5 thoughts on “Coffman announces Obamacare telephone calls and “meetings” but no promised town hall”

1. Don't you wish for a job where you could choose who to talk to?

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2. A Deep Dive Into 4 GOP Talking Points On Health Care

   1. The individual health insurance market is collapsing. 

   — House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), on Meet the Press, Feb. 5, “the law is literally in the middle of a collapse.”

   — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), on the Senate floor Jan. 9: “Obamacare continues to unravel at every level, leaving Americans to pick up the pieces.”

    legislation written by Republicans has led to some of the trouble in exchanges. Most directly, Congress limited federal payouts to insurers who encountered higher-than-expected costs in the exchanges. Republicans called the payments “insurance company bailouts,” even though similar federal measures have been used in other markets, such as the Medicare drug plans implemented more than a decade ago.

   Still, the result was that the Department of Health and Human Services was able to provide insurers with only 13 percent of the money they were promised under the law in 2015. That shortfall led directly to the implosion of most of the nonprofit co-op health plans, and some private insurers referenced the shortfalls when they pulled out of the marketplaces this year. Yet when House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., noted at a Feb. 2 hearing that “only five out of the original 23 insurance co-ops remain. … They tried it, it didn’t work,” he did not mention the loss of the federal payments to cover early losses. 

   2. Out-of-pocket spending is too high.

   — Speaker Ryan, at CNN Town Hall Jan 12: “Deductibles are so high it doesn’t even feel like you’ve got insurance anymore.”

   — Senate Majority Leader McConnell (in a CNN op-ed): “It’s raising health care costs by previously unimaginable levels, and it’s hurting the very people it was intended to help.”

   Republicans’ most popular proposals for replacing current individual insurance plans — cutting back on required benefits and giving more people access to tax-preferred health savings accounts — would likely increase out-of-pocket spending for those who use health services (although it would be less expensive for people who are healthy all year long).

   Letting people buy more bare-bones policies “means insurance doesn’t kick in until people have very significant medical bills,” said Ayanian.

   Former Obama administration health official Sherry Glied, on a panel at the National Health Policy Conference in January, asked if having a $10,000 or $20,000 deductible (as some proposals would allow) with perhaps $1,000 in a health savings account “is better than having no coverage at all? Lots of people would go bankrupt at $20,000,” particularly if they don’t have the resources to fund the HSA with their own savings. 

   3. Medicaid patients can’t find doctors to treat them.

   — Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), on the Senate floor Jan. 9: “It is the illusion of coverage without the power of access.”

   — Speaker Ryan, from CNN Town Hall Jan. 12: “… so our concern is, that people on Medicaid can’t get a doctor and if you can’t get a doctor, what good is your coverage?”

   Benjamin Sommers of the Harvard School of Public Health, who has studied the issue, said the idea that patients with Medicaid can’t get care comes from looking overall at how many doctors and other providers accept the program’s generally lower payments and higher administrative burdens. “But that’s not the best way to study this. The best question … is when you talk to the people with coverage and ask them if they can get the care they need.”

   And he said “study after study” shows that “when people get Medicaid, their access to care improves dramatically,” including greater use of primary care, preventive screening, and care of chronic conditions. “Even with some potential limitations of provider participation, patients are much better off once they get that [Medicaid] coverage,” he said. 

   4. The ACA has reduced jobs.

   — Tom Price, the secretary of Health and Human Services, during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Jan. 18: “The ACA has decreased the workforce by the equivalent of 2 million FTE’s (full time employees).”

   — Senate HELP Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), on the Senate floor Jan. 9: “Across the country … employers have cut jobs to afford Obamacare costs.”

   But a careful reading of the CBO report notes that the decline they estimate would be due less to employers cutting back, and more to older workers voluntarily opting to work fewer hours — perhaps because of fears of losing their premium subsidies or their Medicaid eligibility — or retiring because they no longer had to work in order to get health insurance.

   It is true that some employers cut worker hours below the 30-hour threshold to avoid the employer coverage requirement.

   However, the strengthening economy, including in the health care sector, has shrunk the part-time workforce and expanded full-time employment well beyond the numbers reduced by the Affordable Care Act, according to most analysts.

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3. Why should any lawmaker subject himself to paid liberal abuse?

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   1. Paid?  I'm still waiting for my check.  Anybody else here get paid yet?  Hey Moldy, why don't you give me your address.  I'll send you the invoice.  Then you can pay me and then you'd be telling the truth. 

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4. Ah, this is Coffman's "Tell me only what I want to hear" Tour

   Brave Sir Robin strikes again

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