Obamacare 'perfect storm': Low enrollments, bad data

Another expert, Nancy Thompson of CBIZ Benefits & Insurance Services, said "no one had the crystal ball" that predicted just how dire the enrollment levels and data problems in enrollment files would be at this point, more than two months after Obamacare launched. "Let's face it, with the number of uninsured that we have in the United States, for us to be sitting [at less than 400,000 enrolled], that's staggeringly low," said Thompson, senior vice president and sales director at CBIZ.

"The bigger concern is, what kind of individuals are enrolling," Thompson said, echoing Tiede's concern about adverse selection. "The low enrollment numbers could absolutely play havoc on the rating structure."

Thompson noted that when they designed their plans and set premium prices for 2014 for the Obamacare exchanges, the exchanges had never enrolled anyone, so there was no data to use to predict who would enroll, and what their level of benefit use would look like.

Now, with low enrollment levels overall nationally, and with the assumption that a disproportionate number of people who did enroll were previously uninsurable because of pre-existing health conditions, "there's no doubt that some of [the insurers] missed the mark when they set rating structures," Thompson said.

And that error rate for enrollments submitted via HealthCare.gov and then sent to insurers before December was an estimated 25 percent, officials revealed.

The rate fell in the past week, officials said, because of repair efforts to HealthCare.gov's, particular the discovery and fix of one particular software problem that was causing an estimated 80 percent of data errors, officials said.

And the bad news (good news) is that based upon this article insurers are now awake from their Obama induced coma and are freaking out at the price they are offering insurance rates at. Somebody is going to have to pick up the tab for the massive losses they will take!

I have no sympathy for the insurance companies that supported and advocated Obamacare then and now. They liked the idea of the government forcing people to buy their product.

As far as who is going to pick up the tab for their massive losses, it will be the US taxpayer. Obamacare insulates the insurance companies from losses through "risk corridors" that are written into the law.

Insurers Could Get Multi-Millions in Obamacare Bailout

An estimated 10 percent of all enrollments now being made on the federal Obamacare marketplace contain data errors that could delay people from actually getting health coverage, officials disclosed Friday.
And that error rate for enrollments submitted via HealthCare.gov and then sent to insurers before December was an estimated 25 percent, officials revealed.

They fixed 80 percent of the errors and they still have a 10 percent error rate? If their error rate was 25% before, then solving 80% of the problems would leave an error rate of 5%.

As usual, someone is lying.

If the error rate were under 5%, I would give them a statistical pass. If it was under 1%, I would say that the insurance companies are still unhappy, but they could add staff and solve most of the problems.

10% error rate at this stage? Catastrophe!

But then, everyone here already knows that...

Their only real prayer is for everyone who "enrolled" in October and November to un-enroll and then re-enroll. But they don't really have time, and neither does the server running the show.

Time for more popcorn...

deep in “the law” there is a valve to limit losses.. with tax payer dollars of course.

An analogy.

During the latter part of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when the tide had been turned against them, they had a marvelous military disaster.

A major highway connected two cities, and a long stretch of it went through a valley between two mountain ranges. On either side of the highway, at the ends of the valley, were two large bridges. To protect the highway, one of the mountains had lightly defended observation posts.

The Afghans came over the top of that mountain from its backside, so were actually above the observation posts when they attacked and destroyed them. These OPs of course, loudly called for help. And convoys of Russian soldiers left both cities, on the highway, to counterattack the Afghans.

By the time the convoys arrived, and met on the highway, all the OPs had been destroyed. Then the Afghans blew up both bridges, trapping all those trucks and men. And proceeded to annihilate them.

The two convoys, of course, loudly called for help in the form of air support. And in the about two hours before the aircraft arrived, the Afghans pulled back over the mountain, so that the only ones remaining there had Stinger missiles.

So, when the Russian aircraft arrived too late, they were severely punished at the loss of a bunch of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. The disaster was almost complete.

And this is why I mention it, in a thread about Obamacare.

Because when analyzing the disaster, the Russian command decided that their operations plan had indeed been perfect; and it had only failed because of being poorly executed by those officers tasked with carrying it out. All of whom were no longer voting, as they had been killed.

Foretelling the future, Obama and his cronies will almost certainly do the same thing. They will insist that Obamacare was perfect, and it was an utter failure *only* because their schemes were not properly executed.

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