If you have to pass it to find out what’s in it it is a stool sample.
So all they have to do is sign up for coverage every time something really bad happens and then cancel. The only risk is if they get another really bad problem before the next open enrollment period. If nothing else Obamacare will teach people how to be risk managers.
THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE THING.
In fact, everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - that the Executive Branch is doing now, and for the foreseeable future, is just to burn bridges to the past. The individual insurance market is already ruined, and cannot be revived unless the PPACA is repealed in the next 6 weeks. The reason the ruination of the employer-provided insurance market was delayed a year was to get through the elections in 2014 without a revolt. By January 2015, it will be impossible to resurrect group insurance without the Obamacare income transfers (which are massive - costs to a family of 4 may be in excess of $20 000/year).
I wrote the following in October 2010:
Naturally, the law popularly known as "Obamacare" is having a destructive effect on our existing health care system, since it was designed to destroy it. It is functioning exactly as intended.
The first effect, already apparent, is to cause all private investment in future projects, from hospital construction to industrial design, from drug development to conceptual research, to cease. In the eyes of Obamunists, this is a good thing, because all of that private investment is seeking "profit", and since white man's greed runs a world in need, profit must be abolished.
The drying up of investment is producing the predictable, second effect, which is to decrease hiring and increase layoffs. Healthcare executives are becoming convinced that next year will be worse than last year, and so on, and so on, ad infinitum, so all health care businesses are contracting.
Thirdly, insurance companies that plan to stay in business are increasing their premiums in anticipation of increased regulation (cost of compliance), increased taxation, punitive surcharges, and decreased customer bases.
Fourth, employers who are able are already dropping or restricting coverage.
Fifth, prospective physicians who might have considered the already difficult pathway of primary care practice are changing career paths, or seeking government employment. A private primary care doctor works 55-65 hours a week, government employees work 37.5. This will drastically increase the already severe shortages in this sector.
Sixth, the FDA, for the first time in history, has begun to revoke approval of already-existing drugs because of their cost. The first victims of this will be independent Oncology practices, whose existence depends on revenue from cutting-edge chemotherapy, but other sectors are sure to follow - not to mention the effects on patients who need new treatments (and whose tax dollars have already paid for the development of some of those treatments).
As I have written before, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was a work of purely Leninist destruction. Its sole purpose was, and is, to wreck what we have now in order to create conditions for a fully nationalized system.
As Emperor Palpatine says in Star Wars - Return of the Jedi, "Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it". I am sure that is the view of Obama and his creators.
are we talking about the
...three month allowed coverage gap...
or something else?
A complete and total breakdown of the US healthcare system, followed by a communist-like takeover of all aspects of healthcare.
The US healthcare system got to be what it was with no help from the government. Now, with the government’s help, it will be a disaster. (but not for the ruling elite which will have everything it wants while we pay for it)
Obama’s war on doctors is just warming up...
Moral Hazard: It’s in there.
My hope is that ACA causes so many doctors and hospitals to drop out of 3rd-Party payer systems, accepting only cash, that we actually see the rise of a true free-market health-care system.
The only way I see to beat Obamacare is to rob a bank, get convicted and let the State handle your health problems.
Beats nursing homes, hospitals and clinics. Costs nothing an they feed you to.
If premiums are subsidized, did the government ever think about “who” will pay the copay? The “insured” will just claim he/she has no money and walk away. Good luck with that. That’s why Medicaid nationwide is such a screaming success and healthcare for free is going broke.
Let’s see now, 12 million people (original estimate when bill was passed up to now 45 million (updated to include illegals who are assumed to be granted amnesty and thus eligible) will be without insurance and “need” this monstrosity.
Yet 60-90 million people will LOSE their insurance. Makes perfect sense, if you use government math.
Why of course it does. Sets the doctors up from the start as being heartless demons. See folks, if you can’t afford it, it is because those greedy mean doctors want to be paid.
...it’s what happens when you make the doctors slaves...
Isn’t this a bit of a contradiction in terms? If people don’t pay the premiums, they get a 3 month grace period. But then, if they still don’t pay, their policy is cancelled? But then, is that really going to happen, if we’re all required to have insurance, would they really just cancel someone’s policy????
Doctors are now responsible for Obama?
Hospitals and providers are or at least should be well apprised of this loophole. 0-care exchange patients are generally going to be poor credit risks. Those with high paying jobs will generally have employer based insurance. Most of the 0-care patients, at least this year, will be working in lower and middle income wage jobs.
Because margins for most providers are tight due to declining reimbursememnt across the board, they must capture co-pays and deductibles for the lowest possible cost which means payment in full at the time of service. Using collection agencies costs 30-50% of the amount collected, and even worse, depending on the age of the account, many if not most accounts will be uncollectable due to bankruptcy. Moreover, those hospitals and providers taking 0-care insurance will have leverage over patients because the provider networks are intentionally very restricted.
Of course, emergency cases cannot be turned away, and ERs will close and those staying open will be overcrowed. But most medical care is elective, and without paying the co-pay, the deductible or proof of premium payment, patients will not receive care. This is why, despite the hype of universal coverage, many hospitals are making cutbacks. Patients caught in the 0-care exchange vortex will be paying more out of pocket thus driving down demand.
The government subsidized medical care for seniors, driving up prices and forcing the young and middle aged out of the market. Now Obamacare comes along trying to fix the problem the government created, making things worse.