ObamaCare – Now They Tell Us (Ongoing…)

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Howard Dean applauds a new McKinsey survey saying that employers will dump their employees onto the subsidized exchanges at much greater rates than the CBO projected.  Well, it gets small businesses out of the health insurance biz, and somebody else is paying for it, right?  Does Howard Dean wonder who that somebody is?

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This was precisely the same thing that the experts who surveyed business owners projected would happen with RomneyCare. Only it didn’t happen. In fact, the percentage of businesses which offered health insurance to their employees actually increased. False alarm. Businesses offer employee insurance in order to be competitive in the labor market. The health care exchanges actually lowered the cost of insurance (relative to what it would have been without the insurance). So, in order to remain competitive, employers didn’t drop employer-provided insurance and some companies were now able to afford it.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

Larry, you are ill-informed about the possibility of an opt-out in Mass.
The law, known as Chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006 , includes mandates requiring
all residents with the financial means to obtain health insurance and all employers with
11 or more employees to contribute towards their employees’ health insurance.

Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute conducted a study and found, among other things, that “Romneycare”

Cost the state 18,313 jobs.
Drove up health insurance costs in Massachusetts by $4.3 billion.
Slowed the growth of disposable income per person by $376.
Reduced investment in Massachusetts by $25.06 million.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ObamaCare does have an ”opt-out.
RomneyCare does not!

Hi Nan. RomneyCare retains very solid support by Massachusetts residents and health care providers. You are telling the citizens of Massachusetts that they ought to be miserable; they aren’t.

I don’t understand your point about MA not allowing an opt out. You are saying that MA requires all employers to provide heath insurance? I need to look that one up.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

I don’t understand your point about MA not allowing an opt out. You are saying that MA requires all employers to provide heath insurance? I need to look that one up.

The link is a PDF but I did include it.
Look on page 5 of the PDF.
2nd bullet point.
It is a mandate.
An EMPLOYEE mandate.

Thanks, Nan. The study you link is a computer model. Modeling economics by computer is about as reliable as modeling climate by computer. RomneyCare has succeeded in achieving its primary goal of covering virtually all the people in the state by insurance. I have no idea of whether or not their model calculated in long term savings from earlier diagnosis and more effective treatment of serious illnesses. Of course near term health care costs will increase (as literally millions of people with existing medical conditions move into the system and receive treatment). But, long term, many of these people would have required treatment in a more advanced state, and the public would have been burdened with their care. Additionally, it is a certainty that RomneyCare has already prevented a large number of personal bankruptcies for medical reasons, with resulting economic benefit.

I’m just using this as a simple example of the complexities involved with economic models such as this. What is objective truth is that RomneyCare did provide nearly universal coverage and it is more popular today with both voters and providers (doctors) than it was when it was initially passed.

The rise in insurance premiums in Massachusetts may have been a bit higher than the nation as a whole, but they are modest, compared to those in California, which pretty much has the same health care system as the rest of the country. Massachusetts medicine is truly cutting edge, and another factor which I’m sure their “model” didn’t consider is the earlier introduction of newer and costlier technologies. As an example of which I’m familiar, a couple of major hospitals in the provider network are now treating most cancer patients with “personalized” therapy, based on sophisticated and expensive laboratory tests. These ostensibly improve quality of care, but also increase cost. This is a big reason for medical care costs spiraling out of control. Introduction of new and expensive technologies and drugs.

I read on page 5 of your PDF that MA employers of more than 11 people are required to make a “fair and reasonable” (not sure what that means) contribution to employee health plans. As I recall (I may be wrong), for ObamaCare the magic number was 50.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

No one has c