Larry

And yet, you persist in citing it as the example you pick, to explain why Obamacare is making insurance prices go up. Now, granted, I certainly do not possess a knowledge of how much money birth control costs the average American. (Since you've moved from "birth control for 60 year olds" to "birth control", I have to assume you're referring to all demographics, nationwide.) I don't even know how much birth control costs, for a representative sample of Americans. Not even for a representative sample of people of my age. I do know that my costs for birth control, up till a year ago, were zero. And, while I don't assume that I represent every single person in the country, I also don't think I'm the only one, either. What do you think a year of birth control, for the average American male costs? (Note: Not just for the average American who uses birth control. Average of all Americans.) $10 a year? $50? $50 seems really, really, high, for me. But my perspective can certainly be skewed. (I wouldn't be surprised at all if $10 is high. Remember, the cost of the coverage is based on how much the average consumer chooses to have his insurance pay for.) Now, for females, I assume the average cost of birth control is probably a lot higher. Both because female birth control methods (I assume) are more expensive, and because (again, I assume) a much higher percentage of females use them. Let's just pull a number out of my (no, I don't have one of those) appropriate orifices, and assume that the average female spends $200/year on birth control. (Again, that seems like a really, really, high number, for me, since I assume that lots of females don't use any, for one reason or another. But I freely admit my ignorance.) If we average those two numbers, both of which I suspect are really, really, high estimates, then we arrive at the conclusion that mandating coverage for birth control adds $125 to the cost of the average American's health insurance. That's $125 a year. (Note that this calculation also assumes that none of those people had coverage for birth control, before.) Note that this calculation also assumes that the average American also receives the benefit of an additional $125/year in insurance coverage. (Pick a different estimate for the average cost, and you also get an identically different estimate for the average benefit.) (That's because "cost" and "benefit", in this case, are not merely two numbers which are equal. They are the same number. The cost of the coverage, and the benefit of the coverage, are not two different numbers which are equal. They're two different terms to refer to one, single, check.) You cannot assert that any of the numerous mandates on Obamacare are driving up costs, and not paying benefits. Because the benefits ARE the cost. Yes, I'm "baiting" you to try to get you to admit something you're trying very hard not to admit. I'll make it simple, by answering my own question: Adding coverage increases costs and coverage. I know it's a radical concept, that adding coverage adds coverage, but it is true. (Feel free to throw out the word "semantics", if you want.) There have been lots of news on policies being cancelled due to not meeting ACA requirements, and people choosing to cancel them rather than comply with them. Curiously, people seem to like to pretend that part of that sentence isn't there. (It's kind of like the word "coverage".) ---------- Yet, curiously, I'm not reading a thing about any of these mandates being this huge, crushing burden No "well, the law mandates that insurance must cover collywobbles, and coverage for collywobbles adds $4,000 a year to the average policy, (collywobbles being so expensive, and such a huge number of people having it), and therefore, it's causing the average person to have to pay an extra $4,000 a year, so that one person in a million can receive $4B in coverage. ---------- It's the dilemma that people would have, if they'd actually try to support their attempts to claim that these mandates are causing these huge costs that we're being told are typical. Pick a medical condition. Any condition. In order for that condition to cause the average health insurance policy to go up $1000, then the average insured must have $1000 in costs, for that condition. There is no other way for it to add that much to the cost. To be more mathematical: The average cost of covering a condition = (the average cost of treating the condition) times (the percentage of people who get the condition). If it's a condition that only one person in a million gets, then a million dollars of coverage only adds a dollar to the insurance premium. If it only costs $10K, to treat, then even if one person out of 10 will get that condition, this year, it only adds $1K to their annual premium. ---------- It is impossible to claim that the Obamacare mandates are hugely increasing insurance costs, without also claiming that it is hugely increasing coverage. (Because the coverage is the cost.) ---------- * Yes, the insurance companies also charge overhead and profits. Although Obamacare also limits those, for the first time. It's more accurate to say that "80% of the increased premiums, are coverage. But then, that was true, before, too, and you really can't blame Obamacare for the fact that private insurance companies operate at a profit. But, having said that, if you can find a place where the Obamacare law mandates a huge increase in overhead, without an increase in coverage, then I suspect I'll agree with you. But I'm pretty certain that, if there were such a thing, we'd have heard about it, by now. And, again, I'll point out: One of Obamacare's mandates, is to put a cap on overhead and profit.

OK, let's just pretend that that's the only claim you make, and pretend that you never made the one you've been insulting me, for pointing out, for 4-5 posts, now. Forcing plans to cover birth control, . . . . 1) Raises costs by how much? 2) And also raises what? (I've highlighted one word in the question, that provides you a hint at the answer to #2) Feel free to try to support that claim, any time you'd like.

What's that, the fourth time moving your own goalposts? It's getting hard to keep track. You can feel free to quit lying about what I said, any time you feel like it.

