Financial topics

[Reality Check]

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Obamacare Media Coverage Shifts - Obamacare is Great


Main stream media coverage has shifted - it is now being reported "Nixon's silent Majority" loves Obamacare and they are being prevented from finding out how great it is by the Obamacare Exchange Website glitches. Obama himself was courageous in changing the U.S. Health Care system for the better.

A tiny minority, of a tiny minority, "might" see prices go up a little, and they might call their congressmen to complain, but for the millions that are happy, their silence means they love it.

The administration says that about 12 million Americans, or 5 percent of the population, buy individual polices — they don’t get coverage through their employers or programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Millions of them will be required to get new policies, but many will qualify for federal aid to pay for the premiums. Thus, they will end up with better coverage at lower costs, officials say. If they are sick, they won’t be denied coverage or charged more.

But conveying such information is difficult because of the “calamitous” launch of HealthCare.gov, former White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said that “many of the people who have to transition are going to get better insurance for less money, but they just can’t tell that right now because they can’t get on the Web site.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html

[Reality Check]

Obama Care Exchanges - County by County - Not State by State

California created it's own Obamacare Exchange, but the California Exchange shares one feature with the states who allowed the Federal Government to create their state exchanges, the insurance market place created by the exchanges are not state-wide.

Insurance Companies can offer an insurance policy that is available in only one county within a state. The medical insurance markets within Obamacare exchanges are county markets, not state wide markets.

This is seldom discussed in the Media, but it is having a huge impact on how insurance companies manage risk and manage costs.

Of the roughly 2,500 counties served by the federal exchanges, more than half, or 58 percent, have plans offered by just one or two insurance carriers, according to an analysis by The Times of county-level data provided by the Department of Health and Human Services. In about 530 counties, only a single insurer is participating.

The access to emergency care regulations, included in the Obamacare law in return for political support for the Obamacare by hospital associations, strongly encourages insurance companies to issue insurance policies for the smallest geographic areas possible. This was not the intent of the Obamacare law, but the unintended consequence of the Insurance Companies attempting to avoid cost increases resulting from the change to the law in favor of hospitals. By insuring the patients homes are close to In-Network emergency care facilities near ( near as defined by the Obamacare law ) where the patients live, can avoid paying very large "emergency charges" that otherwise might occur. The same large insurance company can issue scores of insurance policies within a state, but each policy is open only to patients who live in a single county, and uses only In-Network hospitals and In-Network doctors within that county, thus avoiding the risk of much higher, non-contracted emergency health care costs, a state-wide policy would have made the insurance company ( not the patient ), liable for under the Obamacare law.

The county by county healthcare markets also increase costs for patients, and decrease competition between insurance companies for patients

Denied the ability to manage risk based on the health status of the patient, insurers are compensating by drastically raising deductibles, co-pays and sometimes premiums in counties where the patients have so few choices they will have to pay.

The impact on Hospitals and Doctors within those counties is also substantial, it gives the gigantic nation-wide insurance companies, which issue large business, small business and individual health insurance policies alike, the opportunity to pick winners and losers among the local county hospitals and the local county doctors ( based primarily on the interest of the insurance company, with the interest of the patient and the interest of the local community being of secondary and tertiary importance to the insurance company ). A county hospital that is excluded from the In-Network hospitals in all the insurance policies issued for patients within that county might be facing bankruptcy.

The Media has not been covering this, even in the individual market, except in relation to the most superficial measures of Obamacare such as number of insurance policies offered in a county, and monthly insurance premium prices. Deductibles and In-Network provider issues are not being addressed by the Media on a county by county basis. Even premiums are rarely being addressed on a county by county basis.

The political debate before Obamacare passed was if the policies should have been state by state, or all 50 states.

The Obamacare federal law details finalized in back rooms by Democratic staffs with the help of ( employees of and representatives of ) the insurance industry, implemented County by County health care marketplaces, NOT State-wide marketplaces and NOT United States wide insurance markets.

Good or Bad, for various players in the Health Care Industry, this has NOT been widely covered by the media in even a superficial manner, and rarely, if at all, in an in depth manner.

Here are a few news media articles that cover it in passing:

http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/04 ... er-prices/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/busin ... areas.html
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 ... 0423780446

[Reality Check]

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Associated Press asks each of 50 States for Data not Available from White House

3 Million more have lost medical coverage, than gained it since Obamacare website roll out

Associated Press checks find that data is unavailable in a half the states.

In the states that do have data available on insurance policy cancellation notices sent to families and individuals:

At least 3.5 million Americans ( so far - since the Obamacare website opened ) have been issued cancellations, but the exact number is unclear ( because the data is not available from half the states).

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=289&sid=3496953&pid=0&page=1

By contrast the AP article identifies only one quarter ( 1/4 ) of a million people that have gained health care since the Obamacare website opened - all by adding them to the state Welfare/Medicaid rolls in ( the ) 14 states the Associated Press could get data from:

A different prong of Obama's ( Obamacare ) coverage expansion seems to be doing fairly well. It's an expanded version of ( state Welfare based ) Medicaid, embraced so far by 25 states and the District of Columbia. An informal survey of 14 of those states by The Associated Press shows that at least 240,000 people had enrolled in or applied for the expanded safety-net program ( state Welfare based Medicaid ) as of the third week of October.

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=289&sid=3496953&pid=0&page=2

The Associated Press declined to report any estimates of insurance policies issued through the Obamacare exchanges - blaming the Obama White House for refusing to provide any data:

The ( Obama ) administration refuses to release enrollment numbers until mid-November ( 45 days after the Obamacare Exchange websites became available ) , when a crash program of computer fixes may be showing results. The numbers are expected to be disappointingly low; ( Obama administration) officials acknowledge as much.

