More Obamacare TRUTH

Thank you to my Republican governor and legislature: live blogging Obamacare from the hospital.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...ure-live-blogging-Obamacare-from-the-hospital



I was a vocal critic of Obamacare. For me, holding a low-income job at the time of passage, Obamacare was the worst "remedy" to the health care crisis imaginable. Even if I qualified for subsidies, I would be required to buy insurance that I could never use. Having insurance but not being able to afford deductibles or copays would be akin to having to buy car insurance even though I can no longer drive. I supported Obama over Clinton primarily because he opposed the individual mandate, and I felt betrayed. Not so much anymore. For that I guess I have to thank my Republican governor and legislature.

Between passage and implementation of Obamacare, my health steadily declined. Fifteen years of not being able to afford diabetes treatment, and not being eligible for insurance because I had diabetes, was taking its toll. I can no longer work or drive. For a long while, I could do gardening and projects around the house. My brother suggested I was a malingerer for not working but still being able to lay a paver patio for my sister. I asked him to help me look for a job where I could work for a couple hours a day, no more than one hour at a time, and take three weeks to finish a two-day project. But that's a digression - maybe a bitter digression.

Anyway, with the implementation of Obamacare this year, I went on the website to see where I stood. One of the questions was whether I had a disability which prevented me from working. Note it did not ask if I had been diagnosed with a disability which prevented me from working, or if I was receiving disability. I answered yes, but was leery about whether my own acknowledgement of the effects of my illness would be sufficient. I still am leery, but less so with the turn of events since January.

The national exchange website told me to contact my state Medicaid office. I live in a blood red state, but our officials accepted Medicaid expansion. The Supreme Court said they did not have to, and extremists urged them not to.

I have often wondered what response I would have gotten if I lived 70 miles south or west of where I do. Maybe the website would have suggested, instead of contacting my state Medicaid office, contact every state Republican official and ask them why they are such morons. But, again, I digress.

Because North Dakota accepted Medicaid expansion, I was eligible and began being treated for diabetes in January. Medicaid pays, or at least my records show they are billed, over $800 per month for insulin. I was paying $6 per month, but last month the pharmacist said for some reason I owed nothing at all. Maybe the program now pays 100 percent - we'll soon find out.

I also have been treated for eye problems. Seeing an ophthamologist costs $2 per visit. My ophthamologist is Yale-educated and from Romania. I prefer foreign-born doctors; I feel they have guts and determination and courage to leave home, friends and family to better themselves. That is why I cannot for the life of me understand the right-wingers' stance on the refugee children on our border, but, again, I digress.

In July I had a regularly-scheduled check-up with my diabetes doctor. In a happy coincidence, he is also from Romania. I am learning simple Romanian phrases to show appreciation, and am surprised at how similar Romanian is to Latin. My guess is that the name Romania somehow has an historic connection to Rome. I know, I know - digressing again.

At the July check-up, the doctor said my blood pressure was really low, and asked if I had ever experienced low blood pressure before. I had not. He told me to check it frequently at home. I bought a home meter and discovered it was consistently in the area of 70/55. The diastolic dropped as low as 67 and the systolic 47. I called his office after a week. They immediately scheduled an appointment with a cardiologist. Again, $2.

I went to the cardiologist (from India) and explained my symptoms, which included fatigue, loss of balance, falling, light-headedness. He performed an EKG and other tests. He said the tests showed a high likelihood that I had suffered a heart attack without knowing it. He scheduled an echocardiogram and a stress test for the next week. I took the 100 -mile trip again the next week for the tests. Before I got home, I had a message saying we had to do an angiogram.

Here I lie, a week later and another 100-mile-each-way trip. Because I fell on the stairs earlier this week and hurt my wrist, I have a catheter in my groin. Nurses come by to check my groin frequently. Frankly, I've never had so much interest in my groin for such an extended length of time. But I digress, what's new?

During the angiogram, it was decided that I needed two shunts. (Shunts? Stents? Not sure of the proper term.) That meant an overnight stay in the hospital. And here I am.

