Yes. BCBSTN is not getting out of the insurance business, just the Obamacare portion they can readily shed.

I'd assumed the thread's context made it clear we were talking about that, but it's better not to assume. Thank you for clarifying.

Yes, yes, and yes, except--how does Medicaid expansion relate to the failing exchanges? People permitted on the exchanges make too much money to qualify for the Medicaid expansion anyhow, right?

The variables you mention would have all been dealt with (at least to a degree) had the state of Tennessee not opted out in favor of Haslam's superior state plan. (What was that plan again?)

Some of the states participating in the ACA are actually seeing rates go down. Of course, most of those states have governments that their citizens actually demand to function.

Those claims are being made, but are bogus or worse.

Critical-thinking check: "How," one asks, "does anyone imagine the ACA lowered costs?" By adding taxes, fees, paperwork, bureaucrats, regs, requirements, and people who don't pay? That's silly.

In reality, record numbers of people are putting off needed care due to the higher cost (Gallup).

The excess health care inflation rate(*) is higher, not lower. So when people point to a lower health care inflation rate and credit the ACA, they're pointing to a lower overall inflation rate, not any improvement from the ACA.

*(the growth rate of health care costs; inflation specifically attributable to health care, above and beyond ordinary inflation)

Example: CNBC reports "Overall health spending rose by 5.3 percent in 2014," but the CPI only increased 0.8 percent. BLS That means health care increased a historically-high 4.5 percent faster than inflation.

Also, do not make the mistake of confusing health care spending with the cost of health care--those are not the same. People are buying less because of the higher prices. That is not the same as moderating price increases.

Obamacare has drastically reduced the quality of coverage, too. Despite sharply higher premiums, you now have higher copays and deductibles. That means you're paying more and getting less. Individual policies under Obamacare are beginning to universally resemble the "bad apple" policies the President said we needed Obamacare to replace.

The White House doesn't help. They've been funneling huge payments to the insurance companies under the table to keep down rates on the exchanges. And then, they publicly tout that the artificially-low rates aren't going up as much as expected.

The White House also takes undeserved credit for large numbers of people such as 26-year-old "children" insured on their parents' policy, and others.

It's a mess. But no, it's not better, and it's not holding down increases. Those are flatly false.

"You didn't read the article."

I did. It's just wrong (or dishonest, you pick which). Sarah Kliff gets consistently low marks for exactly this sort of specious and incomplete 'reporting.' It takes pages and pages of boring explanations correct her.

"But it has exceeded its goal, if the goal was to increase the percentage of people who have health insurance, which it was."

No, it hasn't exceeded its goal. The "goal" was 24 million on the exchanges by 2016; only 12 million signed up.

And it was supposed to save us $2,500 a year. (Cue the laugh track here...)

If the goal was to "raise everyone's costs a lot to insure not very many people," yes, it has done that in spades.

2013: CBO projected 24 million people would be covered by the now-failing exchanges, (first table, line #9) costing the federal government $96 billion dollars in 2016 (second table, line #2), plus $54 extra billion for 11 million new Medicaid-ers (same tables).

But only 12 million signed up on the exchanges, half of the 24 million CBO projected.

2016: CBO reports $43 billion in subsidies for 12 million exchange people, plus $64 billion for 11 million added to Medicaid. $43 billion + $64 billion = $107 billion total, for 23 million assistance recipients.

SUMMARY
2013 projection: $96 billion + $54 billion = $150 billion projected cost for subsidizing 35 million people. $150 billion / 35 million = $4,300 each.

2016: $107 billion / 23 million people = $4,650 each.

This is what I meant when I said the per-capita costs were higher than promised, and that the overall cost was only lower than projected because the program was failing (people aren't signing up).

(That figure will rise dramatically when the exchanges' new price-hikes get factored into next year's federal subsidy outlays--you heard it here, first.)

It's not public assistance. It's a requirement to buy insurance from the private sector. People are griping about the costs, not clamoring for your proverbial "free stuff."

Of course it's public assistance. The taxpayers are paying for about 80% of ten million people's health care premiums on the exchanges, and essentially 100% for eleven million added to Medicaid (another federal poverty program). What else can one call that but public assistance? Obamacare is just food stamps for health care.

