The Biden administration says 20 million people have enrolled for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, with still a few days left for signing up

Some 20 million people have signed up for health insurance this year through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, a record-breaking figure.

President Joe Biden will likely proclaim those results regularly on the campaign trail for months to come as former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, vows to dismantle the Obama-era program.

The Biden administration announced Wednesday morning that 20 million have enrolled for coverage on the marketplace, days before the open enrollment period is set to close on Jan. 16.

The latest enrollment projections mean a quarter more Americans have signed up for coverage this year compared to last — another record-breaking year when 16.3 million enrolled in the program. Signs-ups spiked after Biden took office, with Democrats rolling out a series of tax breaks that give millions of Americans access to low cost plans, some with zero-dollar premiums.

  • @givesomefucks
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    3610 months ago

    More people using this isnt a good thing. It’s because they can’t get full time employment for insurance thru their job

    It wouldn’t have been enough if Obama got all he asked for. But Dems have held the House and Senate multiple times and show no desire to improve it.

    Party leadership should at least be holding votes so that voters in different states can see if their representatives will actually support the party platform.

    • @[email protected]
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      4610 months ago

      Health care should never have been dependent on employment in the first place.

      It leads to people kowtowing to shitty employers because they can’t afford a lapse in health insurance coverage.

      As for holding the House and Senate, a mere majority isn’t enough when the GOP is determined to filibuster any attempts to do anything to Obamacare except destroy it.

      • @givesomefucks
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        3210 months ago

        Health care should never have been dependent on employment in the first place

        You know what’s really depressing?

        How that came to happen in America:

        Then, in World War II, companies’ grip on employee’s health care got firmer. The federal government established wage controls, limiting how much employers could pay workers. This left businesses competing on other forms of compensation — including health insurance. The government tacitly endorsed this tactic: It did not tax health benefits as income, while also allowing companies to deduct the cost from their taxable revenue. Enrollment in some kind of health insurance grew from some 20 million people in 1940 to more than 142 million in 1950.

        https://www.vox.com/23890764/healthcare-insurance-marketplace-open-enrollment-employer-sponsored-united-blue-cross-shield-aetna

        We fucking capped salaries.

        People want to act like someone saying 100% after a certain threshold is some millennial pipe dream, meanwhile the unironically named “Greatest Generation” flat out said that was too much hassle and there’s an upper limit anyone can be paid.

        We get rid of it, and wealth equality went crazy and everything else went to shit.

        • @[email protected]
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          10 months ago

          They capped worker salaries to keep costs down during WW2. Strikes were illegal too. Rich people still made a million dollars per year.

          • @givesomefucks
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            210 months ago

            If you’re right, I’ve been wrong for 20 years, so I’d appreciate a link showing was literally “workers” and executives were excluded

            To my knowledge it limited everyone’s salary

            • BraveSirZaphod
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              210 months ago

              I’m not remotely knowledgeable on labor practices of the time period, but at least in the modern era, you can easily pay an executive basically nothing and just give him stock instead, which will wind up being far more valuable than any salary. Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, takes a salary of $1. I wouldn’t be shocked if something to that effect existed back then as well.

            • @[email protected]
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              210 months ago

              It wasn’t actually an “upper limit” in WW2. It was a 15% limit on wage increases on any union contracts. If you didn’t have a union contract, you could be paid whatever.

              One of the board’s mandates was to ensure that any wage increases granted during a dispute case would not disrupt the wage structure of the nation as a whole and not contribute to ongoing inflationary pressures.[20] These pressures were due to shortages, both in goods and in the labor supply.[10] A key development in this regard came with the “Little Steel” hearing and decision of July 1942.

              After hearing arguments for and against, the War Labor Board decided that wage increases should be bounded by the national cost of living increase between January 1941, when prices were stable, and May 1942, when the United States had introduced various anti-inflation measures.[20] Using the cost-of-living index provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this worked out to a fifteen per cent wage increase formula, or forty-four cents per day for the Little Steel employees.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_War_Labor_Board_(1942–1945)

              • @givesomefucks
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                10 months ago

                That’s different, executive order 9250 came after:

                In order to correct gross inequities and to provide for greater equality in contributing to the war effort, the Director is authorized to take the necessary action, and to issue the appropriate regulations, so that, insofar as practicable no salary shall be authorized under Title III, Section 4, to the extent that it exceeds $25,000 after the payment of taxes allocable to the sum in excess of $25,000. Provided, however, that such regulations shall make due allowance for the payment of life insurance premiums on policies heretofore issued, and required payments on fixed obligations heretofore incurred, and shall make provision to prevent undue hardship.

                https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-9250-providing-for-the-stabilizing-the-national-economy

                Weird how FDR could do so much by executive order back then, and now Dems say nothing substantial can be an executive order now btw…

    • partial_accumen
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      4110 months ago

      But Dems have held the House and Senate multiple times and show no desire to improve it.

      By “multiple times” you really mean “kinda of one other time since and even then by a razor thin margin”.

