Via Charles Gaba:
Gallup’s new polling shows 5% of the country has gone from uninsured to insured over the past six months:
So, let’s see here. The Gallup poll only includes adults over 18, so…
- Total Population of the US: 314 million
- Total Adult Population: about 240 million
- 5% of 240 million: 12 million
By an amazing coincidence, back on May 5th Gallup issued similar survey results which showed a reduction in the overall national uninsured rate of at least 11 million, so this survey, using slightly different wording and a different approach, simply reinforces that one…although the earlier one included Medicaid as well, so there’s obviously some overlap/churn going on here.
This thing is working and it is working well within design parameters. There are a couple more positive shocks to the system that we should anticipate as Pennsylvania, Virginia and Indiana are highly likely to expand Medicaid through the waiver process sometime this year with a 1/1/15 effective date. The second round of open enrollment looks like it will have more plans, more competition and mostly functioning websites. People are getting the “gay marriage in Massachusetts” learning by observing experience right now. The teabaggers won’t learn, but quite a few people who are leery of Obamacare are seeing that not much is changing in a bad way. Premiums are going up a little, deductibles and co-pays are going up a little, but hey, that has been the case for my entire life.
This thing is going to work ( and soon enough I can breathe long enough to wonk out again).
RaflW
People are getting the “gay marriage in Massachusetts” learning
Was just vacationing in P-town, where the UU congregation was proudly proclaiming “Celebrating 10 Years of Marriage Equality!” and I noticed that Cape Cod had not been sundered by earthquakes or conflagrations.
Just One More Canuck
Richard, how did your discussion go with your boss when you ‘dropped the deuce’ – I never saw any update
And thanks again for the tips about what to watch for with my daughter’s soccer – I can really see her and the whole team developing
Gin & Tonic
@RaflW: It’ll be under water soon enough.
Punchy
Shut up, libtard. These are catastrophic premium increases never seen before Obambicare, and also, my doctor says I may have cancer, which never happened before Obummercare, so Obama is causing tumors. It’s a good thing that my ACA coverage covers this treatment, because I bet that Obamacare wouldn’t and also he’s a Negro.
Keith G
I wish that the HHS Market Place were an sponsor of World Cup coverage (the NBA Playoffs too, for that matter). I work with urban-based young adults who are still undereducated about the ACA.
Since the information is out there and can be gathered via the IRS, I hope there can be a way to ID these folks and get enrollment information directly to them before the next sign up period ends. I have a hunch that many of the uninsured non-signed ups were just unplugged enough from what was happening to have done the right thing by the right time.
In fact, I have met a few of them.
Xantar
I’m not so sure the Medicaid expansion in Virginia will happen. It’s to McAuliffe’s credit that he’s apparently willing to violate the Virginia Constitution in order to get it done, but I’m still not sure it will work.
Richard Mayhew
@Just One More Canuck: It went well. My boss and our VP were a bit surprised and came back with a counter-offer. If they gave me a third of that offer six months ago, I would never have been receptive to being poached in the first place. We’ve been going through the knowledge and responsibility transfer protocal now, and it is scary how many things I am a company critical resource. The big lesson for me here is to do a better job of documentation as that is my fun and exciting task for the next couple of weeks. The big lesson for my boss and VP is to do a better job of knowledge dissemination and redundancy (but redundancy costs money) to insure against internal and external transfers plus hit by the bus/win the lottery situations. Oh yeah, take better care of the people who actually get shit done.
RaflW
@Gin & Tonic: Well, yes, but that’s because the GOP is “full steam ahead” on coal, oil, frack-gas and any other carbon-based fuels they can lay their hands on. It’s Satanic, but unrelated to the ghey.
WaterGirl
@Richard Mayhew:
That just needed saying one more time.
the Conster
I have had the pleasure of schooling a few wingnuts about what has happened in Massachusetts because of 10 years of SSM – nothing. We have the lowest divorce rate in the country. It shuts them completely up. To say nothing about our uninsured rate under Romneycare. Follow us.
RaflW
@Gin & Tonic: And also why we visited both P-town and Rehoboth this year. Oh, and Venice later this summer. It’s the “see it before it sinks” tour.
