Consumers Receive $9 Billion in Rebates 2011-2013 Due to Obamacare

[hoosier_daddy]

WASHINGTON -- An obscure Obamacare feature may net health insurance customers $332 million this year.

That's the total insurance companies will have to give back to customers this year under an Affordable Care Act provision designed to keep companies from overcharging consumers, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Thursday. Including this year, consumers will have recovered a total of $1.9 billion from insurance companies since the rule took effect in 2011, according to the department.

Under President Barack Obama's signature health care reform law, insurance companies must spend at least 80 percent of the premiums they collect on actual medical care, rather than on overhead and profit. They are required to give rebates to consumers, or to their employers in the case of job-based insurance, if they fail to meet that standard. Close to 7 million people are due refunds by Aug. 1, with an average of $80, according to a report issued by the department.

Consumers may not actually get checks or refunds to their credit cards, however. Insurance companies may also apply the money to future premiums, or pass the dollars back to the employer that sponsored the coverage, which may use the funds to lower premiums or add benefits.

The aim of the "80/20" or "medical loss ratio" rule isn't just to give rebates to consumers whose insurance providers overcharge them. The goal is to pressure insurers to cut administrative spending and other overhead, and to price their plans accurately up front. Under the rule, large-group plans like job-based health benefits must spend 85 percent of premiums on medical care, while insurers covering small businesses or individuals who buy plans directly must spend 80 percent.

Health and Human Services data indicate health insurers are cutting overhead. In the individual market, the percentage of premiums going to administrative costs and profit fell from 15.3 percent in 2011 to 11.5 percent in 2013, HHS reports. Reductions in the large-group and small-group markets were less, and the overall rate dropped from 13.1 percent to 12.2 percent.

Fewer people are getting rebates, which is another sign the 80/20 rule may be working as intended: If insurance companies set prices up front that are closer to their expenses, then they will have less need to pay rebates.


In 2012, 13 million consumers got rebates valued at $1.1 billion. Last year, 8.5 million got $500 million in refunds. According to HHS, the Obamacare 80/20 rule saved consumers about $9 billion in excess premiums from 2011 to 2013.

[D2D]

Eleven out of 12 fake applications for government-subsidized health insurance got through a verification process and the bogus beneficiaries are still covered, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday.   
The GAO launched the sting to check to see how well the Obamacare process checks for counterfeit applications. The results were messy, GAO’s Seto Bagdoyan says in testimony prepared for a hearing Wednesday of the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee.   
      
   


“The federal marketplace approved coverage for 11 of our 12 fictitious applicants who initially applied online, or by telephone,” Bagdoyan, who directs GAO’s Forensic Audits and Investigative Service, said in testimony obtained by NBC News.


http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/gao-sting-finds-it-easy-fake-it-get-obamacare-premiums-n162456

How many were fraudulent?

[hoosier_daddy]

and if they pay that dough and then try to use their insurance and try to get admitted for medical care with their phony names, they get no health care!!  the fucking joke's on them, boy!!  who is stupid enough to do that, but maybe you right wingers?  yeah, they get insurance in a phony name, but they CANNOT USE THE INSURANCE TO ACTUALLY GET ANY MEDICAL CARE!! 

[D2D]

Hoosier, where did the money for those "rebates" come from?

[D2D]

 

and if they pay that dough and then try to use their insurance and try to get admitted for medical care with their phony names, they get no health care!!  the fucking joke's on them, boy!!  who is stupid enough to do that, but maybe you right wingers?

How so, Hoosier!

Obamacare doesn't check for legitimacy, doesn't even check for legality!

No one will be denied!

[hoosier_daddy]

the freaking doctor does, stupid fuck.  and the insurance company WHO ACTUALLY COLLECTS FROM THE PHONY GUY...they would have to set up a credit card account with that phony name, or a phony checking account in that name, IN ORDER TO PAY THE INSURANCE COMPANY OR PAY THE DOCTOR OR PHARMACIST ANY CO-PAYS....who the hell is going to go to all that trouble?

[Dan]

The government has no business interferring with our private affairs.  Our relationships with our insurance companies (should we choose to have insurance) is nobody's business but ours.

[hoosier_daddy]

move to somalia, bitch.  they agree with you.  we voted otherwise here.  go fuck yourself if you don't like it. 

[D2D]

 

the freaking doctor does, stupid fuck.  and the insurance company WHO ACTUALLY COLLECTS FROM THE PHONY GUY...they would have to set up a credit card account with that phony name, or a phony checking account in that name, IN ORDER TO PAY THE INSURANCE COMPANY OR PAY THE DOCTOR OR PHARMACIST ANY CO-PAYS....who the hell is going to go to all that trouble?

Nope, the doctor doesn't care so long as he gets paid!

The Insurance company doesn't care so long as it gets paid!

The pharmacist doesn't care so long as he gets paid!

[sweetwater5s9]

This is going to blow your mind, people. If just calculated based on what the “Affordable Care Act” is projected to cost Americans over a decade – now $1.3 trillion, that comes to a whopping $100,000 per new insurance enrollee.



This $100,000 per enrollee is not what the newly insured are paying for premiums, this is what the government/taxpayer is spending so the newly insured will get onto healthcare and pay their premiums.




On September 9th, 2009, this is exactly what President Obama said: “There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.”




This was a key argument for adopting Obamacare. While Obama was understimating the number of U.S. residents (not citizens) without healthcare, the CBO projects that 30 million will still be without insurance by 2023.





So why not making insurance truly more affordable by dropping artificial barriers to competition among the states? That’s kind of what that “Interstate Commerce Clause” in the Constitution is there for.



The annual increase in healthcare costs were coming down anyway before the ACA was passed, and the historical record shows that government intervention and spending only makes healthcare more expensive.



http://www.ijreview.com/2014/04/131910-much-obamacare-costs-taxpayers-10-years-newly-insured-american-will-blow-mind/

[D2D]

 

move to somalia, bitch.  they agree with you.  we voted otherwise here.  go fuck yourself if you don't like it. 

What does Somalia have to do with it!

We Never voted otherwise here!

More mindless profanity!

[sweetwater5s9]

WASHINGTON — It’s not the kind of history Obama planned on making — but Americans now rate him as the worst president since World War II.