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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (737469)	9/6/2013 7:29:51 AM
From: Alighieri	2 Recommendations Recommended By bentway tejek Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578306

What will your Obamacare premium be? Numbers are in for 17 states So far, premiums are coming in a bit lower than was anticipated by the Congressional Budget Office, according to a new report. That doesn’t mean Obamacare is cheap, but worries about massive cost spikes may be overblown. Mark Trumbull 10 hours ago If you live in California, Ohio, or Connecticut, you can now look up what health insurance will cost on the new Obamacare exchanges. If you live in Florida, Illinois, or Texas, you don’t know yet, even though President Obama’s Affordable Care Act calls for the exchanges to be up and running in less than a month. That’s one reason the debate over Obamacare’s impact on health insurance costs is still unsettled. Not all the data are in. But the Kaiser Family Foundation weighed in Thursday with a report on some 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, that have unveiled their pricing. The report concludes that, from the numbers that are in so far, premiums are coming in a bit lower than was anticipated by the Congressional Budget Office. That doesn’t mean health care under the Obama reforms is cheap, but worries about massive cost spikes may be overblown. As individuals around the nation prepare for the law’s mandate to have insurance in 2014, or pay a tax penalty, the Kaiser report compiles the states’ figures into comparative tables. Monthly premiums for a single 40-year-old with an income of $29,000 would be $201 in Portland, Ore., for a typical “silver” plan offered by insurers. In New York City, that same plan would be $390. (Plans are labeled gold, silver, or bronze based on how much the buyer will have to pay out of pocket. A gold plan costs more in premiums but has lower deductibles.) Now here’s the Obamacare twist: Since the income for that 40-year-old is less than four times the poverty rate, government subsidies will kick in that bring the individual’s cost down to $193 per month in both places. It’s also $193 in Hartford, Conn., and in Los Angeles. The subsidies, however, phase out entirely for households above four times the poverty level. Those buyers will feel the full impact of price variations – with the New York City insurance shopper owing more than the one in Oregon. “While premiums will vary significantly across the country, they are generally lower than expected,” the authors of the Kaiser report write. “For example, we estimate that the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office imply that the premium for a 40-year-old in the second lowest cost silver plan would average $320 per month nationally. Fifteen of the eighteen rating areas we examined have premiums below this level….” The report also indicates that there will be greater consumer choice in some states than in others. California, Ohio, New York, Oregon, and Colorado will each offer residents a choice among 10 or more insurance providers. Nebraska, Indiana, Connecticut, and Vermont have fewer than five insurers on their statewide exchanges. “The current individual insurance market is highly concentrated, with a single insurer dominating at least half the market in 30 states and the District of Columbia,” the report concludes. “That is not likely to change immediately, though the ease of purchasing through exchanges and guaranteed access to coverage regardless of health status should make it easier for consumers to switch plans.” The report shies away from making comparisons of insurance costs “pre” and “post” Obama reforms. For one thing, the law mandates a whole different approach to insurance in which individuals, for example, can’t be asked to pay sky-high prices because of preexisting medical conditions. Become a part of the Monitor community kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com

To: i-node who wrote (737469)	9/6/2013 2:10:35 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578306

>> the citizens of AR are some of the poorest, unhealthiest and least educated people in this country. Why that doesn't give you pause is the million dollar question. It is true, Arkansas has 16% living below the poverty level, and WA has "only" 11%. Of course, the average poor person in Washington has about 5K more debt than an average Arkansan, due to your state's uncontrolled spending (it is far worse if you count unfunded pension liabilities). So, you tell me who is poor? List of states by income: WA: 12 AR: 48 en.wikipedia.org List of states by poverty rate: WA: 15 AR: 45 Educational attainment: Rank by percent of population with Undergraduate DegreeWA: 11 AR: 49 en.wikipedia.org Health care: WA: 16 AR: 40 webmd.com Overall health rankings: WA: 13 AR: 48 americashealthrankings.org I could go on but this is getting embarrassing. The truth is AR is penny wise and pound foolish...........it refuses to invest in its people and the above stats show that truth.

To: i-node who wrote (737469)

9/6/2013 2:18:02 PM

From: tejek

1 Recommendation

Recommended By
J_F_Shepard

Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1578306

This is what happens when you invest in your people.

Striking news: Seattle schools now booming

Unlike in other big-city school districts around the country, Seattle’s schools finally are booming. Nothing would turn that good news into bad like a teachers’ strike.

By Danny Westneat

Seattle Times staff columnist

Dear Seattle school teachers and administrators:

You should be celebrating right now. Not fighting.

You should be trumpeting the news of a remarkable turnaround in Seattle schools. Instead you are bickering on your way to a possible stri ke.

Please don’t derail what after decades of stagnation is really an amazing and mostly untold story of progress.

Such as this: If school is allowed to start this week, Seattle will top 50,000 students for the first time since the 1970s.

That date is significant. That was when a mass exodus from big-city school systems accelerated all over America.Yet now it’s estimated enrollment in Seattle could grow past 55,000 in a few years — a figure 40 percent higher than the dark years of the late 1980s and early ’90s, when Seattle schools were routinely labeled as “failing,” “blighted” or “circling the drain.”

But now thousands of local families have again voted with their feet, only this time toward Seattle’s public schools. Enrollment is up by 6,000 students, or 13 percent, in five years — even as enrollments in many big-city districts around the country plummeted.

Why?Some of it is Seattle’s natural growth. But the biggest part is this: The schools here have just gotten better.

Teachers, I know you don’t like standardized tests. But have you seen the scores released last week? Seattle continues to surge. Some of the scores are so good they suggest an educational breakthrough.

Take math. A decade ago when the testing mania began, Seattle’s students lagged the statewide averages in math at most grades. That was typical — even expected, sadly — for an urban district.

But now Seattle beats the statewide averages at every grade level, in some cases by double-digit margins.

Seattle’s eighth-graders used to routinely trail the state average in math by 3 to 4 points. This year they beat it by a whopping 16 points. You just don’t see 20-point turnarounds often in education.

These eighth-grade gains resonated across income and racial groups. Seattle’s black eighth-graders outscored black eighth-graders elsewhere by 10.6 points. Seattle’s low-income eighth-graders outpaced all low-income kids by an astonishing 17 points. Both groups scored better than their counterparts in some of the state’s top school districts, such as Bellevue.

Achievement gaps persist, and the results at some other grades were not as rosy for kids of color. This isn’t “mission accomplished.” But getting kids of all races and income levels to learn math is a Holy Grail quest in education. In Seattle, you are starting to succeed. Thank you for that.

But teachers, can you see how going on strike would set that story back?

The headlines out of Seattle wouldn’t be schools booming. It would be adults fighting. A strike here would make national news. The message: Seattle schools can’t get their act together. As usual.

I’m OK with civil disobedience if the cause is righteous. But the cause this time feels more pedestrian. You’re getting 5 percent more pay over two years — hardly rich, but still a bigger raise than, say, newspaper columnists are getting. You also want to scrap a teacher-evaluation system that you were praising as landmark only a few years ago.

These are not “to the ramparts” issues. Surely you can push them without walking off the job?

My plea is simple. Our schools spent decades in a slump of stagnant enrollment, marred by constant bureaucratic bungling. We have tons of work to do but are on the way to making news for an entirely different reason: for being thebig-city schools turnaround-success story in America.

Please don’t mess that story up.

Signed, a dad of two Seattle Public Schools students (whom I would very much like to get out of the house).

Danny Westneat’s column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com