You will love this site if you: (1) want accurate national election predictions, (2) are a political junkie, (3) don't have the time to track the campaigns, and/or (4) crave an informed overview of where things stand. BTRTN has everything you really need to know to stay informed – all in one place.
Obamacare, A Love Story: Our 2015 Premium is Declining Mightily
My wife and I are avid supporters of President Obama, and we were thrilled when he was able to enact the Affordable Care Act, fulfilling a dream held dear by Democratic presidents since FDR. With the exception perhaps of Middle East peace, no goal had been pursued so ardently, with less success over that time span. We viewed universal health care as a societal obligation and a moral responsibility, and we also had high hopes that certain provisions of the ACA would help to "bend" the spiraling health cost curve downward.
We did not think much about the impact on our own insurance. As a pre-65 retiree and a part-time consultant, I was able to purchase health care coverage through a major carrier via a local business council. It was expensive, but it was really the only option we had until we became eligible for Medicare at 65.
Until Obamacare, that is. A provision of the act was particularly onerous for single-proprietor businesses, and the business council discontinued insurance for people like us. Yes, we lost our coverage to Obamacare – ironic in light of our support, but we were among those who had their "promise broken" by Obama. We did indeed need to find new coverage.
We were fine with doing so. We supported the ACA in full and knew that, no matter what the President had "promised," there would be unintended consequences that would hurt some people. That we were among them did not dampen our support.
And so to the exchanges we gamely went. And after the computer glitches arose, we went directly to our carrier, and lo and behold, they now offered Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze policies, new for them, which mimicked those offered on the exchanges. We were able to get a policy similar to the one we'd lost, in which our current doctors and hospital participated, but the cost was 16% higher than what we had been paying. We grumbled a bit, but understood that in the first year of Obamacare, insurers were going to be cautious and price accordingly.
Last week we began to wonder whether we would have to sign up again in 2015, and go through the process, and what further increases we might experience. We dutifully put "call our carrier" on our "to do" list. And yet the very next day, we received notification from them indicating that, unless we wanted to change our plan, they would roll over our policy without any further ado. And, to top it all off, the cost of our policy would be fully 10% lower than in 2014.
Yes, our policy is still higher than two years ago, but by a paltry 2% per year. That is indeed bending the health care cost curve mightily for this family, which had been experiencing increases of 11% per year. We'll take it. For this couple, Obamacare is working…as we know it is for millions of others as well: people who had no insurance coverage before who burdened our emergency rooms, people with pre-existing conditions, young people who were now allowed to stay on their parents coverage until they were 26, and many more.
Posted by Tom Gardner at 1:12 PM
Richard C. Lambert December 9, 2015 at 2:46 AM
We viewed universal health care as a societal obligation and a moral responsibility, and we also had high hopes that certain provisions of the ACA would help to "bend" the spiraling health cost curve downward.
obama care pros and cons
COUNTDOWN TO ELECTION DAY 2020
Follow @BornToRunTheNum
Like or Share us on Facebook:
Loading BTRTN analysis...
President Trump's Approval Rating for the week ending January 18, 2020 increased by +1 percentage points, from 43% to 44%.
Trump's approval rating, already historically low at the outset of his presidency in January, 2017, has dropped since then, from 47% to 44%, and his disapproval score has increased even more markedly, from 44% to 54%, and thus his "net" score has decreased from +3 to -9, a change of -12. He has yet to achieve the 50% approval mark in any single week in his entire presidency.
(We calculate our weekly approval ratings using an average of the two pollsters who conduct weekly approval rating polls: Reuters/Ipsos and You Gov/Economist. This provides consistent and accurate trending information and does not muddy the waters by including infrequent pollsters. These two pollsters tend most often to be middle-of-the-road relative to Rasmussen, who does a daily poll, and Gallup, who announced they will no longer do a weekly poll after 2018. Both Rasmussen and Gallup tend, at times, to be outliers.)
PROBABILITY OF DEMOCRATS CONTROLLING BOTH HOUSES IN 2020 ELECTIONS
Based on our proprietary BTRTN models, as of November 27, 2019, here are our very early BTRTN odds of the Democrats controlling the House and the Senate in the 2020 elections.
XXXXXXHOUSE:iiii99%XX
XXSENATE: ii24%
SENATE SNAPSHOT
The 2020 landscape is difficult for a Democratic Senate takeover, not impossible though, and somewhat easier than in 2018. The 34 elections are for seats currently held by 12 Democrats and 20 Republicans. To gain control, the Dems have to defend their 12 seats, of course, which includes one very difficult hold in Alabama, and then flip 3 GOP seats to get to 50 (if they win the White House) or 4 to get to 51 (if Trump wins).
