# Start Here > Guest Forum >  Oops: Health care premiums fall in Arkansas

## 56ktarget

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014...6127/arkansas/



> Health care premiums for Obamacare policies in Arkansas will decrease by two percent on average in 2015, undermining conservative predictions of double or triple digit increases. The news come just a week after Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) released an ad touting his vote in favor of the law and Republicans in competitive Congressional races are spending less on political ads attacking it.Premiums for the states private option Medicaid expansion will essentially remain flat in comparison to 2014, a release from the governors office reads. This is an aggregate projection, meaning that some individual consumers will see a small increase in premiums, and others will see their costs drop more than two percent. Before health reform was signed into law in 2010, premiums increased by an average of 10 percent a year.
> 
> 
> Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who is seeking to unseat Pryor, has made the health care law the centerpiece of his campaign, predicting that some people would face triple digit increases in 2015.
> Since last year, however, 43,446 Arkansans signed up for coverage through the federal health exchange and close to 200,000 were enrolled in the states Medicaid private option. As a result, the uninsurance rate has fallen by half, from 22.5 percent in 2013 to 12.4 percent in mid-2014, Gallup poll reported. Preliminary survey results also showed that emergency room visits to hospitals in Arkansas dropped by 2 percent, while the number of uninsured patients decrease by 24 percent.
> While Obamacare premium will vary across the nation in 2015  one analysis of available data from PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts an average increase of 8.2 percent in 29 states and Washington D.C.  Arkansas isnt the only state projecting decreases. Data out of Connecticut also shows that health care premiums for some policies will fall in the coming year. Final rate information likely wont be available until the beginning of the second open enrollment period on November 15.

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## twomp

> This is an aggregate projection, meaning that *some individual consumers will see a small increase in premiums*, and others will see their costs drop more than two percent.


You seem to have very manipulative title. Health care premiums will only drop for "some" people not ALL of the people in Arkansas. And even if it did, it would be 1 out of 50. Great odds there. 

Explain this logic to me since I used to be a DEM myself maybe I can translate your logic to everyone else. If I forced EVERYONE to buy a donut. Will the prices of donuts go up or down?

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## 56ktarget

Umm do you even know statistics? If the unemployment rate falls 5% across the country it does not mean that it is applied uniformly across the country. Some might even experience a faster drop. Others will see a slower one. A few states might even see their unemployment go up. But the averages of all those will be 5%. So we should be looking at rate of the entire country as a whole, instead of focusing on individual, anecdotal rates.

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## MelissaWV

> an average increase of 8.2 percent in 29 states and Washington D.C.


I guess that would not have made as cute a title.

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## 56ktarget

Those are lower than historical averages. And what happened to the double triple digit increases in premiums we were supposed to be seeing? Try again.

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## MelissaWV

> Those are lower than historical averages. And what happened to the double triple digit increases in premiums we were supposed to be seeing? Try again.


There's no need to "try"; the cow has left the barn on this one.  There's no point squabbling over it, as those of us who deal with health insurance issues on a daily basis realize that it's not just an increase in premiums that hurts patients and intermediate providers.  There has been a marked reduction in coverage, an increase in the number of services that need precertification, a change in formularies, and a huge increase in third party administrators being used for non-emergency services.  To pretend it's all going well is laughable, but people are going to realize it slowly, as many of them do not have to use a lot of those other services right away.

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## Intoxiklown

> Those are lower than historical averages. And what happened to the double triple digit increases in premiums we were supposed to be seeing? Try again.


My wife is a health care provider, and she sees the damage being done daily. What these articles aren't saying is the ungodly rate of which providers are retiring, or closing private practices to simply work at a hospital (usually part time)to draw straight checks, since the % reimbursement being paid out by the government on these people are being lowered constantly. This is also leading to more and more private practices NOT taking these government insurances, as they are not cost effective to see.

This is also already leading to a lower standard of care, as the government is already delegating certain actions and treatments from doctors to nurses. They are able to make more money via requiring certifications and yearly CEUs, as well as half way hide the fact that we are losing doctors. In other words, you are gloating about something that my grandchildren will suffer for.

If you'll quit thinking in the lines of "My party beat yours'!", and look objectively at what is happening, and the long term effects it is putting in motion, I don't see how you can truly still say this is a good thing.

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## JK/SEA

hey, anyone seen Collins around anywhere?.....

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## MelissaWV

*disclaimer*
No, this does not mean that I am married to Intoxiklown.

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## torchbearer

> hey, anyone seen Collins around anywhere?.....


this isn't the *official* thread.

