2y ago

'Obamacare' sign-ups surge to 20 million, days before open enrollment closes

abcnews.go.com

The Biden administration says 20 million people have enrolled for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, with still a few days left for signing up

Some 20 million people have signed up for health insurance this year through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, a record-breaking figure.

President Joe Biden will likely proclaim those results regularly on the campaign trail for months to come as former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, vows to dismantle the Obama-era program.

The Biden administration announced Wednesday morning that 20 million have enrolled for coverage on the marketplace, days before the open enrollment period is set to close on Jan. 16.

The latest enrollment projections mean a quarter more Americans have signed up for coverage this year compared to last — another record-breaking year when 16.3 million enrolled in the program. Signs-ups spiked after Biden took office, with Democrats rolling out a series of tax breaks that give millions of Americans access to low cost plans, some with zero-dollar premiums.

44 comments

More people using this isnt a good thing. It's because they can't get full time employment for insurance thru their job
It wouldn't have been enough if Obama got all he asked for. But Dems have held the House and Senate multiple times and show no desire to improve it.
Party leadership should at least be holding votes so that voters in different states can see if their representatives will actually support the party platform.
- Health care should never have been dependent on employment in the first place.
  It leads to people kowtowing to shitty employers because they can't afford a lapse in health insurance coverage.
  As for holding the House and Senate, a mere majority isn't enough when the GOP is determined to filibuster any attempts to do anything to Obamacare except destroy it.
  
  Health care should never have been dependent on employment in the first place
  You know what's really depressing?
  How that came to happen in America:
  Then, in World War II, companies’ grip on employee’s health care got firmer. The federal government established wage controls, limiting how much employers could pay workers. This left businesses competing on other forms of compensation — including health insurance. The government tacitly endorsed this tactic: It did not tax health benefits as income, while also allowing companies to deduct the cost from their taxable revenue. Enrollment in some kind of health insurance grew from some 20 million people in 1940 to more than 142 million in 1950.
  https://www.vox.com/23890764/healthcare-insurance-marketplace-open-enrollment-employer-sponsored-united-blue-cross-shield-aetna
  We fucking capped salaries.
  People want to act like someone saying 100% after a certain threshold is some millennial pipe dream, meanwhile the unironically named "Greatest Generation" flat out said that was too much hassle and there's an upper limit anyone can be paid.
  We get rid of it, and wealth equality went crazy and everything else went to shit.
- But Dems have held the House and Senate multiple times and show no desire to improve it.
  By "multiple times" you really mean "kinda of one other time since and even then by a razor thin margin".
  "In the Senate, Republicans briefly held the majority at the start; however, on January 20, 2021, three new Democratic senators – Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Alex Padilla of California – were sworn in, resulting in 50 seats held by Republicans, 48 seats held by Democrats, and two held by independents who caucus with the Democrats"
  ...and...
  "With Harris serving as the tie breaker in her constitutional role as President of the Senate, Democrats gained control of the Senate, and thereby full control of Congress for the first time since the 111th Congress ended in 2011. "
  source
  
  You missed this:
  Party leadership should at least be holding votes so that voters in different states can see if their representatives will actually support the party platform.
  Instead, we get told there is coincidentally just enough to block it, so it would be pointless to have a vote on it.
  And votes don't just hold "moderate" Dems accountable, it holds Republicans accountable too.
  Shows every non voter in a red state who the one is that's stopping them from having affordable healthcare.
  They should have been having monthly votes for over a decade, loudly announcing who voted against it ever vote.
  You can argue that wouldn't have changed much, but I don't know how the party thinks pretending everything is fine has helped anyone.
  And at least then it would be very clear who needs to be voted out
- Not to mention they're still propping up the rent-seekers in the health insurance industry
  
  Well, those rent-seekers are donors.
- It has gotten worse year over year for as long as I can remember too. Neither side will ever get us a functional single payer.
  
  It's like if Bowser kidnapped Princess Peach and Mario just got fed up and stayed at home all day hanging out with Luigi.
  Sure, it's Bowser's fault that Bowser kidnapped Princess Peach, but decades later the mushroom people would probably start thinking they need to not just settle for the first Italian Plumber that just shows up
  But half the mushrooms keep insisting that since Mario hasn't kidnapped anyone yet, replacing him isn't an option they can even discuss because he's a hero.
  "Good" isn't just the absence of "evil".
- Has nothing to do with can't get full time employment. Barely half offer anything at all.
  In 2023, 53% of all firms offered some health benefits, similar to the percentage last year (51%). Most firms are very small, leading to fluctuations in the overall offer rate, as the offer rates of small firms can vary widely from year to year.Oct 18, 2023
  https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2023-summary-of-findings/
$461 a month was the cheapest for me
- I'm sorry you're saving for retirement so we have to count your savings against you. No state aid for you...
  But I have only $20,000 to retire on?
  Republiklans: Sucks for you!
  
  I have way less than that unfortunately
That's not really a good sign for the economy. It means the marketplace is a valid option today. It was a pretty awful option in the past. But it means our broken system of relying on companies to provide health insurance is still broken. Companies aren't taking care of people. Medicare for all! (why couldn't Obama Dems have just done that instead?)
- https://amarkfoundation.org/reports/how-the-aca-obamacare-was-negotiated/
- Companies provide healthcare in the vast majority of countries with universal healthcare, including in Europe. Government provision of healthcare is really only a thing in the UK, and the NHS's current struggles show that such a model isn't necessarily faultless in practice.
- Because they would have had just as little chance of passing it as the Clintons did in the early 90s. Worse, because of the racists in the GOP.
  
  That's completely bullshit. The ACA was passed with zero R votes. They didn't do better because they didn't have the votes from fucking Democrats.
I was paying $160 a month on Obamacare for the worst insurance. My employer offered insurance but it was more expensive than that. Luckily I have a job now that pays for my health insurance.
What are the distinctions between Obamacare and universal healthcare?
- It's a government hosted marketplace where traditional insurance companies offer subsidized plans
  Versus a true government funded insurance plan where all taxpayers pay into a plan with minimum coverage, which can be supplemented by private or company funded traditional insurers
- Universal healthcare simply describes the situation where essentially all people have access to affordable care.
  The simplest model is to have basically all healthcare done and paid for by the government and funded by taxes. This is called single payer, with the National Health Service is Britain being the most famous example, but it's not the only way to get universal coverage, though people who support single payer often conflate the terms. Other European counties have mixes of public and private coverage.
  
  NHS is single-provider, where the government supplies the healthcare directly (e.g., doctors and nurses are NHS employees). Single payer usually refers to systems where the government pays for healthcare, but the healthcare can be supplied by a mix of providers including private sector providers, like in Canada.
  But you're right, single payer isn't the same thing as universal healthcare. In practice, the US system with Obamacare can be regarded as a universal healthcare system. Switzerland, which has a similar public-private model, is generally regarded as having universal healthcare. The only subtlety is that the US system makes it pretty easy to opt out entirely, so some fraction of the population ends up not having healthcare access through some combination of bad luck and bad decision-making.
- Obama copied a plan that had been created in Massachusetts by Republican Governor Mitt Romney. Obama figured that the GOP wouldn't have a problem voting for a plan designed by one of their own. Instead, they went all out against the plan, because they knew that if it became a success Obama would be reelected. Obama called it a 'starter house,' meaning that once it was set up, it could be improved on.
  
  There is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.
  True on software development. Even truer in politics.

44 comments