[andyt]

2Cdo 2Cdo:

Health care costs that have substantially increased for most,

$1:

Those complaints are at odds with the top-line numbers from the Kaiser Family Foundation's annual survey of employer health benefits. The report shows that premiums for employer-sponsored plans have increased at a slower rate since the law was enacted in 2010. So what explains this seemingly widespread belief that Obamacare is driving up costs?


Start with the basics. On average, the cost of employer-sponsored health insurance increased 26 percent from 2009 to 2014. But costs increased faster before the law was enacted: From 2004 to 2009, costs increased 34 percent. From 1999 to 2004, they went up 72 percent.

So how should we account for the apparently widespread perception of higher costs under Obamacare? There are at least two answers.

The first, Claxton said, is that although average premiums aren't rising any faster, the premiums differ less from company to company. Before the law was passed, those premiums were based in part on the health and age of the employees using the plan, which meant that employers with younger or healthier workers could pay significantly less.

By barring that practice, known as medical underwriting, for small employers, and by tightening age-based rate-setting, Obamacare increased costs for those companies, Claxton said. If you work at a company that employs 10 healthy workers in their 20s, it's possible that the premiums you pay have risen considerably.

But remember: The fact that the average increase has remained mostly unchanged suggests premium increases for some were offset by premium decreases for others. That's more likely to be your experience if you work at a company that has older workers, or a few with expensive medical conditions.

The second explanation has nothing to do with premiums; it attributes rising costs to the way employers attempt to shift premiums to workers. On that count, the numbers are clear: Workers are getting hit harder than they have in years.

In 2006, 6 percent of workers insured through a small employer faced an annual deductible of $2,000 or more, according to Kaiser. By this year, that had risen almost six-fold, to 34 percent. (Just 11 percent of workers covered by large employers face deductibles that high.)

Copayments have jumped, too. In 2006, 51 percent of people with employer-sponsored health insurance could see a primary-care doctor for $20 or less; by this year, that figure had fallen to 19 percent. And the average out-of-pocket maximum for single coverage has doubled, from $1,510 in 2006 to $3,011 in 2014.

When I asked Claxton what's causing employers to shift more costs onto their workers, he said the weak labor market was to blame. "When the job market is tight, you want to make your employees happy," he said. "So you don't push as hard on things like that."

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2 ... sts-really

[BartSimpson]

Health care costs have only declined for people who are receiving subsidies. For literally EVERYONE else their premiums have increased and for those who are buying what Obama called 'Cadillac' health care (meaning with broad coverage and low deductibles) the ACA is going to impose a punitive tax on those people in addition to their premiums going up.

Add to this that the miracle heath care you and numbnuts are celebrating requires POOR people to come up with up to $5000 annually for deductibles.

How the hell is that going to help someone who works at McDonalds?

[andyt]

$1:

Start with the basics. On average, the cost of employer-sponsored health insurance increased 26 percent from 2009 to 2014. But costs increased faster before the law was enacted: From 2004 to 2009, costs increased 34 percent. From 1999 to 2004, they went up 72 percent.

Thanks Obama for travelling back in time and increasing premiums so drastically long before you were president.

[Thanos]

Word is that the former casino/hotel/whorehouse owners that did the job for Lansky and Luciano, and the operators/overseers of the slave plantations that Castro chased out are already lined up at the trough to reclaim their "property" once the normalization begins, which means that the average Cuban is basically slated to return to the wonderful state of existence they had before the revolution. Yes, what Castro built on a foundation of blood and Communist lies was pretty shitty but what he replaced was even worse, those scumbags and slavers that ran the joint prior to him, and now Cuba gets to return to the haughty days of corporate plutocracy and criminal-underground aristocracy. In other words the rich are gonna get richer while everyone else down there gets royally fucked.

The overall arc of the universe is always towards the aggrandizement and enrichment of the very worst members of our vicious and ugly species. Ain't humanity grand?

