Posted on 11/23/2013 10:15:50 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Bad news for CLNN, the Chicken Little News Network — that is, just about all of them lately: In states that have set up their own Affordable Care Act marketplaces, enrollment is proceeding apace. Indeed, media melodrama about “Obama’s Katrina” and similar formulations appears paradoxically to have reminded people that dependable health insurance is at last available to them and their families.
Not only doesn’t the political sky seem to be falling, but, according to the Los Angeles Times, sign-ups in California during the first two weeks of November doubled those for the month of October. Several other states are also showing strong enrollment growth. The governors of Washington, Connecticut and Kentucky co-signed a Washington Post column about how they’re making the law work.
The indispensible Kevin Drum draws a preliminary conclusion: “It really is all about the website. ... The bottom line is the Republican Party’s worst nightmare: Once ‘Obamacare’ has been up and running for a while, it’s going to be pretty popular. ... Just get the damn website working.”
A commenter to Drum’s blog waxes enthusiastic: “California Obamacare is 20 kinds of awesome. It took 45 minutes to sign up, and it will save me between 6,000 and 11,000 dollars PER YEAR depending on whether I have to go to the doctor. And now if I want to switch jobs or be self-employed, I don’t have to worry about pre-existing BS conditions that they’ve turned me down for in the past, even though I’ve never had a serious disease or been hospitalized. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, not overweight ... my pre-existing crime against humanity? Over 50. If you were over 50 in the pre-ACA days, it was next to impossible to get a policy.”
A plant? Could be. Trolls are everywhere on the Internet. The fellow could be a Democratic operative typing an approved script.
However, it’s definitely true that the Affordable Care Act makes it possible to buy health insurance without first proving that you probably won’t need it. Also vanishing is the concept of “rescission,” where, say, a breast cancer diagnosis can trigger an investigation aimed at voiding your policy.
The portability of coverage under the ACA is also going to give people the enhanced economic liberty Republicans always say people should have — although what they usually mean in practice is absolute freedom for corporations while you keep quietly doing as you’re told.
Lost your job? Well, you haven’t lost your health care.
Of course, Republican trolls are everywhere, too. Maybe the most amusing thing about the Washington media hullabaloo over the president’s Big Lie was how it reprised George W. Bush’s greatest hits. Was the health care debacle “Obama’s Katrina,” Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” or “Obama’s Iraq”?
Possibly feeling sorry for the ex-rancher-turned-dog-portrait-painter, Fox News even went so far as to dub this president’s mealy-mouthed apology “Obama’s Watergate.” Meanwhile, a bunch of ostensibly liberal Washington courtier-pundits proved their independence by joining the excited throng declaring Obama’s presidency finished.
Except, wait a minute. Didn’t many of the same savants declare the GOP defunct after the government shutdown a few weeks back? Well, that was melodramatic nonsense, too. While much of their intended audience dozes, headline-hungry, ratings-driven, click-soliciting news orgs act increasingly like a litter of kittens in a room full of balloons — excitedly chasing the next big political scandal or a glimpse of Miley Cyrus’ nipple.
Whichever comes first.
That’s life at CLNN, “Where the Sky Is Always Falling.”
Comparing a health insurance fib to a botched natural disaster or a catastrophic war is morally grotesque to begin with. Goodness, nobody died. If this is the worst falsehood Obama emits, he’ll go down as one of the least mendacious pols in living memory.
Also, let’s not pretend that public ignorance and sloth weren’t a big part of the problem. Anybody who paid minimal attention understood that phasing out Brand X health insurance was the whole point of the ACA. That’s probably why you never heard Mitt Romney take serious issue with Obama’s promise. He probably heard it, as did most informed people, as a mild exaggeration.
As Sarah Kliff explained on her Washington Post “Health Care Watch” blog, “the whole point of the health care law was to eliminate insurance plans that didn’t offer robust-enough coverage. Giving these plans another year on the market would be a step backward. ... The wave of insurance cancellations happening right now is a feature of the law, not a bug.”
So anyway, what really set the kittens among the balloons was the flabbergasting failure of the healthcare.gov website — a Rube Goldberg contraption assembled by 55 private contractors with nobody in the Obama administration seemingly taking charge. This unaccountable failure led to millions of consumers abruptly dumped by their insurance companies having no easy way to learn that for the great majority, better options exist.
Fix the website, and the political problem fixes itself.
BS, they just want this to get past the 2014 election so people don’t throw all the Democrats out after 115 million lose their insurance and find they have to pay 20-600% more for less insurance.
