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Against all odds and expectations, enrollments in health plans qualified under the Affordable Care Act are surging Monday toward -- and maybe beyond -- the 7-million figure projected by the Congressional Budget Office before Oct. 1, when the open-enrollment period began. The deadline for starting enrollment applications for 2014 plans is midnight Monday.
The surge is creating a big problem for the "train wreck" narrative of Republican opponents of the ACA, who have been holding out hope for Obamacare's utter failure. So the excuse-making has begun.
"How many have paid?" (Also known as "The statistics are full of deadbeats"): We examined this argument a few days ago. We observed that the concern is probably exaggerated and certainly premature, since many people who enrolled late in the cycle, including those in the March surge, may not have payments due for as much as six weeks after enrollment. Many haven't even received their first monthly premium bill yet.
Figures from states that track this metric, including California and Vermont, show that 85% to 90% of enrollees have paid on time, which secures them the coverage they applied for.
"Most of them were already insured": The argument here is that if we've just moved people from one insurance plan to another, we've just been wasting Americans' time and subjecting them to an onerous bureaucratic procedure as well.
The claim is based primarily on a survey in January from McKinsey and Co., which concluded that only 11% of exchange enrollees had been previously uninsured. A McKinsey survey a month later raised that figure to 27% -- still low, compared to expectations.
The major problem with the McKinsey survey is that doesn't say what its hawkers claim. The survey combines on-exchange enrollments and off-exchange enrollments; the latter are likely to heavily skew figures toward the previously insured because those are people merely signing up again with their existing carriers. The goal of the exchange marketplaces, however, is to reach uninsured Americans, and the McKinsey surveys fail to do that.
The few states that do break out their own numbers, moreover, contradict McKinsey. Kentucky says that some 75% of its exchange enrollees were previously uninsured. New York says that about 60% of its exchange enrollees were previously uninsured. That number has been rising over time, raising the prospect that the March surge will include an even higher ratio of uninsured customers; Gaba, who has calculated a time series of New York enrollments based on the state's monthly news releases, calculates that of enrollees in mid-February, at least 92% had been uninsured.
"This is an alarming side effect of the president's health care law," he said, asking if any Democrat would dare to defend premium increases of up to 17 percent in one year alone. "States are starting to release the proposed premium increases companies expect to charge next year under the Obama health care law, and the numbers are not good for the American people -- for people who wanted affordable care, quality care, access to care," Barrasso said in a speech on the Senate floor. Barrasso, a physician, noted that in Virginia, every health plan sold in the state exchange expects to raise its rates next year, in some cases as much as 17 percent.
Premiums are going up in Vermont and Ohio. And as more states release next year's premiums, "more people around the country are going to see these rate increases," he warned. Pointing to a recent USA Today article, Barrasso noted that many employees also are being hit with higher premiums and higher co-pays. "Fifty-six percent of companies increased their employees' share of health insurance premiums or their co-payments for doctors' visits last year after the health care law came into effect, and 59 percent of companies intend to do the same thing this year," Barrasso said. "So people buying insurance in the exchange are being hurt, people who get insurance at work are being hurt, small businesses are being hurt as well."
Barrasso noted that Obama frequently talks about giving everyone "a fair shot," and he questioned if higher premiums are giving small business owners and families the fair shot they deserve. When they were trying to pass this health care law, Democrats -- including President Obama -- said it would drop premiums by $2,500 per family per a year, Barrasso noted.
He said Republicans asked Obama specifically about those claims in February 2010. "The president denied again to each of us in a face-to-face meeting that they would go up. The president said, quote, 'that's just not the case.' "Well, now what we do know, it is the case, Mr. President -- and it was the case all along." Barrasso said people believed the president when he promised he would save them money, but "now they're finding out what they've got: higher premiums, higher costs, higher deductibles, higher copays, loss of coverage, can't keep your doctor. It's hard to believe the president of the United States."
Sen. Barrasso Calls Rising Premiums an 'Alarming Side Effect' of Obamacare | CNS News
The article is not true, Z: sorry to burst your bubble.
The program is working, millions and millions either have care for the first time or good care for a good price for the first time, and all of their friends and relatives are pleased with that.
How do you figure they did not before? You understand that by access, you mean they cannot walk into an insurance office and sign up for health insurance.I don't frankly know if obamacare is bad or not but what is wrong with the idea of everyone having access to healthcare? How can anyone be opposed to the idea?
How do you figure they did not before? You understand that by access, you mean they cannot walk into an insurance office and sign up for health insurance.I don't frankly know if obamacare is bad or not but what is wrong with the idea of everyone having access to healthcare? How can anyone be opposed to the idea?
Are you saying they were not allowed to have health insurance prior to Obamacare?
What you really mean is that everyone should have their healthcare insurance paid for by others...
I don't frankly know if obamacare is bad or not but what is wrong with the idea of everyone having access to healthcare? How can anyone be opposed to the idea?
How do you figure they did not before? You understand that by access, you mean they cannot walk into an insurance office and sign up for health insurance.I don't frankly know if obamacare is bad or not but what is wrong with the idea of everyone having access to healthcare? How can anyone be opposed to the idea?
Are you saying they were not allowed to have health insurance prior to Obamacare?
What you really mean is that everyone should have their healthcare insurance paid for by others...
Almost all developed countries view healthcare as a basic human right.
The article is not true, Z: sorry to burst your bubble.
The program is working, millions and millions either have care for the first time or good care for a good price for the first time, and all of their friends and relatives are pleased with that.
ORLY?
