Will Obamacare succeed where term limits failed?

[Lemur]

"Under these circumstances, the lion's share of the people who do whatever is necessary to sign up through HealthCare.gov are likely to be the sickest and most expensive to cover because they have the greatest need"—yup, that's the scariest part.

Interesting that the Obama campaign was a best-practices model of how to do web, but once normal federal procurement is the basis, it all breaks down. Ah, dysfunction. Good article about it here.

The launch of the federal Obamacare website has been unforgivable, for a variety of reasons. Just a shocking mess. And I suspect it was preventable.

[Xiahou]

"Under these circumstances, the lion's share of the people who do whatever is necessary to sign up through HealthCare.gov are likely to be the sickest and most expensive to cover because they have the greatest need"—yup, that's the scariest part.

Are you being serious? .....I cant tell.

[Lemur]

Of course I'm being serious. The whole Swiss/Heritage Foundation/Romneycare/Obamacare premise is based on the idea of broadening the insurance pool so that the high-risk, high-usage patients are balanced out by healthy people. A system that (through incompetence) encourages only the high-risk people to enroll is broken, utterly broken. It's bad news. It flips the bird at the whole let's-do-universal-insurance-with-private-insurers concept. It's nine or ten shades of bad.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Given how much Monty spanks your butt I always assumed Monty was your grandma...

[Xiahou]

Well, October is drawing to a close, and Healthcare.gov is still a virtually unusable mess.

The administration is now promising that the site's problems will be, for the most part, resolved by the end of November. Yet even if the technical glitches on HealthCare.gov are resolved, this week revealed that the new insurance marketplaces the site serves still need to overcome huge hurdles, both technically and politically, to succeed.

The end of Novermber? Awesome.

Now we're also learning that at least part of the reason for the website's failed rollout was due to political concerns...

CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson has been digging into the cause of the delays in preparing the website for the government's health insurance market and has learned was a major interruption in the months before President Obama's re-election. At the height of the 2012 presidential election campaign, it was crunch time for the Obama administration to release key instructions so contractors could work toward the October 2013 deadline.

But a Health and Human Services official who was closely involved tells CBS News that in late summer, the administration stopped issuing proposed rules for the Affordable Health Care Act until after the election.

The result was what many viewed as a serious delay as contractors, states and insurance companies awaited crucial guidance to move forward.

And at the risk of beating a dead horse, if you like your insurance.... no, you can't keep it.

Gerry Kominski, director of public health policy at UCLA said: "About half of the 14 million people who buy insurance on their own are not going to be able to keep the policies that they had previously."

Lastly, the administration has been trying to point to the state-run exchanges as an Obamacare success. Some of them aren't experiencing the same level of technical glitches, but not everything is unicorns and rainbows there either- new Medicaid enrollments (expanded under Obamacare) are far outpacing actual insurance registrations....

a CBS News analysis shows that in many of the 15 state-based health insurance exchanges more people are enrolling in Medicaid rather than buying private health insurance. And if that trend continues, there's concern there won't be enough healthy people buying health insurance for the system to work.

As the Obamacare website struggles, the administration is emphasizing state-level success. President Obama said Monday, "There's great demand at the state level as well. Because there are a bunch of states running their own marketplaces."

But left unsaid in the president's remarks: the newly insured in some of those states are overwhelmingly low-income people signing up for Medicaid at no cost to them.

Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, said, "We're seeing a huge spike in terms of Medicaid enrollments."

He says the numbers have surprised him and state officials.

The technical incompetence of the web portal, at least, could have been avoided. However, all these other "unforseen" problems have been pointed out repeatedly- before, during, and since the law's passage.

[Xiahou]

According to an NBC investigation, Obama knew he was lying when he repeatedly stated "If you like your heath insurance, you can keep it.", and the law was written in such a way to make it almost impossible for a plan to get 'grandfathered' in.

President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

Here's the real money shot from the article:

George Schwab, 62, of North Carolina, said he was "perfectly happy" with his plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield, which also insured his wife for a $228 monthly premium. But this past September, he was surprised to receive a letter saying his policy was no longer available. The "comparable" plan the insurance company offered him carried a $1,208 monthly premium and a $5,500 deductible.

And the best option he’s found on the exchange so far offered a 415 percent jump in premium, to $948 a month.

"The deductible is less," he said, "But the plan doesn't meet my needs. Its unaffordable."

"I'm sitting here looking at this, thinking we ought to just pay the fine and just get insurance when we're sick," Schwab added. "Everybody's worried about whether the website works or not, but that's fixable. That's just the tip of the iceberg. This stuff isn't fixable."

And that, folks, will be why the ACA fails.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Of course I'm being serious. The whole Swiss/Heritage Foundation/Romneycare/Obamacare premise is based on the idea of broadening the insurance pool so that the high-risk, high-usage patients are balanced out by healthy people. A system that (through incompetence) encourages only the high-risk people to enroll is broken, utterly broken. It's bad news. It flips the bird at the whole let's-do-universal-insurance-with-private-insurers concept. It's nine or ten shades of bad.

I've been as patient as an ideological opponent can possibly be. When a law passes called "the affordable care act" is it ignorant to believe that at least someone wants it to make care more affordable? It is now less affordable for everyone I've spoken to, blue collar, white collar, no collar.
My healthy brother had a $98 catastrophic policy. It cancels in January because it fails to adhere to new insurance guidelines and has been replaced by a $260 per month catastrophic policy which he intends to drop and instead pay the $300 per year penalty (approx 1% of his income). His unhealthy brother (me) had a $510 policy which cancels in January and is replaced by a $628 per month policy. Additionally, my gastroenterologist is not covered under this plan.