Yes, the primary appreciation goes to Obama and Pelosi and Reid, not to mention the members of congress. And also to the millions of people like you who helped get them elected. But I also owe a debt of thanks to a group of people I will never support. Being a broken clock and getting something right every once in a while cannot excuse or override all the harm they have done and still want to do to North Dakota.

Still, it would have been easy or expedient to join the chorus of Republicans suffering from Obama derangement syndrome. How they escaped that dementia, I may never know. But I am grateful they did, and grieve for the people like me in the 24 states that don't have my fortune.

I don't know why I felt compelled to share, except maybe that I am bored and MSNBC has gone to prison porn and there are only so many games of Words with Friends to play. I certainly did not share in an effort to seek compassion or prayers (especially not prayers because, to be blunt, fairy tales annoy me, sorry). I am not looking for comments saying, "Get well" or anything like that. I'll make a deal - if your refrain from those kind of comments, I'll extend everyone the courtesy of assuming you're thinking it.

My point (and here I feel like Bill Clinton when he gave that keynote speech in 1980(?) and finally said "in conclusion. . .") is that Obamacare is - it must be - only a first step. Too many red state residents are left out. Perhaps more forgotten and overlooked are those who, like me in 2010, have subsidized insurance but cannot afford to use it. If my annual deductible had been even $250, I would not have insulin, I would never have seen a podiatrist (Japanese/Canadian, btw), a cardiologist or an ophthamologist. I most likely would not have gone to a doctor at all.






Another former critic's life is saved - let's see what the right wing has to say about that.

 

Wishing the best for you. If the world would realize we really are all human and all need help at times, and those who have more should give more the world might someday live up to it's potential.

 

#1.Whether you could have been a doctor or not is irrelevant, but IMO few are able to doctors or surgeons as it takes a "special" person to be able to do the job. You have to be able to trust your skills to effectively treat patients, perform life saving surgery and the like. If you think you would be able to do that good for you. Personally, I know I could not.
#2. If you want to treat new patients and/or your current patients; you have to participate in the insurance plans that they have. Within certain geographic areas there are given insurance plans, companies with communities have given insurance plans; so if you want to treat these individuals covered by these plans you are forced to participate in their insurance plans. You are right that providers don't have to participate and I predict due to the poor reimbursements more providers will not participate in these plans. They will require cash payment as Dentist do, and more will start offering payment plans, cash discounts and other arrangements.

#3 it is very easy to comparison shop doctors fees for service. Just call them and ask, IF YOU KNOW what treatment you need. Otherwise, I suggest you visit a provider listed on your insurance plan, get your diagnosis and them shop around for the best price. Unfortunately, the provider that charges less may or may not be listed on your insurance plan. I suggest people pay out of pocket for lower cost care and use their insurance for care/treatment/prescriptions they cannot afford to pay out of pocket. If you can do this, you can buy health insurance coverage with a lower premium/higher deductible.
#4. It is the Federal Government and State Governments that define what services MUST be provided by a licensed physician. Physicians have nothing to say about that. It is to the benefit of private practice physicians/surgeons to delegate as much as they can to employees as it allows them time to see more patients in a given day. You have no idea of how a private practice operates.
#5. The medical profession is one of the professions that self regulates at its best and not only that posts information about each and every physician on their regulatory websites, totally available and accessible to the public. Unlike many other professional organizations.

It is extremely easy to find out if your physician has been sued or had disciplinary actions filed against him/her. So your comment is not truthful

 

Another big boost for Obamacare

Source: Washington Post

By Greg Sargent August 28 at 3:40 PM

In another sign that the politics of Obamacare continue to shift, the Medicaid expansion is now all but certain to come to another big state whose Republican governor had previously resisted it: Pennsylvania.

The federal government has approved Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s application for the state’s own version of the Medicaid expansion, without a handful of the conditions Corbett had hoped to impose, Dem sources tell me.

Corbett just announced that he will accept the expansion that has been offered, perhaps with some last-minute changes — expanding coverage and subsidies to as many as half a million people.

