Affordable Health Care Law under review by SCOTUS

[Wonderboy]

good news for New Yorkers http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...tml?ref=health

that's a rather large rate drop

If this holds, and if this is anything close to typical throughout the country, it's almost a death knell for the current GOP leadership. They've almost built their entire party platform around their opinion that this is going to cause medical costs to go up, not down.

On the other hand, they built their entire party platform that Obama's economic policies were going to make the economy, stock market and employment worse, and they are still ticking. Honestly, I don't see how the GOP leadership has any credibility left at all. Oh, wait a minute...

[In the Corn]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/he...o-fall-50.html

The new premium rates do not affect a majority of New Yorkers, who receive insurance through their employers, only those who must purchase it on their own. Because the cost of individual coverage has soared, only 17,000 New Yorkers currently buy insurance on their own. About 2.6 million are uninsured in New York State.

State officials estimate as many as 615,000 individuals will buy health insurance on their own in the first few years the health law is in effect. In addition to lower premiums, about three-quarters of those people will be eligible for the subsidies available to lower-income individuals.

I do hope what MJ posted comes true for everyone in need of health care insurance, but the article related to the chart, says this really effects few people (17,000), with the potential to add 2.6 million. This issue is that a lot of those 2.6 million people aren't sure how they are going to afford affordable health care.

I have talked with many insurance and health care providers and they don't seem to have the rosy picture this paints. I'm hopeful, and one of those in need of health insurance, so believe I want this to work.

[revo]

California approves 2014 rates that are 2% to 29% below 2013 small employer rates:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2013/07/15/covered-california-rates-approved.html?ana=RSS&s=article_search&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bizj_sacramento+%28Sacramento+Business+Journal%29

....while Oregon approves 2014 rates that are reduced by as much as 35%:

http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2013/06/oregon_slashes_2014_health_ins.html

[Judge Jude]

Factcheck.org - with a crew of writers that includes our 1992 Rotisserie League champion - skewers Ted Cruz, and a little of Obama, in the health care kerfuffle:

http://www.factcheck.org/2013/09/factchecking-pernicious-obamacare-claims/?utm_source=FactCheck.org&utm_campaign=6425f7d658-FactChecking_Pernicious_Claims9_26_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3294bba774-6425f7d658-47738117

"Cruz falsely claimed that the spouses of 15,000 UPS employees will be “left without health insurance” and forced into “an exchange with no employer subsidy.” UPS is dropping coverage for spouses only if they can get insurance with their own employer.

Obama greatly exaggerated when he credited the health care law for bending the cost curve on health care spending. Experts say the down economy is the overwhelming reason that national health care spending has been growing at historically slow rates in recent years.

Cruz said the “IRS employees union has asked to be exempted from Obamacare.” Not so. The union wants its workers to be treated like any other worker with employer-provided health insurance. It opposes a GOP bill that it says, contrary to law, would “take coverage away from employees who already receive it through their employers.”

Cruz said the unemployment rate for black teens “is over 10 times higher than it is for college graduates — 38.2 percent.” True, but that’s comparing apples to oranges. The unemployment rate for white teens, aged 16 to 19, is also high, at 20.5 percent. There’s still a racial disparity, but the rate is nearly double, not 10 times higher."

[Moonlight J]

"Cruz falsely claims" -- would be a great band name

[Judge Jude]

DVR-ing 60 Minutes piece on the explosive increase in disability claims in the last decade.

Not sure if they'll touch on it, but I wonder if it is a "f you" response to the general 'no raises, layoffs, furloughs, do more with less' business culture these days.

Not to defend someone who is healthy but steals money. But I doubt that in this atmosphere, legitimately injured/ill people are racing back to work - or even putting off needed health issues - as they picture getting promotions and raises (as they did in the good old days, arguably to their longterm detriment in some cases).

I guess some may indeed be "sticking it to the man."

[Moonlight J]

I watched the piece.....just horrible. They spotlighted an area of WV & KY where it's a complete racket. Couldn't help but think how red those 2 states were & would like to see the overlap of small government voting types that are milking the disability system.

[Judge Jude]

What did you think of Coburn in the piece?
I guess I'm the only one on earth who greatly respects Coburn OK and Sanders VT, but still...

And I get your point as well.

[chancellor]

I watched the piece.....just horrible. They spotlighted an area of WV & KY where it's a complete racket. Couldn't help but think how red those 2 states were & would like to see the overlap of small government voting types that are milking the disability system.

LOL..West Virginia is hardly a "red" state. Two of three reps are GOP, but both Senators are Dem. Moreover, the only reason, IMO, that one of the reps is GOP is that he replaced Mollohan, who was corrupt as a week old corpse.

Agree that 60 minutes highlighted the most egregious areas (gosh, what a surprise, 60 Minutes sensationalizing!), but they are right that cases are way, way up nationwide. In 7 years, from 2001 to 2008, disability claims went from about 5.3 million nationwide to about 7.1 million nationwide. In rough terms, that's about a 33% increase in 7 years.