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## acptulsa

> Those are lower than historical averages. And what happened to the double triple digit increases in premiums we were supposed to be seeing? Try again.


They happened when the stuff kicked in.  And they were real, very real, not projected.

This 'news' release is obviously designed to distract from that fact.  Because Democrats _do,_ as you have admitted yourself, lie to the base.  And what better way to lie than to blarb out some 'projected statistics'?

Never mind that last year's increase was twice the normal rate of increase and four times the rate of inflation, or however the numbers crunch out.  That's all irrelevant, right?  Unless you're a human in Arkansas and want coverage.  But they don't count--even Democrats don't count in Red States.

Why don't _you_ try again?  Indeed, why don't you save yourself some effort and just make 'Try again' your sig...?

And speaking of fail, why don't you try again on the thread title?  People who, like, speak English describe projected stuff as, '...premiums _to fall..._'  Or are you as prone to lying--to the base or otherwise--as a Clinton?

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## ctiger2

> And what happened to the double triple digit increases in premiums we were supposed to be seeing?


Good grief. Obamacare's been around for 5 seconds in the grand scheme of time. Try waiting 5 more seconds...

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## thoughtomator

I'm just going to point out here that the Democrats _always_ give these kinds of rosy cost projections, but when the real numbers that real people have to pay come out, they are always higher - much higher.

This -2% cost adjustment is a _projection_ from a Democrat Senator who is running on Obamacare - in other words, the most partisan and interested kind of projection that one can find. And he's only predicting a -2% change, which means in the absolute best case scenario where everything lines up just right (which doesn't happen) there's a slight decrease.

In reality, no state has yet to experience a decrease in costs under Obamacare. Not a single one. Projections by insurers - the ones who actually send the bills and provide the coverage - tell a much different story.

Keep in mind that there is a built-in bailout for insurers in the law - so even if costs _are_ held artificially low for political reasons (and that is the only possible reason they may go down), you're going to pay for it anyway through taxation and currency debasement.

Don't be a sucker for the shell game. You will pay more, one way or another.

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## thoughtomator

oh here, I just found this:

http://news.investors.com/politics/0...tm?ref=HPLNews

IBD has already done the legwork of figuring out the deceptive, arbitrary mechanisms that are at work in presenting you with a nominal rate decrease. Uglier than I had suspected, even.

This is an embarrassing mockery of a market that can make even the most strident conservative cry out for single-payer as a more reasonable alternative - and it is said to have been designed to do just that.

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## oyarde

Great , Obummercare in Arkansas goes down 2 % for all those 40K people , what is the avg price and avg deductible ??How much is being pd by for others that actually pay taxes ?

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## oyarde

> http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014...6127/arkansas/


Typical "Dem" victory , punish , gouge , screw a few million for the " benefit " of a few thousand .

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## ctiger2

http://calwatchdog.com/2014/08/19/co...-set-to-spike/




> Jones recently released an analysis – conducted in response to complaints regarding steep increases in health insurance rates – that compared 2013 and 2014 health insurance plan rates. The analysis found the average *rate increases* for people who had insurance in 2013 and bought 2014 coverage were between *22 and 88 percent*.

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## Acala

> Those are lower than historical averages. And what happened to the double triple digit increases in premiums we were supposed to be seeing? Try again.


Obamacare does nothing to rein in the crony-capitalism that drove health care prices sky high to begin with.  On the contrary, it increases the subsidies.  Give it a couple years.  Insurance carriers don't have enough data yet to price in the effects.  in any event, prices BEFORE obamacare were not sustainable.  Even if it succeeded in keeping prices where they were, it would fail.

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## RPfan1992

> Typical "Dem" victory , punish , gouge , screw a few million for the " benefit " of a few thousand .


According to dems the ends justify the means apparently.

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## 56ktarget

> Obamacare does nothing to rein in the crony-capitalism that drove health care prices sky high to begin with.  On the contrary, it increases the subsidies.  Give it a couple years.  Insurance carriers don't have enough data yet to price in the effects.  in any event, prices BEFORE obamacare were not sustainable.  Even if it succeeded in keeping prices where they were, it would fail.


Yeah Obamacare is nowhere near perfect, that's why most progressives wanted a public option to reduce costs.

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## NorthCarolinaLiberty

> *Oops: Health care premiums fall in Arkansas*



The article actually discusses a 2015 projection, not something that has already happened.  Your title is inaccurate.  Oops.

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## Acala

> Yeah Obamacare is nowhere near perfect, that's why most progressives wanted a public option to reduce costs.


