Walker on ACA: Insurance rates jumping 80%, employers not hiring

[Ellipsis]

Source: The Business Journal

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, appearing on business network CNBC, said many Wisconsin businesses are not hiring full-time workers to avoid Affordable Care Act mandates and that health insurance rates will increase 80 percent or more due to the law.

Walker made the remarks while he was live in the CNBC studios in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., earlier this week with conservative economist Larry Kudlow, host of “The Kudlow Report.” Walker appeared on the show along with three guests in studios elsewhere discussing the slow-moving economic recovery and the impact of Obamacare.

Kudlow asked Walker about the Affordable Care Act’s impact on small-business hiring in Wisconsin. The law carries a mandate starting in 2015 that employers with 50 or more workers provide health insurance, and some small businesses say they are changing hiring practices to remain below the threshold.

“We see, if they (employers) hired at all, it’s going in many cases to part time — it’s going to seasonal employment,” Walker said.

Read more: http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/blog/2013/08/walker-on-aca-insurance-rates-jumping.html?page=all

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Confuse the public...

[rbixby]

1. Funny....it doesn't seem to be having the same effect here in MN

NT

[Safetykitten]

16. Funny, it's doing exactly as he is saying in Arizona. It's all part time....

and big box stores, retail, banks, any one that can is culling full time workers.

[mac56]

2. Untruthful coarse-cloth container of excrement.

[pnwmom]

3. If the rates are going up that much it's because he's allowing it. The law gives

the states the right to approve or disapprove rate increases.

And the new policies will offer much better benefits than many current policies -- with no yearly or annual limits, no higher rates for women, no dropping of people who get sick, no barring of people with pre-existing conditions, and coverage of mental health and maternity benefits.


http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/viewart/20130816/GPG0101/308160321/Lack-details-about-health-insurance-exchange-rates-raising-concerns

The delay in release of the rate information could be good or bad, said Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who helped craft Massachusetts’ health care law in 2006. Walker’s administration could be negotiating with insurance companies to lower rates, Gruber said, or it could be due to them spinning the numbers to show what they want.

When Ohio released its rates earlier this month, it showed premiums for individuals would rise an average of 41 percent. However, that analysis did not take into account reductions that will come from federal subsidies, a key factor Gruber said must be included in Wisconsin’s information in order to reflect the true cost of the plans.

[dragonlady]

26. Spinning the numbers to show what they want

The excellent advocacy group Citizen Action is having a press conference tomorrow to strike back at the "very questionable numbers of what the new health rates may look like, but not the actual data or numbers" that the Walker administration released today. (Wednesday, 10:15 at the West Allis Public Library, 7421 W. National Ave. for anyone who can go).

[Mojorabbit]

30. Florida is not going to let our state challenge rate increases. It stinks. nt

[pnwmom]

32. Yes, it does. I hope the Dems hammer the Gov. for this. n/t

[xxqqqzme]

4. Wisconsin must be an

unhealthy place to live because health insurance rates are declining in every other state. I think I saw they are down 40% here in CA.

[valerief]

5. I'm sure those private prisons are hiring. nt

[LoisB]

6. The ACA was a Heritage Foundation plan, wasn't it? The Repubs were for it until

Obama endorsed it.

[pampango]

12. No. Romney introduced the HF plan in Massachusetts. Unfortunately (for him and the HF),

the Democratic legislature there made major changes. Romney vetoed the changes and the Democrats in Massachusetts (not generally perceived to be a moderate type of Democrat) overrode every one of his vetoes.

[madrchsod]

18. gingrich and hillary based parts of their plan on hf plan

[KansDem]

7. And if you believe that, I've got a palm tree in Madison to sell you!

[TRoN33]

8. There are two big holes in Scott's claim...

#1... Wisconsin haven't started their own ACA implement yet....

#2... Federal standard of ACA won't start until 2014.

How is it possible if Scott would blame it all on 'Obamacare' if it haven't started yet in Wisconsin. Scott are too ignorant to pay attention to its friend/rival/nearly-twin neighbor state, Minnesota, that state has already started its own ACA provisions which led to more hiring, save a lot of small businesses, and improving local economies. Minnesotans are already watching in horror for what Scott Walker is doing to great state of Wisconsin.