A huge new paperwork headache for the government could also be jeopardizing coverage for some of the millions of people who just got health insurance under President Barack Obama's law.
A government document provided to The Associated Press indicates that at least 2 million people enrolled for taxpayer-subsidized private health insurance have data discrepancies in their applications that, if unresolved, could affect what they pay for coverage, or even their legal right to benefits.
The final number affected could well be higher. According to the administration the 2 million figure reflects only consumers who signed up through the federally administered HealthCare.gov website and call centers. The government signed up about 5.4 million people, while state-run websites signed up another 2.6 million.
Now application 'inconsistencies' vex health law
A private business with a 25% (or Bigger!) defect rate would go out of business very quickly.
I don't frankly know if obamacare is bad or not but what is wrong with the idea of everyone having access to healthcare? How can anyone be opposed to the idea?
If they don't agree how to pay for it.
Such as "giving up liberties without due process" to force the funding of it.
Why not go after people who DO commit crime or abuses at taxpayers expense,
and make THOSE people pay back their costs to pay for health care?
If the costs are going to be charged on the taxpayers' tab,
why not make people pay for it who DO incur costs
(like committing crimes that put people in the hospital)
INSTEAD of charging or costing freedom to LAWABIDING citizens who did nothing wrong.
Why should lawabiding taxpayers have to give up freedom
while people who commit crimes, and cost taxpayers THOUSANDS per year,
are NOT REQUIRED to pay those costs? this makes no sense to charge
the public more and not REQUIRE wrongdoers to pay back the taxes THEY SPENT
How do you figure they did not before? You understand that by access, you mean they cannot walk into an insurance office and sign up for health insurance.I don't frankly know if obamacare is bad or not but what is wrong with the idea of everyone having access to healthcare? How can anyone be opposed to the idea?
Are you saying they were not allowed to have health insurance prior to Obamacare?
What you really mean is that everyone should have their healthcare insurance paid for by others...
How do you figure they did not before? You understand that by access, you mean they cannot walk into an insurance office and sign up for health insurance.I don't frankly know if obamacare is bad or not but what is wrong with the idea of everyone having access to healthcare? How can anyone be opposed to the idea?
Are you saying they were not allowed to have health insurance prior to Obamacare?
What you really mean is that everyone should have their healthcare insurance paid for by others...
The article is not true, Z: sorry to burst your bubble.
The program is working, millions and millions either have care for the first time or good care for a good price for the first time, and all of their friends and relatives are pleased with that.
ORLY?
A huge new paperwork headache for the government could also be jeopardizing coverage for some of the millions of people who just got health insurance under President Barack Obama's law.
A government document provided to The Associated Press indicates that at least 2 million people enrolled for taxpayer-subsidized private health insurance have data discrepancies in their applications that, if unresolved, could affect what they pay for coverage, or even their legal right to benefits.
The final number affected could well be higher. According to the administration the 2 million figure reflects only consumers who signed up through the federally administered HealthCare.gov website and call centers. The government signed up about 5.4 million people, while state-run websites signed up another 2.6 million.
Now application 'inconsistencies' vex health law
A private business with a 25% (or Bigger!) defect rate would go out of business very quickly.
here is your answer... they are in jail ... the aren't making a income to pay for anything you idiot!!!!I don't frankly know if obamacare is bad or not but what is wrong with the idea of everyone having access to healthcare? How can anyone be opposed to the idea?
If they don't agree how to pay for it. (BR)it's only the republicans who really don't agree how to pay for it ... the dems have already pointed out how its paid for...
Such as "giving up liberties without due process" to force the funding of it. (BR)due process has been run by the gambit and the republicans lost and you can't accept it ...
Why not go after people who DO commit crime or abuses at taxpayers expense,
and make THOSE people pay back their costs to pay for health care?
(BR)there you go again talking out your ass again
If the costs are going to be charged on the taxpayers' tab,
why not make people pay for it who DO incur costs
(like committing crimes that put people in the hospital)
INSTEAD of charging or costing freedom to LAWABIDING citizens who did nothing wrong. (BR)are you nuts ????really what have you been smoking
Why should lawabiding taxpayers have to give up freedom
while people who commit crimes, and cost taxpayers THOUSANDS per year,
are NOT REQUIRED to pay those costs? this makes no sense to charge
the public more and not REQUIRE wrongdoers to pay back the taxes THEY SPENT
The article is not true, Z: sorry to burst your bubble.
The program is working, millions and millions either have care for the first time or good care for a good price for the first time, and all of their friends and relatives are pleased with that.
ORLY?
A huge new paperwork headache for the government could also be jeopardizing coverage for some of the millions of people who just got health insurance under President Barack Obama's law.
A government document provided to The Associated Press indicates that at least 2 million people enrolled for taxpayer-subsidized private health insurance have data discrepancies in their applications that, if unresolved, could affect what they pay for coverage, or even their legal right to benefits.
The final number affected could well be higher. According to the administration the 2 million figure reflects only consumers who signed up through the federally administered HealthCare.gov website and call centers. The government signed up about 5.4 million people, while state-run websites signed up another 2.6 million.
Now application 'inconsistencies' vex health law
A private business with a 25% (or Bigger!) defect rate would go out of business very quickly.
The CBO estimates that 30 million people will remain uninsured by 2014. We'll have spent trillions of dollars, piled on thousands of pages of new regulations, dumped millions of people out of plans they liked, forced them to stop seeing doctors they liked, raised everyone's costs and will end up insuring 10 million people. We could have done it whole lot cheaper with less headache if we had just bought plans for them. But that's not the democrat way.
