NBC News: White House Has Known For At Least 3 Years Millions Would Lose Coverage Due to ObamaCare

Achigan wrote:

News Buzzard wrote:The default position on this forum is to always point fingers at Obama, but I have yet to see a solution here for anything. Obamacare will work itself out, despite the naysayers!

I wish I had a solution for what I'm hearing and seeing NB, however I just don't understand why the ACA has started off so badly.  There is no doubt that things will happen when something new is tried, but this whole thing is somewhat of a mess.

What I think might be happening is the insurance companies making a fool out of the ACA, and the Obama administration should have known that this would/might happen.  It appears that all the people in charge just weren't ready when roll out day came about.

That's all I have to offer and I hope things get better.

That's a very good assessment, Achigan, and as always the Republicans choose to pounce rather than cooperate. This is just another desperate attempt to throttle the law and nothing more. The Republicans were never interested in any more Americans getting health insurance, and they would rather see people go bankrupt than do the right thing. I wouldn't be surprised if we find out down the road that Republican operatives have been aggressively hacking the website.

Obamacare is Obama’s signature legislation. It is hard to point the finger at anyone else for its failures. There isn’t a shred of empirical evidence to suggest it will work out and the mounting failures suggest quite the contrary.

AS for blaming Obama…here is the thing.

He is the President of the United States of America. He wanted the job. Part of having the job is taking responsibility for the things that failed under his watch. Not make excuses and point fingers. Obama always has someone to blame. He is always willing to take ownership for successes. He should be man enough to also take the responsibilities for the failures.
America is getting weary of hearing he knew nothing about everything.
His administration claims he didn’t know millions would lose their health plans. Well Obama is either the most uninformed president in our history, or the biggest liar in history.

Take your pick.

Sadly, there are those blind supporters who see him as the most intelligent person ever to occupy the Whitehouse and believe everything he says.

It would be different if he truly didn’t know and at the very least demanded accountability. He hasn’t ever done that. Go through the list, no accountability and we have to fight to get any damn answers. His Administration has even gone out of its way to keep things from coming out.

I thought the left wanted to clean up Washington, yet they do not hold this administration accountable. They instead, offer up or buy into every excuse and never seem to give a damn about people being held responsible. They don’t seem to care about the health of this country; they only care about the next poll.

You want help, from the Republicans or do you just want them to get out of the way?

Be honest.

I'll be honest! The political theater of the last 2 days will go the way of Benghazi, IRS, Solyndra, The Shutdown and Fast and Furious! Obamacre is here to stay, and if the Republicans were sincere in their concern for people who's policies are being cancelled they would pass legislation to stop it, but the Republicans aren't really concerned about people losing health insurance. Their main goal is to embarrass Obama. The American people will see this circus for what it is!!

As lawmakers grill Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius about the botched startup of HealthCare.gov and other issues related to the Affordable Care Act, nonpartisan fact checkers are giving failing grades to President Obama's oft-repeated pledge to Americans that "if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."

The Washington Post's Fact Checker this morning awarded the president's promise "Four Pinocchios," its harshest rating reserved for "whoppers." Fact Checker's conclusion:

"The administration is defending this pledge with a rather slim reed — that there is nothing in the law that makes insurance companies force people out of plans they were enrolled in before the law passed. That explanation conveniently ignores the regulations written by the administration to implement the law. ...
"The president's statements were sweeping and unequivocal — and made both before and after the bill became law. The White House now cites technicalities to avoid admitting that he went too far in his repeated pledge. ...
"The president's promise apparently came with a very large caveat: 'If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan — if we deem it to be adequate.' "
Also Wednesday morning, PolitiFact runs through its judgments on the president's pledge and writes that:

"Last year, we rated his statement Half True.
"Obama's statement had a reasonable point: His health care law does take pains to allow Americans to keep their health plan, especially people who get their insurance through work.
"But most people have never been able to keep their insurance through thick and thin. Even before the law took effect, a substantial number of policyholders were forced to switch plans every year. Figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office suggested that the law could increase that rate, not reduce it, even if Americans on balance benefit from the law's provisions mandating comprehensive coverage."

