Originally Posted by Deb C

....entanglement with the profit-voracious insurance industry,....

In the words of Ronnie Ray-Gun -

"There you go again."

And you wonder why you all are not invited to the table.

"Obamacare is a mess largely because it builds a revamped healthcare system around the retrenched and extended power of insurance companies—setting back prospects for real healthcare reform for a decade or more. Egged on by corporate media and corporate politicians, much of the public will blame higher premiums on government intervention and not on the greedy insurance companies which, along with Big Pharma, helped write the law in the Obama White House and on Capitol Hill."


The Obamacare Disaster and the Poison of Party Loyalty



That ominous takeaway notion was flagged days ago on the PBS NewsHour by commentator Mark Shields, who worried aloud that “this is beyond the Obama administration. If this goes down, if … the Affordable Care Act is deemed a failure, this is the end—I really mean it—of liberal government, in the sense of any sense that government as an instrument of social justice, an engine of economic progress… Time and again, social programs have made the difference in this country. The public confidence in that will be so depleted, so diminished, that I really think the change—the equation of American politics changes.”

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/18-0

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

I think that one of the big problems here is the fact that it takes so much money to run a campaign these days that only the well-connected can afford to do so. Do you feel as though this is the main reason why any legislation that would be beneficial to the Lower 90 on the economic scale almost always falls through the cracks? Might suggest reading Sasha Abramsky's book "The American Way of Poverty--How the Other Half Still Lives". It is a real eye-opener.

Willful ignorance of the sheeple might also be a factor.

Originally Posted by radind

I think that you are correct. It will take a strong push from the citizens to make effective changes.

If what you mean by "strong push" is spending 30 minutes googling and becoming actually informed, I would agree with you.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

actually, Obamacare will probably kill the insurance industry in the long run, which was probably its purpose.

Wow, something we can agree on. Amazing.

Our time frames and pathways are, however, very different.

Originally Posted by Deb C

"Obamacare is a mess largely because it builds a revamped healthcare system around the retrenched and extended power of insurance companies—setting back prospects for real healthcare reform for a decade or more. Egged on by corporate media and corporate politicians, much of the public will blame higher premiums on government intervention and not on the greedy insurance companies which, along with Big Pharma, helped write the law in the Obama White House and on Capitol Hill."


The Obamacare Disaster and the Poison of Party Loyalty



That ominous takeaway notion was flagged days ago on the PBS NewsHour by commentator Mark Shields, who worried aloud that “this is beyond the Obama administration. If this goes down, if … the Affordable Care Act is deemed a failure, this is the end—I really mean it—of liberal government, in the sense of any sense that government as an instrument of social justice, an engine of economic progress… Time and again, social programs have made the difference in this country. The public confidence in that will be so depleted, so diminished, that I really think the change—the equation of American politics changes.”

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/18-0

As the hand-wringing and whining contiues, it looks like we'll easily break over the 1 million mark this weekend of people getting health coverage under the ACA -



- most, again, getting single payer Medicaid.

Again, this guy is willing to include the number of people that Debs and the other whiners have brought coverage to - as soon as they bag their first one. Come on, Debs, I'm rooting for you!

What I'm really looking forward to is the Rani alarm post of "OMG, there's millions signed onto Obamacare!" And, noting that she knew it was going to happen all along!

--- with rapidly rising health care costs!!!!!

AAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!



- opps, ah, ah, never mind.


Those pesky facts sure are a bother!

,,, and signs on to Obamacare!!!

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/...l-on-obamacare

Boehner Fails to Fail on Obamacare

Late last week Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) made a big show of trying but failing to sign up for Obamacare because of the notoriously buggy website. (Actually he appears to have been using the DC exchange site.) He even did a special tweet noting his hopeless situation. Not terribly surprising given the frustrating experiences so many have had.

Actually, it turns out he had successfully enrolled and got a call confirming that about an hour after his tweet. But it gets better.

According to Scott MacFarlane, a reporter for the local NBC affiliate in Washington, reports that a DC Health Care exchange representative actually tried to contact Boehner by phone during the enrollment process but was put on hold for 35 minutes, after which time the representative finally hung up.

And a little more in-depth on our hero's plight in taking on the evil Obamacare scourge -

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/22/whoo...l_for_boehner/

Whoops! Obamacare turns out to be great deal personally for Boehner
The ACA is actually a great deal for a 64-year-old smoker with a high-stress job. Any idea who I'm talking about?

Poor John Boehner.

Thanks to a Republican amendment to the Affordable Care Act, most members of Congress will see their government-provided health insurance lapse at the end of the year, leaving many of them no other choice but to enroll in dreaded Obamacare.

