The South Dakota Employee Health Plan is raising premiums on retirees. The hike is so bad, the state had to break it up into two phases. Retirees will see their rates go up on July 1. The second phase of increases, coming January 1, will hike family premiums between 18% and 40%.
So how does the state soften the blow to retirees? By telling them that they may be able to find a better deal under the Affordable Care Act:
...While we are happy for you to remain on the state health plan if that is the best option for you and your family, we encourage you to compare the state rates and plan offerings to options available from the private market or the Health Insurance Marketplace.
...Specifically, families with incomes below 400% of the federal poverty rate are eligible for a subsidy through the Health Insurance Marketplace which may be financially advantageous as compared to the state health plan retiree rates.
To learn more about the Health Insurance Marketplace, visit www.healthcare.gov or visit with a trusted insurance agent [Laurie Gill, Commissioner, Bureau of Human Resources, letter to state health plan beneficiary, April 11, 2014, p. 2].
Commissioner Gill's boss, Governor Dennis Daugaard, has worked to repeal the Affordable Care Act. GOP Congresswoman Kristi Noem has voted to repeal the ACA 54 times. GOP Senate candidate Mike Rounds says he too wants to repeal the ACA (although his claims to health care conservatism are dubious at best). Yet the state of South Dakota is encouraging its retirees to take advantage of cost savings offered by the very ObamaCare that its leaders say they want to repeal.
I love the Irony.
This news speaks volumes, the ACA works man and Daugaard and crew know it! In the meantime, thousands of our working poor and veterans continue to languish without any healthcare whatsoever. Thanks republicans for the hate.
Something like this should be on the front-page of the Journal and the Argus.
Agreed, if we only had some reporters that would report news...
Incremental ACA compliance is driving the premium increases. The letter simply indicates ACA compliance has driven premiums to a point where subsidies may be retirees' only option.
Just a crass plan to dispossess retirees of one of their retirement benefits. Purge them from the system. Nice of the Governor to time this right after the mayoral election. Had this been done a few months sooner, Mayor Gill would have drawn an opponent and would have been former mayor Gill. This could still hurt Daugaard's popularity in Pierre though, if Susan Wismer figures out a way to capitalize on the discontent.
Of course entities are going to push people off their plans to save money and into Obamacare whose subsidies are financed by the federal debt, which demonstrates America cannot afford it.
Note the date of the letter, April 11, 2014. Lord Gill, and chest-thumper-in-chief DD waited until after the ACA health exchange window closed to spring this news onto the new high risk retiree group. Can any of DD's princelings tell us with a straight face that they were not thinking of doing this before the exchange closed?
In the inverse, it is perfect "DD". The ACA goal was to get a bigger risk pool to insure everyone and lower health care costs. The DD method, get rid of the high risk elders.
DD is such a hypocrite! First he gripes about ACA, and not trusting the feds, specifically Medicaid, but encourages retirees to switch to ACA. What does he have against state employees whether they are retired or not?
Mr. Sibson, you and Reality need to seek reality. I guess you are okay in the morning but in the afternoon, you drift. Your pretzel logic does not pass the smell test. Hey, remember that we have all this money from unclaimed debt right here in South Dakota that could be used. We have spent a 100 million from Homeland Security, looks to me like we are pretty flush and hid it from the tax rolls. Then to be passing the retirees onto a federal tax payer plan, shows how out of touch you tea party guys are, way out there man, way out there.
Please defend your statement reality as it seems incorrect
Jerry, reality is coming to grips with the federal debt. Those who believe federal money is free money are the ones that need to find reality. If you want to argue that Medicare is not funding Obamacare, then you must admit Obamacare is being funded by more debt. The same is true with Medicaid expansion.
That is completely incorrect Mr. Sibson. The first question I would ask you is what is your definition of Obamacare?
This has as much to do with the unfunded obligations(retiree health care) of our state as it has to do with mandates to insurance by the ACA. Both are not in my best interests. One stems from the insurance industry writing the ACA and the other from incompetence to corrupt governance.
The sad thing is that if the ACA was Bushcare, all the Republicans would think they died and gone to right wing heaven with this opportunity given to all of us Americans.
Seems like the current administration is taking a play from the late Phil Hartman's playbook, ala Keyrock, the Caveman Lawyer:
I am just a caveman who fell into some ice and was thawed out by your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me. Sometimes the sounds of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW and run into the hills or whatever.. but there is one thing I do know. When a state worker needs health care and it is cheaper to push them onto Obamacare, a system I have previously derided and refused, well, then out the cave you go...
https://screen.yahoo.com/unfrozen-cave-man-lawyer-1-223412426.html
You appear confused by a slight of hand, Wayne Pauli. The democrats did not create the ACA. It was authored by insurance companies for insurance companies.
.
Both parties are involved in the ACA. The ACA runs interference while the DC bums pack their PACS, feed their providers and play the insiders market game only they can play legally. Both parties, Wayne!
Solutions gentlemen, solutions. What would they be for the ACA? You are quick to condemn and call it a giveaway, but what would you have done differently to make it affordable? I know I know, Medicare for all. There ya go
Single payer with skin in the game for everyone.
Jerry, yes, as per Les, single payer universal health care. National Health, like every other civilized nation on the planet has. :-) Just do it!
