Posted on 09/02/2010 2:13:50 PM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom
The smart folks at RAND — an actual real-life think tank, as opposed to an ideological group masquerading under the think-tank name — have taken a look at what’s likely to happen to health insurance coverage as a result of the health-care reform package signed into law earlier this year.
Among other things, the RAND study published in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that work-based insurance will grow in importance under the reform, a prediction that “is very robust to variations in modeling assumptions.”
In other words, they’re pretty damn sure about it.
“Although the model allows employers to drop coverage in response to the reform, we estimate that the law will result in a large net increase in employer-sponsored insurance offers. We predict that the number of workers offered coverage will increase from 115.1 million (84.6% of the approximately 136.0 million U.S. workers) to 128.7 million (94.6%) after the reform. This increase is not driven by penalties levied on employers with more than 50 workers. In fact, the probability of being offered coverage increases proportionately more for workers at small firms than for workers at large firms, even though small firms are not subject to penalties….
The large increase in offers provided by small businesses is driven primarily by two factors: greater demand for coverage by workers due to individual penalties for being uninsured and the availability of new, often lower-cost insurance options (because of administrative savings, for example) for small businesses that offer coverage on the exchanges.”
The folks at RAND further believe that insurance plans offered through exchanges set up under the law will be particularly appealing to business, “owing to wider risk pooling, low administrative costs, and expanded choices.” In fact, the study predicts, “firms making decisions on the basis of costs and benefits of their insurance options, including new subsidies and penalties, will frequently choose to offer insurance rather than to drop coverage and allow their workers to buy individual coverage.”
Of course, that’s not quite the health-care Armageddon that political opponents of the proposal have predicted. But hey, why listen to research conducted by non-partisan, highly trained experts in health care analysis when you can believe people such as John Boehner instead?
Your cartoon says it all. Exactly right!
“There are no positives to “Obamacare”. It’s a power grab and that’s all it is. It has nothing to do with healthcare.”
Exactly. It nothing more and nothing less than that.
Evil incompetent bastards that pass something they haven’t even read need to be fired, tarred and feathered, and sent packing.
Agree with both of you. I don’t care if I would get a pony and a huge pot full of gold under obamacare : The personal mandate is such an egregious offense gainst personal freedom and individual rights that any good (if there IS any)via obamacare is completely negated by its existence.
My daughter worked for Rand Corp. She was involved in end-of-life issues. She reported to the wife of Americans United for Separation of Church and State”s Rev Barry Lynn.
• Th e estimated $753 billion cumulative increase in personal health spending between 2010 and 2019 represents an increase of 3.3% over the status quo projection.
• Between 2010 and 2019, cumulative federal spending on subsidies for those who obtain insurance through the Exchange would be $445 billion. Approximately 53% of the 25 million people purchasing insurance through the Exchange in 2019 would receive a federal subsidy.
• Medicaid spending is projected to increase by $559 billion between 2010 and 2019, a 21% increase over the projected trend in the status quo.
• Penalty payments for those not complying with the mandates would total $75 billion from individuals and $108 billion from employers between 2013 and 2019.
• We project that, in 2019, average insurance premiums in the large group (employer) market will be at least 2% lower than projected in the status quo.
• We project some increase in insurance premiums for the most common nongroup policies. The increase is higher in the first few years after the reform (8%) and becomes negligible by 2019, with an average increase over the whole period of about 4%. When the market stabilizes (2016–2019), the premiums will be about 2% higher than would have been observed in the nongroup market without the policy change. The presence of subsidies will further soften the effect of this increase on the population.
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