This comes after months of jockeying between Corbett and the federal government. Corbett had pushed for a version of the expansion that would have imposed various conditions designed to make it more palatable to conservatives and to achieve political distance from Obamacare — while simultaneously taking all that federal money. Among them: Using the cash to pay for private coverage for the poor.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/08/28/another-big-boost-for-obamacare/






ACA is expanding because it is working to save lives!

 

Just three points:



1) You are the one who asked the rather silly question about whether I could have been a doctor. If you don't want answers to silly questions don't ask them.

2) Yes the gov't sets the standards about what the doctors can and can't do. Have you ever heard of lobby's?

3) the medical professions self regulation is a joke. You can have fun researching how many doctors with major malpractice claims lose their accreditation.

Oh, and you forgot to explain which comment you don't think is truthful, or did you mean all of them.

 

Tennessee is next state to adopt Obamacare:


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...tate-up-for-Medicaid-expansion-nbsp-Tennessee



Neighboring the nation's two biggest Obamacare success stories has apparently made Republican Gov. Bill Haslam in Tennessee reconsider his refusal of Medicaid expansion under the law. Arkansas and Kentucky lead the nation in reducing the number of uninsured people in their states, largely because they accepted the expansion. Haslam appears to want in on the action now.
This would be the first time for the governor to actually submit a plan. If approved by federal officials and the state legislature, the plan would help Tennesseans caught in the coverage gap of the Affordable Care Act, which has left 162,000 Tennesseans without health insurance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
In March 2013, Haslam ruled out expansion of a traditional Medicaid model and said he favored a plan to leverage federal funds to, instead, help the poor buy private health insurance. Haslam said then that a "Tennessee Plan" should require copayments, which traditional Medicaid does not, so people would have "some skin in the game."

Now he's saying that the state could submit an application for a waiver in the program in the fall. It would follow the Arkansas model for expansion, using the public funds to subsidize purchase of private plans for the new enrollees.
Haslam is going to have to convince his Republican legislature to go along with the plan, and that could lead him to craft a program that the federal government would reject. A very recent example is Pennsylvania, which just announced a deal with the federal government to expand the program. There's only so far the administration will go to work with a Republican governor on Medicaid. In Gov. Tom Corbett's case, the administration refused to tie Medicaid enrollment to employment, restricting the program to people who have jobs or are actively looking for one. Haslam's idea to force copays from the newly eligible Medicaid recipients could be rejected, too. Iowa tried to impose premiums on people who earned more than 50 percent of the federal poverty line, and that was denied. The White House isn't going to be willing to create an unreasonable financial burden on low-income people.

Haslam is in the place a growing number of Republican governors—recognizing that Obamacare is increasingly less toxic, and that rejecting the money that is helping a lot of people and providing an economic boon to states is pretty politically damaging.







Contrary to the endless lies of the far right, ACA is clearly working to save money and lives. All patriots know it and that is why ACA is GROWING every day!

 

Still another boost for Obamacare: the Republicans are giving up on their fight against it:



Falling like dominoes: Red-state govs expanding Obamacare



http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/falling-dominoes-red-state-govs-expanding-obamacare





ACA = another victory for America!

 

Obamacare Effect Linked to Lower Medical Cost Estimates

Source: Bloomberg

By Caroline Chen and Ian Katz Sep 5, 2014 12:01 AM ET

Estimates of U.S. health-care spending for the next five years have been lowered by two federal agencies, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is getting much of the credit.

U.S. health spending in 2019 will be $4 trillion, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said this week, or $500 billion less than the agency projected in 2010 when President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul became law. That announcement followed by a week a report from the Congressional Budget Office lowering its five-year cost estimates.

Obamacare has been criticized by Republicans as costly and unsustainable. Now, four years after its arrival, the law’s mandated program cuts and the medical practices it encourages -- limiting unneeded procedures, and keeping people out of the hospital longer -- are cited by economists as key ingredients in trimming the nation’s medical bill. While the recession has had an influence on the cost slowdown, it doesn’t explain it all, according to policy analysts and the CBO.