This is an outrage and should do a reverse number on Democrats. This is screwing with the middle class and it should get them out of power for a LONG TIME.
People who before were not eligable for Medi-Cal but got care through the counties were automatially switched to Medi-Cal, and they are counting those.
Except all the parts that Obama decided to delay.
Heck, this was passed in early 2010 and he is delaying major parts till after the NEXT election late 13 over 3+1/2 years after passage.
Sure sign of a winner
The website already exists, its called:
www.healthsherpa.com
Three kids in San Francisco put it together for free in a few weeks, unlike the 600 million paid.
I am glad I still got my insurance subsidized from my company, and was horrified when I saw what I would have to pay if I had to buy one of the plans. Can’t afford them.
So the website problems mean diddly squat they are a distraction on the bigger problems (high cost/high deductibles/less choices/worse care)
So ... If the ACA “fixes” itself will it become “Obamacare” again?
The website is/was a joke but ACA is still the problem
Call your health care provider NOW and tell him ‘I want my Obamacare-TV’
The Obamacare website is just the chrome on the turd.
“unlike the 600 million paid.”
Those kids aren’t pals of the Obamas.
Love how the author calls it an “unaccountable failure.”
Even in this, he refuses to hold Obama accountable.
The web site is the technical problem. It will be fixed - eventually. So that it will work as it should have in the first place - as an order processing web site.
The political problem is that the requirements will throw millions of people off their current insurance, force them to pay increased premiums with higher deductibles, and force them to receive worse coverage than what they had in the first place.
Consider a 24-year old single male who has 8 of the 10 mandated things to be covered [all except contraception and maternity care]. He makes $20K/year. He gets thrown off his coverage because his current policy is “sub-standard” and gets socked with higher premiums because he is a “Millenial” [he has to subsidize older people].
Given that pre-existing conditions cannot be excluded, he can pay no more than 2% of his annual pay as a fine and throw the dice on not getting sick. Cost? Only $400 for the year. If he gets sick, he can pay out-of-pocket if it is not too serious [and not too costly]. If it is serious enough [and costly] - he buys into a plan, gets treated, and drops the plan shortly thereafter. He goes back to paying the fine [until the next time].
Millenials AIN’T stupid, they are going to game the system - driving future premiums for everyone else up, which will cause them to drop their coverage and game the system too.
“The wheels of the bus go round and round ...”
The fine will get bigger and bigger. They will make everyone sign up or wish they had.
This jerk can’t even sign his name to his opinion?
If Only the majority of Govs in the majority of those 36 states were not such meanies, Obamacare would be a hit!
This is fascism pure and simple. There is nothing “market” driven about this.
NO!
When will these Obama suck ups understand that even if the website "signs you up", you DON'T get "insurance".
And even if you're lucky to qualify for Medicaid, that doesn't mean access to a physician.
For the poopheads, just LOOK at the premiums and deductibles.
If I was just starting my career at say, 22, after college, if I wasn't covered under my parent's care or if lucky enough an employer's, why the f would I want to pay half my meager salary on a plan that doesn't cover jack squat?
Until I meet the 10K deductible.
What healthy young person is going to go for that feces sandwich?
Answer: NONE.
So the ACA collapses.
Weasel words, if I ever heard them.
How about some actual, you know, numbers?
Regards,
Until I meet the 10K deductible.
What healthy young person is going to go for that feces sandwich?
BINGO
This article is written as though all of the millions of people losing their health insurance due to the law banning them, losing their doctors, the dramatic cutbacks in medical services, banning of private owned medical centers being built or expanded, taxation on medical devices, delay in the employer mandate (which when it finally kicks in will lead to massive additional cancellations), capping flexible spending accounts (in essence raising taxes on people for getting healthcare), a major part of the law (CLASS act) going belly up before it could ever even be implemented, etc. hasn’t even occurred and for which the website and the exchanges either functioning or not functioning has absolutely no bearing on.
This article is beyond ignorant - yet they think they are really on top of it and clever by the tone. And they call total falsehoods a “mild exaggeration.” Embarrassing.
The problem is if you can’t afford the premium you have to pay the fine even if they jack the penalties up. I can not afford an $1100.00 per month insurance policy however I could possibly pay a 2,000.00 yearly fine.
Where do they think people will get the money to pay for the premiums? I think they are so out of touch and most of the congress are rich so 1,000.00 is chump change to them. I love how they always say you will go bankrupt if you don’t have coverage well now you will go bankrupt, have no insurance and have to pay a fine. I am at the end of my rope with all of these bozos and the stupid voting bozos.
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