As speaker of the House, Boehner is technically exempt from the requirement, but in order to avoid accusations of special treatment (i.e., because of politics) he decided to take the plunge, too. And he wants you to know how difficult it was. He even wrote a blog post about it.

“Earlier this afternoon, I sat down to try and enroll in the DC exchange under the president’s health care law,” he wrote. “Like many Americans, my experience was pretty frustrating. After putting in my personal information, I received an error message. I was able to work past that, but when I went to actually sign up for coverage, I got this ‘internal server error’ screen”: [Here he embedded an image of an internal server error screen.] Despite multiple attempts, I was unable to get past that point and sign up for a health plan. We’ve got a call into the help desk. Guess I’ll just have to keep trying …”

It’s a bummer Boehner got that error message. Tyranny almost. But if he’d reached the point at which he was signing up for coverage, it means he’d already had a chance to shop around and pick a plan. His post is oddly quiet about that part of the experience. Which is curious. As a 64-year-old heavy smoker, it’s a marvel Boehner will be able to purchase individual market coverage at all. I wonder what crazy law guarantees that he can?

At any rate, since he didn’t disclose which plan he’d settled on, or what his options were, I thought I’d try to re-create his experience for you. So on Thursday night I possibly perjured myself, and created an account on D.C.’s health insurance exchange for a nonexistent 64-year-old man seeking individual coverage.

Because he’s shopping on the D.C. exchange, and not in Ohio under Healthcare.gov, I am assuming that his wife, Debbie Boehner, a real estate agent in suburban Cincinnati, has her own coverage, and so he’s not purchasing a spousal plan.

It turns out, Boehner, who as speaker makes $223,500 a year, has a lot of affordable options to choose from.

The cheapest policy for a 64-year-old is a high-deductible, bronze-plated BlueCross BlueShield plan with a $372.14 premium.

Just under 2 percent of Boehner’s income. Not bad for a man on the cusp of his golden years!

Now Boehner just had a birthday, so in less than a year he’ll qualify for Medicare. If I were him, I’d probably take my chances with a cheap plan like this one and pocket the savings for my retirement, which could come as early as January 2015. Who’s to say?

Then again, Boehner has a stressful job, and that smoking habit. Plus, his net worth is in the low millions. Under the circumstances (and since he’ll only be enrolled for a year anyhow) it might be worth it for him to purchase something more expensive.

I counted five $0 deductible plans (three gold-plated, two bronze-plated) ranging in price from $699.86 a month — or 3.7 percent of Boehner’s annual income …

… to $1,023.28 per month — or a heftier 5.5 percent of Boehner’s annual income.

That was the most expensive option available, by nearly $200 a month.

If he’d decided to enroll in Ohio, his options would be generally cheaper. The plans available in Butler County, where he resides, start at just $203.51 a month for a 64-year-old, or 1.1 percent of his annual income. Given the potential savings, I assume his decision to enroll in D.C. reflects a high degree of confidence that he won’t be run out on a rail by conservative hard-liners before the next Congress begins (at which point, he’ll be eligible for Medicare anyhow).

Boehner’s actual premiums will likely be somewhat higher due to that smoking habit. Smoking’s actually the only thing insurers are allowed to underwrite for. The fact that members are allowed to shop in the small group market might affect his options and prices somewhat too. From there, though, his costs could be dramatically offset by an Obama administration rule that allows members to carry the federal government’s contribution to employee premiums into the exchange. Presumably, even if he’s eligible, Boehner will decline the contribution to avoid a political backlash (though he fought hard behind the scenes to preserve it for all members). But this gives us a decent sense of the horror show he encountered Thursday, before he encountered that even more horrible error message.

I understand how frustrating error messages can be for the elderly. And at first I assumed that what had ultimately derailed Boehner’s quest for coverage was a severe case of Acute Technological Grandpaism (ATG). Befuddlement at the sight of error messages is one of the most common symptoms of ATG.

But then I thought about it some more and realized it didn’t really fit the facts.

First of all, there was at least one other person in the room with Boehner at the time: the photographer. Whoever that person was is savvy enough with electronics to snap digital photos. So there’s that. But also, the pictures reveal that he went searching for coverage from his Capitol Hill office. And I know from experience that Boehner is surrounded every day by a staff that’s chock-full of smart, tech-savvy youngsters. His website is one of the best on the Hill! Much better than Healthcare.gov.

So then I figured either the D.C. exchange is really, really broken, or he didn’t actually think through his cheap shot very well. And indeed, while I was writing this article last night, shortly after his blog post went live, a breakthrough.

I suggest every one send our downtrodden hero a bag of Freedom Fries to cheer him up after his mistreatment at the hands of the Obamacare monster!



Poor baby!

Originally Posted by playwrite

If one wants to have any influence on meaningful attempts at dealing with health care costs, one needs to have the basic facts.

