ILA's Another Lying Troll!

[Howey]

http://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?57463-Obama-to-cancer-survivor.-Fuck-off

Quit relying on Breitbart, fools. Be sure to credit me. 

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/when-obamacare-isnt-blame

The Wall Street Journal published a provocative piece today that seemed as if it had been designed in a lab by Republicans to condemn health care reform. The headline reads, “You Also Can’t Keep Your Doctor,” with a subhead that adds, “I had great cancer doctors and health insurance. My plan was cancelled. Now I worry how long I’ll live.”

 

On cue, the right quickly decided this is the single most important op-ed in the world. And frankly, at a surface level, it’s hard to blame them – the piece tells the story of a cancer survivor named Edie Littlefield Sundby, whose insurer, United Healthcare, is poised to end her coverage, pull out of the individual market, and direct Sundby into an exchange where she’ll have new coverage and a new physician.

 

Naturally, the writer blames the White House and the Affordable Care Act for ending her “world-class health plan.” One of the right-wing bloggers highlighting the op-ed suggested Obama is effectively delivering a “death sentence” to this woman who’s fought stage-4 gallbladder cancer for years.

 

But as is usually the case in situations like these, the closer one looks at the relevant details, the weaker the potency of the political attack. In this case, Sundby isn’t losing out because of “Obamacare”; she’s in a bind because her insurer made a business decision. As Igor Volsky explained, United Healthcare dropped her plan because it’s “struggled to compete in California’s individual health care market for years and didn’t want to pay for sicker patients like Sundby.”


The company, which only had 8,000 individual policy holders in California out of the two million who participate in the market, announced (along with a second insurer, Aetna) that it would be pulling out of the individual market in May. The company could not compete with Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California and Kaiser Permanente, who control more than 80 percent of the individual market. […]

 

“The company’s plans reflect its concern that the first wave of newly insured customers under the law may be the costliest,” [United Healthcare] Chief Executive Officer Stephen Helmsley told investors last October.

This explanation should raise a few eyebrows among those who desperate to blame the president, Democrats, or the law itself. Volsky added, “The company packed its bags and dumped its beneficiaries because it wants its competitors to swallow the first wave of sicker enrollees only to re-enter the market later and profit from the healthy people who still haven’t signed up for coverage.”

 

If conservatives want to complain about a private insurer prioritizing profit margins, we can certainly have that conversation. If the right wants to explore private insurers preying on public anxiety and confusion to scare people, we can talk about that, too.

 

But in Sundby’s case, the issue is profit margins, not politics. The right is eager to point fingers, but if they’re looking at the president, they’re pointing in the wrong direction.

[paddymcdougall]

Reading the original WSJ article as well -

"You would think it would be simple to find a health-exchange plan that allows me, living in San Diego, to continue to see my primary oncologist at Stanford University and my primary care doctors at the University of California, San Diego. Not so. UCSD has agreed to accept only one Covered California plan—a very restrictive Anthem EPO Plan. EPO stands for exclusive provider organization, which means the plan has a small network of doctors and facilities and no out-of-network coverage (as in a preferred-provider organization plan) except for emergencies. Stanford accepts an Anthem PPO plan but it is not available for purchase in San Diego (only Anthem HMO and EPO plans are available in San Diego)."

Why hasn't UCSD agreed to accept more? that would be interesting to know.

[Howey]

Here's another one debunked!

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115457/obamacare-victim-florida-happy-she-can-get-real-coverage

he policy Barrette has today is called the Go Blue Plan 91. It is not what most people would consider real insurance. Its coverage of doctor visits and tests, such as MRI scans, consists of paying $50 and then letting Barrette pay the remaining balance. Drug coverage works more or less in the same way, only the plan pays $15 per prescription—which is enough to cover generics, but not many name-brands. And hospitalization? The plan pays nothing at all. As Wemple put it, "it’s a pray-that-you-don’t-really-get-sick 'plan.'" Barrette doesn't really disagree—but this plan, she says, was all she could afford. "Most everyone I talked to said they were paying thousands more to get hospital coverage," she told me, "so I took my chances with what I have now."

OK, but what can she get from Obamacare? Using plan data provided to me by the Kaiser Family Foundation, residents of Polk County, Florida have dozens of insurance options from which to choose. The cheapest option for somebody of Barrette's age has premiums of $440 a month, the most expensive goes for $914 a month. But Barrette wouldn’t pay those prices. Obamacare offers tax credits to people with incomes of up to four times the poverty line, or about $45,000 for an individual. Given Barrette’s income, she’ll be getting a tax credit worth nearly $331 a month, according to the Kaiser Foundation’s subsidy calculator. And that tax credit works like a discount, upfront. To figure out what she’d pay, you subtract the value of the tax credit from the price of the plan.

[paddymcdougall]

you know, that's the thing.... a lot of the stories (not all, but a lot) about people "losing their coverage" and having to pay more have been debunked - but the debunking never gets as much attention as the original story.

We need to all take a chill pill and see what happens once it all settles down in six months.

[Howey]

Another ILA lie!

http://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?57769-Obama-voters-getting-hosed-again



http://thedinnertableblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/someone-contact-jessica-sanford-in-wa/

[paddymcdougall]

yeah, he's exaggerating it again. And by the way - most of us who were paying attention knew about the 3.8% and knew conservatives were exaggerating it.

From your second link:
"The association also published (and posted online) an 11-page brochure giving examples of how the tax will actually operate in various situations. For example, a high-income couple that makes a profit of $525,000 selling their primary residence would owe $950 — 3.8 percent of the amount of profit over $500,000"

oooooooo... a profit of $525K and they have to pay $950 in extra taxes!

[Howey]

http://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?57906-Obama-embarrasses-poor-woman

ANOTHER ILA lie!

http://thedinnertableblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/someone-contact-jessica-sanford-in-wa/

Here was her response:

Keep your prayers to yourself

I don’t need your prayers.  I am fine without them.  The ACA will work, it’s WA State that has to fix their website.  It’s all on them at this point.
 
No need to respond
Jessica Sanford

[Howey]

Btw that was a right wing blog