A Direct Marketer Gags on Obamacare

Target Marketing Magazine ^ | 12 august 2014 | Denny Hatch

[Sgt_Schultze]

- snip -

• In order to be successful, the Affordable Care Act must tie into Social Security and operate under the hugely efficient Medicare model.
• You cannot expect consumers to make informed buying decisions based on 60 pages of choices presented in legalese gobbledygook. My bet: The nerds and analysts who ran the numbers on Obamacare never had experience with attrition.
• For universal health care to work, Medicare.gov must take over all operations. Despite the built-in quagmire, 8 million scared consumers rolled the dice and signed on to Obamacare.
• A majority in Congress wants Obamacare repealed in its entirety.
• If repealed—and just 3 percent of those 8 million souls die because of pre-existing conditions and lost coverage—that's 240,000 dead.

[Sgt_Schultze]

The prescriptions of this marketer are very valuable - if you value the opinion of a marketer who describes Medicare as efficient. Medicare, which saves money by underpaying physicians for their services who are forced to cost-shift onto the backs of the insured and cash payers (physicians are quitting Medicare because of this behavior). Medicare, whose costs don't include collections (IRS does that) and facilities management (GSA does that). It's pretty easy to pretend your business model is efficient when you can shift normal business functions onto another company and the not account for that service. The comments at the end are from nuts, which indicates how good this guy must be as a marketer, at least. He pushes the right buttons to excite the angry, envious, low-info crowd to start wailing about "tea partiers,"

[Pearls Before Swine]

It's pretty easy to pretend your business model is efficient when you can shift normal business functions onto another company and the not account for that service.

That's a general principle. For example, it applies to illegal alien labor... the employer pays a low rate, too low for subsistence without supplemental pay. That is shifted to the taxpayer in the form of subsidies for health and education and housing and income tax/identity fraud.

Modern society is rife with increasing examples of cost-shifting at the expense of personal responsibility.

[Fantasywriter]

‘Despite the built-in quagmire, 8 million scared consumers rolled the dice and signed on to Obamacare.’

This number has never been confirmed. We do know that at many as a third who signed up haven’t paid their premiums. But we do not have any objective confirmation of the actual totals.

[camle]

mideicare....efficient???
lost me right there

[Izzy Dunne]

This number has never been confirmed.

And how come they haven't been touting the next step: "9 million", "10 million", etc.?

[Fantasywriter]

‘And how come they haven’t been touting the next step: “9 million”, “10 million”, etc.?’

That is a very good question.

But I think you & I both suspect the answer. Pravda...I mean, the WH, has at least stopped digging the hole they’re in.

[Lou L]

And how come they haven't been touting the next step: "9 million", "10 million", etc.?

Lord knows that I would never defend Obamacare, but one reason the numbers aren't going up dramatically is that I believe the "open enrollment" period has ended. Until October (ish), you wouldn't be able to purchase insurance without a major life event; e.g., job loss, marriage, divorce, etc.

The statistics I would like to see is this: tell me how many people previously without insurance now have insurance? How many of those people are actually paying premiums for a new policy? How many of those paying for a policy are seeking (and receiving) healthcare as a result?

It would be icing on the cake, but I'd like to know what they're paying for co-pays, how much their deductibles are, and what they pay for services like prescriptions, eye care, dental, and so forth.