Facts? Very important indeed.

One would be very poorly served, however, in seeking facts from a known, demonstrated liar like yourself.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Facts? Very important indeed.

One would be very poorly served, however, in seeking facts from a known, demonstrated liar like yourself.

Every fact I presented is referenced.

I know you're hurt from my destroying the pillars of your worldview (have you located that wussy govt nirvana of yours yet, current or historic?); it's a normal reaction. But, it is really surprising you couldn't muster even slightly a more sophisticated response. Dude, you're in your late 30s or early 40s and you sound like some 5th grade sissy-girl on the playground. Too funny! I like it!

F the handwringers and the naysayers; this is what its about, people -


http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...8_story_1.html

In rural Kentucky, health-care debate takes back seat as the long-uninsured line up

in BREATHITT COUNTY, Ky. — On the campaign trail, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was still blasting the new health-care law as unsalvageable. At the White House, President Obama was still apologizing for the botched federal Web site.

But in a state where the rollout has gone smoothly, and in a county that is one of the poorest and unhealthiest in the country, Courtney Lively has been busy signing people up: cashiers from the IGA grocery, clerks from the dollar store, workers from the lock factory, call-center agents, laid-off coal miners, KFC cooks, Chinese green-card holders in town to teach Appalachian students.

Now it was the beginning of another day, and a man Lively would list as Client 375 sat across from her in her office at a health clinic next to a Hardee’s.

“So, is that Breathitt County?” she asked Woodrow Wilson Noble as she tapped his information into a laptop Thursday morning.

“Yeah, we live on this side of the hill,” said Noble, whose family farm had gone under, who lived on food stamps and what his mother could spare, and who was about to hear whether he would have health insurance for the first time in his 60-year-old life.

This is how things are going in Kentucky: As conservatives argued that the new health-care law will wreck the economy, as liberals argued it will save billions, as many Americans raged at losing old health plans and some analysts warned that a disproportionate influx of the sick and the poor could wreck the new health-care model, Lively was telling Noble something he did not expect to hear.

“All right,” she said. “We’ve got you eligible for Medicaid.”

Places such as Breathitt County, in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Kentucky, are driving the state’s relatively high enrollment figures, which are helping to drive national enrollment figures as the federal health exchange has floundered. In a state where 15 percent of the population, about 640,000 people, are uninsured, 56,422 have signed up for new health-care coverage, with 45,622 of them enrolled in Medicaid and the rest in private health plans, according to figures released by the governor’s office Friday.

If the health-care law is having a troubled rollout across the country, Kentucky — and Breathitt County in particular — shows what can happen in a place where things are working as the law’s supporters envisioned.

One reason is that the state set up its own health-insurance exchange, sidestepping the troubled federal one. Also, Gov. Steve Beshear (D) is the only Southern governor to sign on to expanded eligibility parameters for Medicaid, the federal health-insurance program for the poor. The less technical reasons involve what Lively told Noble next.

“Okay, Woodrow, now you get to shop a little bit,” she said, explaining options he’d never had before.

“If you go to the doctor, all you’re going to pay is $1,” she began. “If you’re in the hospital for an extended period, you should only be billed $5. . . . If you get medicine, generics are $1 and brand is $4. . . . You can go to the dentist once a month — exams, X-rays and cleanings are covered. . . . Now for your teeth, the plan does take care of having them pulled and does take care of fillings, but not bridges, because that’s considered cosmetic.”

Now, Lively explained, Noble simply had to choose among several Medicaid health-care plans. “So basically it’s whatever insurance company you go with — the effective date is January 1st,” she said, waiting for him to pick.

“My mom gets that WellCare, and she don’t pay nothing,” Noble said finally. “I’ll take that WellCare plan. My mommy got that, and it’s good.”

“WellCare it is,” Lively said, typing in his decision as Noble considered Jan. 1.

“I got some warts on me I got to take off, some moles,” he said. “I might have that colonoscopy done. My mom had colon cancer twice. I never had money to do it.” He said he was told it could cost at least $2,000.

“I got this pain in my left shoulder,” he said, lifting his arm and rotating it. “Might be arthritis, I guess. I don’t know.”

Lively handed Noble some papers confirming his enrollment.

“Okay, you’re good to go — you tell your brother to come see me,” she said, and the next client walked in.

Lively grew up in the county and works for Juniper Health, which has a federal contract to enroll people in the state health-care exchange and runs the Breathitt County health clinic on Highway 15, a four-lane that branches off into narrow roads that wind through hills dotted with skinny trees and trailers.

Asked to describe Breathitt, Lively paused for a moment. “Poor,” she said. “Just poor.”

The per-capita income in Breathitt is about $15,000, and the rates of diabetes, hypertension and other health problems earned this part of Kentucky the nickname “Coronary Valley.”

