universe that it never would.

Also, "Obamacare" is a GOP-designed plan from top to bottom. That helps to explain why it sets up a system in which taxpayer money goes to for-profit corporations.

1.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-obamacare-premiums-20161025-snap-story,amp.html

2. "When healthy people need insurance..."

Then they should have gotten it before they got sick. That's how "insurance" works

3. Yes it is a premium spike if you don't pay it immediately, because you'll pay it in taxes, or you'll pay it in debt


If you want single payer, that's another issue. Obamacare should be hated by all, it's a mess.it forces people to buy a private company's good or else pay money (or else go to jail)

4. Leth more than you'd think. Many government subsidies involve requirements for how the company is allowed to pay profits to its executives, aren't given unless you have a sufficient profit point past break-even... Etc

@pastoralan

In all actuality, most government handouts insurance companies "do" accept. However, THAT money is revenue, from:

Taxes.

"Pseudo-nationalized"!comes to mind again

@JamesYanik
I'm not sure what point you intended to make by citing the LA Times story, but its conclusion about Obamacare is markedly different from yours.

I *do* know that with respect to insurers turning down government subsidies, "more than I think" is a very, very low bar to clear. If it's your intended mechanism for driving the death spiral, you'll have to do better than that. (Preferably sourced.)

@Lethologica

it's not a death spiral, because after a while there will simply be a fixed rate of risk that we meet. i agree that the terminology is bad, although the ACA has contributed to raising rates.

when you add more high risk people into the pool, the overall rate will increase.

and yes the LA times article reaches a different conclusion, but that my point for that was that even Liberals know that we saw premium spikes. they believe single payer is the way out, which is another discussion. this in-between method i'm simply not a fan of. IT's why Trump's plan is failing... even Bernie and Hillary agreed that Obamacare was a mess. Clinton campaigned saying it wasn't the best option for the American people, but the second she lost, they realized that all they would have now is obamacare so all the mud they threw at it during the campaign they're retracting (except for Bernie, who is fairly consistent on these issues)

this is counter to what pastoralan claimed

@JamesYanik
The LA Times article agrees with pastoralan that the ACA has contributed to a slowdown in healthcare spending increases. If you're citing it to argue that the opposite is true, without addressing the context of the article's argument, you're quote-mining.

The liberal position on Obamacare has always been that it's a half-measure. You seem to have confused that for a claim that it's a generally harmful half-measure, which is your position; but that is not correct. Small wonder that when you see liberals talk about Obamacare in positive terms, you're confused by the seeming inconsistency.

That includes Bernie, by the way.
"The Affordable Care Act was a critically important step towards the goal of universal health care. Thanks to the ACA, more than 17 million Americans have gained health insurance. Millions of low-income Americans have coverage through expanded eligibility for Medicaid that now exists in 31 states. Young adults can stay on their parents’ health plans until they’re 26. All Americans can benefit from increased protections against lifetime coverage limits and exclusion from coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Bernie was on the U.S. Senate committee that helped write the ACA.

But as we move forward, we must build upon the success of the ACA to achieve the goal of universal health care. Twenty-nine million Americans today still do not have health insurance and millions more are underinsured and cannot afford the high copayments and deductibles charged by private health insurance companies that put profits before people."
https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/

Wasn't the Affordable Care Act modeled on a health care law pushed by Mitt Romney as Governor of MA?

"Romney sought to bring near-universal health insurance coverage to the state... [He] decided that because people without insurance still received expensive health care, the money spent by the state for such care could be better used to subsidize insurance for the poor."

Also:

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/23/451200436/mitt-romney-finally-takes-credit-for-obamacare

^ Hence pastoralan's comment about it being "a GOP-designed plan from top to bottom." See also: the Heritage Foundation.