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Posted on 11/03/2013 1:22:22 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Obama's aides would not speak to the Trib with their names used for this story. The White House emailed transcripts of press conferences to defend the president's position, attributing the remarks to Obama: “The majority of people in the individual market today qualify for discounted or free health coverage when signing up for coverage through the Marketplace. One study found that 48 percent of people who buy insurance through the individual market will get a tax credit that averages at over $5,500. And 1 million in the individual market today will qualify for Medicaid in states that choose to expand it next year.”
HARRISBURG — Health insurers will terminate coverage for up to 250,000 Pennsylvanians as Obamacare unfolds with a troubled website that has prevented many from enrolling in plans online, the state Insurance commissioner said.
“It's a Kafkaesque nightmare,” said Michael Consedine, the state's chief insurance regulator.
Such cancellations are occurring nationwide, despite “promises that were made” by President Obama that people could keep plans rather than change them, Consedine said.
“People are getting increasingly frustrated,” he said, noting calls to the department are up by two-thirds since the Oct. 1 startup for entry into benefits under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The law aims to replace policies that did not meet its standards.
In Boston last week, Obama accused “bad apple” insurers of causing cancellations, not his signature health care law.
“One of the things health reform was designed to do was to help not only the uninsured but also the underinsured,” Obama said. “And there are a number of Americans — fewer than 5 percent of Americans — who've got cut-rate plans that don't offer real financial protection in the event of a serious illness or an accident.
“Remember, before the Affordable Care Act, these bad apple insurers had free rein every single year to limit the care that you received, or use minor pre-existing conditions to jack up your premiums or bill you into bankruptcy. So a lot of people thought they were buying coverage, and it turned out not to be so good.”
Asked about the accusation that “bad apple” insurers exist, the White House would not provide the Tribune-Review an explanation.
Consedine challenged the “bad apple” contention, defending the majority of insurers as “good corporate citizens.”
Cancellations are coming about “not because bad actors were making bad decisions,” he said in an interview Friday. “It's because (company plans) were not up to (Obamacare) compliance policies.”
The state Insurance Department issued 13 so-called “market conduct” actions against companies this year, the agency said, and more enforcement activity is under way. Pennsylvania has the fifth-largest insurance premium volume in the country and the 14th-largest in the world, said agency spokeswoman Roseanne Placey.
The department supervises the operations of about 1,700 insurance companies.
Under the Obamacare market exchange, insurance plans may offer more benefits, but they might be costlier plans because of unneeded or unwanted benefits, said Nathan Benefield, a researcher with the Commonwealth Foundation in Harrisburg. Benefield said Highmark, the state's largest insurer, sent him a cancellation letter, and he signed up for a plan costing $90 more per month.
Highmark mailed about 40,000 cancellation notices, said spokeswoman Kristin Ash. As people switch coverage under Obamacare, they should get lower costs and more benefits, she said.
Cancellations largely are occurring with people who had individual coverage, not group plans, officials said.
The “bad apple” comment, coupled with Obama's earlier promise that people could keep health plans they liked, infuriates David Taylor, executive director of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association, which represents large manufacturers, businesses, railroads, power companies and individuals.
“That is just another bald-faced untruth,” Taylor said. He said the plan is “larded up” with benefits people don't need. One is maternity coverage for men, he said, an issue that surfaced at a congressional hearing this week.
Kelly Loussedes, a vice president for the Washington-based National Association of Health Underwriters, said she isn't sure what the president meant by “bad apples.”
The association represents agents and brokers.
Obama's aides would not speak to the Trib with their names used for this story. The White House emailed transcripts of press conferences to defend the president's position, attributing the remarks to Obama: “The majority of people in the individual market today qualify for discounted or free health coverage when signing up for coverage through the Marketplace. One study found that 48 percent of people who buy insurance through the individual market will get a tax credit that averages at over $5,500. And 1 million in the individual market today will qualify for Medicaid in states that choose to expand it next year.”