For example, Wisconsin Republican-controlled legislation and house passed the law that banned water from cleaning the meats and instead required to use laxative-laced chemical to clean the meat. That chemical maker company is out of state and can be traced to the small corporation that have strong connection to Koch Industries. Ever since, Wisconsin hospitals reported huge spike in Emergency room visiting after people ate meats that were raised and washed inside Wisconsin. Unbelievable.

[mwb970]

9. It's weird that in red states premiums are supposedly soaring and everyone hates the law,

....while in blue states premiums are plunging and people like it. Are we headed for "two Americas", one with health insurance and unions and other benefits for its citizens, and the other dedicated to the super-rich and corporations, with no benefits at all for the poor sods who live there and continue to foolishly vote for republicans?

[warrant46]

19. the poor sods who live there and continue to foolishly vote for republicans?

Shorten that phrase to (EMS) "Easily Mislead Sheep"

[cstanleytech]

10. No, its true alot are not hiring full time i suspect in order to try and break obamacare.

Question we need to ask ourselves is should we let them get away with it? My answer would be hell no!!!!
I say that if they want to hire more part timers and or continue to pay workers low wages then fine make the company and the company alone pay a new healthcare tax that is based based on the income gap between the lowest earner and the highest earner for the business.
Bigger the gap the higher the tax the smaller the gap the lower the tax.
Oh and stocks and or golden parachutes for executives counts as income as does a company car and other things like loans with really low interest rates and the use of a place to live be it a house, condo or a hotel, in other words leave the bastards zero wiggle room to try and escape from paying their fair share.

[louis-t]

11. Employers were cutting hours of employees long before ACA.

Now they're just using it as an excuse.

[muntrv]

27. I figured as such. My supervisor is saying that employers are cutting staff

because of Obamacare.

[santamargarita]

13. Red State Economics

[Rain Mcloud]

14. Ah,that is adorable,Scotty!

Did your Daddy tell you to say that?

[bobGandolf]

15. 80% increases...even a moron knows .....

that's B.S.

[sybylla]

25. Yeah, it's probably down from the 125% increases we were getting annually

Remember, this man almost always lies and lies big. When he gets close to the truth, it is never the whole truth.

[madrchsod]

17. oh my, can walker`s nose grow any longer?

that rail money would have created thousands of jobs. jobs would have been created if his fellow republicans would have passed a jobs bill. the disruption of the union busting and the uncertainly of the school funding also plays into business decisions about moving to wisconsin. the spaniards pulling out of the rail deal and sueing the state after walker refused rail funding certainly looms large in the decision s of industry.

blaming the affordable care act is his piss poor excuse for the brain dead who believe that he is telling the truth.

[JohninPA]

20. I work in Employee Benefits

And what he is saying is absolutely true for Central Pennsylvania. I am looking at a spreadsheet from three different health carriers showing rates for early renewal (December 1st, prior to small group underwriting changes) and January 1st and beyond. If I renew in December the rate increases are generally high single digits to very low double digits. For 1st quarter 2014 most are listed as 60% increase +. Only one group out of 64 is projected to recieve a decrease(30-40%). Good news for them, but due to their very poor risk profile they are currently paying an astronomical rate (nearly $1,000 for an individual). The projected decrease will bring them down to just a very high rate.

Also, most small groups (2-50 employees) I represent are seeing 20-60% increases for plans renewing in the 4th quarter up from the normal 6-12%.

This may not be a popular statement, but it is indeed the facts I am dealing with. I am sick to my stomache worrying about the employees who may be losing their insurance or jobs and employers who really do want to take care of their employees but cannot due to the insane increases the "ACA" has brought about. Most people in my industry locally predicted this the moment we saw details of the law and hoped someone would come to their senses. I predict a huge upswelling of discontent when more employers start seeing these rates.

If you want to make health insurance more affordable start with two things. Tort reform would have a huge impact on rates. The next is to allow health plans to compete across state lines.

[wilt the stilt]

21. lol tort reform

I smell republican talking points. I work in the legal industry and almost all the lawsuits are company vs. company. The only thing tort reform will do is stop the small person having the ability to sue. you sir are most assuredly a republican.

[JohninPA]

28. A lawyer calling me a right winger, what a laugh.

Lol, you get all that because I work in employee benefits or my opinion is backed up with facts? Before I went to the private side of the house, I was a rural Medicare educator (shock...such a right wing type job). I assisted rural health clinics with medicare billing. In speaking with the physicians and practice expanders (NP, PA, etc) the two most common complaints were that 1) Medicare pays less than the cost to provide services. 2) Malpractice insurance is outrageous. In fact it is 2-3 hundred thousand dollars per physician for some specialties. That is a lot of visits just to pay insurance. Thus, tort reform like limited tort on auto insurance could decrease the cost of doing business.