Lively, who has been signing people up since the exchanges opened in early October, said one woman cried when she was told she qualified for Medicaid under the new law. She said people have been “pouring in” to her office, an unused exam room in the back of the clinic, where her set-up includes a table, a two-drawer filing cabinet, manila folders, a planner to track her schedule, a notebook to track her numbers and a laptop that connects to the state health-insurance exchange, Kynect.

Clinic doctors often send patients without insurance her way after their visits, but most come by word of mouth. Lively has signed up fathers who then sent their sons, and mothers who sent aunts. She signed up one Subway sandwich shop worker, and soon what seemed like the whole staff showed up.

Although she once had to dispel a rumor that enrolling involved planting a microchip in your arm, and though she avoids calling the new law “Obamacare” in a red state, most people need little persuading.

“All right,” she said to her next client, a 52-year-old disabled master electrician who said his mother, two brothers and two sisters all died from lung cancer. He had been ignoring a spot on his lung discovered during a visit to the emergency room after he had broken his ribs several years ago.

He also vaguely recalled being told at the time he had something called “wedging of the spine.”

“What do I need here?” said Jeff Fletcher, who was being sued for those medical bills. “Proof of income?”

“Yep,” Lively said, and Fletcher pulled out documents showing that he and his wife live on about $500 a month in food stamps and her disability check.

“You smoke?” Lively asked, going through a few routine questions.

“Right- and left-handed,” he quipped as she typed.

“All right,” Lively said after a while. “You are covered.”

“I’m covered?” Fletcher said. He slapped the table. He clapped twice.

“Woo-hoo! I can go to the doctor now?” he asked Lively. “I’m serious. I need to go.”

Client 377 sat in the chair next. Ruth Strong, a 45-year-old woman with red, streaklike marks on her right arm, shoulder and neck from an untreated allergy attack, chatted with Lively about their kids. Strong was saying she wanted both her boys to go to college.

“Now, how much did you say it was going to cost to add you on?” asked Lively, who had talked to Strong before about signing on to the health-insurance plan of her husband, who worked for the school district. “Four hundred dollars?”

“Yes,” Strong said, looking at the floor and smiling. “I guess I’ve been without it for 15 years and will go without it one more if it costs too much.”

Lively entered Strong’s information. Her household income was too high for Medicaid, but she qualified for a subsidy of $228 a month and could choose from plans with a monthly cost ranging from $115 to $300, Lively said.

“It’s still high,” said Strong, who had not had a checkup in nine years.

Lively handed her a description of the health plans to take home and study, and then it was time for lunch, which Lively ate in the office between returning calls:

“Brenda, this is Courtney Lively calling you back.”

“You want to set up an appointment?”

“I will be here 8 to 4 tomorrow.”

Soon, Ronald Hudson walked in.

“Okay,” Lively began. “What Hudsons are you kin to?”

“R.T., Uncle Lenny . . .” said Hudson, a skinny 35-year-old who worked as an assistant director at the senior center and had just been released from the hospital after a blood-sugar spike.

He’d never had insurance before and said his hospital bills were up to $23,000 at this point.

“Good night,” Lively said, tapping in his information.

Kids: five. Salary: about $14,000 before taxes.

“You’re going to qualify for a medical card,” she told Hudson.

“Well, thank God,” Hudson said, laughing. “I believe I’m going to be a Democrat.”

Lively printed out his papers.

“RONALD’s Health Care Coverage Options,” one of them read.

“Oh, man,” Hudson said.

Donna Robinson had already enrolled, and now she arrived for her 2 p.m. with her son Gary Gross, 36, a skinny man with spiky copper hair, worn-out jeans and a thin tank top.

“Now,” Lively began. “Any income?”

“Naw,” Gross said.

“You smoke?”

“Yeah,” Gross said, adding that he did quit drinking. “It’s hard to quit, I tell you. I got cirrhosis already. I’m only a two on the scale of four, not too bad.”

“That’s already bad,” his mother said.

“Okay,” Lively said after a while. “You’re covered for a medical card.”

She went through his options.

“Now, I have problems with my teeth,” Gross said. “I need to get all of them pulled.”

“It does cover that,” Lively said.

“Oh, that’s great!” Gross said, sitting up straighter.

“Now it doesn’t cover dentures,” Lively said as she typed.

“I think that should be covered,” his mother said. “Try to eat an apple without teeth.”

“I love meat,” Gross said.

Lively gave him the papers confirming his enrollment.

“Easy as that,” she said.

“Wow,” Gross said, looking at them. “Thank you.”

In was late afternoon, and Mary Stamper, 36, arrived with four of her 11 children and a stack of well-worn, laminated Social Security cards. She sat down.