Pennsylvania has a state-styled Medicaid plan pending before federal regulators. It would use federal money to buy private insurance coverage for the poor, and require people to pay toward premiums and show effort to get jobs.
“I'm hearing prices are going up, and benefits are going down,” said Loussedes of the national agents' group.
Sharon Ward, executive director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, thinks the trouble will be “a distant memory” as Obamacare advances. There will be “more choices for consumers,” she said.
What study - another hand-picked university study, in the same vein as the continually discredited global warming "studies?") -- "scientific" studies continually churned out by those Big Government compliant university departments (bought and paid for) to push and support more and more legislation, regulation and taxes -- grow government, shrink liberty!? One of THOSE studies?
How can there be a study when there hasn’t been a sample size large enough to conduct a study, and the fact that the numbers are state secrets?
I think Obama should be pressed to name the “bad apples.”
"Should" and "will" are two completely different concepts. I'm betting on "higher costs and less benefits".
1994:”A hard-edged question was posed to Hillary Rodham Clinton at her Whitewater news conference: what about “the suggestion in the R.T.C. memorandum . . . you and your husband knew or should have known that Whitewater was not cash-flowing and that notes or debts should have been paid”?
“Shoulda, coulda, woulda,” the First Lady replied. “We didn’t.”...............
Taken together, the term means “Spare me the useless excuses.” I reached Mrs. Clinton through her aides, each of whom was surprised at the good-natured nature of my follow-up question, to get her definition. Mrs. Clinton passes the word that she heard the expression often in Arkansas, and interprets it to mean:
“People can tell you that you should have, or could have, or would have, but the question is: Did you or didn’t you?”...............
The shoulda, coulda, woulda phrase (accepting Mrs. Clinton’s order as standard) has a wistfully resigned connotation that was evoked in 1854 by the poet John Greenleaf Whittier in “Maud Muller”:
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/15/magazine/on-language-shoulda-coulda-woulda.html
“Bad apple insurers”
To be fair, it was Great Satan George Bush who got them to sell their souls.
I remember my mom using that phrase, always in the context of some mistake or lapse of judgement on my part!
So basically what this Kristin is saying is that Highmark was selling a policy that was too expensive and did not provide enough services for the price. But under a government program intended to pay for insuring the uninsurable, the price will go down. Suuuuuuuure.....
” And 1 million in the individual market today will qualify for Medicaid in states that choose to expand it next year.”
Pffft, I predict just California by itself will be close to 1 million freeloaders going into Medicaid,
Pffft, I predict just California by itself will be close to 1 million freeloaders going into Medicaid,
It's another way Obama & Co. shifts blame away from them and the truth (sticker shock/policy fail) about their agenda (as they're doing with insurance companies) and onto states that have not "bought into" the federal ploy to expand an unfunded mandate (will become totally a cost to the states). Obama & Co. are hoping panicked voters will pressure their state governments to accept Medicaid expansion.
______________________________
Healthcare.gov: What if my state isn't expaninding Medicaid? "Some states are not expanding their Medicaid programs starting January 1, 2014. In these states, some people with limited incomes may have fewer coverage options...........States are continuing to make coverage decisions and they could expand Medicaid in the future......"
That $5,500 tax credit this study cites probably is EITC....
There’s only ONE Bad apple in this mess, and it’s name is OBAMA!!!
Does it really matter how many will receive subsidized health care and how many qualify for free health care?
What really matters is that someone, has to pay for it.
Now who are the someone’s who are going to pay for the Freebies and the Subsidies?????????
Middle Class Americans who Obama has already bled dry.
Working Americans who are the future of America
Not drones who have been collecting America’s goodies for years.
We have already passed the tipping point and are on our way to bankruptcy, led there by a Kenyan Muslim Doper who cannot pass a Security check.
Adolph Obama that is!
Perhaps the Left would be so kind as to name a couple of these explicitly, so that they can be avoided? I thought not.
It’s common knowledge that when Karl Rove wasn’t operating his bad weather machine, he was selling ‘bad apple’ health insurance policies.
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