Posted on 01/06/2014 2:53:27 AM PST by markomalley
To kick off 2014, Kathleen Sebelius is reportedly papering the country with op-eds about the wonders of the “Affordable” Care Act. But her PR campaign aside, things will continue to deteriorate for Obamacare in 2014. Here are ten ways it’ll happen:
1. Many won’t pay: A sizeable share of the 2 million people who selected a private insurance plan before the 2013 deadline will not pay their share of the premiums and therefore won’t be covered by the plans in which the White House says they “enrolled.” Enrolling, by the White House definition, is actually just selecting a plan — the same as putting an item in the shopping basket at Amazon. Until you pay, you don’t own it. Early reports from Washington State and Nevada show that only half of those selecting a plan had paid their first month’s premium before the deadline.
2. Others will stop paying: Even if people do pay their premiums for the first few months, we’ll wait to see how many people are still paying them later in the year and maintaining their insurance. Remember, the law requires people to pay premiums for health insurance every month, year after year, to comply with the mandate; if they go more than three months in a year without government-approved health insurance, they have to pay a penalty tax.
3. Many enrollees will be the newly-uninsured: Obama-administration officials are not releasing data on how many of the people who have picked plans are from the ranks of the uninsured. One reason: It is likely that many if not most of those enrolling in private insurance are people who have been kicked out of their existing private plans because their policies didn’t comply with the mountain of Obamacare rules, mandates, and requirements.
4. Another broken promise: Many members of Congress who voted for Obamacare did so because they wanted “universal coverage.” But we may end up further from that goal: If the numbers show that millions of those buying insurance on the exchanges had insurance before but lost it because it didn’t comply with Obamacare’s rules, we may wind up with fewer people with private insurance than before the $2.6 trillion law passed! That would be another betrayal of trust with the American people, who genuinely wanted to help expand access to health insurance.
5. Many uninsured won’t enroll: People will find that Obamacare’s high-deductible insurance policies just aren’t worth the exorbitant premiums — even after subsidies — and won’t buy. Faced with paying premiums of $3,000 or more a year and carrying a $4,000 annual deductible, millions just won’t see the value in buying the coverage.
6. Sicker and older enrollees will outweigh younger healthies: The Obama administration hasn’t released a demographic breakdown of exchange enrollees so far. But many of us — and many in the Obama administration — fear that those most likely to enroll are older, sicker, and more expensive patients, not — despite Pajama Boy’s hot-chocolate plea — the younger, healthier people needed to offset their elders’ premiums. This will mean premiums or deductibles will have to be even higher in 2015.
7. Tens of millions will see employer plans canceled: The next wave of lost coverage will be among those receiving health insurance through small businesses. Most do not self-insure (the way big companies do), and the health-insurance policies that businesses renewed in 2013 under the old rules will expire in waves throughout 2014 because they don’t meet the law’s new mandates. Expect to see many more news articles reporting on the next cascade of lost policies.
8. Most of the newly insured will be on Medicaid: The more heavily subsidized insurance is, the more likely people are to enroll. Medicaid is free to patients, or nearly so, so it’s likely to see the greatest enrollment. In Kentucky, for example, 85 percent of those enrolling so far are on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
9. Fewer insurance companies will participate in 2015: Many insurance companies took a “watch and wait” attitude to participating in the Obamacare exchanges in the first year. Those that did participate have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to structure plans that comply with the law. But as the rules change, sometimes daily, these companies have been sent into a frenzy to comply with the new directives. Those who bought in and those who didn’t will look carefully at whether or not they will participate in 2015. If they don’t, people will have even fewer choices of plans, and premiums will be even higher next year.
10. Court cases will continue: Legal challenges will continue to march through the courts, and at least some are likely to succeed. Private companies and religiously affiliated charities face ruinous fines if they fail to comply with the mandate that they provide free coverage for their employees for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs, despite their strong religious objections. Lower courts have granted preliminary injunctions in 18 of the 20 cases they’ve heard so far.
A number of other suits are challenging the IRS rule that authorizes subsidies for health insurance in the federal exchanges — which the law clearly doesn’t provide for – and decisions are expected early this year on that matter in federal district courts. And eleven state attorneys general are challenging the Obama administration’s decision to simply stop enforcing the Affordable Care Act’s mandates, including the latest directive to allow insurance companies to keep offering health plans that had been canceled. While the attorneys general support continued coverage, the way the president did it is “flatly illegal under federal constitutional and statutory law,” they claim; lawsuits are likely.
All of these predictions should make another fair bet: Before the 2014 elections, Congress will send legislation to the president to soften the blow of Obamacare, most likely delaying the individual mandate by at least a year. If that happens, the center pole in the Obamacare tent comes down, and the door will open wide for major, structural changes to the law in 2015.
If obamacare collapses and/or if the public finds itself faced with a need to find an replacement plan on the open market, they’ll be doing so with pre-existing conditions ranging from minor to severe. I’d be surprised if they were able to go back to an old plan.
Instead of forcing hospitals to take care of indigents, there should be a hospital or clinic that does only that and we can figure out a way to pay for it, but stop indigents from using the hospital ER's as a free clinic.
I PRAY this health care law FAILS sooner than later...what a disaster...and the liberals that passed knew this was going to happen...they should all be tried for treason against the US public for stealing and profiteering by enacting an illegal law just to gain political power over the people!
Take a look at my tagline for my prediction for total number of PAID enrollments as of Jan. 1.
No. There is a Russian proverb that it is easy to turn an aquarium into fish soup, but impossible to turn the fish soup back into an aquarium.