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=289&sid=3496953&pid=0&page=2

[Reality Check]

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"Good Read"
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http://nypost.com/2013/11/05/the-obamac ... ever-gave/
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But this article ignores the changes that have occurred, and are just now coming to light, in the Employer Sponsored Health Insurance Market as a result of the Obamacare law both requiring, and allowing, Employers, to transfer the costs of health care from the Employer to the Employee - as part of the Obamacare changes to federal laws regarding Employer sponsored health plans.

This transfer is occuring primarily as a result of doubling and tripling annual deductables on full time employee policies.

[Reality Check]

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Obamacare winners and losers - even openly leftists Media reports "good people" losers.

http://www.propublica.org/article/loyal ... -obamacare

San Francisco architect Lee Hammack says he and his wife, JoEllen Brothers, are “cradle Democrats.”

They have donated to the liberal group Organizing for America and worked the phone banks a year ago for President Obama’s re-election.

I’ve been skeptical about media stories featuring those who claimed
they would be worse off because their insurance policies were being canceled on account of the ACA ( Obamacare ).

So I tried to find flaws in what Hammack told me. I couldn’t find any.

The couple’s existing Kaiser plan was a good one.

Their new options ( under the Obamacare law ) were indeed more expensive, and the benefits didn’t seem any better ( they were actually much worse ).

Since 1995, Hammack and Brothers have received their health coverage from Kaiser Permanente,

I asked Hammack to send me details of his current plan.

The couple — Lee, 60, and JoEllen, 59 — ( for the insurance plan they have had for 18 years ) have been paying $550, $275 each, a month ( premium ) for their health coverage — a plan that offers solid coverage, not one of the skimpy plans Obama has criticized. It carried a $4,000 deductible per person, a $40 copay for doctor visits, a $150 emergency room visit fee and 30 percent coinsurance for hospital stays after the deductible. The out-of-pocket maximum was $5,600.


But recently, Kaiser informed them the plan would be canceled at the end of the year because it did not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.

This plan was ending, Kaiser’s letters told them, because it did not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.

“Everything is taken care of,” the letters said.


“There’s nothing you need to do.” The cost ( of the automatic Obamacare compliant replacement policy ) would be ( $1,300 per month premium for the replacement Obamacare policy ) around double ( actually closer to triple - but the reporter was trying to minimize it ) what they pay now, but the benefits would be worse.

And for that higher amount ( a premium nearly three ( 3 ) times larger, at $1,3000 ), what would they get ( with the new Obamacare compliant policy )?

( for a nearly tripled $1,300 a month premium their automatic replacement Obamacare compliant policy came with ) A higher deductible ($4,500 each person), a higher out-of-pocket maximum ($6,350), higher hospital costs (40 percent of the cost) and possibly higher costs for doctor visits and drugs. ( reporter did not mention what the hospital and specialist co-pays increased to ).

When they shopped around and looked for a different plan on California's new health insurance marketplace ( the state run Obamacare Exchange ), Covered California, the cheapest one was $975, with hefty deductibles and copays. ( reporter failed to mention what hefty meant, but typically for these "lower tier" Obamacare plans they run "$10,000 deductible for a couple" and "$500 hospital co-pay" and "$70 doctor co-pay" for most doctors)

That’s little comfort to Hammack.

He’s written to California’s ( Democratic ) senators and his representative, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asking for help.

“ ACA ( Obamacare ) options for middle income individuals ages 59 & 60 are unaffordable.

We’re learning that many others are similarly affected.

In that spirit we ask that you fix this, for all of our sakes,” he and Brothers wrote." (Lee Hammack and his wife, JoEllen Brothers, were the ones writing to their Senators and Pelosi requesting their fix - to the Obamacare problems they are experiencing. They believe Obamacare is fine for everyone else but people like them need a fix).

( With a joint [gross] income of over $62,040 this couple is not eligible for any of the modest low income discounts on Obamacare premiums for people just under the $62,040 cutoff. Unlike income tax, which is charged based on net income, Obamacare penalizes people based on their gross income before any deductions, exemptions or costs of living are removed to get net income ).

http://www.propublica.org/article/loyal ... -obamacare

[Reality Check]

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OBAMACARE will accelerate the leading "hidden" cause of poverty in United States.

OBAMACARE is doubling and tripling annual deductibles up to $10,000, per family, or even higher.

U.S. Census Bureau releases report blaming rising "out of pocket" medical costs as leading "hidden" cause of increase in poverty.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... 6-13-38-44

Another crisis ripe for exploitation - the great part is the people who created the crisis will also be the ones to benefit from it. Never let a crisis go to waste.

[Reality Check]

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OBAMACARE - The Lighter Side - Mariage or Health Insurance - Pick One

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/11/06/ ... r-divorce/

[Reality Check]

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OBAMACARE - Colorado: - Private Insurance Policies Canceled, Welfare Medicaid grows

New numbers from the state of Colorado.

An additional quarter (1/4) Million Private Insurance Policies canceled in Colorado over, and above, the 3.5 Million already reported canceled in other states.


Tens of thousands of ( 34,000 ) people have been added to Colorado state Welfare Medicaid roles.

Less than 4 thousand people have purchased Obamacare policies in Colorado.

70 Times more people are having their private insurance canceled than are signing up for insurance policies through Obamacare website in Colorado.

[aedens]

Players wanted, no hangs ups.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8GwEX7nn6o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nXCALKFYzQ

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-0 ... west-coast

Up on the hill, they've got time to burn
There's no return

[jcsok]

Decided its time to try short ES this morning. As the Euro crashed in one minute (how's that for liquidity) 120 points, and continues lower, now down 200, the ES futures ramped to barely make a new high.