[The Feral Slasher]

LOL..West Virginia is hardly a "red" state. Two of three reps are GOP, but both Senators are Dem. Moreover, the only reason, IMO, that one of the reps is GOP is that he replaced Mollohan, who was corrupt as a week old corpse.

Agree that 60 minutes highlighted the most egregious areas (gosh, what a surprise, 60 Minutes sensationalizing!), but they are right that cases are way, way up nationwide. In 7 years, from 2001 to 2008, disability claims went from about 5.3 million nationwide to about 7.1 million nationwide. In rough terms, that's about a 33% increase in 7 years.

Here's a pretty interesting article from earlier in the year

http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

[Lucky]

Here's a pretty interesting article from earlier in the year

http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

I thought it was an interesting article, but did have a negative observation about the retired judge. First, it is virtually impossible to disable a lawyer, short of a stake in the heart. My bet is that if he has diabetes and high blood pressure, it comes from eating too many chicken fried steaks and drinking too many cold beers.

I have gotten a lot of people on disability. Some were pretty easy...a guy with terminal cancer and less than a year to live. Some were surprisingly difficult...a guy paralyzed from the neck down. In most of the cases, the people could do things, but only for a short length of time. In almost every case, the individual was someone no employer would actually hire in the real world.

Maybe I was lucky never to see people out to scam the system. Every person I ever represented on a disability claim wound up receiving disability. In most cases, they had been referred by their doctors, who told them they shouldn't be working and were risking their lives to do so.

[The Feral Slasher]

I thought it was an interesting article, but did have a negative observation about the retired judge. First, it is virtually impossible to disable a lawyer, short of a stake in the heart. My bet is that if he has diabetes and high blood pressure, it comes from eating too many chicken fried steaks and drinking too many cold beers.

I have gotten a lot of people on disability. Some were pretty easy...a guy with terminal cancer and less than a year to live. Some were surprisingly difficult...a guy paralyzed from the neck down. In most of the cases, the people could do things, but only for a short length of time. In almost every case, the individual was someone no employer would actually hire in the real world.

Maybe I was lucky never to see people out to scam the system. Every person I ever represented on a disability claim wound up receiving disability. In most cases, they had been referred by their doctors, who told them they shouldn't be working and were risking their lives to do so.

It is interesting that some states have less than 3% of working age adults on disability while there are several above 8%. It seems strange to me that 1 in 12 working age adults in a state population are disabled and can't work. Also interesting is the massive increase in back pain from 1961 to 2011. I think the increase in mental illness is much more easy to understand.

[Lucky]

I tried to be very careful about the cases I took...if there wasn't serious medical documentation, I wouldn't get involved.

I don't know about the back pain issue. Maybe it has something to do with lower back pain and chronic pain being diagnosed more often and accepted by the medical community more readily.

One of the difficult things is that certain back issues can be diagnosed, but remain totally asymptomatic, while other conditions seem minor but generate chronic pain. I think it is clear there is some fraud going on, but also some people who should be on disability and are not. The story of my guy paralyzed from the neck down is an example of one way the system doesn't work. I had to take that case all the way to a ALJ in Dallas before it was resolved.

[The Feral Slasher]

I tried to be very careful about the cases I took...if there wasn't serious medical documentation, I wouldn't get involved.

I don't know about the back pain issue. Maybe it has something to do with lower back pain and chronic pain being diagnosed more often and accepted by the medical community more readily.

One of the difficult things is that certain back issues can be diagnosed, but remain totally asymptomatic, while other conditions seem minor but generate chronic pain. I think it is clear there is some fraud going on, but also some people who should be on disability and are not. The story of my guy paralyzed from the neck down is an example of one way the system doesn't work. I had to take that case all the way to a ALJ in Dallas before it was resolved.

I think it is clear that there is a lot of fraud going on, at least in some states. Out of curiosity I looked at the 5 states with the highest percentage of disability claims and they are the 5 states with the lowest median income. The 5 states with the lowest percentage of disability claims are all in the top 15 for median income.

[Lucky]

I think it is clear that there is a lot of fraud going on, at least in some states. Out of curiosity I looked at the 5 states with the highest percentage of disability claims and they are the 5 states with the lowest median income. The 5 states with the lowest percentage of disability claims are all in the top 15 for median income.

Okay, I'll go along with "a lot" instead of "some".

I'm not sure what those stats tell us. A few random things come to mind. I know there are some people who would qualify for disability but do not apply for it because they cannot afford to take the cut in income. I know that some occupations (oil field, for example) result in a lot of disability cases because of the physical demands of the job. I'd like to see the chart you were looking at. Just guessing, I'd say that Mississippi and Louisiana are near the top (although many of Louisiana's claims are probability under admiralty law), while Connecticut is near the bottom.