Still waiting for you to support your claim. I'll be happy to respond to your third set of goalposts, after we deal with the first set.

I didn't ask for the exact dollar figure. I asked for your opinion. For the specific example which you chose to throw out. I'll willingly give you my estimate. It's zero. Oh, probably not exactly zero. But it's in the ballpark. And raises the coverage. By an identical amount. (See, that's why it raises the costs. Because it raises the coverage.) (See, providing coverage that nobody uses, doesn't cost anything. If the law were to mandate, say, that all plans must fully pay for vasectomies for every biological female in America, that wouldn't increase prices any.) Funny, how you constantly mention one, and, near as I can tell, have never once so much as admitted that the other is also true. Curious how often the word "semantics" comes out, every time I point out the problem with your examples. Usually, right after the second or third attempt to move your own goalposts hasn't worked. Apparently, "semantics" is "asking someone to actually support the things that they've actually said". Terrible, the way some people are, that way.

How much, you figure, birth control costs add to the price of the average policy, for every 60 year old? I mean, it is the example you chose to post, to illustrate how much Obamacare is driving up the price of insurance, and all. But, if you'd really rather move your own goalposts to discussing how much the total cost of birth control for all 60 year olds, adds to the total cost of insurance for all 60 year olds, please, feel free to give us your estimate for that number, instead.

How much do you figure the birth control mandate adds to the price of the policy for a 60 year old?

Love your definition of "quoting the part of the article which the poster chose to quote" as "cherry picking". Admiring your unsupported assumption that the amount which the company chose to give the employees was the same amount as the company chose to pay, before. (But you did point out that it's a made up number. And I certainly have no clue if the actual number was more, or less). But, let's just assume as fact the unsupported assertion that the Obamacare law mandated a 50% premium increase. I can see exactly two possible reasons that could possibly be true. 1). The law mandates coverage which the old plan didn't cover, and this coverage IS ACTUALLY WORTH that much. 2). Every insurance company in the market is using Obamacare as an excuse to grossly overcharge their customers. (And I have yet to see anybody come up with a third possible explanation). Why isn't this great coverage still available?

You certainly have not shown that it does. Does Obamacare exist? Yep. Have employers been cutting employees health care for years? Yep. Have you and your spinmeisters been pretending that every bad thing for the last five years was because of Obamacare, without any support other than the fact that it exists? Yep. "Wolf!!!"

And people are blaming Obama for this decision.

Agree with chip. At least, I think the problem people are talking about is: your subsidy to buy insurance depends on how much you THINK you are going to make, next year. But you don't KNOW, in advance, how much you're going to be making, next year.

It is, I think, a valid conundrum. How much subsidy people get, is determined by their annual income. But, they don't know what their annual income is going to be, till the year's over. How do you deal with this? I can think of several possible ways, none if them really all that good. Make people's subsidy based on LAST YEAR'S income? Seems simplest. Maybe an exception whereby somebody who, say, gets laid off, can get his subsidy recalculated, based on his new, lower, income? Maybe make the "Obamacare year" start on May 1st, or some such, so people can file their taxes, and then calculate their subsidy? Maybe have people ESTIMATE their income? I'm sure we can all see potential problems with that idea. Although the IRS already has rules in place for requiring people to do that, with estimated tax payments. And rules in place for enforcing it. Maybe make it so that, when people file their taxes, if it turns out that their subsidy was too big or too small, then they "fix it" at tax time? (Although, I could see a problem if they're handing out PENALTIES for too big a subsidy, without demonstrating that the taxpayer did something intentionally wrong). I agree. It's a tough thing to do, fairly.

Seem to recall, few years back, somebody (Cowboys?) brought in some multi-time Olympic Gold Medal winner in Greco-Roman wrestling, to training camp. (Didn't make the team).

Never watched any of them. Watched Criminal Minds, for a while. (Mandy Patinkin fan.) But apparently, shows like that don't sit well with my career as caregiver for Mom. (Recently tried watching Sons of Anarchy on Netflix. Same problem.) Too much drama, I seem to have problems with.

I'm a Mandy Patinkin fan, so I've been considering starting Homeland, which I think is on Netflix. Any advice? Also was contemplating trying to start the Clone Wars cartoons. But I don;t want to go out and buy a bunch of DVDs. Does anybody know if there's some online service, ala Netflix, that has them?

Wow. I'm shocked. Obama relaxes the rules that people are complaining about, and is immediately attacked for doing so.

Yeah, I assume that a lot of those pictures are taken during halftime, when everybody's hitting the rest rooms and stuff. (Just like I suspect that a lot of the scenes they show, just before kickoff, are actually recorded at least a half hour earlier, if not more.) But, the pic just kinda summed up my feelings, anyway.

Sigh.