“When the CBO goes back and revises their baseline, historically they’ve adjusted upwards,” said Tricia Neuman, director of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Program on Medicare Policy. “So the fact that there’s been year-after-year downward adjustments is fairly remarkable since they occurred after the ACA” was signed into law.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...t-linked-to-lower-medical-cost-estimates.html






More ACA success!

 

Strange. There is a new rush to prop up the OBVIOUS problems of the ACA with feel good propaganda.. not fiscal analysis, or addressing real problems, just cheerleading from partisan ideologues.

I guess the constant of leftist propaganda is the still the central tool for their agenda. Truth certainly is not.

 

Contrary to the endless lies and distortions of the far right, the patriotic truth is that Obamacare is working:


http://www.redeyechicago.com/news/redeye-heres-how-obamacare-worked-for-me-20140910,0,400183.column


I was invincible.

Like, Mario-star invincible. And why wouldn’t I be? I hadn’t been sick in years. I worked out every day. I commuted on my bike like I own the city. At 27, you don’t stop to think about being anything less than invincible. That's for old people, for someone else. Besides, nothing bad has ever happened to anyone who was 27.

In June I slid into third base in my men’s league baseball game, something I had done hundreds if not thousands of times in my life. I caught my right cleat on the ground and landed funny. I thought it was just a sprain.

My fibula was broken.

I figured I’d be in a cast for a month, if that. Instead, I had surgery, with a plate and five screws put in to stabilize the break. I’ve just started walking again. Every day is a struggle to accomplish the most basic activities I had always taken for granted.

Still, it could have been so much worse. I freelance for a living, and with that career you don’t get things like health insurance.

At the end of last year, I signed up for Obamacare as a complete afterthought. I waited until the deadline like it was homework—if I put it off long enough, maybe it would just do itself. My experiences with the system have been far from perfect. The entire rollout and signup process were confusing. It took hours of calling to find an orthopedic surgeon who would take my insurance, and I had to travel more than an hour to get to the appointment.

But without Obamacare, I would not have had insurance. Like most people I know my age, I’m getting by without a lot of wiggle room. Hundreds of dollars a month on traditional coverage is something I wouldn’t have been able to manage. My surgery, hospital visits and physical therapy would have cost somewhere between $15,000-$30,000 with no insurance at all.

That’s a life-altering amount. I certainly wouldn't be getting a master's degree in the fall, probably would have moved to a cheaper apartment and definitely would have needed another job or three. I have no idea where my life would be right now. It's a terrifying thought.

And yet I haven’t heard many stories like mine, in part, I think, because of the stigma that comes with Obamacare. It's become a political issue so shrouded in negativity that it's easy to forget it helps real people like me. Instead of struggling for years with added debt and an unhappy life, I will be walking normally before long; all this will be nothing more than a struggle I overcame. But I’ll always have a six-inch scar on my ankle to remind me of what could have been.

Thanks, Obama.





---------------



On a related note, too bad Virginia did not expand Medicaid or it, too, would have benefited tremendously:


http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/09/08/3564665/mcauliffe-expands-medicaid-to-25000-virginians/



As of August, the Commonwealth has lost more than $693 million in federal funding since deciding not to opt into expanded Medicaid on January 1.



Too bad the obstructionist Republicans hate the poor and refuse to give them the coverage they deserve.

By contrast Democrat governor McAuliffe's initiatives will save lives.


And that's the patriotic TRUTH that so many from the far right refuse to see.

 

Here is the real truth, many earn too little for a premium subsidy, Many owe no income tax so won't pay a penalty,many don’t qualify for their States Medicaid program so what has ACA done for them? Nothing. If many of them were eligible for a subsidy they could afford to pay for health insurance. Aren’t they the ones’ ACA was suppose to help?

I find it odd that on the Obama Care website, "providing affordable health insurance and subsidies to those who prior to ACA could not afford coverage; isn’t listed as one of the reasons for passing the PPACA. It was the biggest reasons they stated prior to passage to the Act. When they were trying to persuade the American people.

