Early days of Obamacare bring trickle, not flood, of patients

Reuters on Yahoo ^ | 1/5/14 | Sharon Begley and Lewis Krauskopf

[NormsRevenge]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. medical providers are seeing only a trickle of patients newly insured under President Barack Obama's healthcare law, as insurers, hospitals and doctors try to work out any hitches in coverage.

More than 2 million people have signed up for new private health plans that took effect on Wednesday under the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. While some of those consumers were already lining up doctor visits last month, early reports from providers and an online medical booking service show the demand for care has been modest so far.

Within the Obama administration, officials fear a surge of patients in the coming weeks could spotlight cases where consumers who signed up for insurance can't immediately get care due to technical failures on the government's HealthCare.gov enrollment website.

Already on Friday, Senate Republicans opposed to the law seized on scattered media reports of a handful of people having difficulty confirming their new insurance policies, feeding into a narrative of Obamacare's harms that is expected to intensify ahead of Congressional elections in November.

Central Ohio Primary Care, a 250-physician practice, is holding off on filing claims for patients who say they bought plans through the HealthCare.gov exchange, said Chief Executive Officer Dr. William Wulf.

The delay will allow insurers more time to confirm membership information and avert any erroneous claim denials, Wulf said.

Such a grace period "surely is not desirable long term," he said, but the number of patients with Obamacare plans has so far been low and represents only a small fraction of the practice's patients.

"What we're doing is we're seeing the patients, trusting they are in fact going to pay for insurance and just not sending a bill yet," Wulf said.

[Sirius Lee]

"What we're doing is we're seeing the patients, trusting they are in fact going to pay for insurance and just not sending a bill yet," Wulf said.

Suckerrrrrrs!

[knarf]

Do they get a card?

What does it look like ?

[Red_Devil 232]

The LIVs may have figured out it was not FREE!

[QT3.14]

IMAGINE IF YOU WILL

World War 2 lasted three and one-half years. During that time our country planned and produced:

• 22 aircraft carriers
• 8 battleships
• 48 cruisers
• 349 destroyers
• 420 destroyer-escorts
• 203 submarines
• 34 million tons of merchant ships
• 100,000 fighter aircraft
• 98,000 bombers
• 24,000 transport aircraft
• 58,000 training aircraft
• 93,000 tanks
• 257,000 artillery pieces
• 105,000 mortars
• 3 million machine guns
• 2.5 million trucks

Furthermore:

• 16.1 million men and women were put into uniform
• Invaded Africa, Sicily and Italy
• Won the battle of the Atlantic
• Executed D-Day
• Marched across the Pacific and Europe
• Conquered Germany
• Developed the atomic bomb
• Conquered Japan

During about the same amount of time:

The ∅bama administration couldn't build a functioning web site!

[Sirius Lee]

It looks like this:

[Bernard]

Another possible reason for a low patient turn-out is that maybe the “registrations” on Obamacare are not real people; more like Chicago voters. I wonder how many sign-ups for Obamacare show an address that corresponds to a bush on the side of the Kennedy Expressway?

[alloysteel]

So, the bills begin arriving in the mail as of the first of February? What happens when payment has not been arranged for by the end of six months, does the entity that provides the health care institute collection actions?

Because, even by then, the insuring agency will not have been able to issue coverage, retroactively or any other way.

Enter economic gridlock that makes the collapse of the financial system in 1938 look like a child tumbling a tower of blocks.

And it may all be traced to a vast government program that was under-developed and for a long time had no discernible positive effect.

When first introduced, the Social Security plan was quite modest, but a look at the actuarial reality of the times, it was clear that only a few lucky ones would “win” in the retirement lottery, as the average life span at the time was about 62, and the minimum retirement age was 65, which meant the pyramid club, or Ponzi scheme, was already in place, and it was simply a tax on the wages of working people, many of whom would never have been subject to payment of taxes on the Federal level at all otherwise.

The fact the employer had to either reduce the actual wages paid to the worker, in order to cover both sides of the employer and employee contributions, or had to scale back on actual numbers of employees, has never been adequately taken into consideration for the surge in unemployment in late 1937 and lasting through 1938. But man, the money was flowing like liquid honey into the US Treasury. By mid 1938, the rate of unemployment was very nearly as high as it was in 1933, when FDR took office.

The plan to introduce national socialism to America did not work in the 1930’s and it is not working today.

At least not until they apply the solutions used by the Third Reich and start sending people on one-way trips to “re-education centers”, which, strangely enough, never had any graduates.

[minnesota_bound]

Your minimum payment is $5,000 for the deductible plus the high monthly costs before you get your FREE healthcare!
No wonder no one wants to go see a doctor. They cannot afford to.

[The Working Man]

When first introduced, the Social Security plan was quite modest, but a look at the actuarial reality of the times, it was clear that only a few lucky ones would “win” in the retirement lottery, as the average life span at the time was about 62, and the minimum retirement age was 65, which meant the pyramid club, or Ponzi scheme, was already in place, and it was simply a tax on the wages of working people, many of whom would never have been subject to payment of taxes on the Federal level at all otherwise.

The fact the employer had to either reduce the actual wages paid to the worker, in order to cover both sides of the employer and employee contributions, or had to scale back on actual numbers of employees, has never been adequately taken into consideration for the surge in unemployment in late 1937 and lasting through 1938. But man, the money was flowing like liquid honey into the US Treasury. By mid 1938, the rate of unemployment was very nearly as high as it was in 1933, when FDR took office.

---

An EXCELLENT point, I’ve never before seen that correlation pointed out.

[ArmstedFragg]

The “free” checkups are covered even though you haven’t hit the deductable, as is the discount from the billed amount to the plan approved amount on all services.

[TigersEye]

Within the Obama administration, officials fear a surge of patients in the coming weeks could spotlight cases where consumers who signed up for insurance can't immediately get care due to technical failures on the government's HealthCare.gov enrollment website.

They wouldn't fear that unless they knew it was the likely outcome.

[PJ-Comix]

More than 2 million people have signed up for new private health plans that took effect on Wednesday under the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. While some of those consumers were already lining up doctor visits last month, early reports from providers and an online medical booking service show the demand for care has been modest so far.

NOT TRUE. That 2 million "signed up" figure is strictly government propaganda. There are NO stats at all to back this up. How many have PAID is who is signed up and you can see in my tagline my prediction of how many PAID as of Jan. 1. I have been asking around and I have not met one person who signed up for ObamaCare via paying for it.

[steve86]

There are NO stats at all to back this up

Really? In my state, Washington, on Dec. 24th there were 54,472 paid commercial enrollments and 69,606 completed commercial applications waiting for payment and about 150,000 new Medicaid enrollments and 179,205 applications not yet completed.

http://www.wahbexchange.org/news-resources/press-room/press-releases/dec-24-data-report

[alloysteel]

The figures quoted for the state of Washington still seem to be a pitifully small number, compared to the vast throngs that the “Patient Protection and Affordable care act of 2010” was supposed to serve. And even at that, participation in Washington state may be far above that of most other localities and states, where there are, in effect, no facilities available even for those who do actually get enrolled, as either the policies do not include these facilities in their local area, or the restrictions are so severe that essentially there is no effective coverage. So a system of inadequate services with “crappy” coverage was overturned and replaced with a scheme that provided even LESS in the way of service and even “crappier” coverage.

I do not see the advantage gained.

[steve86]

You forgot to put the “/rant off” at the end of your comment.