Insurance companies are NOT getting 30 million new customers

[SpartanDem]

I see get this get thrown about here and in the media in general, but it is a misunderstanding of the numbers. The number of newly insured includes those who will get their care through the expanded Medicaid program. This table from the CBO report of the Senate bill, shows the changes in the number of insured between 2010 and 2019. Minus individual coverage outside the exchange and those who lose employer coverage there will be 30 million newly insured 15 million of which will be through Medicaid. In other words 50% of the newly insured will be by the government. Given how many times I see the 30 million number used by the media, politicans,etc I have to wonder did anyone actually bother reading the report

Medicaid & CHIP * -1 -2 -2 8 13 16 15 15 15
Employer * 2 2 2 2 -1 -4 -4 -4 -4
Nongroup & Other /c * * * * -2 -3 -5 -5 -5 -5
Exchanges 0 0 0 0 8 14 23 24 25 26
Uninsured /d * -1 -1 -1 -16 -23 -29 -30 -30 -31

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/108xx/doc10868/12-19-Reid_Letter_Managers_Correction_Noted.pdf

[Better Today]

1. Huh, that's not he way I've read it in the past. I'm wonder where you got

your numbers? Link would be nice.

What I was to understand uses much of your info, but presented this way.

Currently 45K are uninsured, when this all gets worked out (2019) 30K will be on mandated private insurance and 15K will be on Medicaid.

[SpartanDem]

2. I added the link to the CBO report

not everyone is going to be insured the CBO predicts in 2019 there 23 million, about 6% of the country, uninsured one third of that would be illegal immigrants.

[truedelphi]

9. You mean 45 M, not 45K. n/t

[phleshdef]

3. If the government subsidies and exchange based regulations get people care they can afford...

...then I give a shit how many new customers they get.

[CaliCompadre]

4. Good post. They are only getting 20 million new customers

AP: "INDIANAPOLIS – Health insurers get some big presents in the Senate's health overhaul bill — about 20 million new customers and no competition from a new government plan."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091225/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_overhaul_insurers

[SpartanDem]

5. Where did they get 20 million?

and you do realize that story is saying how much they still hate the bill despite the customers.


The bill imposes hefty new taxes and coverage rules that will pinch insurers by forcing them to cover more sick people without gaining enough healthy, lower-cost customers, industry insiders say. The industry is also worried the bill doesn't do enough to control health care costs.

[levander]

21. You saw how health insurance stock reached a 52 year (not weeks, years) high...

the day the Senate got 60 votes for the Reid bill?

The industry is also worried the bill doesn't do enough to control health care costs.

Which was my impression why our health care system is such a huge mess to begin with. Yeah, it sucks having so many uninsured, that's horrible. But, the thing was, health care costs for America are spinning out of control. And, this bill does nothing to contain costs. I don't get it. I don't get it at all. I thought the over-riding (or at least top 2) concern was the spiraling out of control costs of our health care system. Yet, this bill does nothing...

[bornskeptic]

26. No, 52-week, not year

Aetna, for example, topped out below 35 in December.In January of 2008 it got over 58. WellPoint was over 88 in early 2008, but in the last month it hasn't been over 61. The other large health insurance companies were also far higher in early 2008 than they are now, or have been any time this year.

[SpartanDem]

30. Wrong it was 52 week high

But New York Stock Exchange figures show that a number of the leading health insurance providers’ shares were traded at prices near their 52-week high last Friday — not a 52-year high.

UnitedHealth Group stock, for example, was being traded at a high of $32 on Dec. 18. That’s near the company’s 52-week high of $33.25 (as of Dec. 22). But the company’s stock price was actually down by more than $20 from the same time two years ago. On Dec. 18, 2007, UnitedHealth’s stock traded at a high of $57.47 a share.

Other big health insurance companies have experienced similar trends.

Aetna’s stock reached a high trading price of $33 on Dec. 18 — a little less than its 52-week high of $34.91 (as of Dec. 22). However, on Dec. 18, 2007, Aetna’s shares were being traded at a high of $58.07. Similarly, on Dec. 18, Cigna at $36.23 and Humana at $43.89, were being traded at near their 52-week highs of $38.12 and $46.01, respectively (as of Dec. 22). But stock prices for both companies are down significantly from the same time two years ago. On Dec. 18, 2007, shares in Cigna were being traded at $53.80, while a share of Humana was going for $74.05.

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/12/health-insurance-co-stocks-at-52-year-high/

[quiller4]

34. It was a 52 week high and insurance stock did not rise as much

as Ford or UPS during that 52 week period--in fact the insurance stock increase just barely beat the DOW average.