[BartSimpson]

DrRosen DrRosen:

I love it when people just make shit up and post it on the internet.

I guess that explains why so much of what you post is shit you just made up.

[stratos]

Thanos Thanos:

Word is that the former casino/hotel/whorehouse owners that did the job for Lansky and Luciano, and the operators/overseers of the slave plantations that Castro chased out are already lined up at the trough to reclaim their "property" once the normalization begins, which means that the average Cuban is basically slated to return to the wonderful state of existence they had before the revolution. Yes, what Castro built on a foundation of blood and Communist lies was pretty shitty but what he replaced was even worse, those scumbags and slavers that ran the joint prior to him, and now Cuba gets to return to the haughty days of corporate plutocracy and criminal-underground aristocracy. In other words the rich are gonna get richer while everyone else down there gets royally fucked.

The overall arc of the universe is always towards the aggrandizement and enrichment of the very worst members of our vicious and ugly species. Ain't humanity grand?

Not even trying to be funny but aren't most, I would guess 90%, are dead. It's been 50yrs and even if they were in their early 20's when Castro took over they are now in their 70's and firmly established with houses, businesses, retirement or what ever. Why would they go back to Cuba and go through a legal fight for property taken from then back in the early 60's?

[Thanos]

stratos stratos:

Thanos Thanos:

Word is that the former casino/hotel/whorehouse owners that did the job for Lansky and Luciano, and the operators/overseers of the slave plantations that Castro chased out are already lined up at the trough to reclaim their "property" once the normalization begins, which means that the average Cuban is basically slated to return to the wonderful state of existence they had before the revolution. Yes, what Castro built on a foundation of blood and Communist lies was pretty shitty but what he replaced was even worse, those scumbags and slavers that ran the joint prior to him, and now Cuba gets to return to the haughty days of corporate plutocracy and criminal-underground aristocracy. In other words the rich are gonna get richer while everyone else down there gets royally fucked.

The overall arc of the universe is always towards the aggrandizement and enrichment of the very worst members of our vicious and ugly species. Ain't humanity grand?

Not even trying to be funny but aren't most, I would guess 90%, are dead. It's been 50yrs and even if they were in their early 20's when Castro took over they are now in their 70's and firmly established with houses, businesses, retirement or what ever. Why would they go back to Cuba and go through a legal fight for property taken from then back in the early 60's?

I'd assume more that the ones like the United Fruit Company, Bacardi, and Reynolds Tobacco, no matter how many name changes they've gone through, have had their legal submissions long prepared in advance. The paperwork's probably been sitting in their deposit boxes for years and only need an update to current legal codes to be filed. No, there's no way the Cubans aren't going to end up paying through the nose when the lawyers for the big boys coming knocking at the door, not in contemporary legal forums where the worst of the worst always win in spades. Give it about twenty years after normalization begins. However bad Cuba is right now by the time the masters of the universe are finished with the place they'll be on the same level of awfulness as Nicaragua and El Salvador are. Keeping the bananas and cigarettes as low in price as possible is all that matters though because something something whatever something else freedom!

[stratos]

$1:

I'd assume more that the ones like the United Fruit Company, Bacardi, and Reynolds Tobacco, no matter how many name changes they've gone through, have had their legal submissions long prepared in advance. The paperwork's probably been sitting in their deposit boxes for years and only need an update to current legal codes to be filed. No, there's no way the Cubans aren't going to end up paying through the nose when the lawyers for the big boys coming knocking at the door, not in contemporary legal forums where the worst of the worst always win in spades. Give it about twenty years after normalization begins. However bad Cuba is right now by the time the masters of the universe are finished with the place they'll be on the same level of awfulness as Nicaragua and El Salvador are. Keeping the bananas and cigarettes as low in price as possible is all that matters though because something something whatever something else freedom!

Sad to say your point does ring true.

