Is there a simple list of what the Affordability Act offers to pass on to some skeptics?

[Horse with no Name]

These aren't lunatics...just folks that are very curious. Thanks.

[jberryhill]

1. It has no special provisions for skeptics

Skeptics are treated just like everyone else.

[Hoyt]

3. Perfect.

[SoapLovah]

2. There are good resources but they need to read. Kaiser Family Foundation and AARP's website,

Www.getthefacts.org have good info.

[patrice]

4. HHS perspective:

http://www.hhs.gov/secretary/about/priorities/priorities.html

[Horse with no Name]

14. Thanks for the wealth of info Patrice.

I appreciate it.

[patrice]

15. You are welcome. I probably have more, stuff such as from The Robert Woods Johnson

foundation and maybe Pew Research, but that's more specific topics. And, btw, I just remembered, that I didn't find that Reddit piece; it was either posted here or on FB.

And you probably also already know that, just as Senator Sanders always said, Single Payer is NOT gone.

[patrice]

5. Brookings:

http://www.brookings.edu/about/centers/health

[patrice]

6. Still looking for the best (shortest) one I had.

[patrice]

7. List I found on Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vb8vs/eli5_what_exactly_is_obamacare_and_what_did_it/c530lfx

[patrice]

8. You can corelate that Reddit piece against this HHS detailed summary overview:

http://dpc.senate.gov/healthreformbill/healthbill52.pdf

[patrice]

9. 10 immediate Affordable Care Act benefits:

http://kaystreet.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/ten-immediate-benefits-of-health-care-reform/

[patrice]

10. ACA timeline from .gov

http://www.healthcare.gov/law/timeline/index.html

[patrice]

11. The Patient Protection part of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act:

http://www.pcori.org/

[patrice]

12. My favorite blogger on this subject:

the Chair of Family Practice at University of Kansas Medical School & a member of PNHP, Dr. Joshua Freeman:

http://medicinesocialjustice.blogspot.com/

[mrf901]

13. How much does Obamacare cost? nt

[patrice]

16. Like any insurance, that depends upon what kind of coverage you need and what insurance

companies are offering, but, since the state-level insurance exchanges are not in place yet (think of these as malls where you can go to shop for health insurance coverage of different types from different companies), we aren't going to know much more about that until the exchanges open.

But one thing can be said thus far about the costs of Obamacare to you: there is the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) mandated by the law, 85:15, which requires that 85% of the premium dollar that the insurance company is charging MUST be spent on the insured's care and only 15% of that premium dollar may be spent on insurance company overhead, so depending on a person's current insurance co., some of whom are running on up to 35% overhead, the cost of coverage has gone down. Some people say ins. co. can always just raise their premiums and still make that 85:15, but, since it IS a market system, there's only just so much of that sort of thing that buyers will tolerate and if even one significant ins. provider makes a break for it in order to grab the market (by means of internal efficiencies), ins. cos. who have raised their premiums could damage themselves and not survive.

Also, with that MLR in place, there is now downward pressure on the costs of care itself, not just premiums.

[patrice]

17. I guess one of the things that will happen, when the insurance exchanges open, will be that if

someone (including employers) can't afford the coverage that they need at the prices offered by the ins. cos. in the exchanges, then individuals will receive assistance, on a sliding scale, to make up for however much of the premium they don't have, so I'm wondering, and I suppose this depends upon exactly how individual states set up their exchanges, but ... if the pool of those needing assistance with premiums gets big enough and the level of a$$i$tance is high enough, at what point does the individual state just cut its losses to those private insurance companies and take those customers into something like state level single payer, which at least one state, Vermont, has decided to just begin at that point and forego all of the dancing around ins. price & health care costs and deliver the best deal possible up front, or as close thereto as possible.

[patrice]

18. Excuse my manners, welcome mrf901!

I hope you want to talk about this again, as I am trying to figure it out myself and seeing a discussion someplace like this kind of forces me to think about it.

Welcome to DU!

[mrf901]

19. I don't see what the state's part of this is ...

beyond the fact that there(states) is where
the insurance companies are chartered
and regulated

[patrice]

20. Unless they refuse to, the states design their own exchanges, which, in turn, will affect

everything else.

Think of all of the decisions that would have to be made about HOW to attract HC Ins. Cos. to a state; how to integrate the different types of companies & offerings so as to present them in a way that works for HC Ins Cos & for HC Ins. consumers; what level of response to insurance shoppers those companies will make, so that shoppers can compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges; how to make all offerings equally accessible (e.g. alphabetic indexes won't give them all an equal chance of being picked by someone who is shopping); how enriched that environment is going to be relative to existing support resources that have to do with things such as terminology, InsCo appeals processes, and, for special populations of the disabled or elderly, things such as CMS resource surveys . . . .

All and much more of which will affect the efficiency with which the right HC Ins for you is delivered for your premium dollar.

[mrf901]

21. just copy Ebay

you don't need the authority
of a state to merely match up
buyers and sellers

[patrice]

23. Individual states will make their choices, maybe some will do something like that. The authority

of the state in this situation has to do with the principle that everyone will have insurance so that health care costs can be influenced, in this case by free market competition based on the size of the market, everyone. The exchanges only follow on that, so the authority of the state isn't to make exchanges for their own sake, just that there should be something that supports the development of those markets, and, hence, contribute to HC cost management, in a way that facilitates the state's existing budget responsibilities "to promote the general welfare" of the people.

[Honeycombe8]

25. Obamacare is not an ins. "plan" so you can't buy it. It's a set of rules & regs...

that apply to insurance co. health care policies.

The effect it has on YOU depends on what kind of health care ins. you have - whethr it's from your employer, or if you buy it on the open market (individual policy), whether you are a high risk buyer or have a serious pre-existing condition, whether you are middle class or poor (if you're poor enough, the fed will help you with the payments), etc.

The fed will also be starting exchanges online, so you can buy directly from there, and will also be offering some of its own policies (a REAL govt policy, altho may not be as good as regular policies).

[Avalux]

22. Short Answer: Read the Law.

It's all there, if people would just read it, and not depend on journalists, experts or whomever to decipher it for them. Just read the damn thing.

Or are people that lazy?

[mrf901]

24. 2700 pages, Pelosi didn't read

do you expect other
to do what Congress did not?

[Tennessee Gal]

26. What is your point?

With staff, research organizations like CRS, etc. members of Congress often go without reading the entire text of bills containing thousands of pages.

[mrf901]

28. see post #13 .nt

[Honeycombe8]

27. Congress never reads entire bills. It's full of legalese and not understandable...

unless you're an expert in that area of law, and also, laws frequently refer to OTHER laws, so you'd have to know about those, too.

So...Congress people have staffers who read things (in part, I'm sure), and digest and summarize them for the Congress people. There are other services, I THINK, that do this sort of thing. And the guys who sponsored the bill will give a synopsis of what is in the bill.

Having said all that, it is possible for something to be in a bill that most Congress people don't know about. Even if Congress people read the entire bill, they probably wouldn't catch it, anyway. Bills are very lengthy and written in legalese, as I said.

This is the accepted way of doing things in Congress...has been for many many years.