You may have a differing view and that is fine. However, this is the world I live in everyday. If you have a different experience and data to back it up, I am all ears. Lets stop with the pejoratives just because you don't like FACTS as presented.

[Mojorabbit]

31. My hubby is a family physician

We are not so hot on tort reform. Texas tried it and http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/new-study-tort-reform-has-not-reduced-health-care-/nRpcp/

[SharonAnn]

33. Funny, tort reform in Texas didn't reduce malpractice insurance.

[area51]

36. +1

Tort reform, a common nazi party talking point, along with the idea of selling insurance across state lines, won't help.

The only thing which will help is starting a public option, then starting a transition to single payer.

[JohninPA]

37. Single Payer Would Help but,

From the physicians I talk to Medicare and Medicaid pays a below the actual cost to provide services. I don't have facts to back that up, but I have heard it from enough docs to believe there must be a little truth to it. We would have to restructure the reimbursement levels for this to work.

Perhaps overall costs would be reduced if there were no uninsured and therefore no unreimbursed services?

[Ellipsis]

23. "the report emphasized again and again that it was not estimating what would happen to premiums"

Importantly, the study dealt only with that part of the insurance market where families and individuals buy policies on their own rather than through an employer. It said nothing about what would happen with employer-provided insurance, which covers more than 80 percent of the population under 65 years old. The technical name for the slice of the market the study examined is ‘non-group’.

The report’s authors estimated that the new law would bring a major cut in the number of the uninsured. Nationally, the percentage would fall from 16.6 percent of Americans down to about 6.8 percent.

That result would play itself out over several years. The report aimed to paint a picture of the insurance market in approximately 2017 under two circumstances: if every state expanded Medicaid and if no state expanded Medicaid.

The key finding, and the one that drove Walker’s comment, was that under the Affordable Care Act, with full expansion of Medicaid, the cost of medical claims would go up 80 percent in the non-group market in Wisconsin. There is enormous variability across the country. Nationally, the number was 32 percent.


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/aug/29/scott-walker/gov-walker-study-says-health-law-will-raise-premiu/

[mwooldri]

24. How about the Employer Mandate (now delayed) ?

If those employees are losing insurance, and they're above 100% poverty, they can go to the marketplace. Tax subsidies will help them get the insurance that they need.

How much per employee does the employer pay in health insurance benefits? Could it be better off for the employer come 2015 to pay the penalty than insure their employees? Or make available a "skinny" health insurance policy and hope that some people elect for that coverage? If the employer is paying more than $2,000 per employee for health care now... the penalty could be cheaper.

Those small groups under 50? Those employees can go to the marketplace, and collect a tax subsidy, if applicable. Small company employers won't have to pay for coverage, as long as they keep under 50 employees.

[JohninPA]

29. No information on the PA exchange yet

I am hoping that it is affordable. While most of the groups I work with really do want to take care of their employees, a few are only looking to save every penny. The PA exchanges are supposed to be up and running by October 1st, but as of now no information is available.

Edit -Missed a point, average cost of individual group healthcare in my area is roughly $500 per month with a $1,000 deductible. Most health insurers require that an employer pay at least 50% of the individual premium for at least 75% of the eligible employees to be consider a group health insurance plan. In my experience most employers pay closer to 75% of the individual premium, but a few really cut it close to the minimum. The pay or play penalty for groups over 50 isn't quite so cut and dry. We have an actuary on staff that does a calculation and with the data we currently have, it is almost always less expensive at this point for a group to strip down the plan and pay minimums rather than the penalties assessed.

www.healthcare.gov

[Swede Atlanta]

22. Even if that were the case.....

which for some employers is true

I still believe that as a nation we can no longer let employers/consumers engage in a race to the bottom.

We are so beholden to monied interests that we let them continue to make huge profits and when those profits are reduced, even slightly, because of a need to provide a living wage or health insurance, we excuse them when they lay people off or under employ them.

Going out to eat in Europe is more expensive than here but guess what that is because they value a living wage and the benefits that come with it. Trust me we could use a dose of eat at home rather than at McDeath once in a while.

[B Calm]

34. If true, he can point his finger at republicans in congress!

[Scuba]

35. An odiferous gas bubble escapes a quivering blob of santorum.