Who’d a thunk? Bloomberg is reporting that the drop in the number of uninsured patients has benefited hospital’s bottom line and has helped to slow down the rise of cost of healthcare…
HCA Holdings Inc. (HCA), the largest for-profit hospital chain, yesterday raised its forecast and reported a 6.6 percent drop in uninsured patients at its 165 hospitals, a reduction that grows to 48 percent in four states that expanded Medicaid, a top initiative of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. WellPoint Inc. (WLP), which made the biggest commitment of any publicly traded insurer to the Obamacare markets, raised its guidance today after handily beating analyst estimates for the quarter on rising membership linked to the overhaul…
About 8 million Americans signed up for private plans offered through the health law’s insurance exchanges by April, and another 6 million were added to Medicaid, the state-federal program for low-income people, according to the Obama administration.
The proportion of the U.S. population without insurance has fallen 3.7 percentage points to 13.4 percent since the end of the 2013, according to Gallup Inc., the lowest rate since the firm began surveys of coverage in 2008.
“We’re now halfway through the first year of expanded coverage under the Affordable Care Act and, so far, our experience has been very positive,” William Carpenter, LifePoint’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a July 25 conference call. The company operates 100 hospitals, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Medicare has been strengthened as well…
Medicare’s financial stability has been strengthened by the Affordable Care Act and other forces that have been subduing health-care spending, according to a new official forecast that says the fund covering the program’s hospital costs will remain solvent until 2030 — four years later than expected a year ago…
The trustees’ forecast said that the trust fund that pays for hospital care — Medicare Part A — has been strengthened significantly, with the date when it is predicted to start running short of money extended by 14 years since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010. The report also predicted that the insurance premiums that older Americans pay for the portion of Medicare that covers doctors’ visits and other outpatient care would probably remain the same for a third year in a row.
The health care delivery system in this country is probably the most misunderstood and least affordable of any health care system in any country in the world. The ACA did nothing to change that. The cost of Medicare has seen a small decline because the subsidies that it once received have been shifted to the people participating in the ACA. But overall medical costs are increasing. So are premium costs to buy insurance. Both for Medicare and other patients. Consumers under 65 don’t see the increases because of the ACA subsidizes them in the same way Medicare recipients were once subsidized. The real winners in this silly ACA legislation are private insurance companies whose profits are growing rapidly. This entire ACA exercise is a scam. Medicare for all.