"We could have a real debate in this country"

That's what I'm trying to do. That's why I just spent several hours this morning (which I'll rue this evening, as I work longer on a TGIF to pay back the time) posting links and fact-checking real figures--to try to reach some better understanding between us. All of us. Based on truth, and how to make this really better.

Or we could just cram through whatever broken boondoggle we want with a pack of lies, then gripe about people not liking it and helping us 'fix' it afterwards. It's their fault, you see.

"and in Congress about how to fix the undesirable side effects, starting with costs"

The "undesirable side effects" are inherent. Forcing people to buy insurance to overpay for over-priced medical care does not fix the problem of over-priced medical care. It makes it worse.

Obamacare raises the intrinsic cost of providing care by injecting more steps, costs, overhead, oversight, meddlers, and people who need to be paid into each transaction.

"but Congress--just like you--doesn't want to do that at all. It would be capitulation for modern Republicans."

Sorry, I'm not responsible. The people who passed this are. I drove to Washington to oppose it, warning of all the things that are happening, things that you now want me to fix.

It isn't possible. Obamacare was passed on loads and loads of falsities and false promises, of adding benefits while simultaneously reducing middlemen and costs. It does the opposite. That's not my fault.

He doesn't understand the industry. I didn't even attempt to explain the fundamentals of actuarial tables and how costs and rates are derived.

Traveler is a simpleton attempting to understand a complex problem at a grade school level. He will hold his breath and cry neener neener when you lay down facts.

The doctor in question said it was a requirement of Obamacare's electronic health records, which squares with the law. Google HIT and EHR.

I know it's an article of faith that getting people on the dole is a great good, a service to humanity, but I think people are happier and better-served getting off welfare rather than trapped in it.

Obamacare has swelled Medicaid by 11 million (including some who were previously insured), and is now subsidizing care for 10 million people on the exchanges. It is a giant welfare-program, a handout--public assistance--plain and simple.

The government hasn't gotten its Obamacare website working even to this day. You're arguing they're more sophisticated, competent, more efficient technologists?

Numerous studies have shown that EHRs waste time, reduce the number of patients doctors can see each day, add to overall costs. Most doctors hate 'em, and yours is plainly happier not having to keep them. But underlings do, and the cost is still there, hidden, only greater.

But this all goes to the sheer arrogance of Obamacare, presuming to tell doctors how to keep their records. As if the bureaucrats knew how to do the doctors' jobs better than the doctors do. Stupid people, taking charge. And think they can do better. It's the fatal conceit. Stunning.

This statement ignores the fact that many of the pre-ACA 'plans' were actually devices by which insurance companies charged customers an incredibly reasonable rate because those plans covered very little and paid out very little, leaving customers effectively uninsured (for a reasonable fee). That does nothing to control costs.

Raising the deductibles (as Obamacare has done) prods more and more people into shopping for care. But previously people voluntarily chose this and stashed the savings in health savings accounts. Now they pay higher premiums, save nothing, and face higher expenses even with 'comprehensive' Obamacare insurance that costs a bundle.

You have to be be willfully ignorant to believe that this won't result in more efficient and more effective healthcare, which will save costs. Oh, and it'll save lives, too.

I know from first-hand experience that's a pile of nonsense. I spent winter and spring of this year, every day for months locked in battle together with people using those records, and caught errors over, and over, and over. Bogus entries, missed data; workers, distracted by their record-keeping duties, missing life-threatening emergencies. I SAW it. Huge time-waste, and they HATED it.

But if you want a more public example, that Ebola patient (Duncan) who went the the Dallas ER? His EHR, laboriously entered, had all the data from his first visit to suggest Ebola, but no one read it. They sent him home with acetaminophen and antibiotics instead.
(link...)

The hospital has repeatedly changed its account of what the medical team knew when it released Duncan from the emergency room early on Sept. 26.

A few days later, on Sept. 30, it initially said Duncan did not tell the staff he had been in Africa. On Oct. 1, it said Duncan's nurse had been aware of the Africa connection but did not share that information with the rest of the medical team.

The next day, the hospital blamed a flaw in its electronic health-records systems for not making Duncan's travel history directly accessible to his doctor.

A day later, on Oct. 3, the hospital issued a statement saying Duncan's travel history had been available to all hospital workers, including doctors, who treated him during his initial visit.

1,400 pages of records--who can read that? Two nurses got Ebola.

Imagining what's good for others is exactly the problem with government mandates--people who don't know, commanding the ones who do.