Posted on 01/16/2014 6:54:36 PM PST by Kaslin
We've written a fair amount about how Obamacare's financial model is only sustainable if a critical mass of young and healthy Americans sign up for overpriced coverage, the purpose of which would be to offset costs associated with insuring millions of older, sicker Americans. For months, the White House declined to reveal how many young consumers had taken the plunge. That opacity finally (partially) ended this week, when an administration report finally unveiled the percentage of 'young invincibles' in the overall risk pool: Twenty-four percent -- well short of Team Obama's projected goal of nearly 40 percent, and even shy of the Kaiser Foundation's "worst-case scenario." What portion of that 24 percent is actually paid up and fully enrolled? We still don't know. Young people's paltry participation rates to date have fueled fears of an industry death spiral, expensive taxpayer bailouts, and hiked 2015 premiums. With more consternation on the horizon, the administration has decided to change its own metric for success. Again. Consider the goalposts officially shifted, America:
The White House is scaling back another self-imposed standard for Obamacare's success—and it's one the administration has spent months promoting. White House officials consistently—and accurately—argue that the most important metric for Obamacare's success this year is the mix of young and old enrollees. But they're backing away from their own goals for that mix. Getting young people into the system is critical to holding down premiums, and therefore to keeping each state's insurance market stable. Administration officials previously said their target was for young adults to make up about 38 percent of Obamacare enrollees. Now that standard is down to about 30 percent. Or maybe even 24 percent—where the mix stands now.
Hell, why not drop the threshold down to 12 percent? Then they would have doubled their goal! Great success! This is hardly the first time the Obamacare brain trust has simply deserted an inconvenient metric mid-stream. In addition to all of the website functionality issues and punted deadlines, here are a handful of prime examples:
(1) We were told that officials expected 7 million Americans to sign up for private coverage under the new law by the end of March. As that target slid out of reach, Kathleen Sebelius basically said "never mind that was never our goal anyway.
(2) Democrats also marketed the law as a cost-reducing endeavor, hence the legislation's name, the "Affordable Care Act." President Obama said the following in 2010: “My proposal will bring down the cost of health care for millions: Families, businesses, and the federal government.” The administration has continued to parrot that fiction, cynically distorting government statistics in a feeble attempt to claim victory. In truth, one of the law's chief architects has now conceded that reducing spending and costs was never realistic. "The law isn't designed to save money. It's designed to improve health, and that's going to cost money," Jon Gruber told the Washington Post several weeks ago
(3) Nancy Pelosi described Obamacare as a jobs bill that would create 4 million new jobs, 400,000 of which would materialize immediately. That promise has vanished into thin air. On rising premiums, Pelosi now says she "doesn't remember" ever saying that everyone's rates would go down under the Democrats' law. Verbatim quote from Nancy Pelosi: "Everybody will have lower rates." Oops!
(4) President Obama and his Democratic foot soldiers pledged ad nauseam that under Obamacare, "if you like your plan, you can keep it. Period." When that vow proved to be untrue for millions, Obama tried to quell the resulting uproar by serving up a half-baked apology and trying to rewrite his famous quote: "What we said was, you could keep it if it hasn't changed since the law was passed." Nope, that's not what you said, champ:
A Montage of Obama's "If You Like Your Plan Keep It" Lies
They knew it at the time, and they know it now, hence the Four-Pinocchios Lie of the Year awards. I'll leave you with Jimmy Kimmel ridiculing the raw deal Obamacare offers young people and expressing puzzlement over how the federal government has spent more than $170 million on penis pumps (true story) since 2004:
Jimmy Kimmel Savages ObamaCare and Uninformed Young People Who Support It
Are the young invincibles who ‘signed up’(whatever the definition of that is) payers or moochers?
In this economy? No way most of them would be earning more than 4x the poverty rate, thus moochers.
I’d speculate that almost all of them are either unemployed (Medicaid) or low wage (max Obamacare subsidy) types. I’d bet my next SocSec deposit that less than 20% are paying “full” price.
I’m hearing 80% of enrollees are on some kind of subsidy.
This has become a new entitlement that will never be rescinded.
Some dufus poster on Yahoo was saying the healthcare industry is about to explode with new jobs. I wonder how many government employees get paid to sit at computers and post BS all day long.
like i mentioned at least once here, if Bambi needs money to pay for all of this, why can’t he just print it? it’s as if we print money 24/7?
Lies, lies and more lies...America is sick of them.
How do we rid ourselves of this vermin?
“Some dufus poster on Yahoo was saying the healthcare industry is about to explode with new jobs. I wonder how many government employees get paid to sit at computers and post BS all day long.”
Thousands....
He’s built his whole entire regime on nothing but lies. In the end that’s all he will have left, a pack of filthy lies. All the lies in the world won’t protect his regime from the defeat that’s gonna’ fall on them like a ton of bricks.
I’d laugh my head off at all the gullible imbeciles that bought all the lies, hook, link and sinker, if they weren’t so tragically misinformed and uninformed by the MSM. That part is really sad.
The ironic thing is...it would have exploded had Obama left it in the private sector.
Millions of young people would have expanded a lucrative industry catering to the needs of retiring boomers. There would have been all kinds of innovation.
Now we will have a dead, unionized industry instead. Can't STAND Obama!!
The basic goal of signing up people under 25 was a failure from the get go.
Why should any person under 25 buy their own insurance when they can be covered by their parent’s policy?
BLUF one Obama insurance regulation directly undermined a second Obama insurance regulation.
And we expect these people to do what?
It's OK as a foot in the healthcare door, but won't take anyone to the promised land.
I thought I saw the other day that 79%? Of them were getting subsidies.
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