Later in June 2010, Sebelius’ department published estimates in the Federal Register that 39 percent to 69 percent of employers’ fully insured plans would relinquish the coverage they had prior to the March 2010 passage of the ACA and thus would have to cancel or change policies.

About 60 million people are covered in fully insured plans, which make up about 40 percent of employer-provided health plans. Fully insured plans are usually offered by large employers. These plans have the insurance company rather than the employer assume the financial risk of annual health care expenses exceeding expectations. The rest of employers self-insure.

To escape having to provide the new law’s minimum required benefits, plans would have to largely maintain the co-pays, premiums and out-of-pocket limits that existed prior to March 2010.

Already this year, only 36 percent of employer plans were pre-2010 plans, compared with 56 percent in 2011, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a leading health care research organization. That means that millions of people’s plans already had changed or were canceled in the three and a half years since the law was enacted in March 2010.

That doesn’t automatically mean the plans were changed or canceled because of the new law.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/07/2 ... rylink=cpy

freeman3 wrote:Well, given your track record for being right about Obama I feel pretty good.

The Bush comparison was to show differences in scale; Bush's lies were incredibly damaging. I have already submitted the proof--both the CIA and State Deparrment knew that Niger allegations were forgeries and yet Bush went ahead with them.

Consider, please, these additional lines I’ve pulled from Bush’s speech:

The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons materials sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax.

The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin.

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. (Some of these have actually been located.)

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon, and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.

The left is attacking none of these allegations as lies. They’re ignoring these statements because they are true. What’s more, each and every one of the allegations from Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech listed above constitutes a more serious charge than the 16 words that the left has been obsessing over for the past few weeks. The truth contained in those five statements renders the “Saddam tried to buy uranium” charge almost meaningless. The American public would have easily accepted those facts as reason enough to remove Saddam Hussein.

The other day I mentioned that things might really get rough for Obama when health insurance cancellation notices hit elite Washington journalists. I neglected to consider what might happen if it began to happen to . . . college professors. A professor at an elite university writes in with this account (name withheld by request):

We are now in the process of enrolling in Medical Reimbursement Accounts for next year, and a visit to the Human Resources Department confirms that the year after next, we will not have the insurance plan that we have now. Although my college is self-insured and falls under ERISA laws, the plan the college provides is a “Cadillac” plan that is simply “unsustainable,” I was told. Not only are the tax implications on Cadillac plans too onerous to support, but, for reasons unspecified, the will not allow the college to continue its current insurance. I was worried about this because although we are self-insured, we have an outside administrator, which means we, too, are vulnerable to the tentacles of the ACA.

No one knows this because the Human Resources people have kept all the attention focused on next year, 2014, when things will remain largely the same. And very few people have been following this, blithely assuming that the Republicans who opposed the law were just partisan meanies. But they will learn, sooner or later, (after the mid-term elections???) that 2015 is going to be a whole new ball game. If they like their health care, tough luck.

Of course, about 99% of my colleagues voted for Obama, but they have no idea that they are going to lose the excellent health insurance that they currently enjoy.

freeman3 wrote:Nuclear weapons are what people care about and the 16 words led us into war, those words were wrong, and the Administration knew they were wrong. The Administration was also deceptive in trying to link Hussein to 911 and Hussein to Al Qaeda. A trifecta of deception but you keep believing what you want to believe, that's fine

freeman3 wrote:By the way, The Republican governor's refusal to accept medicaid expansion cuts even deeper than we thought as a subsidy to hospitals that reimbursed them for treating uninsured patients has been sharply cut...http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/healt ... d=all&_r=0

A government subsidy, little known outside health policy circles but critical to the hospitals’ survival, is being sharply reduced under the new health law.

Well, some governors noticed the Medicaid subsidies fade over time, leaving states to hold the bag--

meaning they have to raise taxes. So, shockingly, some refused to indebt their States for an unpopular law.

“The conversation we are having with the congressional delegation goes like this, ‘If we don’t expand Medicaid, what is the Georgia solution to indigent care?’ ” said Matthew Hicks, vice president for government relations at Grady. “So far they don’t have an answer.”

rickyp wrote:fate

Well, some governors noticed the Medicaid subsidies fade over time, leaving states to hold the bag--

10% of the cost of Medicare after three years.... Some bag.

Basically these states have had the indigent medical care in their states subsidized by taxation from other states.
If you don't think its fair that people should subsidize other peoples care through insurance, how can you support a system where taxpayers from out side Georgia have to help defray the costs incurred in Georgia?

meaning they have to raise taxes. So, shockingly, some refused to indebt their States for an unpopular law.

Boo hoo. So Georgians might have to raise taxes to pay for 10% of the cost of providing insurance to their poor.
As opposed to having the rest of the US pay the whole load through federal subsidies ...
Their free loaders.
The biggest problem for Republicans is contained in the last paragraph of the story quoted...

“The conversation we are having with the congressional delegation goes like this, ‘If we don’t expand Medicaid, what is the Georgia solution to indigent care?’ ” said Matthew Hicks, vice president for government relations at Grady. “So far they don’t have an answer.”

All the noise doesn't disguise the fact that there is no alternative to the ACA on offer ....Especially not one that could win an election like the ACA did for Obama.

nice Ricky, so it's ok to lower the cost for ONLY those who purchase individual insurance while allowing the rest of us to face 20% increases

Today, the average cost of a family health insurance offered by an employer is $13,375. That’s up 131% over the last decade—a period in which inflation rose only 28%. And one estimate says that if costs continue on their current trajectory, premiums will go up another 166% in the decade ahead.

Doctor Fate wrote:Your argument is that 10% of an expanded Medicaid roll is no biggie.

...cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year