Obama has created an irreversible fiasco, and it would not be possible to go back to the pre-Obamacare system. The Republicans need to resist any impulses to "fix" this until they have the legislative capability to truly do so. (The House, plus the Senate and Presidency.)
Keep a close eye on this year’s midterms.
What I see is this, several groups have different goals and agendas for America and Healthcare. All decided that Health-insurance was the vehicle to accomplish them.
In no particular order are some but by no means all of them and their goals.
1. Government - Always, always, always wants more of the pie for itself and wants control of the rest of the pie too. The Pie in this case being American citizens, all property both private and ‘public’. Property in this case is defined as ‘all goods tangible and intangible that possess value to someone somewhere’.
2. Eco-nuts, a general catch-all phrase for people or groups of people who may not be in the government but do know how to use it to control their fellow citizens.
These groups have as their professed primary goal the desire to eliminate 90+% of the population of the world because they think there are just too many people on the face of the planet.
Control Healthcare and ‘Mother Nature’ will take care of the rest. Only the ‘Elites’, (who are themselves and fellow travelers), will have access to healthcare and will out-live the rest who don’t.
3. Health-insurance companies, I believe that they see the writing on the wall vis-a-vis total government control of Healthcare. So being good crony capitalists they see the opportunity for MASSIVE short-term profits that can be siphoned off into private bank accounts and therefore have the funds to survive what will inevitably come after the destruction of the Healthcare-insurance business.
Keep a close eye on the 2014 midterms.
The goal of any liberal legislation is to buy votes by “addicting” a certain group to the handout. Obamacare is clearly going to fail in this area.
Democrats will be abandoning their support for Obamacare in droves. I don’t believe they can transition this mess to single-payer, and that means Republican proposals should get a fair hearing.
I don't think that will be enough, even under a best case scenario in 2014. Conservatives need a functional majority in the Senate, as well as the White House, to fix this. Liberalism needs to be completely discredited by 2016.
“The goal of any liberal legislation is to buy votes by “addicting” a certain group to the handout. Obamacare is clearly going to fail in this area.”
Absolutely, because for most Americans this isn’t a handout at all - it is a TAX. For a small number of chronically ill people, it may be a gift; I don’t think there are enough of them to offset the number of other people getting screwed financially (at a time when few have the money to pay the “tax”)...
I know most of us are hoping this thing fails, but I’m sorry to say that even if it did and people learned the right lesson, it probably wouldn’t help.
Regardless of what happens to Obamacare, the fix is in: The government has the right to control your life down to the last detail and fine you if you don’t go along with it. I’m of the opinion that this is what this whole “universal healthcare” fart is about. Obama and his cronies probably knew it would fail, but in getting it passed with that little tidbit about the government fining you for not having healthcare, they got the Supreme Court to rule that yes, government is your lord and master.
The ways the government can use this new power of extortion are almost endless, and you can bet they’ll be going into overdrive with it in the very near future.
“Instead of forcing hospitals to take care of indigents, there should be a hospital or clinic that does only that and we can figure out a way to pay for it, but stop indigents from using the hospital ER’s as a free clinic.”
In my area hospitals have closed because the government required them to treat uninsured (here they are predominantly illegals), then scaled back the reimbursed for such mandated care. Illegals simply make up names & addresses, get treated, then disappear back into the maze of illegal apartments and working under the table that make up an increasing share of NJ.
The problem with Obamacare is arithmetic. It's one thing to get elected 3rd grade class president by promising everyone in the class a pony and another to deliver on the promise. The problem arises when it becomes apparent that there aren't enough ponies for everyone, and there isn't enough money in the class treasury to pay for all the ponies that were promised.
The first step should be to raise more ponies (*). Twenty years or so later, there might be enough ponies so that everyone can have one.
*In the United States:
There are fewer physicians per person than in most other OECD countries. In 2010, for instance, the U.S. had 2.4 practicing physicians per 1,000 people -- well below below the OECD average of 3.1.
The number of hospital beds in the U.S. was 2.6 per 1,000 population in 2009, lower than the OECD average of 3.4 beds.
That is the nub of Obamacare and the Roberts court decision. Regardless of whether the pubbies repeal, replace or leave it alone, some awful precedent will remain.
In addition to your observation, both Scotus and the president may rewrite laws. Lawmaking outside of congress blows up republican government, the foundation of our revolution, and makes arbitrary, authoritarian government a certainty.
Article V.
11. Congressional Republicans will continue to do nothing, choosing to wait for Obamacare to “implode on its own”.
12. At an opportune time after the 2014 elections, Hillary (and/or Deval Patrick, Martin O’Malley, etc.) will start running for president on single-payer. Obama will start speaking in favor of it, in order to claim credit for leading the charge.
You got to remember it is not a matter of if but when, so I do remind again, keep a close eye on the 2014 midterms.
That is why do not be surprised that civil disobedence will become more of the norm.
Number 3 is the most important reason why this even happened in the first place. I heard a statistic that as many as 45% of the people working in the healthcare industry do nothing but process government paperwork that comes with all of the laws incrementally generated to create the mess we had right before Obamacare was brought to the scene. Every regulation brought with it the cost increases we saw annually over many years.
Cronie capitalists, their lobbyists to include Pharma and Agg are directing everything that starts good health in what we eat. Glutens, genetically modified grains and preservatives being the main culprits that cause many conditions that there is always a magic pill you can take to quell your ailments. That is if you can out aside all of the side effects.
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