[BartSimpson]

I expect Obama will issue another Holy Writ of his to nullify any claims US firms or citizens have on Cuba.

The hell of it is I'd support it simply to put the old business behind us. Besides, any losses that US firms took when their Cuban assets were seized were taken as tax write offs years ago. Technically speaking, those assets are then defaulted to the US government and Obama would be within his authority to refuse to repatriate any property that the government had already redeemed via tax refunds or reductions based on claimed losses.

[Jabberwalker]

stratos stratos:

Thanos Thanos:

Word is that the former casino/hotel/whorehouse owners that did the job for Lansky and Luciano, and the operators/overseers of the slave plantations that Castro chased out are already lined up at the trough to reclaim their "property" once the normalization begins, which means that the average Cuban is basically slated to return to the wonderful state of existence they had before the revolution. Yes, what Castro built on a foundation of blood and Communist lies was pretty shitty but what he replaced was even worse, those scumbags and slavers that ran the joint prior to him, and now Cuba gets to return to the haughty days of corporate plutocracy and criminal-underground aristocracy. In other words the rich are gonna get richer while everyone else down there gets royally fucked.

The overall arc of the universe is always towards the aggrandizement and enrichment of the very worst members of our vicious and ugly species. Ain't humanity grand?

Not even trying to be funny but aren't most, I would guess 90%, are dead. It's been 50yrs and even if they were in their early 20's when Castro took over they are now in their 70's and firmly established with houses, businesses, retirement or what ever. Why would they go back to Cuba and go through a legal fight for property taken from then back in the early 60's?

When the Castros are gone, it's a whole new ball game. I'll bet that even the Castros know that.

[BartSimpson]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

When the Castros are gone, it's a whole new ball game. I'll bet that even the Castros know that.

Fidel is half dead and Raoul is 83. I'd say the current rapprochement may well be Raoul trying to find a way out of Cuba for himself and his brother so they can avoid the usual 'retirement' that consistently awaits dictators.

[BartSimpson]

DrRosen DrRosen:

Not that he needs one in addition to taking American healthcare out of the Dark Ages, surviving the subprime mortgage catastrophe, ending two wars and the impending vetoing of Keystone. But yeah.

CNBC puts the lie to your bullsh*t:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102289303

$1:

New York City resident Nicolas Karlson was happy to be one of at least 2.5 million people who beat a major Obamacare enrollment deadline last week, but he's going to be paying a lot more for health insurance next year because of it.

To cover himself, his wife, Monica, and their three children, 45-year-old Karlson will go from paying $1,805 every three months for their long-standing Aetna plan, to a new one from New York State's Obamacare exchange that will cost them $1,221.60 per month, or more than 100 percent more than his old plan cost.

'Affordable' my ass. Lemmy, you should be ashamed of yourself for supporting this nonsense and taking $600 a month away from a young family!

[Public_Domain]

Thanos Thanos:

Word is that the former casino/hotel/whorehouse owners that did the job for Lansky and Luciano, and the operators/overseers of the slave plantations that Castro chased out are already lined up at the trough to reclaim their "property" once the normalization begins, which means that the average Cuban is basically slated to return to the wonderful state of existence they had before the revolution. Yes, what Castro built on a foundation of blood and Communist lies was pretty shitty but what he replaced was even worse, those scumbags and slavers that ran the joint prior to him, and now Cuba gets to return to the haughty days of corporate plutocracy and criminal-underground aristocracy. In other words the rich are gonna get richer while everyone else down there gets royally fucked.

The overall arc of the universe is always towards the aggrandizement and enrichment of the very worst members of our vicious and ugly species. Ain't humanity grand?

At least their police will be able to afford the best riot gear now for when the people get pissed off.

[BartSimpson]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

At least (the Cuban) police will be able to afford the best riot gear now for when the people get pissed off.

Afford? If they kiss up to the US then Obama will likely give them enough military equipment to operate a rural sheriff's department...and that's pretty impressive these days!