“I don’t see how you do it 11 times, girlfriend,” Lively said as the children bounced around the room. “Okay, what’s Mark’s birthday?”

It took an hour to enter in all her kids’ information and tally the household income from food stamps and a disability check drawn by her husband, a county maintenance worker.

Stamper said that she had Medicaid once when she was pregnant with one of her first children but that otherwise the part-time jobs she had held at the check-cashing place and as a nurse’s aide never came with it.

Lively typed her information in, and then something unusual happened: The system seemed to crash. She called the help line for the state health-care exchange and was told it was just being updated.

“I can tell you you’re getting a medical card,” she told Stamper, knowing what would happen when the system came back. “You’re going to get approved — I have no doubt about that. . . . You want WellCare?”

“Yeah,” Stamper said.

She stood up and stretched her back, which had been bothering her.

“I’m relieved,” she said. “I’ve been worried.”

Stamper and her kids left. It was the end of a long day, and Lively took a moment to look over her schedule for Friday. She had three appointments written in her planner and six calls to return.

“I’m nonstop,” she said.

He’d never had insurance before and said his hospital bills were up to $23,000 at this point.

“Good night,” Lively said, tapping in his information.

Kids: five. Salary: about $14,000 before taxes.

“You’re going to qualify for a medical card,” she told Hudson.

“Well, thank God,” Hudson said, laughing. “I believe I’m going to be a Democrat.”

so from your above post, it looks like 10,800 people are going to be raped blindly by their premiums to pay for the other 45,000 or so that got signed up that get theirs for "free" on Medicaid.

Welcome to the death of the middle class.

Originally Posted by playwrite

F the handwringers and the naysayers; this is what its about, people -


http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...8_story_1.html



He’d never had insurance before and said his hospital bills were up to $23,000 at this point.

“Good night,” Lively said, tapping in his information.

Kids: five. Salary: about $14,000 before taxes.

“You’re going to qualify for a medical card,” she told Hudson.

“Well, thank God,” Hudson said, laughing. “I believe I’m going to be a Democrat.”

Did anyone notice that the Democratic Governor of Kentucky is intensely popular and that Republican Senator Mitch McConnell will be fighting for his political life?

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Did anyone notice that the Democratic Governor of Kentucky is intensely popular and that Republican Senator Mitch McConnell will be fighting for his political life?

Or that the Democratic Senator from NC is almost certain to lose her reelection now to some Tea Bag nut because of her association with the horribly unpopular ACA?

Originally Posted by Danilynn

so from your above post, it looks like 10,800 people are going to be raped blindly by their premiums to pay for the other 45,000 or so that got signed up that get theirs for "free" on Medicaid.

Welcome to the death of the middle class.

I have no idea what numbers you're pulling out of your ass, but I do get the gist of your stupidity - those getting the benefit of the Medicaid expansion are doing so as a result of plundering those having to get private insurance through the exchanges.

Moron, most all of the people getting insurance through the exchanges will be financially subsidized by the govt. Many of them have never had insurance or had substandard 'insurance' that is nothing but a rip-off. Analysis shows that likely no more of the population than 1.3% is going to have to pay more for their insurance that will be at least as good as what they had. Most of these 'losers' are going to be single white males, currently healthy, in their 30s relatively too affluent to get a govt subsidy - they are not a historically downtrodden group to say the least.

The insurance they will be getting that cost more is a result of the insurance pool covering women's health and mental illness. That is something that has been standard in the employer-based insurance and in the govt programs of Medicare, Medicaid, VA, etc. It is bringing the individual health insurance into the 21st Century. If these dudes are whining about having to pay higher premiums for their current or future girlfriends, F them; they can leave the country.

Willful ignorance is a clear sign of being a moron; do you really want to join that clown car? It's pretty crowded already.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Or that the Democratic Senator from NC is almost certain to lose her reelection now to some Tea Bag nut because of her association with the horribly unpopular ACA?

It's a long ways to next November and there will be millions benefiting from the ACA by then and all the horeshit form the GOP will be clearly exposed for what it is.

Moreover, after the hell that has been unleashed in NC over the last year from your voting the GOP knuckle daggers into office and you go ahead and vote in another one, well, then NC deserves to regress back into tht pit of the worse the South's dark side it has always offered to the truly stupid. Too bad, you had been example of the possible.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Or that the Democratic Senator from NC is almost certain to lose her reelection now to some Tea Bag nut because of her association with the horribly unpopular ACA?

Originally Posted by Public Policy Polling

Raleigh, N.C. – The North Carolina Senate race has tightened up quite a bit in the last couple months, with early attacks ads on Kay Hagan and the unpopular rollout of Obamacare taking a toll on her poll numbers. Hagan is now basically tied with her Republican challengers, leading Heather Grant 43/40, Thom Tillis 44/42, and Mark Harris 43/41 while trailing Greg Brannon 44/43.

