Category: Politics As Usual

Spooky Obamacare tale debunked

~ susie

It’s a shame that our lazy lapdog media, with rare exceptions, are scaring the shit out of people with Obamacare horror stories. Look how easily debunked this one was by Michael Hiltzik, the wonderfully conscientious LA Times reporter:

The bottom line is that Cavallaro’s assertion that “there’s nothing affordable about the Affordable Care Act,” as she put it Tuesday on NBC Channel 4, is the product of her own misunderstandings, abetted by a passel of uninformed and incurious news reporters.

I talked with Cavallaro, 60, after her CNBC appearance. Let’s walk through what she told me.

Her current plan, from Anthem Blue Cross, is a catastrophic coverage plan for which she pays $293 a month as an individual policyholder. It requires her to pay a deductible of $5,000 a year and limits her out-of-pocket costs to $8,500 a year. Her plan also limits her to two doctor visits a year, for which she shoulders a copay of $40 each. After that, she pays the whole cost of subsequent visits.

This fits the very definition of a nonconforming plan under Obamacare. The deductible and out-of-pocket maximums are too high, the provisions for doctor visits too skimpy.

As for a replacement plan, she says she was quoted $478 a month by her insurance broker, but that’s a lot more than she’ll really be paying. Cavallaro told me she hasn’t checked the website of Covered California, the state’s health plan exchange, herself. I did so while we talked.

Here’s what I found. I won’t divulge her current income, which is personal, but this year it qualifies her for a hefty federal premium subsidy.

At her age, she’s eligible for a good “silver” plan for $333 a month after the subsidy — $40 a month more than she’s paying now. But the plan is much better than her current plan — the deductible is $2,000, not $5,000. The maximum out-of-pocket expense is $6,350, not $8,500. Her co-pays would be $45 for a primary care visit and $65 for a specialty visit — but all visits would be covered, not just two.

Is that better than her current plan? Yes, by a mile.

If she wanted to pay less, Cavallaro could opt for lesser coverage in a “bronze” plan. She could buy one from the California exchange for as little as $194 a month. From Anthem, it’s $256, or $444 a year less than she’s paying now. That buys her a $5,000 deductible (the same as she’s paying today) but the out-of-pocket limit is lower, $6,350. Office visits would be $60 for primary care and $70 for specialties, but again with no limit on the number of visits. Factor in the premium savings, and it’s hard to deny that she’s still ahead.

Cavallaro told me a couple of things that are worth considering. First, what she likes about her current plan is that she can go to any doctor of her choice and any hospital. That’s not entirely true, because her current plan with Anthem does favor a network. Plainly, however, it’s broad enough to serve her purposes. She’s concerned that the new plans will offer smaller networks, which is probably true, though it’s not necessarily true that the new networks will exclude her favorite doctors, hospitals or prescription formularies.

She also mentioned that her annual income fluctuates. It can be substantially lower, or substantially higher, than it is this year. What if next year she earns too much to qualify for the subsidy? Also a fair point — at her current income, the subsidy is worth more than $200 a month to her. But that’s not the same as saying that “there’s nothing affordable about the Affordable Care Act,” because at her current income, the act is vastly more affordable to her than what she’s paying now.

When she told Channel 4 that “for the first time in my whole life, I will be without insurance,” it’s hard to understand what she was talking about. (Channel 4 didn’t ask.) Better plans than she has now are available for her to purchase today, some of them for less money.

The sad truth is that Cavallaro has been very poorly served by the health insurance industry and the news media. It seems that Anthem didn’t adequately explain her options for 2014 when it disclosed that her current plan is being canceled. If her insurance brokers told her what she says they did, they failed her. And the reporters who interviewed her without getting all the facts produced inexcusably shoddy work — from Maria Bartiromo on down. They not only did her a disservice, but failed the rest of us too.

By the way

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

The whack jobs in the House of Representatives (helped along by some asshole corporate Democrats) today voted to roll back Dodd-Frank.

Now, let me reassure you that it’s not going anywhere in the Senate, and Obama has already said he would veto it. But imagine the sheer arrogance, the audacity of these people, five years after a crash from which we are far from recovered, that they would try to put the perps back in charge.

They really are traitors to this nation.

America’s hunger crisis

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

It’s not as new as the media seems to think, but I suppose it’s better late than never. When I went to the bank yesterday, the teller told me 50 percent of the people in her church rely on the food pantry.

I want to tell you that if you read this blog and you’re hungry, tell me. We will get you some food.

In the 22 years that Swami Durga Das has managed New York’s River Fund Food Pantry, he has never seen hunger like this. Each Saturday, hundreds of hungry people descend on the pantry’s headquarters, an unassuming house on a residential block. The first people arrive around 2 am, forming a line that will wrap around the block before Das even opens his doors.

“Each week there’s new people,” Das told MSNBC.com. “The numbers have just skyrocketed.”

The new clients are diverse—working people, seniors, single mothers—but many of them share something in common: they represent the millions of Americans who fell victim to food insecurity when the Great Recession hit in 2009, but didn’t benefit from the economic recovery.