Guess they had to delete that since they found it was financially impossible to do so, after the PPACA passed.

You lied to the American people in order to pass this law when nearly 50% of voters were against it. Now you are failing to deliver what you promised. You never said, “ If you are working but earn too little we won’t give you a subsidy. You never said that those working full time earning too little (based on your formula) would be forced onto a welfare program called Medicaid. All full time workers should be eligible for a premium subsidy. Welfare/Medicaid should be reserved for those unable to work full-time jobs. Period.

Shame on Obama and the Democrat majority that hastily passed this law without giving it due consideration.

And don't reply it is the fault of the States that didn't expand Medicaid, because it is not as the Supreme Court ruled they couldn't be forced to do so. It is the Federal Government, not the States that promised affordable health care insurance for all. Period.

 

More Republican states have expanded Medicaid because it has benefited them financially and because it has given coverage to the needy. Shame on those states that refuse to extend Medicaid and cause the poor to die from lack of health care.

 

It may benefit them financially, NOW; but it clearly isn't targeting the needy. It is forcing full-time workers that could pay for "better than Medicaid coverage", onto the Medicaid rolls. Full-time workers don't need to be on Medicaid, they deserve the subsidy Obama and the Dems promised them. Regardless of the fact I am against the PPACA totally, I expect it to do as promised while we are stuck with it. But it is not. Mr. Truth? Your posts are anything but the truth.

 

Your lies are easily refuted with the TRUTH.

Here is a Republican governor now boasting that ACA is working and making it a part of his campaign:




Obamacare sea change: GOP governor boasts about ACA benefits

Posted with permission.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obamacare-sea-change-gop-governor-boasts-about-aca-benefits

Obamacare sea change: GOP governor boasts about ACA benefits
09/18/14 10:20 AM—Updated 09/18/14 12:08 PM
By Steve Benen


Earlier this year, the Republican game plan for health care was pretty straightforward: attack “Obamacare” constantly, make it the centerpiece of the 2014 cycle, and wait for the inevitable victories to roll in.

The very idea that we’d see a Republican governor bragging about Affordable Care Act benefits – in the final stretch of a tough re-election campaign, no less – seemed hard to fathom. And yet, here we are (thanks to my colleague Nick Tuths for the heads-up).

Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday touted Michigan’s successful Medicaid expansion as part of his re-election bid, saying 63,000 more low-income adults have signed up than projected this year, with months left.

The Republican governor said about 385,000 enrolled between April, when the Healthy Michigan program launched, and Monday. His administration had expected 322,000 signups by year’s end.

“At that level, we’re adding over 9,000 patients a week,” Snyder said at an endorsement event at the Michigan State Medical Society, an East Lansing-based professional association of physicians. “It’s outstanding progress.”


Progress, that is, implementing a key element of President Obama’s signature domestic-policy achievement.

There are, of course, multiple angles to this. Michigan’s Eclectablog, for example, noted that local Tea Partiers are not at all pleased by the sight of a Republican governor bragging about ACA implementation. For that matter, local Democrats are eager to remind the state that Snyder was not initially an eager proponent of Medicaid expansion, and the governor’s delays cost the state money.

Rep. Mark Schauer (D), Snyder’s very competitive rival, said Michigan’s slow adoption of Medicaid expansion ended up costing the state roughly $600 million.

To be sure, these details matter. But I’m nevertheless struck by the broader political circumstances.

We’ve talked quite a bit lately about the changes in the prevailing winds surrounding the politics of health care, but I don’t think it’s fully sunk in for the political establishment just yet.

It was just earlier this year that the Affordable Care Act was perceived as a disaster of epic proportions. It would not only destroy Obama’s presidency, it was a Watergate-meets-Katrina catastrophe that threatened the very nature of progressive governance. For the GOP, running against “Obamacare” would be their first, second, and third priorities in the 2014 midterms.

But with 47 days to go before Election Day, one of the nation’s most vulnerable Republican governors is running on ACA benefits. Why? Because he sees it as a political winner.

