Obamacare has tasted huge success in California: Survey

A report published recently reveals that over two-thirds of adults in California who were uninsured prior to the Affordable Care Act, the official name of Obamacare, now have coverage.

Mollyann Brodie, a senior VP at US nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, said that although it’s true that Obamacare has managed to reach a large share of the uninsured people in California, there and still some who don’t have health insurance. According to Brodie, the people who are still left are much harder to reach. The survey findings were released by the nonprofit on Thursday.

Brodie said that the results of the survey indicate that the majority of the people opting for the coverage are interested in the benefits of having health insurance and want to see their medical requirements being met.

The survey followed a group of 2,001 Californian adults. Each of these individuals was uninsured prior to last year’s healthcare expansion through the Affordable Care Act.

Another survey conducted around a year back revealed that 58% of uninsured adults in California have signed up for health coverage following the first open enrollment phase.

According to numbers put up by the new survey, 34% of the new insurance holders have signed up for Medi-Cal, the low-income health program of California. Fourteen percent got employer coverage, 12% enrolled for Covered California and 8% of the newly insured got some other coverage.

Around 32% of the uninsured Californians are still uninsured, which is 10% less than what a survey conducted last year in spring found.

The full sample of the survey has a margin of error of 4%. If you consider just the statistics related to the recently insured, the margin of error would be 5%. For the section of population that’s still uninsured, the margin for error is 8%. The margin of error can be of both plus and minus.

http://www.thehoopsnews.com/2015/08/01/7189/transcutaneous-stimulation-technique-allowed-paralyzed-men-to-move-their-legs/

The factor that primarily stops people from getting insured is expenditure; 44% of the surveyed people said that affordability is the main factor that forced them to remain uninsured. The majority of the remaining uninsured people, as much as 41% are the ones who have adopted illegal means to enter the country.

The survey also found that as much as 40% of the people, who are yet to get insured, have never signed up for any insurance before.

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  • Signing up for insurance isn’t a “success.” I signed up for Covered Ca last year and I pay $89/mo and have a $5000 deductible. 8 months into the year and I’ve paid well over a grand… my insurer hasn’t chipped in a dime. That’s not insurance, that’s out-of-pocket care. Success my ***.

    • Very wise comment. It is like saying— I just bought a 100K sports car on credit. Even though I am not sure I can afford it on my janitor’s salary, I now consider myself a success because I signed the papers for the car last week—.

      If costs for medical care do not go up, the burden on the upper middle class to pay for these newly insured is not too high, and tax burdens remain steady, then we can declare ObamaCare a success. The Kaiser Family Foundation needs to ditch the unsophisticated analysis and think a little deeper.

  • Actually, there was a similar plan inaugurated in the 1930’s in Germany. It was called National Socialism. Check it out. Same ideas, similar characters, only the names are changed to protect the guilty.

    • You mean like the plan where people decide they don’t want or need health care, go to the emergency room when they’re sick or injured and then don’t pay the bill? Leaving it for everyone else to pay?

      THAT’S what socialism looks like.

      • The socialism that takes that 50% no pay emergency room cost that was paid by traditional taxes and now is paid by all the working stiffs.

        Now the “government” gets to spend that previous E.R reimbursement on some other program while the middle class just took over the medical costs for no-payers. Essentially, we get to pay out twice. 1: income and sales tax and 2: Obamacare costs.

        • Ehh…we paid for the no pay emergency room work in the form of $100 aspirin and bandaids, and ever increasing insurance costs.

      • That is the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) commonly referred to as the Nazi Party. And yes they did create impose a similar “Hitlercare” program. “National Socialism” was a unique concept that most people have no understanding of. However it bears striking similarities to several programs pursued by the Obama administration. Look it up.

        • You sound like you need a little more tin foil…some of the rays are getting in.

          Every first world country on earth provides health care. Our problem is that we still have the insurance company leeches taking a big cut of the payments.

          Our government bears little resemblance to Hitlers Germany, which was fascism, not socialism. Hitler hated socialism.

          And you said ‘hitler’ in an internet discussion, which means its automatically over.

          • Hitler hated “Bolshevism ” not socialism. He avowed his “socialism” on numerous occasions. The National Socialist government did indeed set up a health care system that was totally controlled by the government but operated and administered under its direction by a select group of industrialists. Every German citizen was required to participate and was taxed accordingly.
            National Socialism bares a striking similarity to what we today call “crony capitalism.”
            As to Fascism, the Fascists were a political party created in Italy by Benito Mussolini and his followers. They and the Nazis shared a chauvinistic form of patriotism and were dictatorships, but that is about all.
            Some say that whenever you see “fascist” in an internet discussion it’s is automatically over.