(Aware of the fact that our tour is fractionally contributing to the coming flood)
RaflW
@Gin & Tonic: And also why we visited both P-town and Rehoboth this year. Oh, and Venice later this summer. It’s the “see it before it sinks” tour.
(Aware of the fact that our tour is fractionally contributing to the coming flood)
WereBear
@Richard Mayhew: Nonsense! I was told that employees are interchangeable cogs which have no effect on the company whatsoever!
Patrick
There have been several polls showing people are more positive about the ACA than Obamacare. When it is that easy to confuse voters, I’m not all that hopeful that people will embrace the new health care law.
Fortunately it is going to take at least 60 Republican senators to repeal it, which will never happen.
Gin & Tonic
@Patrick: Won’t take 60 when Rand Paul is President.
Just One More Canuck
@Richard Mayhew: That’s great that they realized what they had. Mayhew Insurance is in good hands
Zifnab25
@Patrick:
That strikes me as more of a knee-jerk reaction to the naming convention than anything else. If people support the policy, while reflexively disliking the President… well… eh. You don’t need to have a love affair with LBJ to appreciate Medicare, or passionately support FDR’s 30th term to support Social Security.
hildebrand
Dumb question time: I have seen all sorts of ads/signs (both professional and hand-lettered) popping up around town (I live in Deep South Texas) for ‘Health Insurance Plans, Not Obamacare!’ What in god’s name are these people blathering on about?
Hal
Off topic insurance quest. A friend just received a third statement from his insurance company saying the amount he may owe. He’s freaking out because it’s the entire amount billed by the hospital he was brought to when he was in a car accident. Is this common in the billing process?
big ole hound
@Hal: Tell your friend not to worry, that is the retail amount and has no bearing on what the insurance company pays to the hospital. Usually that is done so when the adjustment and final accounting are made the insurance company can impress you with what they did on your behalf.
Chris
Oh my freaking God.
And during that time, unemployment, instead of shooting up, has if anything gone down according to the same pollster. So much for job-killing-Obamacare.
Yep, Obamacare’s ruining the country, all right…
Patricia Kayden
Yes, the ACA is working. If Republicans were smart, they would have embraced it instead of going crazy after its passage. Now, Democrats stand to get all the praise for its success for years to come.
WereBear
Not if Faux News is still on the air! Remember how much the Republicans just lurved them some Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr?
JCJ
@Richard Mayhew:
I’m glad it went well, but I am slightly bemused by a person in the insurance biz stating that he needs to do a better job of documenting. That is the only way to get things approved by the insurance company or then to get paid by the insurance company.
amk
@Punchy: Totally nailed the wingnutz’ response.
Richard Mayhew
@JCJ: but I’m a plumber, not a claims adjuster — I know how to build the claims system not how to actually work it.
Morzer
Kevin Drum catches Tyler Cowen claiming that wanting poor people to be able to see a doctor is a “fallacy”:
motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/06/it-obnoxious-support-health-care-poor
I’ve never thought much of Tyler Cowen, either as a writer or an economist, but this seems unusually silly, even by his standards.
Bulworth
[wingnut]Train-wreck!!1 Repeal!![/wingnut]
Patrick in Michigan
I cannot comment on Obamacare, as I am not in it.
However, what I can comment on is Michigan’s expansion of Medicaid. It is working, and I am currently on it. For the first time, since around 2000; I have health insurance.
Now, some of you will follow the link to my blog and go, “hey, this guy is a wingnut!”
Well, you’d be wrong about that. I am an independent, who does lean to the right a bit. Economically, I am a populist; just like Ronald Reagan was. I, for one, am very grateful that Gov. Snyder passed this medicaid expansion into law here. As I recently found out that I have Diabetes. high blood pressure and high cholesterol; in addition to a preexisting condition of ADHD, which I also take meds for.
So, yes, not all of us, who might lean to right a bit; are against healthcare, for those who need it.
There are two types of conservative, Neo and Paleo. Wealthy Elitists, and grassroots real Americans, who are in touch with reality. People, like me, who are not on the Koch brother’s payroll. We’re just real American’s trying to make it.
Hopefully, you all understand that.
