Kerfuffles about the glitch rollout and delays are just head-fakes.
Posted on 11/17/2013 7:02:07 AM PST by Kaslin
Chaos. "The whole mess has thrown the country, millions of people, the insurance market, into chaos," wrote Paul Palumbo, one of the million Californians who were notified that because of the Affordable Care Act, their Blue Shield plans would end Dec. 31.
When the self-employed research analyst received the notice, he stopped paying his premiums because "they were dropping" him. The cheapest alternative he could find costs 61 percent more than his old premium and has a higher deductible. For now, he's waiting for the market to settle and rolling the dice. After President Barack Obama announced Thursday that he would allow insurers to sell 2013 plans for another year, Palumbo observed that it changes nothing. This new fiat "will only further confuse people and negatively impact the market's ability to function efficiently."
Is what Obama proposes even legal? When Republicans tried to delay the scheme, the administration responded that Obamacare is "the law of the land," passed by Congress, signed by the president and upheld by the Supreme Court.
Covered California requires its providers to terminate old individual policies Dec. 31.
Insurers are not on board. They have tied their offerings into knots to meet the ACA's voluminous regulations and calculated rates that anticipated current policyholders joining new pools. Now the president says to health care purveyors: Never mind. Do me a favor and sell your old plans with added bells and whistles -- and for what you charged because you could exclude those with pre-existing conditions.
With this gambit, Obama essentially is trying to convince an estimated 5 million terminated policyholders across the country: If you lose your plan, blame the insurance companies.
The news conference followed a botched rollout capped by the release of anemic enrollment numbers. The administration had expected 500,000 people to sign up during October. Instead, 106,000 Americans enrolled. The numbers for California are better. Nearly 31,000 Californians signed up in October; another 24,000 enrolled in the first two weeks of November. According to Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee, older Californians are overrepresented and younger Californians are underrepresented in the applicant pool.
If too few healthy and young people participate, warned Devon Herrick, senior fellow of the National Center for Policy Analysis, the result will be an "adverse selection death spiral."
Anthony Wright of Health Access rejects any suggestion that a million Californians are losing their coverage so that a hoped-for 500,000 to 700,000 can get subsidized plans. "There's already more than a million people who are getting coverage," he said, when you add the 435,000 adults younger than 26 enrolled on their parents' plans and the 615,000 newly enrolled in Medi-Cal and similar programs.
For those Californians, the Affordable Care Act actually is affordable. For those who pay for their health care, probably not.
"The old individual market was not working well," Obama said in his defense. If so, the new individual market is working worse. It turns out that when the government adds benefits and makes insurers charge the same for people with pre-existing conditions, costs go up. Individual policyholders who do not qualify for subsidies are experiencing severe rate shock -- and they're losing their doctors.
This is where liberals like to insert that Republicans never wanted Obamacare to work. Not quite. Republicans always knew that Obamacare could not work.
Obamacare has created untold chaos in the health care system and may have irreparably ruined the health insurance industry in the US. Worse still is that Obamacare was a total fraud and Obama and his shills in Congress deliberately lied to the American people in order to pass this law. I would hope that the American people would now see that the government is incapable of running the health care system.
This is a tough spot for me. On one hand I find great joy is seeing Zero finally being exposed for the phony anti-american nanny state fool that he is.
But on the other hand millions of decent people are getting the screws put to them .
The best option would be to let those that voted for Zero to suffer their folly, and those that voted for anyone else to get relief.
Bumping your third sentence of your post
Now they are expecting Conservatives, Republicans, American businesses, and the American people to help clean up the massive mess that they created so that the abomination will be successful so that they can take all of credit for it and claim that socialism works.
There is absolutely no way this monstrosity will work without massive tax increases. Right now they are targeting and making the young workers tax slaves to Obamacare. However, there aren't enough young workers to cover the costs.
There are two issues:
1. Young workers typically don't make a lot of money. They are just starting out, in college, etc. So, some might be considered close to the poverty line if not in poverty. So, a large percentage might be receiving Medicaid or some form of subsidy instead of paying into the system. There is already a story about a college student, a law student, qualifying for Medicaid under Obamacare.
2. Young people up to 26 years of age are allowed to stay on their parent's plan. That means that the young people tax slaves needed to fund Obamacare will not be buying insurance.
No matter how you slice it, a vote for a democrat is a vote against America.
The other day I got into an argument with an acquaintance (make that: ex-acquaintance) who tried blaming Republicans for Obamacare failling.
"They never wanted it to work and always hoped it'd fail, it's their fault!"
That emotional outburst was quickly met with the fact that Democrats controlled the House, Senate and White House and enacted this law on their own. They passed everything they thought they needed to make it work, had over three and a half years to set it up, and were completely un-encumbered by any Republican opposition to fund anything they wanted. They failed. Who's fault is it again?
"But they never wanted it to work!"
No matter the facts of the matter, bitter partisan Democrat hacks are going to do their best to pin this on Republican's. I suggest they wish a little harder that tinkerbell can fly.
Not sure I'd limit that statement to Democrats alone. There's certainly plenty of GOP-E and RINO's that I could just as easily make the same statement about. One of them being the alleged Republican Senator from my state of Illinois, Mark Kirk. He defines RINO!
In such a discussion, remind that person that if everyone in Organizing for America signed up for Obamacare the program would work and it would not have to be mandatory. Ask any person defending Obamacare if they’ve signed up yet.
Kerfuffles about the glitch rollout and delays are just head-fakes.
How does that old saying go... There are none so blind as those who will not see.
“According to Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee, older Californians are overrepresented and younger Californians are underrepresented in the applicant pool.”
No sh**, Sherlock
Is what Obama proposes even legal.
NO nor is the ACA.
UNAFFORDABLE
%%
UN-Affordable, that’s what you are
Unaffordable - bought near or far.
Like a piece of caca that clings to me
How the thought of ACA does things to me;
Never before, has Healthcare cost more.
UN-Affordable, in every way
And forever more, that’s how it’ll stay
That’s why, Media, it’s incredible
That something so unforgettable
Will remain, so unaccountable to you...
%%
That’s really it right there.
If it weren’t Obamacare it would be some other nanny state program to push. There is no end to them, they can keep coming up with these things to infinity.
Not that the Republicans are all that much better. It seems they think that if they are not passing more laws all the time they are not doing their job. We citizens are partly responsible for that line of thinking.
We need to send a message that we are not sending people to Congress to keep passing more and more laws. We have plenty of laws. We need to send them there to undo some laws.
Very good point.
No, the Repubs do not do huge new social engineering programs. Not one voted for Obamacare. They are very different.
The permanent pubbie campaign slogan. Listen up pubbies here it is!
As far as the insurer is concerned they get full premium for each enrollee the subsidy goes to the insurance company remember. What might hurt them is that the benefits for some of the lowest earning enrollees is that their benefits are so much better (lower deductibles, co-insurance and co-pays). Who pays for that?
It used to be that students could not get Medicaid, I guess Obama put that expense on the people as well. But if the student takes Medicaid and runs up a bill can they go after future earnings?
Only Medicaid expenses accrued after age 55 according to current Medicaid Estate Recovery law.
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