Over the last two months Hagan's approval rating is pretty consistent. It was 43% in September and it's at 44% now. But her disapproval has spiked from 39% all the way up t0 49% over that period of time. It's no coincidence that the decline in Hagan's approval numbers tracks pretty closely with a big decline in President Obama's popularity over that same period of time. He's gone from having voters in the state pretty evenly divided about him in September at 48/49 to disapproving pretty strongly at 43/53.

It seems likely that the difficulties with the rollout of Obamacare are helping to make life more difficult for Hagan. It's always been unpopular in North Carolina and currently 38% of voters say they approve of it to 48% who disapprove, numbers pretty consistent with what we've found over the years. But what's really hurting Democrats is its being back in the news- 69% of voters say its rollout has been unsuccessful so far to only 25% who deem it a success. 49% say the rollout has been 'very unsuccessful.'

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/m...siderably.html

That is at a low point for Barack Obama as President. Your guess is as good as mine on whether Barack Obama will be less of a drag on Senate races in 2014. Of course the floodgates will open for corporate money with which to buy Orwellian campaign ads.

Republicans are not having good times in winning public support in North Carolina. They have been trying to turn North Carolina into one big plantation, at least politically.

Senator Hagan would have about a 50% chance of winning if her approval were at 44% in April. Few American politicians have approval ratings in the 60s other than politicians in ultra-safe districts. (Few hot political issues likely to come up for a vote have approval ratings in the 60s or so; they would be enacted by then). North Carolina is clearly a swing state now. Why 44% as the borderline for an even chance for winning? Incumbents campaign for re-election and show why they were re-elected in the first place. If their approval ratings are really low they have shown that they were mistakes of voters and either do not run, get defeated in a primary election, try to run from their record and lose, or get through the primaries and put up a failed effort. For the average incumbent in an average year against the average opponent, campaigning on the average is the difference of 6% between the approval rating and the electoral result in a binary choice.

November 8-11, 2013
Survey of 701 North Carolina voters

North Carolina Survey Results
Q1
Do you approve or disapprove of Governor Pat
McCrory’s job performance?

39% Approve

51% Disapprove

10% Not sure

Q2
Do you approve or disapprove of Senator
Richard Burr’s job performance?

33% Approve

36% Disapprove

30% Not sure

Q3
Do you approve or disapprove of the job
Republicans as a whole are doing of running
state government?

34% Approve

55% Disapprove

10% Not sure

Q4
Do you think Republicans having total control
of state government has been a good thing or a
bad thing for North Carolina?

39% Good

50% Bad

12% Not sure

Richard Burr has plenty of time before the 2016 election -- but he is not in great shape. Republican pols are on the whole doing badly.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/p...se_NC_1113.pdf

A glitch in a website is not the same as an economic meltdown, a corruption/bribery scandal, a disclosure of sexual misconduct, a war going badly, or a diplomatic debacle that could pull a President and his Party into the drowning zone. The Republicans have become a soiled brand. Ford Motor Company will never use the nameplate "Pinto" on automobiles again.

Here's an economic aspect of how the ACA is playing out in different states that may impact elections, not likely by the Fall of 2014 but certainly by 2016 if Red state governors continue their ideological idiocy. The impact of their intransigence will not only impact the poor, and the hospitals that serve them, losing out on their state's not accepting the Medicaid expansion and those who would have benefited from a more robust state exchange like the ones in Kentucky and California. It will be the entire economy of those Red states as assessed here -

http://equitablegrowth.org/2013/11/1...ant-it-to-fail

Over the Next Two Years ObamaCare Is Going to Succeed Where Local Politicians in Office Want It to Succeed, and Is Likely to Fail Where Local Politicians in Office Want It to Fail

This means a roughly $60 billion direct federal transfer away from Red States over the next two years, and roughly $200 billion in lower economic activity in Red States–call it a negative of 4%-point-years of GDP, and of 2%-point-years of excess Red State unemployment....

It truly is amazing how stupid ideologues can be.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

A glitch in a website is not the same as an economic meltdown, a corruption/bribery scandal, a disclosure of sexual misconduct, a war going badly, or a diplomatic debacle that could pull a President and his Party into the drowning zone. The Republicans have become a soiled brand. Ford Motor Company will never use the nameplate "Pinto" on automobiles again.

It appears that the website problems and the president's promising that people could keep their doctors, has made many people see ACA in a negative light. Citizens know that having insurance in this country is crucial to their getting health care, and not having it, could mean bankruptcy if they have a major illness or accident. That's a huge deal. People who have had their insurance cancelled already are extremely nervous. So while this may not be a sexual scandal, it is an issue that has shed a very bad light on trusting our government with health care.

