Thanks, Obamacare! Young Adults Will Benefit Most From Tax Credits

[MrsPincince]

http://news.yahoo.com/thanks-obamacare-young-adults-benefit-most-tax-credits-192018180.html

You may have heard about the insurance-premium “sticker shock” that some say is coming in January 2014, when all Americans will be required to carry some sort of health insurance, according to the Affordable Care Act (ACA; aka Obamacare). But some reassuring news came out last week from FamiliesUSA, a health advocacy group, showing that the majority of people who can receive tax credits to help offset the cost of their new premiums under the law are between the ages of 18 to 34. If that’s you, you should be feeling some relief—both that you’ll have insurance (if you don’t already) and that it isn’t going to be at some crazy-high rate you can’t afford.

More good news came out last week from the Kaiser Family Foundation too: The group put out briefs on programs being set up by every state to help people figure out which coverage is best for them. In short, these should help demystify the whole process of getting enrolled under Obamacare.

You definitely won’t be alone if you need a little help paying for your insurance. FamiliesUSA reported that nearly 26 million Americans will be eligible for new premium tax credits in 2014. And those with an annual income between $47,100 and $94,200 (for a family of four; incomes between 200 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level) will make up about 56 percent of those eligible for the tax credits.

FamiliesUSA also reported on the demographics of who can use the tax credits: About 58 percent of Americans who’ll be eligible for the premium tax credits will be white, non-Hispanics; about 11 percent will be black, non-Hispanics; and about 23 percent will be Hispanic. Other races make up about 8 percent of those eligible to receive credits. “The tax credit subsidies are a game-changer,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, at a press conference. “They will make health coverage affordable for huge numbers of uninsured families who would have been priced out of the health coverage and care they need.”

Health advocates like Pollack hope that by spreading the word about the tax credits, more people will look into their options and enroll. One executive of a county in the northeastern U.S. interviewed last week said he’s concerned that consumers—especially younger ones—may decide that the penalty for not enrolling is less expensive than paying for coverage, leaving them vulnerable to debts if they face a medical emergency.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the ACA, in 2014, people who can afford to but do not purchase health insurance will pay a penalty, which will be collected by the IRS. For an individual, the tax starts at $95 a year or up to 1 percent of income, whichever is greater. By 2016, that rises to $695 per individual or 2.5 percent of income.

In a recent briefing in Washington, D.C., the Kaiser Family Foundation stressed that there are places to go if you’re confused about how to enroll and buy insurance—though there still remains a lot of confusion about this.  “It’s not an automatic assumption that [people] will know how to enroll,” said Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, who spoke at the briefing.

According to Kaiser, even with all the digital tools being developed, such as state health insurance marketplace websites and online application forms, one-on-one consumer assistance will still play a key role in helping people understand their obligations and choices. A recent Kaiser poll showed that two-thirds of the uninsured, and a majority of Americans overall, say they have too little information on how the ACA will affect them.

While health “navigator” programs are required in every state under the ACA beginning in 2014, some of these may take a while to start up, and some states may rely on other consumer assistance programs. The Kaiser report also found that states vary in the amount of training and even titles—generally they’re called “navigators” and “assisters”—they give to people who will be helping with ACA enrollment. Pollitz acknowledged that enrollment “may not work perfectly in the first year,” adding that the Children’s’ Health Insurance Program only enrolled about 10 percent of those eligible in its first year, but then quickly ramped up just several years later as everyone became better informed. “The opening act,” said Pollitz, “doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about the whole show.”

[MrsPincince]

"Um actually Brice, Obama is all about single option and the more obstructionism there is, the sooner we will move on to universal health care which imo, is where we are going anyway. Anything less will not work. "

PREACH!....

[teko]

Um actually Brice, Obama is all about single option and the more obstructionism there is, the sooner we will move on to universal health care which imo, is where we are going anyway. Anything less will not work.

[brice1967]

If Obamacare is the lay of the land and its so wonderful, ALL AMERICANS including the President and all of the National Politicians ought to be the first to jump in...... instead, they tout how great it is and duck and cover.  

Seems weird to me that something so wonderful is being dodged by the very people who instituted it....

[Vance2335]

This should have been step 1.Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “Congress should be able to work together on our practical ideas that the American people support, such as reforming our medical liability laws to discourage junk lawsuits…

That alone would help lower costs. But did you know that over the past 10 years health care has gone up in large part because of techonology.

"But while insuring high-cost individuals in separate pools has long been a staple of Republican health policy, the Prevention Fund also supports GOP-backed priorities."-So they are doing one part of what they always wanted to do. Well at least they tried.

I have always been for healthcare reform, but not the way it was done. I think people with pre-existing conditions shoud be allowed healthcare. The biggest issues I have had with Obamacare is:
1. Government run
2. Government control
3. Mandatory to have health ins

[teko]

Interesting turn of events on republican outlook of obamacare. Just thought I would share. Keep in mind the 35 attempts to repeal? Then explain this one.