As for Michigan Republicans’ hopes of using Schauer’s vote for the Affordable Care Act against him in the fall, that’s going to be awfully difficult now.





ACA: A Victory for America!

 

Wrong.
The reality is that the expanded Medicaid money is used to pay for private health insurance that meets or exceeds ACA standards for every eligible poor person and that includes people who work full time whose incomes are so low that they qualify for 100% subsidy. In my state people enrolled through Medicaid get dental care included, which makes being enrolled through Medicaid better than any subsidized insurance.

In case you have not been paying attention, Medicaid in states that have taken the money is not anything at all like the old Medicaid. The new Medicaid enrols people in private insurance with the same care provider network that the insurer provides its other subscribers and the same standards of care that the ACA requires of all health insurance plans. I see no difference in care in my state except that people with the Medicaid insurance cards also get free dental care, which am a little envious of.

The way the law was designed, at incomes that required a 100% subsidy expanded Medicaid funds would pay for people's health insurance. The only full time workers who are not able to get subsidized insurance "better than Medicaid", whatever that means, are in states that have refused to expand Medicaid. Maybe you should take that up with the republicans in those states because their refusal of Medicaid expansion has deliberately excluded millions of eligible low paid full time workers from the subsidized health insurance that expanded Medicaid funds would pay for.

If someone is telling you otherwise they are lying.

 

Obamacare to save U.S. hospitals $5.7 bln in uncompensated care



By David Morgan and Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Wednesday said it expects expanded health coverage under the Affordable Care Act to save U.S. hospitals $5.7 billion this year on the cost of caring for uninsured Americans.

A report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said nearly three-quarters of the savings, $4.2 billion, would occur in states that have opted to expand the Medicaid healthcare program for the poor as part of the law, popularly known as Obamacare.

The data may help hospitals press for Medicaid expansion in the 23 states whose governors have not agreed to it, said Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.

"We're now at a phase where we're actually going to start seeing the benefits" of expansion, Burwell told reporters. "It's actually showing that this provides benefits to states."


Read more: http://www.trust.org/item/20140924200012-hy86i/





more proof that ACA works! - and that's the patriotic TRUTH

 

More truth as I posted on other threads,

How funny, I get 3 emails today, "contribute to help keep Obama care", "help re-elect Democrats" and "Obama care insurance quotes". So since I have two sons 26 and 28 who have no insurance I contact the number listed in the "Obama care insurance quotes".

First of all, they give quotes on all insurance, the only affordable ones were what they called, "non-Obama care insurance companies". They said these companies were not subject to the Obama Care rules(such as no pre-existing, etc). I replied, I thought all health insurance was subject to the laws and rules, and the guy says he hears that over and over and ove but only companies that join Obama care are subject to the laws and that is why the companies that didn't join can offer more affordable coverage. So much for Obama care making insurance more affordable. He quoted me a price for my 26 year old health son of $220.00/per month including $500,000.00 life insurance, $2500.00 deductible and $50.00 out of pocket compared to a participating BCBS plan for $500.00/month, $5000.00 deductible and limited providers.

We all should be afraid of Obama care. Our costs of insurance are rising, the cost of providing care is rising and all due to Obama Care. Rather than adding those unable to qualify for private insurance to Medicare via a new PART of medicare, such as Part E(for everyone else). The screwed up every ones affordable coverage. He also said that November 15th I should call back regarding our small business, group plan.Can't wait to see how Obama care is going to screw up our group health insurance.

 

How much is it saving the providers of care, such as Doctors, Physical Therapists, Home Health Companies and the like? Nothing, zero and it is costing them more and reducing their profit. Obama must be for large Corporations, something you dems have consistently accused Republicans of.

 

^ funny "logic"


Having more people insured means that many more go to the doctors/hospitals which increase the salaries of these medical professionals.

 

Most doctors and physical therapists and home health care companies work for or with hospitals and get a lot of their income from them so savings by hospitals means more money available for hospitals to pay them. Even those who are not affiliated with hospitals benefit because hospital savings will redirect more health care money from covering unpaid services to paying for services.