Respectfully,
-Patrick
Xantar
@Patrick in Michigan:
I’m glad you have insurance and hope you find the care that you need. I appreciate you taking the time to explain a bit of your viewpoint as well.
But just one question: isn’t the expansion of Medicaid part of Obamacare?
Charles Gaba
Thanks so much, but there’s a slight typo in my last name :)
Mnemosyne
@Patrick in Michigan:
I don’t want to be rude, but you actually are on “Obamacare” — the Medicaid expansion was part of the PPACA and would not have happened without those federal funds being provided. But I’m pointing that out because I think there has been a LOT of misinformation and fearmongering from bloggers, politicians, and pundits on the right about what “Obamacare” is and what the benefits offered by the law actually are. I think that, as people educate themselves and start benefiting from the law, those fears are going to fade away because most people on all sides of the political spectrum understand that everyone will need medical care at some point in their lives and it’s unfair to withhold it because the person can’t afford it.
(And as a fellow ADHDer, I’ve found ADDitude magazine to be very helpful — it has a lot of articles, blog posts, and message boards for adults with ADHD, and you don’t have to be a paid subscriber to access most of the content.)
Tom Q
@Patrick in Michigan: To add to what Mnemosyne said: I appreciate your reasonable post, but must inform you that Gov. Snyder’s only role in the expansion of Medicaid was to say “Yes, I’ll take the money”. This makes him compare favorably to Rick Perry and the many other GOP governors whose disdain for the administration compel them to turn down such financial help. But if you want to know who deserves credit for the Medicaid expansion that’s helping you, it’s 60 Senators, a majority of the ’09 – ’10 House, and President Obama, who signed it into law.
Patricia Kayden
@Xantar: “Yes” to your question. Thank you Obama.
Shakezula
I may have said this hear before, but if you’ve never gone without health insurance, this isn’t just 12 million people who now have something new. This is 12 million people with a giant weight taken off their shoulders.
And many of them are (shock!) contributing to the economy by going to the doctor.
It might even help rejigger our health system back to a primary care centered model, something the law is designed to encourage.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Patrick in Michigan:
Dear Patrick,
I congratulate you on your coverage and welcome you to the reality-based community.
And for the record, yes. Yes you are in Obamacare. You’re soaking in it.
Roger Moore
@Morzer:
Not at all. He is trying to define narrow questions of efficiency as the only legitimate grounds for policy, and anything outside that, i.e. deciding what people “deserve” beyond what the market chooses to give them, is rank sentimentalism that has no place in a serious policy argument. It’s a classic libertarian approach. They try to define the terms of debate on narrow economic grounds that mean they always get the “correct” answer.
NonyNony
@hildebrand:
I strongly suspect that the subtext for those signs is “If I can get an idiotic Obamacare hating rube to pay me good money to enroll him in an Exchange program and lie my ass off about it not being ‘Obamacare’ then I can quit my stupid day job.” Semi-professional – but not TOO professional – rendered signs will ensure that you only get potential customers whose “hmmm … this looks kind of shady” filter is busted.
billB
I am a poor person who has a college degree, and now has ObamaCare, ye-ha. I badly need medical dermatology and in my area only one firm was listed by the State as providing care. The rest won’t do it. I go to them, they won’t make appt. in person, even though there is no one there but me the desk person and the doc, it was a morgue but no help offered. I call the appt line, a repeated message saying go to website. The website shows many available appts, I pick one
it says pick insurance type, I scroll to my new
ObamaCare. It says ‘we may not accept that right now, would you like to confirm Appt knowing that you may have to pay full-price in cash?’
SO THEY ARE GAMING THE SYSTEM
There is no ObamaCare for us poor folks, only rich fcking docs screwing us in a new way.
Simon
@billB, your experience is very odd. If you purchased insurance through the Exchange, then your insurance type is whatever company from which you bought the insurance. “Obamacare” isn’t an insurance type. It would have been had the ACA included a public option, but it doesn’t.
If your state accepted the Medicaid expansion, then it may be that the provider isn’t accepting Medicaid. If your state didn’t accept the Medicaid expansion, then it obviously isn’t available as an option. That may be what the provider is calling “ObamaCare”, which is misleading.