Not perfect?  I'll say!  Obamacare is essentially the crony-capitalist protection act!

Why not squeeze the crony-capitalism out of health care and see what happens?  Why always resort to violence?

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## ctiger2

> Yeah Obamacare is nowhere near perfect, that's why most progressives wanted *a public option to reduce costs*.


lol! A single payer health system would drive prices into the stratosphere since it would be absent any market signals.

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## 56ktarget

Is that why I can get a major dental operation done in Japan for only a couple hundred while taking thousands of dollars in the US?

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## Acala

> Is that why I can get a major dental operation done in Japan for only a couple hundred while taking thousands of dollars in the US?


I believe you have the well-being of your fellow man at heart.  Me too.  So please consider what I am about to say.  I am not trying to "win" an argument with you.  I would like to explain to you another way to think about solving this problem.

Obamacare didn't break American healthcare.  It was already broken.  And repealing Obamacare won't fix it.  American healthcare was broken by high costs.  That was (and still is) the fundamental problem.  Pushing more people into the insurance pool doesn't solve that problem, at best it just delays it and is more likely to make it worse because it subsidizes more price increases.

I suggest starting with the question why have healthcare costs gotten so high and if there is a plausible answer to that, then ask how can we reverse that trend?  Doesn't it seem reasonable to do that before taking an entire industry and dropping it into the hands of a government that has ruined nearly everything it has ever touched?  After all, we DO have a government-run healthcare system in the US to look at as a preview.  It's called the VA and it is a disaster by almost any measure.

So, why are healthcare costs so high?  It is pretty well accepted that prices in even a heavily restrained and manipulated market are a function of supply and demand.  Higher demand for the same supply causes prices to go up.  Lower supply for the same demand causes prices to go up.  Pushing demand up with direct and indirect subsidy while holding supply down with regulatory entrance barriers is the double whammy of price escalators.

On the one hand, government subsidizes demand through direct programs like medicare and indirectly by using tax and other laws to push employers to provide insurance.  Subsidy and third-party payers cause people to use more services than they really need and reduces the price-lowering pressure of comparison shopping.  Look at lasix eye surgery as an example.  It is not covered by government subsidy or insurance and the cost has gone steadily DOWN over the years.   

On the other hand, government inhibits supply by creating entrance barriers to suppliers at every level.  Building clinics, marketing medical goods, providing health care services of any kind, is all heavily limited by government.  This is why health care is dominated by huge corporations.  They are the only ones who can afford to run the regulatory gauntlet that they in turn help control to stifle any competition.



This is a much longer topic than I can cover in this thread, but the long and short of it is that crony-capitalists broke healthcare by using government to subsidize their price increases and to protect them from competition.  The way to fix it is to drive crony-capitalism out.  Get government out of healthcare entirely and watch prices drop and service improve.  Of course there will still be people who can't make the cut financially.  Those people we help with our direct charity.  Lots of choice, no violence needed.

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## 56ktarget

Yes, I agree that crony-capitalists broke the system. The solution is to bypass them would a true single-payer system like Japan or Canada.

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## Danke

> Is that why I can get a major dental operation done in Japan for only a couple hundred while taking thousands of dollars in the US?


Having lived in Japan, good luck getting seen.

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## Carlybee

> Those are lower than historical averages. And what happened to the double triple digit increases in premiums we were supposed to be seeing? Try again.




Our premiums increased and so did our deductibles. My son has a 6000 deductible which means if he has to get a ct scan he has to pay cash. We opted out of Obamacare on principle. So glad we can help pay for the $#@!s who don't.

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## oyarde

> Having lived in Japan, good luck getting seen.


Unless you have cash , interesting , no ?

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## Acala

> Yes, I agree that crony-capitalists broke the system. The solution is to bypass them would a true single-payer system like Japan or Canada.


You have made up your mind.  Okay.  You will win because when Obamacare fails, as it will because it does nothing to control costs, the people will accept a single-payer system.  But in the end you will lose because that system will break the Nation's back with its cost, and the crappy level of care will be the frosting on the $#@!cake.  

All of the mainstream debate about healthcare is about scrambling around to try and find someone to pay the outrageous bills.  Virtually nobody is looking at the real problem: what is driving the outrageous costs.

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## Carlybee

> Is that why I can get a major dental operation done in Japan for only a couple hundred while taking thousands of dollars in the US?


So go to Japan.

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## Lord Xar

> Yes, I agree that crony-capitalists broke the system. The solution is to bypass them would a true single-payer system like Japan or Canada.


