Full text of the comment that was shadow banned by @Oregonian newspaper

Full text of the comment that was shadow banned by @Oregonian newspaper

The next morning, my comment remains shadow banned by the Oregonian.

Here is the description of the shadow ban, from last night with a screen capture of how the ban appears.

Here, I present the full text of the shadow banned comment plus the supplementary information for how I obtained the facts presented in the comment.

Here are actual price quotes from HealthCare.gov.

The first quotes are for a 64 year old married couple earning pre-tax income of $65,000 per year, which is above the subsidy cut off level, hence, no subsidies. These quotes are for the least cost benchmark Silver plan.

Asheville, NC – $34,344 per year + $14,000 deductible
Baker City, OR and Burns, OR – $28,344 + $5,000 deductible
Birmingham, AL – $30,732 + $10,000 deductible
Bozeman, MT – $38,956 + $11,400 deductible
Breckenridge, CO – $29,099 + $9,000 deductible
Charlottesville, VA – $56,998 + $9,000 deductible
Flagstaff, AZ – Flagstaff, AZ – $34,824 + $8,000 deductible (this is LESS than last year’s $36,000)
Homer, AK – $40,320 + $9,000 deductible (LESS than last year’s $48,000)
Laramie, WY – $49,164 + $5,000 deductible
Medway, ME – $$34,571 + $6,7000 deductible

Here are some quotes for a family of 5, a married 53 year old couple with 3 dependents age 21, 18 and 15.

Charlottesville, VA – $64,836 + $9,200 deductible
Laramie, WY – $55,943 + $5,000 deductible
Winnemucca, NV – $34,903 + $13,600 deductible

Some may be surprised that a person earning $65,000 per year may have $30,000 to $55,000 per year in insurance premiums – and not receive a subsidy. This occurs because the ACA determines the subsidy cut off level by the regional poverty income level – it has nothing to do with the insurance premiums actually paid in the market. Consequently, the married couples in Charlottesville VA and Laramie WY are told to spend more than their after tax income on health insurance + deductible.

Note – rates are nearly flat from age 21 to age 40. At age 43, rate curves turn sharply upward and rise extremely rapidly.

The ACA and the IRS define “Coverage considered unaffordable” as the least cost Bronze plan costing more than 8.13% of your modified adjusted gross income. To illustrate, if your family’s least cost bronze premium were $8,130 per year, if you earn less than $100,000 you are exempt from the individual mandate.

Using a real example, the married 64 year old couple in Baker City or Burns OR is exempt if they earn less than $348,634 per year in income.

Actual rate quotes from across the country show that by the ACA’s own definitions, many families in their 30s, most families in their 40s, and essentially everyone over 50 is exempt from the individual mandate at this time rendering political arguments over the mandate as entirely moot. The ACA itself has already repealed the mandate. (And it doesn’t matter, as the Frean/Gruber paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, in October 2016, found that the individual mandate has had no discernible impact on sign ups. For those that don’t know, Jonathan Gruber was considered the co-architect of the ACA as its design is based on his 20+ years of health policy research.)

Sadly, we have not seen the above information in many news articles as coverage has been woefully inadequate, primarily covering benefits and rarely to never discussing actual problems and how they might realistically be resolved.

Supplementary Information

All price quotes are from the U.S. government run web site healthcare.gov.

The following information was used in obtaining the price quotes.

  • Family 1 – a 64 year old married couple
  • Family 2 – a 53 year old married couple with 3 dependents, age 21, 18, 15.

Zip Codes Used at HealthCare.gov

(Copy of the notes file I maintained while looking up this information in November 2017).

Asheboro, NC 27203 (note png says Asheville due to typo)
Baker City, OR 97814
Burns OR 97720
Bozeman MT 59715
Flagstaff AZ 86001
Hillsboro 97124
Homer AK 99603
Klamath Falls OR 97601, 52, 52, 21, 18, 15 age of dependents, income $116,000/year
Laramie WY 8207
Cheyenne, WY 82007
Reno 89502
Grand Junction CO 81506, http://connectforhealthco.com/
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Woodinville WA 98072, https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/
Winnemucca NV 89445
Bandon OR 97411
Boise, 83704, Birthdate 03/01/1954, https://www.yourhealthidaho.org/

https://www.healthcare.gov/see-plans/#/

2018 Data from healthcare.gov or state web sites
Boise, 83704, Birthdate 03/01/1954
https://www.yourhealthidaho.org/

Additional Reference Information

Yes, I really do log what I do, in great detail.

Frean, B., Gruber, J., Sommers, B. (2016). “Disentangling the ACA’s coverage effects – lessons for policymakers”.  N Engl J Med 2016; 375:1605-1608 October 27, 2016 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1609016 Retrieved from: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1609016#t=article

IRS. (2017). IRS Form 8965 Instructions. Retrieved from https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8965.pdf. See page 3 (Coverage considered unaffordable) and page 9 (Determining an individuals’ required contribution – individuals not eligible for coverage under an employer)

eHealth. (2017). “Affordable Care Act Health Insurance Will be Unaffordable in 2018 for Many Middle-income American families, eHealth Analysis Shows”. Retrieved from https://news.ehealthinsurance.com/news/affordable-care-act-health-insurance-will-be-unaffordable-in-2018-for-many-middle-income-american-families-ehealth-analysis-shows

Additional Information

I also saved complete copies of the downloaded HTML pages from the logged in state and the not logged in state, plus screen captures.

The Oregonian did publish my follow up question, in the comments, asking why my earlier comment was shadow banned. However, there is no answer.

As of today, we will no longer be reading the Oregonian newspaper due to their heavy handed censorship of factual speech. In actual fact I had already limited myself to reading just one article per day due to issues I had already spotted in their content.

I anticipate taking a far harsher tone towards the creation of fictional news by the sanctimonious press. Remember, the definition of “fake news” is the use of a variety of methods, including exaggeration, distortion, emotional hooks and falsehoods to sell eyeballs to advertisers. Many “fake news” services are social media based, online, for profit businesses. Which describes most so-called mainstream media today.

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