Unfortunately, the "you can deduct half of your SE tax from your income", for example, doesn;t make the SE tax different from FICA. It makes it the same. Joe Employee earns $1,000. 1) He pays FICA on $1000. (call it $70) 2) He pays income tax on $1000. 3) His employer pays FICA on $1000. (Call it another $70) His employment actually cost the employer $1070. But his taxes, both FICA and income, are based on only $1000. The money that goes to pay #3 does not count as part of his income, for purposes of FICA or income tax, because (as far as the government's concerned), he never "made" that money. His employer paid it before he gave the employee $1000. The "employer's contribution" never counts as money which he ever received. (Whereas, the "employee's contribution", the part that actually shows up on his paycheck? That money which he pays, gets counted as income.) The self employed guy gets to deduce his "employer's contribution" from his income, because non-self-employed people don't pay income taxes on the "employer's contribution", either. (Non-self-employed people don't get to deduct it, because it never got counted as part of their income, to begin with.)

One of the great things about competition. Want to find out what's bad about an insurance plan? Just let his competitor tell you. one of the advantages you have, compared to a whole lot of people. Yeah, you no doubt get slanted information. But often, slanted information from multiple, competing, sources, beats the heck out of no information at all. (Which is what almost everyone else is stuck with.)

This is, perhaps, because it is the FICA tax. The "employer's contribution" of the FICA tax. (See, for every dollar if FICA that most people's employers take out of their paycheck, the employer is required to "contribute" another dollar. The self employment tax exists because, when someone is self employed, then he is both the employer and the employee. And, therefore, is on the hook for both halves of the tax.) Larry chose to let the topic drop, because Larry knew it was a distraction from the topic of the thread, and wasn't relevent to the question Larry asked. (Whether HSA contributions actually reduced said tax.)

I'm certain that lots of people's insurance costs have gone up. But how much of that is because the insurance companies doubled their rates, and how much is because their employer decided to cut back on the amount that he was chipping in? (And I absolutely guarantee you that nothing in Obamacare mandated that your rates double, two years before the mandates go into effect. Simply because, if there were such a clause in the law, people attacking it would be pointing at it, instead of finding people who's employer decided to eliminate their insurance (and pocket the money), and somebody claimed it was because of Obamacare.) ---------- It's one of the things that certainly makes discussing this topic tough. There's so much going on that the end user doesn't see. AND so many hidden things that it's pretty much impossible to compare apples to apples. (I've been saying for years that IF Obamacare can create an environment where it IS possible to compare apples to apples, then that might have more of a downward effect on health care costs than anything else in the law. But, I'm not certain that it can accomplish that goal.)

Pointing out that somebody in this thread (forget who) has made the claim that nationwide, health care costs have been increasing, but at half the rate they were increasing, before Obamacare passed. (I'm not at all sure I believe it, myself. But I haven't challenged it, and really haven't seen anybody else do so, either.) But yes, I assume that it's pretty much guaranteed that some increases are due to the law. (The law mandates coverage for some things. I understand that psychiatric treatment for alcohol or drug addiction, for example. You can argue about whether that mandate is good or not, but I think you'd have to be really divorced from reality to argue that said mandate didn't cost a dime.) (And other mandates, like mandating the same prices for men and women, I assume force rates higher for some people, and lower for others.) But I'll point out that there's a huge difference between "paying for benefits that have not been provided" (which, I will point out, is what insurance IS), and asserting that the money being paid in will NEVER be paid out. I assume it's certainly possible that all of the insurance companies are simply gouging people, and charging them vastly more than they intend to pay out in benefits. But it's not the first assumption I'd make. And it's certainly not proven.

Ah. I see we've fallen back on name calling. A tactic that seems inconsistent with trying to claim that the other guy is refusing to discuss the actual issue. But wait. Consistency is a word, therefore it's semantics. But let's leave aside the name calling, and see if there's actually a point, in there, to respond to. Really? You think that having a $0 deductible might cause people to spend more on health care? Let's examine that theory which might be true. Granted, I'm going from memory, but I seem to remember an assertion along the lines that 80% of your employees run through their deductible in three months or less, and that virtually all of them do so within the year. What percentage of the person in the "typical person buying the highest deductible plan on the exchange" profile, runs through $5000 in medical expenses, in the first three months of the year? Is it 80%? Or do their numbers differ from the numbers you're using your employees as examples of? Is it perhaps possible that your employees might have different health care spending, compared to the people signing up on the exchanges? Is it possible that these people aren't the average health care consumer? Therefore, is it possible that maybe we (let's be generous with the "we") could stop trying to use people with $0 deductible, fully paid, health insurance, to represent average people who are signing up for high deductible plans that they're paying for, themselves?

Ah. I see we've moved from "let's consider a hypothetical person under Obamacare, who has $12K in medical expenses, and pretend that Obamacare caused those expenses", to "let's assert that people are paying a thousand dollars a month for insurance which nobody will ever collect on". If the insurance companies never (or almost never) have to pay any money out, then why do the plans cost so much?