Finally, FactCheck.org on Tuesday reminds its readers that:

"We've been saying for years that President Obama was over-simplifying and over-promising when he kept saying, 'if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan' under the new health care law. Now reality is catching up with his political spin. ...
"The issue now getting attention is that the new law sets minimum standards for health insurance coverage, requiring, for example, that all health plans carry mental health benefits, prescription drug coverage, vaccinations, dental and vision care for children, maternity care for women, and more. Coverage also must be available to all regardless of preexisting medical conditions. In effect, this outlaws many existing 'bare bones' plans that were cheap, but didn't cover all (or any) of the required benefits and were available to mainly healthy persons. Those plans are now outlawed, and not all who had them welcome better insurance at greater cost. ...
"This was another example of reality catching up to the president's unfulfillable blanket promise that 'you can keep your plan.' Not everybody can. That's been widely expected for years, and now it's becoming obvious."

I believe the standards spelled out in that last paragraph are very important to make this law work. There are too many good things about Obamacare to be sidetracked by this nonsense of what Obama did or didn't say or mean. Like I said, this political theater will be short lived!

"This was another example of reality catching up to the president's unfulfillable blanket promise that 'you can keep your plan.' Not everybody can. That's been widely expected for years, and now it's becoming obvious."

In the world I live in obama lied.

I cannot believe you NB. I just cannot believe you. You can't be for real.

This is what's in control of our country! We have one liar after another!

Do you represent the voice of Wolfeboro Democrats?

Why not? You twist everything else to your liking you most certainly will twist that!!

fshnski wrote:Do you represent the voice of Wolfeboro Democrats?

I sure hope the rest of them aren't as blind as he is.

What if he is the voice of Wolfeboro Democrats? Wouldn't that be something?

I am a registered Democrat but not a member of the Wolfeboro Democrats. I think they are a wonderful group of people! I have to remind you guys that Obama took New Hampshire by 5 points and he didn't do that bad in Wolfeboro either. I seriously doubt the Republicans moved the needle that much on Obama with all of these phony hyped up scandals, and I expect Hillary to do even better than him in 2016.  

President Obama said today that if your insurance is cancelled then all you have to do is shop around, that's what the ACA is all about.

I didn't know that the ACA was about getting your insurance canceled and then you would have to be at the mercy of some insurance company.

Maybe the poor are getting coverage at no cost, but I don't like having my premiums go up to pay for that.

IMO this is just more middle class discrimination.

News Buzzard wrote:I am a registered Democrat but not a member of the Wolfeboro Democrats. I think they are a wonderful group of people! I have to remind you guys that Obama took New Hampshire by 5 points and he didn't do that bad in Wolfeboro either. I seriously doubt the Republicans moved the needle that much on Obama with all of these phony hyped up scandals, and I expect Hillary to do even better than him in 2016.  

If your president is an example of how Democrats perceive the truth then I wouldn't feel comfortable with any Democrats facts.

Achigan wrote:President Obama said today that if your insurance is cancelled then all you have to do is shop around, that's what the ACA is all about.

I didn't know that the ACA was about getting your insurance canceled and then you would have to be at the mercy of some insurance company.

Maybe the poor are getting coverage at no cost, but I don't like having my premiums go up to pay for that.

IMO this is just more middle class discrimination.

I think it's too early to tell that your premiums are going up, unless you previously had a bare bones policy that is no longer approved. Obama's biggest mistake was not qualifying his statements, but in the end I think it's right to develop an acceptable standard for policies. The Republicans are playing the game of gotcha with Obama's statements, which is much less important than getting the healthcare law right. The Republicans were behaving like children today at the hearing. Is it more important to embarrass Obama then to provide coverage for a cancer patient who can't get health insurance? Any one of us can become a victim of a pre-existing condition!

Achigan wrote:Maybe the poor are getting coverage at no cost, but I don't like having my premiums go up to pay for that.

What did you think would happen?

 

WHL wrote:I cannot believe you NB. I just cannot believe you. You can't be for real.

Obama has become such a laughing-stock, that "True Believer" NB has removed his Obama avatar!

 

Case in point:

"Please recall that the Democrats have had functional control of our government for nearly 7 years.

During those years we’ve seen ever more intrusion into our privacy by the government. We’ve seen Muslim fundamentalist terrorism explode. AQI [Iraq] is growing like an metastatic tumor. We have seen our government intercept private and personal communications of friendly heads of state. We are witnessing a move by prior friendly nations to sanction us in the UN for that behavior. We’ve endured an unprecedented explosion in our national debt even though our federal revenues are at a historic high. We now have more people on welfare than people with jobs. That’s not only dangerous, it’s tragic. It’s time of a change of governance, time to return the Democrat legislators to their homes..."
—BPK.com

I think it's pretty safe to say most people's insurance is going to go up once this all kicks in. I think there is little doubt.

As for Wolfeboro, it used to be a strong Republican town, too bad it has changed. And too bad it is RUN by mostly Democrats.

