More Insurers Realize Obamacare is Here to Stay

[Frodo]

This law is not going to get repealed. The best thing the GOP can do now is to ensure that the ultimate goal of the law is to move us away from employer-provided healthcare, encourage transparency, and build a true marketplace instead of the subsidy-laden mess we have now:

Insurers’ bigger role suggests confidence in Obamacare

By JENNIFER HABERKORN and BRETT NORMAN | 9/23/14 6:19 PM EDT

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Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/obamacare-senate-111267.html#ixzz3EBiYkJC2

[IceSpear]

Impossible. Krazen assured us the decision declaring the subsidies illegal would destroy PryorHaganUdallShaheenLandrieuUdallBookerFrankenCare

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

It's interesting to ponder up scenarios on how the GOP will adjust to Obamacare once the program has been up and running in full a few years from now.

So millions will have gotten coverage, gained certain protections from dishonest practices by insurance companies, and costs are growing more slowly than they were pre-ACA. All good things!

Proposing outright repeal will be political suicide (unless something unforseen causes the ACA to catastrophically fail in the future), so the GOP will (as they did with the New Deal programs and Great Society) have to become the "responsible managers" of Obamacare.

Off the top of my head, some things they could propose would include returning the definition of a workweek back to 40 hours from 30, push through malpractice reform, reforming EMRs, repealing the individual mandate (or reduce it to only catastrophic care), focusing more on preventative and managed care, expanding HSAs, repealing the medical device tax, and maybe changing the Medicaid-eligibility formula to have more people purchase insurance and reduce Medicaid rolls.

Other than a few of the above, I can't see any major changes getting through in the near-term. One opening I could see leading to some more anti-Obamacare sentiment would be when the employer-mandate comes into effect next year. If something goes wrong, Republicans could easily use it to turn more people against the ACA and push through bigger changes as a stealth rider amendment.

Barring that, any major overhauls would have to come in the 2020s or 2030s when the program begins to age and times change. And they'd have to come very gradually.

[King]

This is huge. We all know the Democrats can't sell this program for crap, the PR agencies that work for insurance companies will get a better handle of it.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

This is huge. We all know the Democrats can't sell this program for crap, the PR agencies that work for insurance companies will get a better handle of it.

So it's better left to the private sector?

[King]

This is huge. We all know the Democrats can't sell this program for crap, the PR agencies that work for insurance companies will get a better handle of it.

So it's better left to the private sector?

Obamacare is leaving it to the private sector. It's a champion piece of legislation that allows capitalists to thrive. It simplifies the product of health insurance into a 4 tier plan system, it makes it highly profitable on the margins, and over time it relieves employers of the burden of managing employee health plans.

All businessmen with the entrepreneurial spirit should been singing in the streets about this wonderful godsend of a program.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

This is huge. We all know the Democrats can't sell this program for crap, the PR agencies that work for insurance companies will get a better handle of it.

So it's better left to the private sector?

Obamacare is leaving it to the private sector. It's a champion piece of legislation that allows capitalists to thrive. It simplifies the product of health insurance into a 4 tier plan system, it makes it highly profitable on the margins, and over time it relieves employers of the burden of managing employee health plans.

All businessmen with the entrepreneurial spirit should been singing in the streets about this wonderful godsend of a program.

You do realize I was making a joke, right?

[King]

This is huge. We all know the Democrats can't sell this program for crap, the PR agencies that work for insurance companies will get a better handle of it.

So it's better left to the private sector?

Obamacare is leaving it to the private sector. It's a champion piece of legislation that allows capitalists to thrive. It simplifies the product of health insurance into a 4 tier plan system, it makes it highly profitable on the margins, and over time it relieves employers of the burden of managing employee health plans.

All businessmen with the entrepreneurial spirit should been singing in the streets about this wonderful godsend of a program.

You do realize I was making a joke, right?

Yes, but the less aware of our posters must know about the wonderful program that is Obamacare.

[Vosem]

It's interesting to ponder up scenarios on how the GOP will adjust to Obamacare once the program has been up and running in full a few years from now.

So millions will have gotten coverage, gained certain protections from dishonest practices by insurance companies, and costs are growing more slowly than they were pre-ACA. All good things!

Proposing outright repeal will be political suicide (unless something unforseen causes the ACA to catastrophically fail in the future), so the GOP will (as they did with the New Deal programs and Great Society) have to become the "responsible managers" of Obamacare.

The GOP gained Congress on a repeal-the-New-Deal platform in 1946, and then again in 1952 (where, in a historical fluke, moderate Dwight Eisenhower won the presidential election and cut down on the more right-wing impulses; if Taft had been the nominee, it would've been quite different). That's some 20 years later. I've said this many times -- if Obamacare has been successfully defended by Democrats from today up until the late 2020s (like 2028 or 2030), it will be safe. Before then, Republicans will cheerfully continue to run on a platform of repeal, and if they ever gain the trifecta some sort of repeal legislation will be enacted (though I doubt the party itself has enough stomach for full repeal).

[Sbane]

It's interesting to ponder up scenarios on how the GOP will adjust to Obamacare once the program has been up and running in full a few years from now.

So millions will have gotten coverage, gained certain protections from dishonest practices by insurance companies, and costs are growing more slowly than they were pre-ACA. All good things!

Proposing outright repeal will be political suicide (unless something unforseen causes the ACA to catastrophically fail in the future), so the GOP will (as they did with the New Deal programs and Great Society) have to become the "responsible managers" of Obamacare.

The GOP gained Congress on a repeal-the-New-Deal platform in 1946, and then again in 1952 (where, in a historical fluke, moderate Dwight Eisenhower won the presidential election and cut down on the more right-wing impulses; if Taft had been the nominee, it would've been quite different). That's some 20 years later. I've said this many times -- if Obamacare has been successfully defended by Democrats from today up until the late 2020s (like 2028 or 2030), it will be safe. Before then, Republicans will cheerfully continue to run on a platform of repeal, and if they ever gain the trifecta some sort of repeal legislation will be enacted (though I doubt the party itself has enough stomach for full repeal).

It depends on what you mean by repeal, but anything radical will be opposed by traditional allies of the GOP, the insurance companies. Incremental changes are a different matter though. Reducing the regulations on the ACA plans would be something insurance companies support.

[AggregateDemand]

Obamacare is leaving it to the private sector. It's a champion piece of legislation that allows capitalists to thrive. It simplifies the product of health insurance into a 4 tier plan system, it makes it highly profitable on the margins, and over time it relieves employers of the burden of managing employee health plans.

All businessmen with the entrepreneurial spirit should been singing in the streets about this wonderful godsend of a program.

Capitalists rejoice, unless you are a capitalist consumer who's being forced to buy a government-sponsored product.