A new study shows that 71% of the people that will be using the ACA websites will qualify for either Medicaid or the subsidies.

With Kentucky's Kynect being seen as a huge success in getting insurance to many thousands who have never had it before, Sen. McConnell is having to find a way to run against it. This is what he came up with -

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...ss-in-kentucky

McConnell Addresses Obamacare's Success In Kentucky

"Well, 85 percent of the people who've signed up in Kentucky have signed up for Medicaid. That's free health care. If you want to give out free health care you're going to have a lot of interest. Just like free anything else. There've also been, if you look at the statistics today, I believe I'm correct, about 270,000 cancellations of policies that people already had. So I know there's been a great effort on the part of the administration and the governor of Kentucky to paint a pretty picture. The rollout is quite mixed -- quite mixed -- and largely people signing up for Medicaid. Free health care."

Does this also remind you of Romney's 47%?

This is the future of the GOP every where - telling da little people have no right to health insurance.

Yea, that's going to be a big winner next November.

I'm not the only one wondering about the turn of the worm when the ACA website is signing up 800k-1M people per day next month -

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...benghazi/?_r=0

Soon, Obamacare Will Become Benghazi

OK, I just created an Obamacare account for myself (if I broke any laws, please, it was just investigative journalism). I went all the way through the process at healthcare.gov, stopping before the final step of actually applying (I don’t qualify, of course, because Princeton provides insurance), just to see how hard it was. And the answer is that it was no problem at all, with no delays.

I also used the information only feature to get a listing of plans in my area. Again, no problem. And healthcare.gov directs you to Kaiser for an estimate of subsidies and final cost.

Now, I know that this is only part of the story, and we’re still not getting clear answers on how well the 834 transmissions — which send the information to insurers — are working. But the visible parts of the process bear no resemblance to the horror stories of a few weeks ago.

Why did I carry out this little exercise? Well, I scanned the comments on today’s column and noticed a lot of people reporting having successfully enrolled in Obamacare — not at one of the well-functioning state exchanges, but at the supposedly disastrous healthcare.gov. Just anecdotes, I know — but anecdotes suggesting that the system is no longer the black hole of yore.

In short, it’s looking increasingly likely that the story from here on is going to be one of steadily better news — of growing enrollment in the federal as well as state exchanges, of people discovering either that their insurance has gotten better and cheaper or that they can afford insurance for the first time. Bit by bit these stories will percolate into the news media, replacing the sob stories about cancelled policies.

And I find myself wondering what Republicans will do. Or actually, not so much. As Martin Longman noted over the weekend, Obamacare already looks like one of those Republican obsessions — like Benghazi — where the party has convinced itself that there must be a pony winning issue hidden in there somewhere, and that if only it keeps flogging the thing, long after the public has moved on, it will eventually score big.

I’m not saying that the botched rollout is irrelevant: it has badly hurt Obama, and may do damage that lasts into the midterms. But the facts on the ground are changing, and my very strong guess is that the GOP will undo a lot of its gains by refusing to acknowledge that change.

BENGHAZI! BENGHAZI! MUFASA! MUFASA! OBAMACARE! OBAMACARE! MUFASA! MUFASA!

Here's a clip of some GOP operatives planning strategy -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhZ0TKdgJGg

Originally Posted by Danilynn

so from your above post, it looks like 10,800 people are going to be raped blindly by their premiums to pay for the other 45,000 or so that got signed up that get theirs for "free" on Medicaid.

Welcome to the death of the middle class.

No, those bills will be paid by folks like you no matter what occurs, except they will be more expensive (typically emergency room visits) and have a higher likelihood of being followed by disability which you will also fund. The only alternative to that is to make it illegal to offer free treatment, which will lead to crime on a grand scale, pandemics or similar socially devastating health catastrophes or both.

You can’t dodge this. Even more to the point, failure to help those in need will teach everyone that spending is risky, because you may need the money later. That’s the definition of a depression trigger. All actions have consequences … even passive ones.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Assuming that enough new doctors willing to work for Medicaid rates are available to handle all the new patients.

At the rate we're going, there will be Medicaid rates and the "other rates" pegged to Medicaid. Will you be willing to give-up the practice of medicine when that time arrives?

Originally Posted by The Rani

It's funny how you and others on the forum think they "know" me so well. Laughable, really.

I don't know you from Adam, nor you, me. I only know what you look like because you posted a photo on your blog, then referenced it in your .sig for a while.

Originally Posted by The Rani ...

No, I won't need to give up the practice of medicine when the time comes. Me and my neurosurgeon boyfriend will do just fine treating our super-rich patients who can pay out of pocket. Eventually we'll launder our millions through Costa Rica and sail off into the sunset!