[glowing]

6. Medicaid is not Medicare.. and that is why some of the state AG are looking

at suing the Govt over this bill.. It dumps people onto the laps of the state. If you live in a poor state and many of those poor are using the Medicaid system, how do you fund the mandate? Eventually, you raise taxes on everything from property to sales to fees for govt services (licenses, court fees, fines, copies of your info, etc). Which basically becomes a tax on the poor who are already poor. Creating a National Single Payer system is much wiser. Taxes come from ALL states and the fees for paying medicare could be obtained from most people's pay checks as it is now, except in a larger amt based on wage scale. The young would pay for the old eventually. AND most people would love this... Go to any Dr. without any forms or haggle or paper work... no waiting for approval from your insurance for something your Dr. feels is a necessity.

AND from a single-payer system... reforming the institutions of providing health services is much more achievable.... even to helping fund programs for more Dr's and nurses which we are in a shortage of. Many smart young persons who are interested in medicine could have a chance of becoming a Dr without taking out loans larger than most people's homes. Nurses could be adequately staffed where needed... AND the admin. side (the paper pushers) would diminish.

Handing money out to the ins. co's who have proven they do everything to make money and cover nothing is a horrible solution in this case. The bill is going to make these insurance giants bigger and more entrenched with power. They are the death panels. Providing more people for their fodder isn't reform.

[SpartanDem]

13. the federal government will cover the all the new cost for a few years

but don't be surprised if this leads to the federalizing of Medicaid as states won't want to take on the additional cost.

[Jamastiene]

15. That won't happen.

What will happen instead is they'll make the Medicaid expansion optional for the states. Then the poor will be back to square one. I've seen how our government works. One step forward before an election year, as many steps back as possible at all other times. When those few years are up, the conservatives will get in and make it optional for the states.

We really needed our party to fight harder to go further so any future cuts that are coming (and they will be coming, you can count on that) wouldn't take it so far back to square one for so many.

[Jamastiene]

14. +1

[freddie mertz]

7. Better they go out of business than we push anyone else into their clutches.

[treestar]

8. And even so, they will have to provide the service in return

If car sales go up, GM will get that many new customers, why is that OK? If the government gave people money to buy cars, who would complain? Say the government realized people have to have cars to get to work and decided to help people buy cars and then mandated that people buy cars. Who would be yelling then?

[truedelphi]

10. because even in a bad year, with many lemons being reported back to

Corporate, GM cars are driveable.


But in the instance of Health Care Reform, what we are being given is access to the same Corporations who have vastly over inflated prices (to the nth degree,) with no roll back on those prices, and no guarantee that services will not be even more shit awful than they have been.

I mean in your example, to make it a true analogy, you should be stating, "What if the government offered to pay 75,000 for each GM sedan, but only 70% of them had working brakes or steering?"

We did not have health care reform. We had health insurance reform, and even using the word "reform" in this manner makes me ill.

[treestar]

11. I don't see any proof for what you're asserting

People would be suing insurance companies in large numbers if they never provided decent service or always denied claims.

[TheKentuckian]

16. You must be right what have we been talking about all this time?

Why did all those people testify to Congress? Why have people been up in arms? How many horror stories have we heard?

That was all bullshit, I reckon. All we need to do is get more people covered and all will be well and the good corporate citizens that run big insurance will take care of the populace continuing America's place as tops in the world in quality, level of access, and affordability.

:sarcasm:

[truedelphi]

17. Thank you for that. Sometimes I find myself

Wondering if I have been living inside an alternate reality.

It's always good when an outside source like yourself speaks up and confirms there is a least one other soul on my plane of exisitence.(Outside of the cats, of course. And they DEFINITELY live in an altered reality.)

[Donnachaidh]

18. you do realize that the insurance companies have been PROTECTED

against lawsuits for decades? That little anti-trust law they don't have to abide by?

[mstinamotorcity]

24. I don't mean

to butt in,but, The very minute that our President told congress to draft the health care bill and even when he was running his campaign,the insurance companies got started. Look they already had their seed planted before he got there.They have been trying to pass some kind of health care reform for sixty years.Didn't work.Insurance companies,big pharma,corporate,they all paid their way on Capitol Hill for just this kind of thing.To insure of no reform. And to subliminally tell you what you want to hear. They put together special think tanks for that.No one really has to tell you this you see it everywhere you turn.The first thing you saw was all these so called low cost basic health care plans that were being offered at eight to nine dollars a day by some company out of the woodwork.The next thing was how well you loved your insurance coverage.Most people don't like the coverage,they like the comfort of their personal relationship with their physician.They attacked that aspect with the government was going to come between you and your doctor.Everyone who has some form of health care in this country will and has been denied some form or type of medical treament they just don't know it,but doctors do.They know by your insurance which treatments and which drugs your plan covers,and how many referrals you will need to get to the specialist you may need to see.Then they said the cost,well in a recession and unemployment at an all time high, they play its going to cost too much money and gave the impression that some how it was going to personally walk up to the door of your home knock and rob you of all your rights.Remember your organized and paid teabaggers.Their signs,their guns,their take your hands off my medicare,i don't want no government run insurance.Any of this ring a bell:think: :think:

[Cleobulus]

27. Uhm, Insurance companies play the odds, the odds that people talk to lawyers about denied claims...

poor people in particular avoid lawyers when they can, or don't think to go to them when they have problems with insurance companies, or indeed any corporation. This has been something that's been known for many years, I'm surprised you never heard about it.

