Who do we trust? Independent world renown consultants or the administration of "you can keep your plan" and "you can keep your doctor" ? I will give Roger this, never gives up on his pied piper.
Google is their friend, if they want to learn. 500,000 previously uninsured are now insured. That number is dwarfed by the downward pressure on employment, the drops of medical coverage benefits by businesses, the incentive to move employees part-time to avoid ACA consequences, and the decline in healthcare coverage by the middle-class who cannot afford to pay for their insurance and subsidize the insurance of others. My personal insurance is over $1000 with approximately $10,000 in deductibles before insurance begins to pay. Many people in such a situation will opt out. Below is a biased article but was the first on google search. The Link
Google is the friend that could give them the honest truth - unfortunately they rely solely upon sites that end in .gov.
Do tell. What was asked or is this just one of your long diversions from discussing the subject? The numbers will prove out in the end, good or bad. However, sign ups are not enrollees and enrollees are not necessarily previously uninsured. I just wonder what it is like to live with your head buried in the sand.
This shows the number of uninsured sharply lower in January of 2014. 16.1% vs. 17.3% in December of 2013. The Link
Did you read the whole article? I do not think sharply and modestly are the same description. Implications Preliminary results from the first 19 days of January show the U.S. uninsured rate has modestly declined since the health insurance mandate went into effect at the beginning of the year. The uninsured rate has fluctuated at other points over the past several years, so it is unclear if this small decline is a reflection of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act that took effect on Jan. 1, or if this is part of a trend based on other reasons. Still, with only 2.1 million Americans newly enrolled in plans through the exchanges as of Dec. 28, 2013, the Obama administration and other proponents of the new healthcare law have a long way to go in hopes of reaching the goal of increasing the number of Americans who have health coverage. Gallup will continue to track the U.S. uninsured rate in the weeks and months ahead. I see this as a result of the expansion of medicaid. The biggest change is in unemployed. Yes, this is a result of ACA, but you did not have to create such a massive law to simply increase the eligibility of medicaid. Honestly, am I misreading the article you posted?
I am well aware of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. 9000 families is an appropriate sample size, but there is an inherent bias towards reachable adults. Expect their numbers to be different than those obtained in a census.
paso that really isn't an answer. If Medicaid enrollment has increased beyond what would be expected then of course that would reduce the number of uninsured. What if all those who could afford to buy insurnaace actually bought insurance? Add in the people over 65 who qualify for medicare and as far as I remember illegals were included in the original number thrown around 41-47 million so if we took out all those who qualify for medicare, those could afford it but choose not to and those who are not entitled to it we would get to a real number a real number that could have been ' insured" a whole lot less that what we have spent and are spending and without disrupting the millions of people lives.
I think the real success or failure of the ACA will be the effect it has on the wallet (both government and personal). The overall intent is to have affordable coverage. The coverage part I think has been taken care of for the most part, either through Medicare or private insurance coverage. To me the coverage is not the worst thing to worry about, it is the cost associated with the coverage. In the big scheme of things, the cost will drive how many will eventually sign up. If the cost can be at a point that the market will bear, then I think more will sign up for coverage. Most of the articles that I have read do point towards more people that were previously insured are the ones signing up on the exchanges but there are many that have coverage now because of the expanded Medicare. I think this discussion here needs to decided which number you want to discuss. They are totally two separate issues if you ask my opinion. I feel that the private/exchange numbers should be discussed since that is what is mostly reported in the news. Saying that 3.3 million people have signed up doesn't say much. But saying 500,000 of the 3.3 million who have signed up have not had any insurance previously is saying something.
Every time someone on the Right claims that things should have been done differently, I reflect on just how many proposals were proposed and passed by the Republicans over the past 25 years.
If you expand the qualifications of a free lunch program, guess what? more people will be eating free lunches. However, ACA cannot sustain itself by the number of new free riders join the program and the article YOU posted states that it is not a "sharp" decline. Your Obamanesque description of it is right along the MSNBC talking points though.
www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2014/03/11/aca-enrollment-hits-42m/ 4.2 million as of March 1st. Will be interesting to see how FUnny or die video impacts young people to enroll.