  • “34% of the new insurance holders have signed up for Medi-Cal” Whoa, it’s an option to sign up for Medi-Cal? I’d choose that, I have employer provided coverage and my deductible is $5000 too (ie “out-of-pocket care”).

    • You’re eligible for medical if you basically make no money or almost no money. I think the cutoff is about 15k a year.

      • I know, so it’s more an “enrollment” and not an “choice” as the article stated.

        • You may in fact opt out of medical for traditional insurance. Two years ago when I got divorced, dropped off my wifes group plan and wasn’t employed they gave me the choice. I paid for the regular insurance to keep my doctor and because finding one that takes medi-cal isnt easy.

  • My $350 monthly Kaiser plan was cancelled because it did not meet ACA requirements. the new plan is $630 a month with 6k deductible. After having worked for 35 years I have a decent retirement and this is what they want from me. I am presently uninsured. This is how we pay for medical for the millions of people that our POTS is bringing it.

  • Awesome, the most broke state in the Union which hovers a percent or two above the average unemployment rate. I guess the fact that 7.2 percent of California’s population is ILLEGAL too helps in all aspects of Obamacare, unemployment, SS, crime, welfare, etc. Glad to see it is such a success…

    • 7.2%?
      Where are you getting your numbers?
      Hispanics now outnumber Caucasians in CA.
      And of all those people, how many are illegal?
      I bet the real number is much higher.

      • Agreed. The number of illegal immigrants has hovered around 11 million since the 2008 election — yet we are told new arrivals every year. The “numbers” seem to be geared toward political marketing, rather than a real count.

    • Most broke state? What rock have you been living under? California has been running large budget surpluses since Jerry Brown was elected, and California voters threw out virtually every Republican holding a statewide office.

      If you want to talk about a broke state, look at Kansas.

  • Obamacare in CA is a success in adding billions of dollars in costs to a near bankrupt state.

    • Near bankrupt state? What rock have you been living under? California has been running large budget surpluses since Jerry Brown was elected, and California voters threw out virtually every Republican holding a statewide office.

      If you want to talk about a bankrupt state, look at Kansas.

      • Get your facts straight before you start name calling. You think CALPERS is a success because it’s not as unfunded (77%) as some other states? The budget surpluses are going to “education”. (Which means more money for the teachers unions and not on the kids or schools). Sure, there’s been some improvement, but that just means that we aren’t sliding into the Abyss as fast. For every link you posted, I can find several that contradict them. I just don’t know how to post them here. Noob.

        • Again David, you’re full of Poopie. In the first place, SOME of the budget surpluses is going to education – Much of it is going into a “rainy day” fund. No one is sliding into an “abyss where here. California is doing far better than most the “conservative” states like Kansas and Wisconsin.

          Frankly if you HAD any credible (as in something besides some wing-nut’s opinion) information to the contrary, you would have posted it. You don’t You just throw out some poopie and hope it sticks to the wall. Like a monkey at a zoo.

  • Yep, the site worked fine for me on the first day two years ago, I have the same doctor I’ve always had, I had a choice of many plans with different coverage levels, nobody can deny me or jack the price up for pre-existing conditions, I have a very reasonable deductible (much lower than I had) and I’m paying less.

    People complaining in CA picked the wrong plan. There are plenty without the alleged “5000 deductible”.

    • Yeah, those are the ones that are $300/month. Is that the right plan you’re talking about, because that was the option.

      • My low deductible plan in 2002 cost $325 a month. 13 years ago! My pre-obamacare plan was $550 a month and had a very high deductible. Not sure where you were getting a low deductible plan for $300 anytime recently.

        A 5k deductible for $80/mo is a steal. I’m not seeing the problem.

        • I’ve paid well over a thousand dollars for insurance and medical bills this year. My insurer hasn’t paid anything. You don’t see a problem with that? That’s not healthcare.

  • Who’s success? How about paying 20% more for premiums for the Obama Cadillac tax! Gee.. Thanks California. Now I get to pay an additional $200/mo welfare subsidies.

  • This ignores the tragedy that we now spend ~20% of our hard-earned GDP (gross domestic product) on healthcare. Other developed nations spend only ~10% for similar quality. Our healthcare system is so inefficient that it wastes 10% of all we earn. That makes us all poorer, and makes our products and services less competitive in the international marketplace. This absurd
    inefficiency is a direct result of the counterproductive laws and policies of our federal government and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. For details on how this came to be, and
    suggestions on how we can reclaim the 10% of our national wealth that is now being squandered, please read “American Healthcare Unchained.”