This person just does not get it. He/She is so invested into the system of violence, that it is now their God. The same type of euphoria that one gets from Sunday services, runs thru their veins.

The violence of the state to achieve parity with their vision of morality is the final gambit.

They cannot wrap their head around a non-government solution because that would mean their God does not exist or in the least, not needed. The cognitive dissonance is too great. Collectivism and it's violence is the only solution.

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## Acala

> This person just does not get it. He/She is so invested into the system of violence, that it is now their God. The same type of euphoria that one gets from Sunday services, runs thru their veins.
> 
> The violence of the state to achieve parity with their vision of morality is the final gambit.
> 
> They cannot wrap their head around a non-government solution because that would mean their God does not exist or in the least, not needed. The cognitive dissonance is too great. Collectivism and it's violence is the only solution.


And yet time and time again their programs fail miserably, even by their own measures and they end up having to make excuses and blaming some scapegoat.  If they could just get the right socialist in power, all would be well.  France got their dream-socialist into power and look what has happened.  It's a disaster and they are backpedaling as fast as they can.  But it won't be long before they come up with another scheme to try and generate wealth by punishing the productive sector.

This OP wants a single payer system.  What could go wrong?  Well, let's look around a moment.  Maybe we already have a government-run single-payer system . . . here's one: Medicare!  This very limited single-payer system of ours racked up the greatest unfunded liability in all of the US government.  Probably in all the history of the world.  And it only covers a fraction of the population.

But if only we had the RIGHT socialist to manage it, it would all be fine.

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## jmdrake

> Is that why I can get a major dental operation done in Japan for only a couple hundred while taking thousands of dollars in the US?


According to NPR national healthcare in Japan is such a disaster that healthcare providers make up for low reimbursement rates by charging their patients out the wazoo for parking.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=89626309
_Perhaps Too Cheap?

So here's a country with the longest life expectancy, excellent health results, no waiting lists and rock-bottom costs. Is anyone complaining?

Well, the doctors are. Kono says he's getting paid peanuts for all his hard work.

If somebody comes in with a cut less than 6 square inches, Kono gets 450 yen, or about $4.30, to sew it up.

"It's extremely cheap," he says.

Kono is forced to look for other ways to make a yen. He has four vending machines in the waiting room. In a part of Tokyo with free street parking, he charges $4 an hour to park at his clinic.

The upside is that virtually no one in Japan goes broke because of medical expenses.

Personal bankruptcy due to medical expenses is unheard of in Japan, says Professor Saito Hidero, president of the Nagoya Central Hospital.

Hospitals Hit Hard

But while the patients may be healthy, the hospitals are in even worse financial shape than the doctors.

"I think our system is pretty good, pretty good, but no system is perfect," he says. "But 50 percent of hospitals are in financial deficit now."

So here's the weakness: While the United States probably spends too much on health care, Japan may be spending too little. In a country with $10-a-night hospital stays, prices just aren't high enough to balance the books.

Hospital prices too low? That's a problem a lot of countries would like._

Oh, sure, NPR didn't use the word "disaster".  That would be too honest.  But squeezing healthcare providers to the point where it's no longer worth going to medical school will be a long term disaster for Japan.  But this is all part of the plan.  My mother told me back in the 1970s that socialized medicine was coming to America and when it did doctors would ultimately be treated no better than janitors.  Oh, and she was, and still is, a lifelong democrat.  The architect of Obamacare articulated that getting rid of hospitals and healthcare jobs was one of his goals.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB100...74463280098676

http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/20...olete-by-2025/

By the way, if you think this is about getting rid of crony capitalism you are grossly mistaken.  This is what's coming.

_Traditional health insurance companies will be replaced with Accountable Care Organizations by 2025, Ezekiel “Zeke” Emanuel, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania said to a packed lecture hall on Monday.

Accountable care organizations, groups of doctors and hospitals that tie reimbursements to the quality of care, are beginning to assume both the clinical and financial risks for Medicaid patients, Emanuel said. This development is cutting out health care companies and profiting middlemen, who exclude certain patients and impose administrative barriers, he explained.

Total spending on health care in the United States exceeds spending within the entire French economy, reflecting both steadily rising prices and overall inefficiency, Emanuel said. He noted that even though prices are going up, demand in the health industry continues to be for very low prices, and demand for high-quality hospitals lags further behind.

“If that doesn’t make a CEO of a hospital nervous and an insomniac, I’m not sure what I can do,” Emanuel said._

Read between the lines.  He's not talking about getting rid of insurance companies.  He's talking about having insurance companies *take over the hospitals*!

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