People walk in from Fulton Street and register their information in the Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger office.
And the worst may be yet to come.

Food activists expect a “Hunger Cliff” on November 1, when automatic cuts to food stamp benefits will send a deluge of new hungry people to places like the River Fund Food Pantry, which are already strained.

“I thought we were busy now; I don’t know what it will be like then, because all of those people getting cut will definitely be accessing a pantry,” said Das. “It definitely will be a catastrophe.”

Those cuts were never supposed to be catastrophic; instead they were intended to gradually wind food stamp spending back down to normal levels, after boosting them in response to the 2008 financial collapse.

In the aftermath of that collapse, as employment stagnated and poverty increased, food stamp use exploded: From a little over 26 million users in 2007 to almost 47 million in 2012, an increase of 77%. At the same time, the average benefits per person rose from $96.18 to $133.41.

The 2009 stimulus bill raised the cap on food stamp benefits and pumped an additional $45.2 billion into the program over the next several years. But as provisions of the law expire, the program is scheduled to receive a $5 billion cut over the next year alone. Those cuts will reduce monthly benefits for every single food stamp recipient in the country; a family of four will receive $36 less per month, on average.

Billions more in cuts are scheduled to occur in the following two years, despite the fact that food insecurity in America has not even begun to return to pre-recession levels.

“I believe we have a hunger crisis,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, who sits on a House committee responsible for the food stamp program. “When 50 million people in the richest country on the planet are hungry, that’s a crisis.”

Frank Pascrell has had it with you people

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

I have a favorite T-shirt that says, “I’m not angry, I’m from Philly.” I bought it because people always seem to think I’m being hostile when I’m just a little more, um, direct than most people. (If I ever do go ballistic, you’ll know.) My neighbors across the bridge in New Jersey are just as good at going after someone who needs a good smackdown, and here’s a fine example from yesterday’s hearing on the tech problems with the Obamacare website, when Rep. Bill Pascrell gets pissed off at all the Republicans playing their tiny violins. Via Mediaite:

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) rose from his seat on Tuesday during a congressional hearing into the Affordable Care Act’s problematic roll-out. He accused his Republican colleagues in the House of dishonestly seeking to identify the problems with the ACA because they would prefer to see it repealed entirely.

Pascrell began by insisting that, even though Democrats opposed Medicare Part D in the Bush Era, they worked to make sure that the program was a success.

He became animated as he said that Democrats put aside their opposition to Bush in order to make a policy objective work for the good of the American public. “And how many of you stood up to do that?” Pascrell said, exploding out of his chair. “None. Zero.”

“What are you going to do about the approximately 17 million children with preexisting conditions who can no longer be denied health insurance coverage?” Pascrell asked his Republican colleagues. “We want to go back and want to say you are no longer covered any longer. Are you going to tell the parents of those kids?”

Pascrell blew up at Rep. Tim Griffin (R-AR)* who insisted that the GOP has put forward a number of proposals to ensure that low-income people in need of care receive it.

chin

“Are you really serious?” Pascrell shot back. “After what we’ve gone through and what we’ve gone through in the last three and a half years?”

“We’ve gone through 44 votes, 48 votes now of you trying to dismantle the legislation,” he concluded. “You call that cooperation?”

He really wanted to say, “Are you fucking kidding me?” but he knew he was on C-SPAN.

I would be happy if a Democratic congress member did this every single day. Maybe the NJ Democratic delegation can teach them.

You can send Frank some fan mail here.

*A wingnut who’s leaving Congress after just two terms, allegedly to spend more time “with my family.”

While I won’t hold my breath

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

It does seem like the Grand Bargain has been abandoned, at least for now. We’ll see:

Even Obama’s proposed grand bargain leaves tax rates in place, and raises revenue by reducing tax deductions. The plausible small deal would probably entail something even smaller — a user fee here or there, perhaps a couple of high-profile tax loopholes. As I pointed out, it’s notable that Cole and Obama have not only moved toward each other’s position on revenue but crossed over, with Obama seeming to demand even less revenue than Cole is now offering.

Obama’s budget offers $200 billion in mandatory budget savings that are not major safety-net programs. It’s all completely boring stuff, that doesn’t touch major cornerstones of the New Deal, but adds up: cuts to farm subsidies, cuts to retirement benefits for federal workers, aviation fees, higher contributions for unemployment insurance, selling off under-utilized federal property — I’d go on, but you’re probably already half asleep. This is the tedious guts of the likely agreement that will take shape.

As I wrote, plenty could go wrong. A conceptual agreement between the main negotiators is only the first step. Then we get to the conservative freak-out. Failure remains a highly plausible outcome, but, if you look closely enough, the signs of a desire on both sides to make a deal are there.

Progressive Bill DeBlasio on track for historic NYC win

~ susie
Democrat on track for historic win as New York mayor (via AFP)

Democratic Party candidate Bill de Blasio is on track to win a historic victory as mayor of New York next week, according to a new poll published Monday. The New York Times/Siena College poll predicted de Blasio was certain to win the November 5 election…

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