[ipaint]

12. I thought Obama said healthcare was a right.

The for profit gatekeeper health ins. system is a loser. A guaranteed fail. We can poor billions into the ins. industry via subsidies and premiums and it's money with no humane return. We aren't investing in the well being of people. That is impossible as long as any money goes to an unnecessary gatekeeper, it's all waste. People aren't cars, they aren't a commodity and they aren't numbers in the for profit column of the insurance industry. Allowing an industry that treats people's health as profit vs. loss with shareholder rights first and foremost will fail.


Every other country with a form of universal care knows this. It's a fact.

This health insurance reform is by no means over. When the bill is passed and finally looked at and the loopholes written into it for the industry are exposed along with the consequences for the working and middle class there will be hell to pay.

If they decide to shackle the public to a mandate then in 2012 the person who wins the whitehouse will have run on a promise to get rid of the mandate.

[levander]

20. Some countries do do universal coverage well with private insurance...

Switzerland and the Netherlands are the two countries I hear sighted all the time. And, the Netherlands' health care system has the highest satisfaction rate of any system in Europe. You can watch a PBS segment on how their system works, here. Click on the "Streaming Video" link: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec09/healthcare1_10-07.html">Click

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden wrote a bill to reform the US health insurance system that was based on how the Netherlands' system works. It was called the Healthy Americans Act. It had broad bipartisan support. I have no idea why that wasn't the way we went. You can read about the Healthy Americans Act here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lanny-davis/a-plan-for-universal-cove_b_309513.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lanny-davis/the-wyden---bennett-healt_b_293117.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lanny-davis/the-healthy-americans-act_b_301962.html

I have always been for the Healthy Americans Act since I first heard about it a year ago. And, now that it's becoming apparent that this country can't get the public option in, even at historical highs in Democratic power, it makes even more sense to model our health care system after one of the successful programs in Europe that are based on private insurance...

But, note that the public option is not antithetical to the Healthy Americans Act. You could very well have a public option inside a system based on that act.

[ipaint]

25. Their systems are totally different than our so called reform

They all require ins. companies to be strictly regulated as in profits are redistributed if too high, all insurers must offer a basic plan that is dictated to them by the government at a price set by the government. No profits allowed on the basic comprehensive plan given to all citizens. Private ins. make their profits on vanity plans and add ons for the wealthy or on the extras used as incentives offered by employers to attract employees.

No copays or deductibles and free health care for kids. At about 150.00 a month in the netherlands.

It is interesting that switzerland recently loosened a few restrictions on private ins. and their health care costs are rising.

There is no comparing their systems and our reform

[levander]

31. I said the Healthy Americans Act was like the Netherlands...

Not the Reid, or House, or Baucus bill. The Healthy Americans Act.

[levander]

19. Is it better news that Medicaid is getting 15 million of them?

Medicaid is an awful program. If the people who are on it do manage to make decent money later, they have to repay the premiums to Medicaid that they would have had to pay if they had money to begin with.

Can you imagine being so bad off, you have to go on Medicaid? Then, you scratch your way into decent money, and there's this Medicaid debt hanging over your head? *shiver*

[Moosepoop]

22. Never heard of having to repay Medicaid later.

I've been on Medicaid, then had my circumstances improve and was able to go off of it. Never was I asked to repay anything. The only times I have seen anyone required to repay Medicaid or any other state/federal aid (other than college loans) was when fraud was involved in obtaining it in the first place.

I'm in Michigan -- what state(s) are you saying have the practice of requiring Medicaid recipients to repay what they would have paid in private premiums once they're back on their feet financially?

[levander]

32. I actually just got that repay thing off a DU post...

Someone started a thread here with a big Medicaid rant. I know, not the best source. I'm gonna go research Medicaid next time I have time to play around with politics on the internet. It wouldn't surprise me at all if you are right.

But, it is true that Medicaid is not well-liked by the people who have to use it. It doesn't enjoy nearly the popularity that Medicare does.

[quiller4]

35. Medicaid enjoys more popularity in some states than others

In Washington Medicaid medical coupons cover far more than Social Security and don't leave users dealing with co-pays of confusing billing statements.

[levander]

33. Here's a link to the DU thread...

This is the DU thread where I was talking about in my last response to you:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x85781">Click

More later. I wanna know more about this.

[cornermouse]

23. Reid's letter is the sanitized version.

The original, unsanitized version.

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ActuarialStudies/Downloads/S_PPACA_2009-12-10.pdf

[enlightenment]

28. My. That report is the definition of

damning with faint praise, isn't it?

What a sad mess this is . . .

[Eric J in MN]

29. CHIP is private insurance sold by the government. NT

NT