Oh, look! The uninsured rate fell again!
As any conservative can tell you, Obamacare is a job-killing “train wreck.” Not only is it a job killer, there is no way that it could possibly work. Except, of course, it does.
When I last visited this issue, the percentage of adults without health insurance had fallen from its peak of 18.0% in the third quarter of 2013 to 13.4% in the second quarter of 2014. Now, as Gallup (via Matt Yglesias) shows us, it continues to fall, dropping to 11.9% in the first quarter of 2015, based on over 43,000 interviews throughout the quarter. This is a drop of exactly one percentage point from the fourth quarter of 2014, or about 2.4 million adults.
The gains that we have seen now through two enrollment cycles (Q4 2013 through Q1 2015) affect every major demographic group, as the following table from Gallup shows.
Especially notable are the gains for minorities (8.3 percentage points for Hispanics and 7.3 for African-Americans), those with income below $36,000 per year (8.7 points) and adults from 26-34 (7.4 points). But notice that even Americans making over $90,000 annually have seen their uninsured rate fall by 2.3 points, meaning that 40% of this group is no longer uninsured. This is actually the biggest percentage gain among any of the demographics Gallup surveyed.
As Gallup and Yglesias both point out, part of the reason for the improvement is the declining unemployment rate. But Yglesias is right on the money that this undermines the “job-killer” meme. In fact, as he shows, 2014 was “the best year of job creation since 1999.”
This is one argument conservatives aren’t going to win. In fact, it looks like they’ve already lost the vote of one Tea Partier who was able to retire early because of Obamacare.
Cross-posted from Middle Class Political Economist.
Job killing? I’m juggling the idea that medical care is the rust proof, unexportable industry of the future. Interesting (?): no locality has any competitive advantage over any other in demand or ability to supply. Would we discourage auto industry sales? What’s better to buy than your health.
Medical knowledge doubles every two years. Amazing stories every day at: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/
This may be an industry that the government can eventually support with taxation — again evenly across the landscape.
It is a product that no buyer can say “no” to. Even if the price is $1,000 a pill. New Hep-C drug cures 90% rate in three months. !00% for longer (not sure how). Firm bought it from a firm that was going to charge $350 a pill — big gamble. Cost firm $50 a month to produce. Why not give 100% cure — only costs firm appox $100 more?
Current gov supported med industry experiment: Obamacare expansion — gov pays 90-100%. Half of patients will show up somewhere anyway (my guess) and will drive up private insurance premiums to cover them or draw from other gov streams. 20+ Republican govs wont take the free money and the very decent paying medical jobs — even though their citizens sent the billions to Washington in the first place — all the while they give billions in tax breaks to attract some half decent paying jobs.
Seems the politics have to be fixed first. Reunionize now: sick RICO and the Hobbs Act on union busting. Unarguably arguable. While waiting for ultimate rulings busters should lay off — while we flash unionized the country out from under them. Any state that makes anti-organizing extortion a felony (sucks the blood out of democracy) automatically invokes
Dennis:
Where do I begin?
As a former pharma manufacturer at Baxter, the pills I was responsible for and the ointments were cents a piece. I could scrap several million tabs for a few hundred bucks.
“Current gov supported med industry experiment: Obamacare expansion — gov pays 90-100%.”
Two topics here:
– Obama Expansion is insurance for the uninsured provided by private healthcare companies.
– Obama Expansion is also the expansion of Medicaid as paid 100% initially and 90% later.
Two important distinctions you have glossed over.
Medicaid negotiates payments with the healthcare providers, hospitals, and pharma, the insurance companies have limited capability to do so as healthcare is bigger then they are. Healthcare providers will drive insurance premiums moreso than the insurance providers. Insurance companies are limited as to what they can take due to the MLR of 80 and 85% (read up on this). As Forbes has stated, insurance companies operate on as little as a 3% profit margin (you could theoretically hide things in cost). Claiming insurance companies will drive up premiums is simply not true mostly. It is the healthcare industry which increases the cost.
The solution to the healthcare industry as I have written “may” be to give the healthcare industry “common carrier” status which will bring them under regulation the same as transportation. Mostly the same as in Europe, the US gov needs to regulate healthcare industry costs in a two tier system of gov. and private insurance which would be mostly the same as Europe also.
Both Maggie and I have answered these issues several times now. Hopefully this helps you understand. Thanks!