You brought up the issue of Medicaid, though you chose your normal obtuse way of doing it. All I asked was clarification of your position on Medicaid. How others may or may not deal with it is also interesting, but I was asking why you thought this was a problem for others, but have no opinion of your own on the topic ... or do you? If you find the reimbursement too niggardly, feel free to say so. If you have an issue with the clientel, then that's the reason you should give.

Originally Posted by The Rani ...

As for the new Medicaid patients, some of whom seem to think that smoking and eating meat while relying on the government to keep them healthy is a fine and dandy plan ... well, I wish them the best of luck in their quest to rid themselves of medical problems. Deb C has pointed out numerous times that health insurance does not equal medical care, and I've pointed out numerous times that medical care does not equal health. Two little factoids that frequently get overlooked in favor of Red vs Blue debates.

Setting aside the judgement of the lifestyles of the less affluent, are you opposed to treating these folks? I think we can agree that the failure of the patient to cooperate is tantamount to undoing any treatment, but you have almost no control over that. Will you particiapate at the level where you do have control?

Again, an honest ''hell no' is as acceptable an answer as any.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ng-the-corner/

Wonkbook: Is Obamacare turning the corner?

A spin through HealthCare.Gov this morning went smoothly. The site loaded quickly. The process progressed easily. There were no error messages or endless hangs. I didn't complete the final step of purchasing insurance but, until then, the site worked -- or at least appeared to work -- exactly as intended.

My experience isn't rare. There are increasing reports that HealthCare.Gov is working better -- perhaps much better -- for consumers than it was a few short weeks ago. "Consumer advocates say it is becoming easier for people to sign up for coverage," report Sandhya Somashekhar and Amy Goldstein in the Washington Post. "The truth is, the system is getting stronger as it recovers from its disastrous launch," writes Sam Baker in the National Journal. Applying "was no problem at all, with no delays," says Paul Krugman.

Reports from inside the health care bureaucracy are also turning towards optimism. People who knew the Web site was going to be a mess on Oct. 1st are, for the first time, beginning to think HealthCare.Gov might work. Data backs them up: By mid-November, the pace of enrollment in the federal exchanges had doubled from what it was in October.

The Obama administration is certainly acting like they believe the site has turned the corner. Somashekhar and Goldstein report that they're "moving on to the outreach phase, which had taken a back seat as they grappled with the faulty Web site. Next week, the White House will host an insurance-oriented 'youth summit' aimed at people ages 18 to 35, an age group whose participation in the health-care law will be critical to its success."
The White House had held off on this kind of outreach because they believed it would simply drive people to a useless Web site. If they're restarting the outreach, it's because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that HealthCare.Gov will be able to convert the interest into enrollments.

The worry, at this point, is that the site is working in ways that are visible but broken in ways that are harder to see. The Obama administration won't answer direct questions on the percentage of "834s" -- the forms insurers need to sign people up for the correct policies at the correct prices -- that are coming through with errors. Robert Laszewski, a health-industry consultant with deep contacts among the insurers, told the National Journal the problem is getting better, but that his clients are still seeing a five percent error rate. That's still too high.
The systems that determine whether applicants are eligible for insurance are also improving. But inside the administration there's a recognition that it was error-ridden in the first six weeks of Obamacare -- and so the question is how to handle the many people who unknowingly received an eligibility determination that can't be trusted.

Still, it's clear that HealthCare.Gov is improving -- and, at this point, it's improving reasonably quickly. It won't work perfectly by the end of November but it might well work tolerably early in December. A political system that's become overwhelmingly oriented towards pessimism on Obamacare will have to adjust as the system's technological infrastructure improves.

The next challenge for the law, as the White House knows, will be the outreach challenge of signing up enough young-and-healthy people to balance out its risk pools. That's a challenge the White House spent quite a lot of time thinking about before this IT nightmare. The question is whether they still have enough time, and enough clout, to get it right.

What people keep forgetting is that young adults in their 20s (the 'invincibles') are just starting out in their careers and with relatively low incomes. Of those with incomes sufficient to participate in the health exchanges, 50% will be paying less than $50 per month premiums and another 1/5 will pay between $50-100 dollars. That's pretty reasonable to get real insurance and then there's a number more that will get the ACA catastrophic insurance being offered. I don't think there's going to be any problem with enough 'invincibles' being in the risk pools.

On the other hand, the bigger issue is the 20-somethings that don't make enough money to qualify for any private insurers - not an issue for the private insurance risk pools. These folks were supposed to be covered by the Medicaid expansion. If they are in all but a handful of Red States, they are going to get screwed. It will become increasingly clear who is screwing them (hint, it ain't Obama) and more importantly, their parents are going to know who is screwing their adult kids that were, thanks to Obamacare, covered for no additional costs under their own plans until they turned 26.