There are four races that qualify as toss-ups right now, Alabama (Democrat Doug Jones) and three GOP seats: Colorado (Cory Gardner), Arizona (the seat occupied by Martha McSally, who lost in 2018 but was named to replace John Kyl for the other Arizona seat when Kyl resigned; Kyl had been appointed to the seat after the death of John McCain) and North Carolina (Thom Tillis, who may not withstand a primary challenge from the far right).
The Democrats have some other potentially tough races to defend, perhaps New Hampshire and Virginia, but also may be able to target a few other GOP seats, such as Maine and Georgia.
It is way too early for predictions but as of June 25, 2019, we have only Colorado and Alabama flipping, which offset, and that leaves the Dems (including the two Independents) at 47 seats.
HOUSE SNAPSHOT
The Generic Congressional Ballot is an average of all recent "generic ballot" polls in which respondents are asked if they would vote for a Democrat or Republican as their representative (with no names) if the election were held that day.
For the month of November, 2019, the average of the generic ballot polls show the Democrats with a substantial +8 point advantage.
Using our exclusive BTRTN House Prediction Model, using generic ballot data and adjusted for campaign-specific polling and other factors, at this early stage, the Democrats stand to pick up an additional +16 seats in 2020. Despite their large lead in the generic ballot, the model illustrates how difficult it will be for the Dems to make further inroads. This is is because the current 198 GOP-held seats tend to be mostly in red districts, as the Dems picked up most of the swing seats in the "blue wave" of 2018. The GOP held 178 seats at one point in the Obama years, to give you an idea of how low they have gone in modern times.
There are two vacancies in the House right now, NC 3 and NC 9. There will be a special election for both on September 10, 2019.
GOVERNOR SNAPSHOT
TRUMPOMETER
The Trumpometer aggregates a set of economic indicators and compares the resulting index to that same set of aggregated indicators at the time of the Trump Inaugural on January 20, 2017. The idea is to demonstrate whether the country is better off economically now versus when Trump took office.
The data are: the unemployment rate, the Dow-Jones Industrial Average, the Consumer Confidence Index, the price of gasoline, and the GDP.
The Trumpometer, as of December 30, 2019, has increased since his Inaugural, from the zero starting point to +14, which means these indicators have on average improved by 14%. The Dow Jones has risen 45%, and consumer confidence is up 11%. The unemployment rate has improved from 4.7% to 3.5%. The 2019 Q3 GDP was 2.1%, even with the 2.1% growth in Obama's last full quarter, Q4 2016. The price of gas is up 9%, increasing on average from $2.44 to $2.66 since Trump took over.
By comparison, still using January 20, 2017 as the 0 baseline, the measure went from +25% to -53% from the beginning to the end of George W. Bush's presidency, and from -53% to 0% under Barack Obama.
Two Must-Read Articles
2016 Senate: A Democratic Take Back is Looking Go...
Americans Satisfied With Health Care System (After...
October (and early November) Month in Review: Lam...
Grading BTRTN Election Projections: How Did I Do?...
Obamacare, A Love Story: Our 2015 Premium is Decl...
Debacle...
Final Election 2014 Projections for Senate, House,...
Final Days....A Quick Look at the Senate Before Fi...
Tom, Wendy and Steve Gardner are, above all, political junkies.
Tom is a data-obsessed forecaster with a long track record of accurate predictions. Since 2008 he has predicted 2,137 races, including each of the 56 states/districts in the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Presidential elections, as well as each Senate race since 2008, each House race since 2010 and each Governor race since 2014. Of those 2,137, he has been correct 2,056 times, or 96.2% (the figure was 96.6% for the 2016 elections). These are comparable figures to those of other poll aggregators. Yup, including Nate.
Steve handles op-ed pieces that cover the political terrain, be it the latest from Trump World, the campaign trails, debates, convention speeches, and the like.
Wendy is an occasional contributor, weighing in with her "A Call to Action" series and on other issues as the spirit moves her.
CONTACT BTRTN
If you want to get on our email list, or contact us for any reason, email us at borntorunthenumbers@gmail.com
POLITICAL SONG ARCHIVE
Political/Election Song Archive
ELECTORAL COLLEGE SNAPSHOT
We'll be back with this in 2020!
ELECTORAL COLLEGE SWING STATE
GENERAL ELECTION HEAD-TO-HEAD