      “In the Senate, Republicans briefly held the majority at the start; however, on January 20, 2021, three new Democratic senators – Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Alex Padilla of California – were sworn in, resulting in 50 seats held by Republicans, 48 seats held by Democrats, and two held by independents who caucus with the Democrats”

      …and…

      "With Harris serving as the tie breaker in her constitutional role as President of the Senate, Democrats gained control of the Senate, and thereby full control of Congress for the first time since the 111th Congress ended in 2011. "

      source

      • @givesomefucks
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        -1510 months ago

        You missed this:

        Party leadership should at least be holding votes so that voters in different states can see if their representatives will actually support the party platform.

        Instead, we get told there is coincidentally just enough to block it, so it would be pointless to have a vote on it.

        And votes don’t just hold “moderate” Dems accountable, it holds Republicans accountable too.

        Shows every non voter in a red state who the one is that’s stopping them from having affordable healthcare.

        They should have been having monthly votes for over a decade, loudly announcing who voted against it ever vote.

        You can argue that wouldn’t have changed much, but I don’t know how the party thinks pretending everything is fine has helped anyone.

        And at least then it would be very clear who needs to be voted out

        • partial_accumen
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          10 months ago

          You missed this:

          Party leadership should at least be holding votes so that voters in different states can see if their representatives will actually support the party platform.

          So you’re moving the goal posts? Fine I’ll ignore your prior inaccuracy.

          Instead, we get told there is coincidentally just enough to block it, so it would be pointless to have a vote on it.

          Vote on what? What bill are you saying they should spend time voting on even knowing it won’t pass?

          The Democratically controlled Senate, unlike the House, has actually be moderately productive for the past few months in spite of a GOP Senator blocking important military promotions.

          Here’s the voting schedule where there are multiple votes per day in session doing the business of the nation: Data Which of those votes actually accomplishing something do you want them to have skipped for your theoretical lip service vote?

          Shows every non voter in a red state who the one is that’s stopping them from having affordable healthcare.

          And at least then it would be very clear who needs to be voted out

          If their rep isn’t introducing legislation for supporting affordable healthcare (which they aren’t) they non-voters already know who is not working on it.

          You can argue that wouldn’t have changed much, but I don’t know how the party thinks pretending everything is fine has helped anyone.

          I don’t think you have a very good grasp on the realities of the situation if this is what you believe is the mindset everyone in the Legislature holds.

          • @somethingsnappy
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            210 months ago

            Intelligent, but major caveat. The legislature only cares about getting in and then about tenure. There hasnt been a house, senate, or executive and cabinet that isn’t far right for about 45 years. Buying house members is stupidly easy.

            There hasn’t been much productive in legislation in that entire time except the ACA. That had to happen in the first Obama term, and I’m grateful it managed to limp through in its shitty form. Obama might be the best republican president, but it doesn’t really help anyone.

            • partial_accumen
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              210 months ago

              There hasnt been a house, senate, or executive and cabinet that isn’t far right for about 45 years.

              Its difficult to consider your position further when you’re suggesting that everyone in the last 45 years has been far right in the Executive and Legislative branches. Far right is full blown fascist or authoritarian. You’re painting Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Daniel Inouye, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez all with that same brush as far right. Irrespective of their fine grain policy positions none of these folks even come close to “far right”.

              • @somethingsnappy
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                110 months ago

                And those are the only ones you can name. Barack has the ACA, but also renewed patriot act, seemed fine with drone strikes, etc. 3 people, or even the fab 6 (the 5 plus Bernie) doesn’t mean anything in a sea of corporate ownership.

                • partial_accumen
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                  110 months ago

                  And those are the only ones you can name.

                  They aren’t the only ones I can name. They were very easy to name as examples. You’re already moving the goalposts on what you said before. I can’t take anything you say as credible.

                  I hope you have a nice day.

          • @givesomefucks
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            -1910 months ago

            Every wonder why so many accounts stop responding to you?

            • @CoggyMcFee
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              2110 months ago

              Because he doesn’t relent and people like you get tired of being called on their bullshit over and over?

              • @givesomefucks
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                -1710 months ago

                Weird.

                Most people would have guessed it was all the insults first…

                • partial_accumen
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                  1810 months ago

                  Most people would have guessed it was all the insults first…

                  Feel free to quote each insult I’ve written in this thread.

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
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      1210 months ago

      Not to mention they’re still propping up the rent-seekers in the health insurance industry

      • @Ensign_Crab
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        -210 months ago

        Well, those rent-seekers are donors.

    • @Bonskreeskreeskree
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      710 months ago

      It has gotten worse year over year for as long as I can remember too. Neither side will ever get us a functional single payer.

      • @givesomefucks
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        -710 months ago

        It’s like if Bowser kidnapped Princess Peach and Mario just got fed up and stayed at home all day hanging out with Luigi.

        Sure, it’s Bowser’s fault that Bowser kidnapped Princess Peach, but decades later the mushroom people would probably start thinking they need to not just settle for the first Italian Plumber that just shows up

        But half the mushrooms keep insisting that since Mario hasn’t kidnapped anyone yet, replacing him isn’t an option they can even discuss because he’s a hero.

        “Good” isn’t just the absence of “evil”.

    • TigrisMorte
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      410 months ago

      Has nothing to do with can’t get full time employment. Barely half offer anything at all.

      In 2023, 53% of all firms offered some health benefits, similar to the percentage last year (51%). Most firms are very small, leading to fluctuations in the overall offer rate, as the offer rates of small firms can vary widely from year to year.Oct 18, 2023

      https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2023-summary-of-findings/