House Republicans plan to vote on a bill on Wednesday that would shift money from the portion of Obamacare that invests in prevention and use it to expand a temporary initiative that has helped individuals and families with pre-existing medical conditions obtain coverage.
The Helping Sick Americans Now Act would move $4 billion from the Affordable Care Act’s $10 billion Prevention and Public Health Fund into the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP), a program of high-risk pools that has provided coverage to uninsured Americans who didn’t have an offer of insurance from an employer and couldn’t find a plan in the individual market. The PCIP was designed as a bridge to the exchanges, which will become operational in 2014, but the $5 billion program stopped accepting new enrollees in February.
“Like in so many other areas, the President’s health care legislation failed to adequately protect sick patients with pre-existing conditions, like those battling cancer,” Rory Cooper, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), told Talking Points Memo. “House Republicans are determined to do so by taking funding from a slush fund and moving it where it is critically needed.”
But while insuring high-cost individuals in separate pools has long been a staple of Republican health policy, the Prevention Fund also supports GOP-backed priorities. The Fund has invested in community and clinical prevention, research, public health infrastructure, immunizations and screenings, tobacco prevention and public health workforce and training — measures that Republicans touted as critical to lowering health care costs:
– Former Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) argued that “one of the things we did in the health care legislation was to provide a lot of different incentives for preventive care.” [7/12/2010]
– Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said the law’s emphasis on preventive care is good “because it costs less to keep people well than to treat them when they’re sick.” [10/18/2010]
– Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “Congress should be able to work together on our practical ideas that the American people support, such as reforming our medical liability laws to discourage junk lawsuits…encouraging wellness and prevention programs that have proved to be effective in cutting costs and improving care.” [8/26/2010]
– Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA): “I am an original cosponsor of S. 1099, the “Patients’ Choice Act,” …. The legislation would make health care coverage accessible and affordable for all Americans through private insurance coverage, while also promoting prevention and wellness which can improve lives and lower long-term medical costs. [7/19/2009]
Now, the party is seeking to undermine one priority to fund the other, even after repeatedly voting to repeal Obamacare and eliminate the PCIP and the Prevention Fund.
UPDATE
Unable to secure enough votes from conservative members, Republicans pulled the bill off the floor on Wednesday afternoon. A spokesperson for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) told reporters, “We intend to bring the bill back up when Congress returns in May.”

[Vance2335]

More and more employers will drop healthcare which means more people will go on Obamacare, which means more taxes to pay for it. I also see less Dr's and hospitals because in the law the government would determine how much to pay them. No negotation.

[brice1967]

I think deficit reduction is the main goal here, however I don't think the supporters of "Obamacare" have done a real convincing job of providing a model of the program and how it will reduce the deficit.  

When we use terms like "likely will reduce the costs of the program", it doesn't leave a whole lot of hope for people.  Whether it be the Supreme Court or anyone else in the land, the term "likely" leaves a lot of room for error.  And with the deficit being what it is, how big of an error can we take right now?  

This is probably my problem, being a glass half full guy when it comes to political promises.  To me, the term "likely" means just about as good of an opportunity for it all to go south in a hurry.  Nobody has done a thing to erase that thought from the minds of people who are questioning the program.

Is it a blind faith thing?  If it is, no wonder why I feel doomed.  I have had enough experiences with the federal government not following through on its promises for a long time.  Each administration for as far back as I can remember has completely lied to the general populace time and time again.  

When to we start to believe or when do we cease to believe?

[MrsPincince]

My point is, Its not that significant of a shift...Obamacare is a good thing. EVERYONE will be able to have medical insurance. I still don't see why that is wrong..It might cost some money but you know what? its costing us more now....The big picture of Obamacare is it WILL reduce the deficit.  The CBO’s most recent report concluded that Obamacare will reduce the federal deficit by $4 billion from 2013-2019, and that projection was made before the Supreme Court ruling that likely will reduce the costs of the program. People seem to be missing that major point. Isn't t deficit reduction the MAIN goal of EVERYONE????

[Vance2335]

CBO: Obamacare Will Spend More, Tax More, and Reduce the Deficit Less Than We Previously Thought
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/07/27/cbo-obamacare-will-spend-more-tax-more-and-reduce-the-deficit-less-than-we-previously-thought/

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/02/07/cbo_is_increasingly_skeptical_about_obamacare_116951.html

CBO: ObamaCare Price Tag Shifts from $940 Billion to $1.76 Trillion
http://news.yahoo.com/cbo-obamacare-price-tag-shifts-940-billion-1-163500655.html

[MrsPincince]

CBO’s report last month about its latest budget projections (The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013-2023) summarized various changes to the agency’s projections of federal health care spending. To elaborate on that summary, an earlier blog entry discussed the reductions that CBO had made in its projections of Medicare and Medicaid spending.

