We have had to do multiple posts every month since last August to cover all of the chaos that Obama Care has unleashed. That first post in August can be accessed at:
The post continued every month since then, starting up again this month at the following link:
I am assuming that the bad news about Obama Care will continue to hit the fan and that next month at around the same time, we will have to wade into this mess again to explain how this is easily the worst piece of legislation ever enacted by Washington, legislation that was enacted by the most inept set of Washington politicians...ever
1) We have already covered some heartbreaking cases of Americans who were turned away from medical treatment or scared away because of the out of pocket costs when they thought the had Obama Care insurance coverage but found out that they really did not. Recent news reports have described how health insurance companies are still trying to sort out cases of so-called health insurance “orphans.”
Orphans are customers for whom the government has a record that they had enrolled in an Obama Care policy, but the insurer has no record of that enrollment and no payment and thus, is not providing insurance for that individual. The insurers are concerned the problem will grow more cumbersome as they begin to handle the flood of new customers who signed up in December as enrollment deadlines neared.
Orphans are customers for whom the government has a record that they had enrolled in an Obama Care policy, but the insurer has no record of that enrollment and no payment and thus, is not providing insurance for that individual. The insurers are concerned the problem will grow more cumbersome as they begin to handle the flood of new customers who signed up in December as enrollment deadlines neared.
How bad is the problem? There are two conflicting views:
“It’s an ongoing concern,” said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for the industry trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans. “Health plans can’t process enrollments they haven’t received from the exchange.”
Julie Bataille, communications director for the federal health care rollout, disputes the industry’s view: “We have fixed the issues that we knew were a problem, and we are now seeing nearly zero errors in the work moving forward.”
Julie Bataille, communications director for the federal health care rollout, disputes the industry’s view: “We have fixed the issues that we knew were a problem, and we are now seeing nearly zero errors in the work moving forward.”
So what is it? An ongoing concern or nearly zero errors. Given this administration’s track record of lying and deception, my money would be on the “it’s an ongoing concern” perspective. Consider the opinion of an industry expert, Bob Laszewski, who expects to hear more reports about orphaned files as ailing people seek health care or start worrying about insurance cards that have not arrived: “As we go through the month, you bet this is going to be a problem.”
This is what happens when you have a faulty system that should have never gone live in the first place, given that we know now that the pre rollout testing of the system was a disaster. And for this stupid decision, rolling out with a broken data systems operation, this is eventually going to start causing people to die as they find out they cannot afford “affordable insurance” under Obama Care because the process made them orphans.
2) Consider a roundup of disasters that the Newsmax website reported on January 2, 2014:
- Middle-class families are finding out the exact cost of the Affordable Care Act to their weekly budget, and they are realizing they have to make cutbacks in their lifestyles to afford higher healthcare insurance premiums, The Week reports.
- An issue of The Week magazine looked at the bad side effects of Obama Care, concluding that the legislation was "another sucker punch to the middle class."
- The Week’s analysis warned that "when the family budget gets hit in the solar plexus, guess what happens to consumer spending and the economy?”
- In California, the Wall Street Journal reported in December that 900,000 Californians are seeing their current health insurance policies terminated because they don't meet the Obama Care requirements.
- Since about 600,000 of these people are not eligible for Obama Care subsidies, they will all end up paying larger premiums.
- In New York, thousands of small businesses are being hammered by the cost of premiums under Obama Care, according to the New York Post. The National Federation of Independent Businesses, which represents nearly 11,000 business owners in New York, reports that not one single member has reported that their healthcare insurance costs are going down. The federation's director Mike Durant said an "overwhelming majority" of small firms with fewer than 50 employees have reported, in fact, that their premiums have increased substantially.
The article points out Michael Kennedy as an example, who owns two dog-grooming salons near Albany. He said his health insurance coverage had more than doubled under Obama Care, going from $132.99 to $325.92 a month per person. According to Mr. Kennedy: "It’s like another 100 dogs we need to groom."
- In Alabama, WHNT News has revealed that middle-class residents have received letters "indicating their premiums will soon double." Alabama resident Courtney Long, a mother of four, was shocked when Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama notified her that her family's individual healthcare plan was going up from $352 per month to $796. "It's devastating. I started crying," said Long.