 

The ACA was clear as it was constructed those earning up to 138% of the FPL are supposed to get Medicaid, over that if in State run exchanges subsidies to a generous level of 400% of the FPL.

If States as permitted by the Supreme Court opted out of expanding Medicaid the poor get nothing, those in the window of 100% of the FPL and the 138% level can get into an exchange with no subsidy help the law wasn't designed for that.

And since Hospitals are losing funding which they accepted largely assuming Medicaid was being expanded therefore stabilizing their finances and others would have exchange plans in States that opted out many are likely to now close or have to find more revenues.

Its all pretty black and white to me.

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/26/1330700/-Obamacare-s-successes-hurting-Republicans


Obamacare's successes hurting Republicans







The remarkable declines in the growth of healthcare spending, particularly for Medicare, are upending Republicans' anti-Obamacare, deficit fetishist attacks on Democrats, allowing Democrats to turn the table on Medicare. Remember that $716 billion lie about Obamacare and Medicare? It has no resonance anymore.
“If Republicans are thinking about being Johnny One Notes and talking about health care only, I think they are going to be surprised by how little traction they get,” says Steve Bell, senior director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center and former staff director of the Senate Budget Committee. “I do think the decline in health care costs blunts the Republican message.”
What's the issue now? The Ryan budget, with its cuts to Medicare and other social insurance programs and its Obamacare repeal, as well as Obamacare's success in reducing the growth in healthcare spending.
Now, in elections around the country, the conversation about health care economics is changing. When the Obamacare website glitches dominated headlines in the spring, it looked like the entire election would come down to Republicans' unshakable opposition to the law. Yet, Democrats have managed to use the Medicare changes called for in a budget drawn up by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to paint GOP candidates as granny-killing extremists.
"It's a hot issue," says Jeremy Funk, the communications director for Americans United for Change, a D​emocratic-leaning nonprofit. "If I was working on any Democratic campaign I would be going after the other side for four votes in a row on the Ryan budget. […]

Democrats have even tried to take the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's projections about health care spending reductions and use them to reverse the narrative that Obamacare has led to higher costs in medical care.

Add in the fact that nobody's grandma's Medicare was actually cut by Obamacare and the Republican lie becomes impossible to sustain outside of the tea party. Obamacare is not just not bankrupting the country, it's saving health care money. Which gives Democrats ample opportunity to point out how unnecessary and how destructive Republican slash and burn policies are.






ACA = working every day!

 

Obama care has only been successful for one group of people when it comes to the promises. That group is those that now qualify for the substandard Medicaid program if their State was foolish enough to fall for the Feds promises and expand it. Medicaid was designed as a welfare program for those at the poverty line, single unemployed women supporting children, etc. The subsidies were suppose to help "all" those that work but not offered group health and unable to afford individual or family coverage. That is not what happened. Many full time workers and their family can afford private health insurance with the help of a subsidy but the HHS decided some of these full time workers don't deserve the subsidy because they earn "too little". They are thrown to the Medicaid wolfs, forced to accept sub-standard insurance that fails to pay providers fairly, barely if at all covering the costs of providing treatment. It was a means of the Federal Government shifting responsibility for the care of the poor fully onto the backs of the States. Obama care was passed on lies and deceptions. It was passed before knowing the true impact once all of the rules, regulations were implemented. To date, not much of anything good fiscally has happened. Clearly the premiums for the majority are rising, cost of providing care is rising at a faster pace and the number of uninsured has changed little.

As I recall, the expansion of Medicaid was not the big selling point Obama and the Dems pushed, it was lower premiums and lower cost of medical care. On these two points it is a huge failure. As, even where premiums for some went down, their deductibles as out of pocket and choice of providers suffered. That is the simple truth.

And, P.S. Obama care is hurting everyone, not just Republicans.

 

Lower costs and saving lives - ACA is working.

 

Does it take a lot of effort to cram so many lies into one post or is it easy because you do not need to pay any attention to reality?