Posted on 10/17/2013 5:07:52 AM PDT by 11th_VA
The final deal to avert a breach of the debt limit and end the government shutdown included what has been described as a “small concession” to Republicans: tightening the income verification measures for customers on the Obamacare insurance exchanges to qualify for subsidies. But considering the hurdles associated with this step – and the enormous IT problems we’ve already seen with the exchanges – the concession may not be small at all.
As one prominent health care expert tells Salon, the impact could contribute to an attempted sabotage of the law by those who want to see it repealed. Rather than letting the health care law survive “unscathed,” the income verification piece could trigger a new round of headaches for Obamacare, and this time, Republicans – and the country – will be paying attention.
---SNIP---
Starr’s perspective is borne by the early experience of the exchanges. The federal exchange, which is the Obamacare portal for customers in 34 states, has performed very badly in the opening weeks. Even supporters of the law like the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein has called the rollout a disaster. Not only have potential customers been unable to register for the program after 20 or 30 attempts, those few who have been successful aren’t having their data transferred to insurance companies properly.
“Things are worse behind the curtain than in front of it,” according to health care writer Bob Laszlewski, describing how the system is enrolling and unenrolling customers seemingly at random. If HHS can’t approve subsidies until the Inspector General decides income verification is operational, that would definitely delay subsidies – nothing is operational about the federal exchanges right now.
And you have to question whether income verification would ever be operational, and if that’s contributing to the major delays on the exchange website...
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
There’s no need to “sabotage” Obamacare. Just hold it to the letter of the law, because it’s completely untenable as written.
No revisions. No “technical corrections”. No administrative decisions or changing things via regulation.
Then just sit back and watch it implode, while saying “I told you so”.
Income verification is one of these. Another can be seen in a court case Oklahoma has brought against the law saying that federal exchanges do not qualify for subsidies because the law doesn’t specify that they do. And it wasn’t an accidental omission, either - I remember this from the original discussion - because the subsidy for federal exchanges was explicitly not added to keep the CBO-projected cost under the magic $1T threshold.
I would bet a very sizable percentage of the under 30 crowd (the ones who love Obama the most) are completely unaware of the requirements of the ACA. When they find out, they won't believe it. Of course, Obama wants Obamacare to fail so all his minions will start begging for that single-payer plan Obama and the leftists really want.
David wants the same income and eligibility requirements used for Obamacare as that of SNAP, WICs, TANF, EITC, Section 8, et al. NOTHING. Same as for a Democrat voter’s eligibility. NOTHING....
He knows whats best for everyone after all.
Just like they say that verifying identity at the polls is racist when the really mean it dis-enables their fraud.
The author is presuming that Obama is actually going to comply with the law, which he has given absolutely no indication that he is willing to do throughout his entire Presidency.
An Executive Order will be issued to extend the deadline and for any other issue that needs time and space for its implementation and they will be issued “as the law didn’t anticipate the enormity of the task of rolling this out.
Watch.
Glad they see it this way, but sadly, no, this “concession” did not even amount to a fig leaf of respectability.
What did Rubio do?
Verifying income is considered ‘sabotage’ these days? Next they’ll be telling us that freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength. Oh wait . . .
The problem with this tactic is the 51%-49% rule.
If the moochers who pay zero to nothing in outnumber the ones who get fleeced to pay for it, it will never go away. The moochers will outvote us.
Just like taxes.
Yeah, the same nuts who want people to show ID to vote, and only let actual citizens get welfare,want to verify if you really qualify for free open heart surgery!!! Nuts and freaks!!
Sorry, I meant to say Cruz. But I also like what Rubio did. After his horrible misstep on immigration and being lower than dirt with conservatives, he din't fall in line with the RINOs. He stood with Cruz and Lee, against Obamacare, during the 21 hours. His vote has been solid.
I think Rubio made two awful mistakes. The first was getting played horribly by McCain and Schummer. The second was not having a handle about how strongly US citizens feel about people who are in the US illegally. Rubio didn't do what Flake and Ayotte did, which was to become minimccains and sabotage conservatives. So I think Rubio did the correct thing, and we have enough total turncoats to despise, so I'm willing to let Rubio learn from his missteps.
Salon is a White House Spokesman.
I’m sure the conference committee will remove this provision. The liberals of both parties will not let it stand.
Mitch McConnell fought tooth and nail against Obamcare before Cruz was even in the Senate.
What’s going to be ‘fun’ is when their ‘savings accounts’ for vacations, appliances, fun stuff etc. i.e. their tax refunds, start disappearing because they either didn’t know they had to sign up or just said ‘forgeddaboutit’.
As opposed to all the left-wing nuts and moonbats on Salon.....
I respectfully disagree. While it is unquestionable that Obama and his party TRULY own Obamacare, the implosion, if and when it occurs, will be owned by the Republicans, so sayeth the mainstream media and left-controlled websites. The low-information voter will believe as they are told, that the reason for all the Obamacare trouble is the result of X Y and Z that the Republicans have done to block implementation.
Why do you think parents are supposed to insure their kids into their mid twenties? (So the youth vote will remain unaware of the cost, etc.).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.