Opps,
automatically invokes RICO and the Hobbs Act.
http://ricoact.com/
http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm02403.htm
Ken:
Quelle Surprise, the uninsured numbers dropped again!
So you’re telling me there are still 35,000,000 uninsured?
LJ:
and what is the makeup of the potential number or are you good at just throwing numbers out there?
from today’s WSJ: “If you mandate that people buy something, penalize them if they don’t and give it away to some, more people will end up with it. The proper response to this is: Duh. “
jed:
I would expect such an answer from you too.
M.jed: Yes, which is exactly where Yglesias started his analysis, taking on that very point.
Little John: 29 million adults. I’m not sure how many children. (Gallup survey only covers adults.)
Just add to the rust proof, export proof aspect of the medical economy: it is also recession proof — completely in so far as it is gov supported. Should we look forward (2050?) to it being 50% of a much expanded (via productivity growth) economy? Sounds robot resistant too.
“Current gov supported med industry experiment: Obamacare expansion — gov pays 90-100%.”
Meant to say Medicaid expansion.
M.Jed: “If you mandate that people buy something, penalize them if they don’t and give it away to some, more people will end up with it. The proper response to this is: Duh.“
How clever. Sure, it may seem like an obvious “duh”, but considering that many conservatives predicted the uninsured rate would be made worse by ACA, that statement actually hurts rather than helps the conservative case against ACA.
run-I was using 12% times the U.S. population (315,000,000).
LJ:
So, what is the breakdown of the number? 35 million just decided not to have insurance? If you are going to tout a numeric, you should know what makes it up in detail and there is a detail to that number which explains it and is typically ignored by Repubs and those who do not wish to understand.
We know where the two biggest chunks of remaining uninsured are:
1. Undocumented immigrants. Who are neither eligible or Medicaid or even for buying insurance on the Exchanges even if they pay full price (obviously no subsidy). The number I see thrown around for this category is 11 million.
2. People making under 140% of FPL in States that didn’t accept Medicaid expansion. The following link puts that at 4 million
http://kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/the-coverage-gap-uninsured-poor-adults-in-states-that-do-not-expand-medicaid-an-update/
Since not including undocumented workers (excuse me “illegal pond scum aliens and their anchor babies” – channeling Fox) was a non-negotiable demand of the Republicans and Blue Dogs and the non-expansion is the direct deliberate decision of Red State leges and governors it is laughable to blame these categories of uninsured on the inadequacies of the law.
So that is about half of the 35 million right there.
Bruce:
You are not supposed to tell him. I got the other details also.
That’s a good description of some of the uninsured. In terms of blaming the uninsured on the law why shouldn’t we? The law passed without any GOP votes so why blame them? It would seem to me that the Dems could have written the law any way they wanted. Granted the Blue Dogs demanded some concessions but that’s a party discipline problem I blame on poor party leadership. Medicaid expansion is also a problem with the law. Why not reimburse states 100% for all years? Then you would have backed red state government into a corner. The Dems were in control of the executive and the legislative branches so don’t they own any inadequacies?
LJ:
Nonsense. The re-repubs had adequate chance to participate. In private meetings after the election with McConnell and Boehner, they decided not to participate in developing an insurance plan. Obama met with Boehner and invited him to participate. Republicn leadership decided to stone wall under the Norquist pledge as well as ALEC. Who are you kidding.
What 90% is not enough when much of Medicaid is funded at ~60%? In Michigan and if the Repub Legislature does it properly the Medicaid Expansion is fully funded till 2027 if they do not use it for roads or pay raise. Republican State Senator was sick to his stomach healthcare was extended to 450,000 in Michigan .. . poor baby (face).
If you cite numeric out here, you better be able to explain them.
Little John: Again, 11.9% only holds for adults. I can’t find the source at the moment, but for children it’s under 10%, 8.7% iirc.
So 35 million would be a little high; maybe 33 million (3% of 70 million is 2.1 million).
If you google it with Angry Bear, you will find where I wrote about it. Illegal aliens, states not expanding, young adults, etc.
I find it very interesting. Supporters of ACA use fact, figures, and explanations of those facts and figures to boaster their position. Opponents of ACA use unsupported “fact” and very general, unexplained numbers to boaster their position.
It is very telling, and makes it fairly obvious where the truth is.