I agree National Health Care for all.
http://www.pewstates.org/projects/stateline/headlines/states-respond-to-wealth-gap-85899546508
"Solutions gentlemen, solutions."
Free healthcare for all funded by printing more money until the hyper inflation forces America into the one-world currency. By then the healthcare system will have all of us in a database so that the experts can determine which genetically defective population groups need to be eliminated.
Everyone OK with that?
Marty Jackley is already doing it, Sib: you okay with that?
The abyss Mr. Sibson. I fear that you have stepped into the deep end of it, and so early in the day.
Larry, I thought Marty was against Obamacare.
Based on history, Darwinian evolutionists do believe there inferior humans who can be killed:
"A German evolutionist, Amalie Dietrich (nicknamed the ‘Angel of Black Death’) came to Australia asking station owners for Aborigines to be shot for specimens, particularly skin for stuffing and mounting for her museum employers. Although evicted from at least one property, she shortly returned home with her specimens.
A New South Wales missionary was a horrified witness to the slaughter by mounted police of a group of dozens of Aboriginal men, women and children. Forty-five heads were then boiled down and the 10 best skulls were packed off for overseas.
Darwinist views about the racial inferiority of Aborigines (backed up by biased distortions of the evidence since shown to be false) drastically influenced their treatment."
http://creation.com/darwins-bodysnatchers-new-horrors
On another thread we have fools saying Australia banning guns is a good thing. I am not OK with that, based on the premise that a totalitarian state sets up eugenics. And I am not OK with promoting Darwinian evolution in our government schools.
Note my post, Sib. Skin in the game! I don't care if we have feed you, cloth you and house you, there is work to be done. Skin in the game.
Where do you think that $100 million from DHS goes, Sibby? It's to spy on South Dakotans to ensure SDGOP control over your repressed state.
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/feds-seize-stingray-documents/
Your prez at work, Lar.
When will W, The Dick or Rummy be in the state to campaign for Rounds, Les: before or after DoJ drops the hammer on Mike?
Private employers are doing this and employees in private sector are facing this.Why not government employees?
This must have generated some excitement, or was it just me? Madville times showed "server overload" multiple times / or perhaps a server issue happened?
R.A., the issue is not about private and government employees, the issue is that the SD governor is against ACA, he does not trust the feds (except when the feds handout money,) but he is telling retirees they should consider ACA. Why is he encouraging retirees to participate in something he objects to?
Increasing the cost of early retiree's health insurance will not actually save any money if future potential retirees decide to wait it out until 65 or 66. Why? Because the early retirees are typically at the top of their state pay scales. Getting senior employees out early means the state can hire MUCH cheaper younger people to do the same job. That saves the state salary money. But if I, the retiree, know I will have to pay high health insurance rates at early retirement, I will just wait out, collect my (pitiful, but top of the range) state salary, use up all my sick days, and do as little as possible. No cheaper replacement, and no savings there.
I'd guess with the Israeli connectïon it will be Rummy, Lar. I've flown BIG circles around the Dick hunting pheasant, to get past their TFR here, as with the Prez in NorDak on his regrouping the first American voters with his promises made seven years prior.
Canadians live longer than Americans. About five years ago, I read a detailed overview on the Canadian Healthcare system, one of the things that stuck out for me was that sick patients had the option of going to the States for treatment (paid for by the Canadian Healthcare system) or staying in their country to get treatment. The MAJORITY of them PREFERRED to stay in Canada for treatment. (I don't remember what kind of sicknesses these patients had but it is noteworthy nonetheless, that a single healthcare payer system will work with the patient and try to get the care that the patient wants or prefers).
JeniW, you win! You get it. As Danno noted about the irony of it all. Here is a state office declaring that Obamacare is an approved site to go to for their possible healthcare needs. That is not coming from Rick Weiland's office, that is a directive that has meaning.
The notice really shows that there is a strong possibility presently that the ACA will come in with better rates than you would be able to get through the state. Another thing that I feel we will see for 2015 is lower rates because of more competition and less major claims. So good news once again with the ACA!
Jenny-I doubt that the Canadian gubmint would be willing to reimburse US hospitals at for-profit overbilled rates. When Snowdrift Snookie was young her family used to go to Canada for socialized medical care,although she hates socialized medicine now.
I'm not lying, MFI. I can attest that Mayo Clinic will also take Canadian socialized healthcare patients. The Canadian healthcare system will use Mayo Clinic mainly for having the latest in techologies, to get a secondary medical opinion, ie, to get a very uncommon diagnosis on a patient.
This is what it should all be about also. Countries helping each other out, taking sick patients. We go to Canada for their cheaper prescriptions after all. I just heard yesterday from my own Mayo doctor that it could be as early as five years where patients will not have to go through the dreaded colonoscopies. That a stool specimen will suffice. How cool is that!
Interesting how a stool sample will nip those pesky polyps in the butt, Jenny.
Btw, Jenny. An aunt from BC has been doctoring in the US for decades with her lupus.
My classmate Timmy in AB was in a wheelchair for a year before he lined out to get a new hip.
My point Is, it could be better everywhere.
Jenny-I don't disagree with you. I'm just saying they probably won't wan't to pay double or triple the amounts in America. I know they send patients across the border. I wasn't suggesting you were not truthfull.
It doesn't weird anyone else that Laurie Gill is also mayor of the crumbling sewer that drains the Capitol?