Just 4 days ago (Friday), you'll recall that both Investor's Business Daily (and myself in my response to them) made a big deal out of a report from the Taxpayer Advocate dept. of the IRS which gave the initial estimates of how many households/people ended up paying the Individual Shared Responsibility Payment (aka the "individual mandate tax"), and just how much that ended up generating in tax revenue.
According to that report, about 6.6 million tax returns (this distinction is vitally important) ended up paying a total of roughly $1.254 billion, or $190 per return.
Before I get to the actual visualization itself, some important disclaimers/caveats:
Most of the numbers shown are rough estimates.
All estimates have been rounded off to the nearest 100,000, and in most cases to the nearest million.
There's a tremendous amount of churn in the U.S. insurance market; tens of thousands of people are shifting around from one form of coverage to another daily.
Some of the numbers shown were as of a given month, while others were quarterly or even yearly averages.
In some cases, the estimates shown are extrapolations from earlier hard numbers. (for example, "Medicare/Medicaid Dual Enrollment" went from 8.6 million to 10.2 million between 2006 - 2011; at that rate I estimated it at roughly 11 million in 2013 and 12 million as of this summer)
Some estimates are composites from several different reliable sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid, the Kaiser Family Foundation, Gallup, etc.
I originally attempted to keep everyone in a single column. Needless to say, with 320-odd million people involved, it proved impossible to make this fit on the screen, so I've moved Employer-Sponsored Insurance (which makes up nearly half the total) onto a second column. Even so, I'm pushing it.
As a result of all of the above (not to mention population growth), it's entirely possible--in fact, quite likely--that some of the estimates shown are off by a bit. Employer-Sponsored Insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, in particular, could be too high or low by up to 1-2 million people each given the large numbers involved.
With all of that out of the way, here's my best crack at trying to portray the current healthcare coverage status of every single person in the United States of America as of October 2013 (just prior to the launch of the ACA exchanges and Medicaid expansion program) and July 2015. Comments welcome. I've added some additional notes below the graphic.
Obamacare enrollees on average have one-third fewer choices when it comes to picking doctors and hospitals than those on regular commercial plans, a new study says.
But its authors claim that’s not necessarily a bad thing. And others in the health-care arena believe the findings are misleading and don’t tell the whole story.
The study from Washington, D.C.-based Avalere Health finds that those under Affordable Care Act plans have roughly 66% of the choices compared with those in commercial plans, and the number of options may vary depending on the type of physician needed.
Under Obamacare, enrollees have access to roughly 58% of the oncologists and cardiologists that commercial plan members have. The average goes up when it comes to hospitals, as those using the public exchanges have access to 76% of those care facilities.
Huh. This is kind of weird...two completely different stories, from two different reporters (although both are via the Associated Press) about the latest Medicaid expansion numbers from two of the largest states at opposite ends of the country: California and New York.
This wouldn't be surprising if there had been a major report/press release regarding Medicaid enrollment nationally broken out by state, of course, but as far as I know there hasn't been (the last report from CMS came out in early June, only runs through March and doesn't distinguish between "traditional" and "expanded" Medicaid anyway).
In any event, I'm happy to report that the numbers actually line up pretty closely with what I already had estimated for each state:
It's a quiet Sunday afternoon and everyone (including myself) is focused on Donald Trump's latest blatherings, so I figured I'd throw this in.
I think I read about this guy a couple of years ago, and remembered being impressed, but I didn't actually watch his TED Talk until today.
I'm eternally grateful that I did. He articulates every thought I've had swirling around in my head the past few years about capitalism and economics, but he does so in a far more coherent, comprehensive and logical manner than I could ever hope to. Plus, for me it's just theoretical; he speaks from deep knowledge.
Take 20 minutes out of your day and watch it all the way through without interruption.
Democrats were naturally declared the big winners of last month’s King v. Burwell Supreme Court decision. That ruling, after all, saved the party’s most significant legislative accomplishment in decades: The Affordable Care Act (ACA).
But Obamacare has not simply been an ideological victory for the Democratic Party. The percentage of Democrats with health insurance has increased dramatically since the ACA’s marketplace went online in October 2013, according to weekly surveys conducted by YouGov for the Economist. In fact, the display below suggests that Democrats’ uninsured rates have essentially been cut in half under Obamacare.
Breakthrough — Utah GOP leaders reach a deal on Medicaid expansion
Republican leaders have agreed to a broad, conceptual framework for expanding Medicaid to insure tens of thousands of low-income Utahns with a plan that would call on medical providers to pay for the new health coverage.
The so-called Gang of Six — Gov. Gary Herbert, Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, House Speaker Greg Hughes, House Majority Leader Jim Dunnigan and Sen. Brian Shiozawa — huddled this week constructing the skeleton of a new Medicaid plan to replace the governor's Healthy Utah and the House's Utah Cares proposals.
On Friday, they announced their agreement, saying it was sustainable and would protect other key areas of the budget.
Before I get into the meat of the headline, I just wanted to point something out (bear with me, there's a reason for this):
Exhibit A:
October, 2013: Several million people receive cancellation notices from their health insurance companies, stating that their current policies will be discontinued effective 12/31/13 because they don't meet the Affordable Care Act's minimum coverage requirements. Much outrage and gnashing of teeth follows because President Obama had repeatedly stated that "If you like your plan you can keep it" (which, as I noted over a year ago, was an absurd thing for him to promise without including any caveats since there's no way of guaranteeing that the company won't go out of business, leave the state or simply decide to discontinue that policy for their own reasons which may or may not have anything to do with ACA compliance).
November, 2013: In response to the "You Can Keep It" brouhaha, President Obama and the HHS Dept. announce a 1-year (later quietly extended to up to 3 years) "transitional" policy for non-compliant plans. Some states take them up on it; some don't.
July, 2015: Republicans and other ACA critics complain that allowing the "transitional" policy extension is partly to blame for significant rate hikes expected to show up in 2016.
CONCLUSION: Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Over at Balloon Juice, Richard Mayhew has posted a great piece illustrating, once again, the importance of looking past the scary headlines to find out 1) what the true picture is (ie, taking all of the rate changes into account--not just the biggest ones--and weighting them by proportionate market share), and 2) what's going on with your situation, not someone else's:
As expected, the initial ask by insurers is being revised down. It is easier for insurers to get state regulators to agree to a lower number from the initial than to get the regulators to agree to a higher number than the initial ask. That allows regulators and their champions to point to a clear example of their effectiveness at protecting the public. This is a bit of a kabuki. In my state, when Mayhew Insurance and our competitors submit rates, there is a de facto implicit fudge factor built into the rates (usually as excess reserve accumulation) that everyone expects to be cut by the third round of review.
