Dear Dems. You should be proud as hell of Obamacare. Here's 19M reasons why...

[babylonsister]

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/02/obamacare-will-cover-about-19-million-people-year


Obamacare Will Cover About 19 Million People This Year

—By Kevin Drum
| Wed Feb. 18, 2015 4:52 PM EST


With the signup deadline now past, we have a pretty good idea of how many people will be getting health care coverage via Obamacare in 2015. Here's a rough estimate:

+11.4 million: confirmed signups for private coverage.
-1.8 million: likely attrition rate (nonpayers, dropped coverage, etc.)
+9 million: covered via Medicaid expansion

The Medicaid number will rise throughout the year, and is higher if you use a looser way of counting. Needless to say, it would also be higher if all the holdout states joined in. For now, though, using a strict count just through February, the Obamacare total stands at about 18.6 million people—and will likely rise a bit more thanks to state extensions of the deadline. So call it 19 million or so.

That's a lot of people. If you got into politics to help actual people with actual problems, you should be damn proud of voting for the Affordable Care Act in 2010. No other legislation of at least the past two decades even comes close to its real-world impact.

[C_U_L8R]

1. Your turn GOP

You gonna kick 19M people to the curb?

[babylonsister]

4. They probably will, but it's becoming a joke now. nt

[calimary]

13. They'd love to! It's their AGENDA that matters. Not people.

And they sure aren't interested in anything that helps people.

[Cha]

2. K&R.. So happy for the people who are being covered and here's to "Counting"! mahalo babsis~

http://theobamadiary.com/2015/02/18/chat-on-80/

[Cha]

3. KICK

[FSogol]

5. K&R. n/t

[Adrahil]

6. Well said. Now let's work for that Public Option.

That'll realistically have to wait until Congress changes, but let's start thinking about it and talking it up!

[pnwmom]

7. And this is an underestimate. Some of the attrition rate is due

to individuals who moved out of the exchange this year and bought their policy directly from a company, and some is from people who didn't buy insurance last year but bought directly from a company this year.

My son is probably counted in "attrition" because he didn't buy a policy on the exchange; instead, the policy he chose came directly from the company, but with all the benefits required under the ACA. (Since he wasn't getting a subsidy it didn't matter where he bought it and,thanks to the ACA, there are more policies available both on and off the exchanges now.)

[Omaha Steve]

8. K&R!

[daredtowork]

9. Something came up last night

I was at a city budget meeting, and one of the items was allocating part of the city's budget for the medical clinic that covers most of the Medi-Cal patients in the city, including me. The enrollment of this clinic has skyrocketed because of Medi-Cal, and they are expanding. However, someone brought up something about the Affordable Care Act funding changing in three years: the State will no longer receive a block grant from the Federal government, so the the State will no longer match the what the city provides (which the city is already trying to cut).

Am I wrong to see this as a coming disaster? First the clinic will enroll all of the Medi-Cal patients, and then the clinic will lose funding and collapse. The patients will then still have Medi-Cal, but no clinic where they can be seen. A wonderful clinic that has served this community for decades may be ruined to boot (just because they kept taking Medi-Cal patients while they were hoping someone would get real about the need to fund the clinic after this ACA cut off...).

[OneCrazyDiamond]

14. I don't think it will be that bad.

100% to 90%

http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/facts/timeline/timeline-text.html


Increasing Access to Medicaid. Americans who earn less than 133% of the poverty level (approximately $14,000 for an individual and $29,000 for a family of four) will be eligible to enroll in Medicaid. States will receive 100% federal funding for the first three years to support this expanded coverage, phasing to 90% federal funding in subsequent years. Effective January 1, 2014.

[uponit7771]

10. it wasn't good enough so the whole thing should be nixed !!!!!!!

/sarcasm...<--- Cause this is needed

[Hekate]

15. You got that right!

likewise Now where's the FUD Squad? They usually have a lot to say about how lousy the ACA is and and how the entire American population was thrown under the bus because there's no Single Payer.

19 Million is a lot of folks.

[SunSeeker]

11. K & R

[pnwmom]

12. And that doesn't count the people who could and did buy insurance directly from insurance companies

rather than through the exchanges.

By these numbers, my son appears to be part of the "attrition" -- whereas he really only dropped the exchange policy because he got another one directly from the insurer. And those policies are better now, too, thanks to the ACA.

[Hekate]

16. Thanks for this, Babs.

KnR

[cynzke]

17. Take it Further!

Since ACA regulates all health insurance, all existing plans (other than grandfathered and self insured plans) including employer group plans are Obamacare. Isolating ACA to the public exchange plans and medicaid enrolles is red meat for the right wing to attack. We need to include all people covered by ACA in the picture. The misinformed/ignorant people tend to think that ACA/Obamacare is confined only to the public exchange.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

18. K, R, Bookmarking. n/t

[Stuart G]

19. K and R...no text

[spanone]

20. k&r...

[MADem]

21. My relative needs a heart transplant.

Thanks to Obamacare, she can get one.

Thanks a lot, Obama...~!

[obxhead]

22. Imagine what it could do if they would ever get to the fix it later part.

However, the insurance companies have exactly what they wanted, so it doesn't need fixed.

[area51]

23. +1 n/t