Change

[ProSense]

Insurance and Freedom

In fact, the real, lived experience of Obamacare is likely to be one of significantly increased individual freedom. For all our talk of being the land of liberty, those holding one of the dwindling number of jobs that carry decent health benefits often feel anything but free, knowing that if they leave or lose their job, for whatever reason, they may not be able to regain the coverage they need. Over time, as people come to realize that affordable coverage is now guaranteed, it will have a powerful liberating effect.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/opinion/krugman-insurance-and-freedom.html

New York Times Editorial Board Tells It Like It Is On That CBO Obamacare Report

With Republicans and the media both woefully mischaracterizing the Congressional Budget Office's report on Obamacare, the editorial board of the New York Times did its part Wednesday to set the record straight.

No, the Times reminded, the report did not really say that the health care law will cost 2 million jobs.

The report clearly stated that health reform would not produce an increase in unemployment (workers unable to find jobs) or underemployment (part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week). It also found “no compelling evidence” that, as of now, part-time employment has increased as a result of the reform law, a frequent claim of critics. Whether that will hold up after a mandate that requires employers to provide coverage, which was delayed until 2015, kicks in is uncertain.

What the CBO really said is that, as a result of Obamacare, Americans will choose to stop working jobs simply to receive health coverage. Some might see that as a good thing, as the Times spelled out.

The new law will free people, young and old, to pursue careers or retirement without having to worry about health coverage. Workers can seek positions they are most qualified for and will no longer need to feel locked into a job they don’t like because they need insurance for themselves or their families. It is hard to view this as any kind of disaster.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/new-york-times-cbo-obamacare

Obamacare boosting household income and spending

by Joan McCarter

It must have really killed the editorial board over at the Wall Street Journal to see this this story appear on the paper's website.

The Affordable Care Act, President Barack Barack Obama’s signature health law, is already boosting household income and spending.

The Commerce Department reported Monday that consumer spending rose a better-than-expected 0.4% and personal incomes climbed 0.3% in January. The new health-care law accounted for a big chunk of the increase on both fronts.

On the incomes side, the law’s expanded coverage boosted Medicaid benefits by an estimated $19.2 billion, according to Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. The ACA also offered several refundable tax credits, including health insurance premium subsidies, which added up to $14.7 billion.

Of course it's helping consumers. It was designed to. Which also means it will help the economy when those consumers have a little bit more personal income to spend out in the marketplace. It will help insurance companies who will have more customers, many of whom won't ever require big payouts. That's one of the reason this model of health insurance reform was proposed first by conservatives!

Kudos to the WSJ for noticing, but don't expect anyone on the right to acknowledge that this story exists.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/04/1282095/-Obamacare-boosting-household-income-and-nbsp-spending

Early indications are the Affordable Care Act is working. With less than two weeks remaining before the March 31 deadline for coverage this year, five million people have already signed up. After decades of rising percentages of Americans lacking health insurance, the uninsured rate has dropped to its lowest levels since 2008...health care costs have slowed dramatically. The new law may well be contributing to this slowdown by reducing Medicare overpayments to medical providers and private insurers, and creating incentives for hospitals and doctors to improve quality of care.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024699353

With the recent closure of the initial enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), there is enormous jockeying around interpreting the number of enrollees in state and federal exchanges. Proponents and opponents of the law are interpreting the preliminary numbers in the way that best makes their case. But what neither side is emphasizing enough is that enrollment in the ACA is far from over now that March 31st has passed. This is because millions of individuals will lose their insurance during 2014 – and Obamacare will be there to catch them.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024764970

Krugman: More Good Obamacare News
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024780688

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - The Obamacare Photos the MSM Doesn't Want You to See
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024761330

A Brief History: Universal Health Care Efforts in the US
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024755799

[Whisp]

1. K&R!

[ProSense]

2. : )

Kick!

[ProSense]

3. Another! n/t

[freshwest]

4. This is what we see, but it doesn't get media time. Only dire warnings and alarms. We are slowly,

without fanfare or credit, increasing the happiness index, and the creativity that comes from the freedom to be on the same level as we need to be for that right.

It was posted some time back how the Scandinavian nations had better start up opportunities because they were not saddled with a healthcare bureaucracy that was all about profit, nothing else, no rules, just the way the GOP wanted it to be.

And to keep people in the FUD so they'd put up with abuse on so many levels. At one time, unions gave their workers the freedom to stand as equals with the rich, then the eighties came and income equality and worker abuse became the way people expected to be treated, even if they were not the predators. Some saw their misery as ennobling, but playing the eternal victim is a losing strategy.

Now we are going to leave Ayn Rand and her accolytes in the trash bin of fictional reality where they belong. More to human needs and doing the right thing for all, more to the achievement of living up to what we say we value, and what ideals we are willing to make reality.

That's a great change, to stop treating people, their time and life as just another commodity, the property of free marketeers to bleed to death and discard.

Thanks for another uplifting thread full of facts and data we can use, ProSense.

[ProSense]

10. Good post.

Thanks.

[sheshe2]

5. Kickity... Kick Kick Kick!

Thank you, PS!

[Cha]

6. Yeah, it's BIG BFD CHANGE but the deniers are in the 5 Stages Simultaneously.

[ProSense]

8. Obamacare fails to

fail. (courtesy Krugman)

LOL!

[Cha]

9. It Didn't FAIL.. Send the WAHAMBULANCE! thanks PS.. I like how Krugman

puts that.

[ProSense]

11. It'll only get better. n/t

[Cha]

13. KICK~ Too BAD it really bothers some idiots.

[ProSense]

14. When you look

at the impact, the tens of millions of unisured Americans the law will help and the changes highlighted in the OP, it really puts the efforts to turn people against it into perspective.

Sickening.

[Cha]

15. Yes.. it exposes them as being souless greedy no heart a$$holes.

[ProSense]

12. Meanwhile, on Planet Beck ...

Meanwhile, on Planet Beck ...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/04/1289556/-Meanwhile-on-Planet-Beck

Kooky!

[mcar]

7. K&R

[Kath1]

16. Yes, ProSense...

Change for the better!

[ProSense]

17. Love it. NYT: New Front in the Fight With Infant Mortality

New Front in the Fight With Infant Mortality

By EDUARDO PORTER

As the health care bill that was to become known as Obamacare was making its way through Congress in 2009, Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, sought to block the requirement that health insurers cover a minimum set of health benefits determined by the federal government...Kyl’s proposed amendment embodied the conservative view: The Affordable Care Act that passed Congress in 2010 is an unacceptable intrusion into the private decisions of American families and businesses.

The Senate Finance Committee, by a vote of 14 to 9, rejected the amendment, opting for a different approach that could change, in subtle but profound ways, the nature of the American social contract.

Pregnant women, across the country and anywhere along the income spectrum, will for the first time have guaranteed access to health insurance offering a minimum standard of care that will help keep their babies alive.

The benefit may seem narrow. But it offers the best opportunity in a generation to tackle one of the United States’ most notorious stigmas: an intractably high infant mortality rate that hardly fits one of the richest, most technologically advanced nations on earth. If it succeeds, it could provide Americans with an alternative view of how government can serve society.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/business/health-law-is-a-new-front-in-the-fight-against-infant-mortality.html

[Kath1]

18. Yes!

And the ACA is here to stay!