"I mean, we have worked so hard to get out of credit card debt, get ahead on the car loan, transfer our mortgage to a 15 from a 30 year mortgage…and for what?"
- In Washington state, Forbes estimates that Obama Care "will increase, the underlying cost of individually purchased health insurance by 34 to 80%, on average."
- In Tennessee, U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander was stunned to learn from an Obama administration report/analysis that concluded many Tennesseans got hit with much higher health care premium on January 1. The analysis showed that a 27-year-old man in Memphis faces a likely jump in monthly premiums costs from $41 a month to $119. Additionally, 105 insurance policies in Nashville alone will no longer be available because of Obama Care requirements.
- The Week correctly points out that the bigger health insurance premiums will likely have a trickle-down effect on the economy as middle- and upper-middle-income families start to spend less on what they usually spend on since they need to divert some of their earnings to pay for their expensive new health care premiums. Since consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the country's gross domestic product, the report: "The top 20 percent of earners account for about 40 percent of all spending in the U.S. When you increase the costs of health care and the new taxes associated with Obama Care, you can hear the wallets closing."
How is all of this suffering and chaos worthwhile if the legislation does not resolve any of the problems facing the country relative to health care?
3) The only way Obama Care financials work for Obama and the insurance companies is if a lot of younger, healthy people sign up for Obama Care policies and unnecessarily pay insurance premiums for policies that they are highly unlikely to use. Why?
Well, since Obama wanted to give every American access to health insurance policies, even the sick and elderly who are much more likely to need health care, he needed to force younger, healthier Americans to buy health insurance to keep the insurance companies financials intact. See, if he forced the insurance companies to take on expensive customers, elderly and the sick, and did not give them an offsetting revenue stream, younger and healthy, the insurance companies would take a major, and perhaps, fatal financial hit.
So not only does Obama need to get 7 million Americans to sign up for Obama Care policies in order for the whole Rube Goldberg system to work, he has to have the right MIX of customers. He needs enough younger, healthier Americans forced to buy health insurance and make regular payments to the insurance companies in order for the insurance companies to accept any Obama Care patient that develops.
Unfortunately, that does not appear how things are going according to two indicators. First, consider a recent news report from Reuters:
- Health insurer Humana Inc recently stated that its projected enrollment mix in private plans through the exchanges created by President Barack Obama’s healthcare law will be, “more adverse than previously expected.”
- Humana attributed the enrollment trend to regulatory changes allowing people to remain in previously existing plans not sold on the exchanges. Obama proposed allowing insurers to keep selling plans that did not comply with the Affordable Care Act after political fallout that he was not keeping his promise that people can keep insurance plans if they like them.
The second major indication that things are not going well relative to MIX is that while the Obama administration claims two million people have indicated they will sign up for an Obama Care policy, a vast majority of the indications are for the higher priced, lower deductible Gold and Silver plans, not the lower priced, higher deductible Bronze plans.
This indicates that people who indicated they want an Obama Care policy are older and sicker than expected and needed by Obama Care financials since these potential customers realize that by paying more up front via higher premiums, they reap a larger, quicker benefit when they utilize the policy, i.e. they are more likely already ailing or expect to be ailing soon.
Thus, not only is the sign up rate for Obama Care way behind forecast, not only is the payment processing for Obama Care policies way behind schedule, it also appears that the mix needed to make this disaster work is also totally out of whack.
What happens if this scenario actually plays out? Believe it or not, within the legislation itself are contingencies for the American taxpayer to bailout any shortfall or financial damage that the insurance companies incur.
That’s right: first the American taxpayer bailed out the auto companies, then they bailed out the banks, then they bailed out the large insurance companies and then they bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And now because of the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care, we are going to bail out major insurance companies due to the ineptness of the Washington political class and their Obama Care abomination.
That’s it for this month. Again, it is not because we have covered every Obama Care fiasco. It is just too depressing to cover every Obama Care fiasco for too long without getting too bummed out.
Tomorrow we will be doing a quick summary of every Obama Care disaster we can think off. It will summarize everything we have talked about over the past three years, focusing on the many blunders and every instance of incompetence is we have discussed over the past four months.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
No comments:
Post a Comment