The report also presented CBO’s latest analysis of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) related to health insurance coverage—analysis that CBO undertakes together with the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). CBO and JCT’s estimate of the net budgetary impact of the ACA’s insurance coverage provisions has changed little since August 2012 and, indeed, has changed little, for any given year, since the legislation was being considered in March 2010.
Changes in the Estimated Budgetary Impact of the ACA’s Coverage Provisions Since March 2010

When the ACA and other proposals that led up to that legislation were being considered by the Congress in 2009 and 2010, CBO and JCT prepared estimates of those proposals’ budgetary effects over the 2010–2019 period. In the estimate prepared in March 2010, CBO and JCT projected that the provisions of the ACA related to health insurance coverage would cost the federal government $788 billion between 2010 and 2019. The latest projections extend the original ones by four years, corresponding to the shift in the regular 10-year projection period since 2009, and the estimated cost of the ACA’s insurance coverage provisions between 2013 and 2023 is $1,329 billion. However, the projections for each given year have changed little, on net, since March 2010—as shown in the figure. (See the blog post from March 2012 for a longer discussion of the multiyear comparison.)

Comparison of CBO's Estimates of the Net Budgetary Impact of the Coverage Provisions of the Affordable Care Act

Those amounts do not reflect the total budgetary impact of the ACA. That legislation included many other provisions that, on net, will reduce budget deficits. On balance, CBO and JCT have estimated that the legislation as a whole will reduce deficits over a 10-year period. (We have not updated our estimates of the total budgetary impact of the ACA; for our most recent estimate of the budgetary impact of repealing the law, see the Letter to the Honorable John Boehner providing an estimate for H.R. 6079, the Repeal of Obamacare Act.)
Changes in the Estimated Budgetary Impact of the ACA’s Coverage Provisions Since August 2012

For the 2013–2022 period that was covered by our previous projections in August 2012, CBO and JCT now estimate that the net budgetary impact of the ACA’s provisions related to health insurance coverage is $1,165 billion—within $1 billion of our estimate last August. However, various components of the estimate have changed, reflecting legislative, regulatory, and administrative actions, along with economic and technical changes made since the previous estimate was published.

The most important changes to our estimates include the following (for more discussion, see pages 59 through 61 of the recent Outlook):

    Lower marginal tax rates under the American Taxpayer Relief Act reduce the tax benefit associated with employment-based health insurance and will lead to a greater reduction in such coverage and higher enrollment in insurance exchanges than previously estimated by CBO and JCT.
    The Department of Health and Human Services has indicated that, to receive full funding from the federal government for the costs of newly eligible beneficiaries through 2016, states must expand eligibility for Medicaid to the levels specified in the act. Relative to previous projections, that guidance results in a small increase in the estimate of the number of people who will be enrolled in Medicaid and a small reduction in the estimate of the number who will be covered through the exchanges.
    CBO and JCT have slightly reduced their estimates of the rates at which people will enroll in the insurance exchanges or Medicaid as the expansion of coverage is implemented—a process that had already been anticipated to occur gradually. That change reflects the agencies’ judgment about a combination of factors, including the readiness of exchanges to provide a broad array of new insurance options, the ability of state Medicaid programs to absorb new beneficiaries, and people’s responses to the availability of the new coverage. As a result, revised estimates for 2014 and 2015 reflect more people with employment-based coverage and more who will be uninsured than in the previous projections. CBO and JCT project that those factors will wane in importance over the following two years. In the current projection, the number of people gaining coverage through the exchanges rises from 7 million in 2014 to 24 million in 2016, and the number gaining coverage through Medicaid rises from 8 million in 2014 to 11 million in 2016.
    CBO has revised its analysis of the health status of newly eligible Medicaid enrollees; they now are expected to be healthier and therefore to require less costly care than CBO had previously projected.
    CBO has refined its projections of people’s income so that slightly more tax filers and their dependents are now expected to have income that will qualify them for subsidies through the exchanges and for enrollment in Medicaid, resulting in a larger reduction in employment-based coverage in response to changes made by the act than previously had been estimated.
    CBO and JCT have revised their projections of insurance coverage in the absence of the legislation. In later years, that revision shows a larger number of people with employment-based coverage and a smaller number without insurance, compared with earlier projections. That change, combined with the changes in marginal tax rates and the adjustments to projected income discussed above, leads to a larger projected net reduction in employment-based coverage under the ACA, from 4 million in the August 2012 projections to 7 million in the February 2013 projections.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44008

[Vance2335]

Lets wait till the rates come out and people are FORCED to buy insurance. Lets wait to see how much burden is going to be put on America to pay for all of this.

You get information from 2 that support Obamacare. CBO says this will be a lot of money for Americans to pay.