My idiotic friend who loves everything Barack Obama and is an environmental science major and started his own business is super excited to find a policy that he can finally afford. The site doesn't work. If he couldn't afford the $98 per month policy that my brother had, what makes him think that he can suddenly afford the $300 policy that may or may not be available if the website starts working?

The apocalyptically stupid rollout has led me to suspect my base assumption is true. This is an attempt to make health care so unaffordable that people begin to clamor for single payer. It cannot happen. There are ways to fix even this broken system and keep many of the things that were fixed by the ACA. Single payer must not happen, even though I would be tremendously benefitted by it, but something radical must be done to make health insurance more like car insurance, possibly coupling it to a minimal extent with government subsidy.

Personally, I would like to see itemized and standard deductions on tax returns for health costs eliminated and see HSA's open up to everyone regardless of the deductible size of their health plans, for starters. I'm open to mandating that employers make an HSA available to all employees for pre-tax deduction of income. Likewise, I'm open to forcing employers to make health insurance portable, pre-tax for employee the and cutting employer benefit. These are things that shouldn't cost the employer money, but will merely give all employed individuals access to these things and allow individuals to get the tax relief. It will also allow the individual to shop around and simply let his employer know when he or she has signed a contract with a new company. This will also help avoid individuals lapsing coverage. This type of competition has led to low cost of car insurance and has never thrived in the health insurance market.

As a former insurance agent and claims adjuster, irresponsible people will NEVER fail to lose coverage through non-pay termination. This is because poor people are too physically or mentally I'll, or are morons (by nature, culture, or opportunity). Something as important as health insurance cannot be allowed to expire like a morons car insurance.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I've been as patient as an ideological opponent can possibly be. When a law passes called "the affordable care act" is it ignorant to believe that at least someone wants it to make care more affordable? It is now less affordable for everyone I've spoken to, blue collar, white collar, no collar.
My healthy brother had a $98 catastrophic policy. It cancels in January because it fails to adhere to new insurance guidelines and has been replaced by a $260 per month catastrophic policy which he intends to drop and instead pay the $300 per year penalty (approx 1% of his income). His unhealthy brother (me) had a $510 policy which cancels in January and is replaced by a $628 per month policy. Additionally, my gastroenterologist is not covered under this plan.

My idiotic friend who loves everything Barack Obama and is an environmental science major and started his own business is super excited to find a policy that he can finally afford. The site doesn't work. If he couldn't afford the $98 per month policy that my brother had, what makes him think that he can suddenly afford the $300 policy that may or may not be available if the website starts working?

The apocalyptically stupid rollout has led me to suspect my base assumption is true. This is an attempt to make health care so unaffordable that people begin to clamor for single payer. It cannot happen. There are ways to fix even this broken system and keep many of the things that were fixed by the ACA. Single payer must not happen, even though I would be tremendously benefitted by it, but something radical must be done to make health insurance more like car insurance, possibly coupling it to a minimal extent with government subsidy.

Personally, I would like to see itemized and standard deductions on tax returns for health costs eliminated and see HSA's open up to everyone regardless of the deductible size of their health plans, for starters. I'm open to mandating that employers make an HSA available to all employees for pre-tax deduction of income. Likewise, I'm open to forcing employers to make health insurance portable, pre-tax for employee the and cutting employer benefit. These are things that shouldn't cost the employer money, but will merely give all employed individuals access to these things and allow individuals to get the tax relief. It will also allow the individual to shop around and simply let his employer know when he or she has signed a contract with a new company. This will also help avoid individuals lapsing coverage. This type of competition has led to low cost of car insurance and has never thrived in the health insurance market.

As a former insurance agent and claims adjuster, irresponsible people will NEVER fail to lose coverage through non-pay termination. This is because poor people are too physically or mentally I'll, or are morons (by nature, culture, or opportunity). Something as important as health insurance cannot be allowed to expire like a morons car insurance.

Gelcube will get his wish and you will not get yours.

As the adverse selection bias by higher risk insureds magnifies the functional cost of the plan -- since it will be cheaper to pay the penalty than the premiums -- the strain on the insurance industry will force the government to make changes to maintain healthcare affordability and rescue the system.

In fairly rapid stages, this will lead us to a national health system. This has been a major goal among numerous democratic party leaders for a generation. This is simply a step on the path.

Establishment of a national health care system will bring us in line with the developed countries and will almost complete the social safety network that is expected in a developed country (Old Age Pension, minimum subsistence allowance for the indigent, healthcare, education [partial]). Once undergraduate education is placed under government control the support network will be complete. The current administration has already begun that part of the process as well.

[ICantSpellDawg]

We'll see what happens. Who knows. I don't believe in pre-destination and I don't believe that Democrats are particularly competent. I know that Republicans aren't competent, they don't even pretend to be. They just want to take the power away from the incompetent narcicists.

One could say; if they can't be trusted to put out a website, why should we just ante up and put something so important in the hands of fools?

Republican strategy is to throw a monkey wrench in government. If the Democrats think that ruining government will make people want more, I would suggest that they are mistaken.

[Beskar]

Reality has a liberal bias.

[drone]

The apocalyptically stupid rollout has led me to suspect my base assumption is true. This is an attempt to make health care so unaffordable that people begin to clamor for single payer. It cannot happen. There are ways to fix even this broken system and keep many of the things that were fixed by the ACA. Single payer must not happen, even though I would be tremendously benefitted by it, but something radical must be done to make health insurance more like car insurance, possibly coupling it to a minimal extent with government subsidy.

Single-payer is the only way we are going to get through the baby boomer termination years without the medical industrial complex taking all our money (either via insurance or inherited debt). Having the most selfish generation cling to life regardless of cost and quality will surely bankrupt us otherwise.