That was pretty obvious when we were forced to except work force housing.

News Buzzard wrote:... Obama's biggest mistake was not qualifying his statements, but in the end I think it's right to develop an acceptable standard for policies...

He should have qualified his statement?  You have got to be kidding me.

Obama lied to get this rubbish passed.  You know it, I know it and every person paying attention knows it.  I don’t believe you can’t see through the lies, you simply accept them. How long can one make wild excuses and fake accusations about why a negative situation has happened?

You are either being obtuse on purpose, or you have ZERO understanding of how this world works. It isn't about corporate fat cats sitting on their mountains of wealth. Stop trying to put the blame on to anyone else but Obama. He forced Obamacare down our throats, and now people do not get to keep the policies that they had before.

Under Obamacare “acceptable standards” a policy for News Buzzard MUST include birth control and prenatal care and maternity leave.  

It isn’t your decision or Obama’s to decide what policy is acceptable and it was not it anyway qualified to Americans when it was sold.  PERIOD


You are a smart guy so stop acting like you don't understand this. Stop acting like it's the insurance company or the employers’ fault that health insurance has risen for the employees. Stop acting like it's anyone else’s fault but that tool shed that you drool over, named Obama. It is his and his fault alone.

I think we all agree that we all want affordable, accessible healthcare (meaning that folks can access in their own communities, and that their budgets can afford).

The system we have now encourages over-use of some aspects of our healthcare system, because it is based on reimbursements, so docs will over-order tests/scans because they know they will be reimbursed.

Raising deductibles is a good way to weed out over-use, as folks are not so quick to want those scans and additional tests when they know that the first $5000 of healthcare that year will be out of pocket.

We were promised AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE. This legislation does nothing to LOWER THE COST of healthcare.

This is INSURANCE REFORM, but the "reform" is really "restructuring" and other than slapping insurance companies on the hands w/ the federal mandate re: pre-existing conditions what has been "reformed" about the insurance industry? And it didn't take 2000 pages of mandates and regulations to come up with a mandate about no more denial of insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

There is nothing AFFORDABLE about this legislation. It is going to cost our country trillions of dollars (per CBO) and for many of us, it is going to cost us more to get the same services we received in the past, because our insurance policies have changed and we now have higher deductibles, more out of pocket, possibly higher premiums with less coverage.

SOME OF US REALIZED THIS BEFORE THE LEGISLATION PASSED. No one was willing to listen. People actually believed they were going to get "free healthcare" or "low cost healthcare." Well, I get that! The name of the legislation is . . . The Affordable Care Act.

Outerlimits wrote:It isn't about corporate fat cats sitting on their mountains of wealth.

That's all this country is about!!!

You're stuck with Obamacare, whether you like it or not, and the Republicans are in such disarray they're powerless to do anything about it. It would be nice if the Republicans could work with the Democrats to fix it, but that ship sailed in 2009 when Obama was sworn in.

As the old saying goes, Outer, we might as well talk to the stone wall!!  

Obama, the Democrats, and people like New Buzzard have spent the last 4 + years demonizing everyone that opposes Obamacare. They have been called racist, terrorist and obstructionists…just to name a few.

Now that Obamacare is failing, can you really be surprised they are not pitching in to help fix it? -not that it can be fixed.

Obamacare was sold to the public on 4 major features.

1. Lower the average American’s premium by $2,500.00 a year
2. Provide health insurance for 30 million Americans that didn’t have healthcare.
3. Coverage for preexisting conditions
4. Reduce the deficit.

Notice how #1 and #4 have disappeared from the lexicon.

The reality is we can’t add 30 million newly insured, cover pre-existing conditions, subsidize the poor, give free coverage to millions, administer the entire program and expect the costs to go down.

Somebody will have to pay for this.

Right now. The vast majority who are signing up for the exchanges qualify for free Medicaid. Even with subsidies many young still cannot afford the premiums and high deductibles and co pays. The young who don't get subsidies and currently do not get insurance obviously have no incentive to sign up for insurance with the ACA especially when it will cost them 2-3 x what they could have paid in 2013.

You will have system overloaded of sick on mediciaid and subsidies and very little healthy young adults signing up and paying full price.

It will collapse.

You are right. Somebody has to pay and it's gonna' be us who were paying anyway. It is really no different. Who are we kidding? And the poor who pay very little will not be able to pay the big deductibles so we will still be paying those too. Nothing is free, although some people seem to think it is. I don't see how this gets us ahead at all.