Staff writer and editor at The Argument. Send pitches to jordan@theargumentmag.com. Got news tips? Signal: jhw.54
Washington, DC
Joined June 2009
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My 3-year-old just demanded Jump by Van Halen, then started hopping and aggressively chugging her milk when it came on. So I guess I know what this kid is going to be like in college.
Jordan Weissmann retweeted
No better example of how Trump has destroyed America's basic democratic norms than the fact that he keeps pardoning Republicans convicted by juries of crimes simply because they are Republicans, and it's barely even a major story. abcnews.go.com/Politics/wire…
Anyway, I'll say this: It would probably make the market more confusing and lead to a higher uninsured rate, but it'd be better than just going back to the old ACA subsidies. Still need to see more details to really get a sense of the effects.
But as you can see, you've just made the health insurance calculation a bunch more complicated, while adding in premium sticker shock. It's not hard to figure out how that's would affect the market. And of course, if you shrink the ACA market, you send premiums higher next year.
And for some people, the math would probably work out ok. (This tweet's longish).
Take an imaginary 48-year-old couple with 2 kids, who makes 450% of the poverty line. They would have gotten a premium tax credit of $1,200 a month last year, or $14,400 annually. Assume that goes into an FSA.
The maximum annual out-of-pocket spending for a family on an ACA plan is around $21,000. In an absolute worst case scenario, where two people got very sick, you'd be looking at $7,000 out of pocket, plus whatever you're paying on the bronze premium.
More likely, they're not paying much out of pocket at all beyond their premium...
Second, a lot of lower-income people are simply not going to enroll in coverage at all once you start charging them premiums. And some higher income folks will be scared off by the sticker shock, even if they math works out OK for them.
First off, note that Cassidy says this is an FSA, NOT an HSA. The money in an FSA disappears at the end of the year. You can't save it...
With smaller subsidies, people will likely choose a cheaper, bronze plan and then they'll use the FSA to pay out-of-pocket costs.
It's sort of like nudging people onto a high deductible plan with and HSA. But there are some key differences and problems...
The idea seems to be that the old, less generous ACA subsidies would still be there. So people who enrolled would still get some help paying their premiums, but they'd also receive this FSA. You can see how the wheels are turning in Cassidy's head...
OK, so I read the speech, and this is a worse deal than many people on here seem to realize.
Essentially he wants to take the money that would currently go to the enhanced premium subsidies, and give Obamacare enrollees a pre-funded FSA instead...
The most sincere political advice I could give to the GOP is to never let Rick Scott do anything. He’s a politician who is best neither seen nor heard.
Congratulations to the Republican party: They’ve turned an already losing health care fight into an assault on patients with pre-existing conditions.
Man, Balaji talking sense
If the far left’s failure mode is not understanding self-interest, the far right’s failure mode is not understanding other-interest.
That is to say: we know the far left doesn’t viscerally get the idea of capitalism, of building products, of sometimes just not having the money to do something. The far left fantasy is of total independence from needing to work at all. They don’t understand economic scarcity.
But the far right similarly doesn’t get the idea of diplomacy, of building coalitions, of sometimes just not having the votes to do something. The far right fantasy is of total independence from needing to work with others. They don’t understand political capital.
And that is also a failure mode. If you can only cooperate within your small tribe, you can’t even scale up. And then your tribe loses.
(The alternative is international capitalism, which is more practical than the socialist left and more scalable than the nationalist right.)
