Time to Start Considering Obamacare's Worst Case Scenarios
The saying goes that things have to get worse before they get better. But with Obamacare, things just keep getting worse—and then they get worse still. In private, even many critics of the law are at least a bit surprised by how poorly the rollout has gone. The question that many are asking is: How bad can this really get?
The answer is…worse. A lot worse.
Over the weekend, several reports suggested that, despite continued assurances that Healthcare.gov, the problem-plagued online insurance enrollment portal run by the federal government, would be running smoothly for most users by the end of the month, it increasingly looks likely that the deadline will be missed.
Insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski, who, thanks to his contacts with his insurers, has been a critical and frequently prophetic source of information about the law's rollout, opened a blog post this weekend with the following assessment: "It is now becoming clear that the Obama administration will not have Health.care.gov fixed by December 1 so hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions, of people will be able to smoothly enroll by January 1." Laszewski says that months, not weeks, of work remain.
The dates he lists are important, and not only because of the administration's self-imposed deadline of November 30. Anyone who wants to purchase insurance that kicks in at the beginning of next year must complete enrollment by December 15. If the system isn't working smoothly at least a couple weeks prior to that rapidly approaching date, then large numbers of people simply won't have a chance to sign up.
That is a potentially huge problem for a law whose central premise and promise was that it would create new opportunities for millions of people to sign up for coverage that goes into effect at the beginning of 2014.
It's a problem that would be big enough on its own, but is now compounded by the fact that, thanks to rules and regulations built into the law, millions of Americans have already had their existing individual-market insurance cancelled, and estimates say that millions more cancellations are on the way. The end result could be that many people—thousands, perhaps even millions—end up with their current private insurance plans terminated due to the law, but no way to sign up for new coverage.
This is not a problem confined to the 36 states covered by the federally run health exchanges. In the state of Oregon, which has struggled to get its online enrollment system working and has yet to enroll a single person in private coverage, some 150,000 people are losing their existing health plans. A spokesperson for the state's Insurance Division recently told the Associated Press that, if the state's exchange isn't functional soon enough, those people could see a break in coverage.
Translation: If you like your health plan, you can't keep it. And until the exchanges are up, good luck obtaining a new one.
The administration is looking for workarounds. But the ideas now being floated mostly reveal how bad the potential options are—and how desperate federal officials are for any sort of quick fix.
According to a Washington Post report that ran over the weekend, one of those options would involve relying on the insurers to handle enrollment directly. Right now, health plans can manage most of the application process on their own. But they can't complete all the steps, because they can't connect with the federal government system that determines whether an individual is eligible for government subsidies. Even if they could connect with it directly, it's not clear that the subsidy calculation system is working reliably enough to be useful.
So the insurers have suggested a temporary measure: Let the insurers estimate the subsidies on their own. Any estimates that are too low would be reimbursable, and any estimates that are too high, the insurers would get to keep. In other words, the federal government, backed by taxpayers, would be on the hook for their bad estimates.
Can this possibly be legal? Can the administration seriously be considering this idea, which is potentially costly and politically disastrous? Imagine how Democrats will feel about turning over the central operations of the health law to insurers. Imagine how Republicans will react to a plan that could cost more, and will serve as an implicit admission that the exchanges simply won't work without a major overhaul.
That it is even being discussed suggests how dire the outlook is for the law's near-term functionality. As the Post piece notes, the administration's broad cooperation with insurers "is a tacit acknowledgment that the federal insurance exchange… might not be working smoothly by the target date of Nov. 30, according to several health experts familiar with the administration's thinking."
The potential problems are not confined to the near term either. Very soon, the short-term technical troubles could begin to have meaningful longer-term policy consequences. Insurers must decide what plans to offer and what rates to charge in the first half of next year. If enrollment is low, if the exchanges are still broken, and if the president and his administration are still losing credibility and popularity as a result of the rollout debacle, how will insurers react? By pulling plans from the market? By raising rates?
Right now it's clear that many health insurers, having built business plans around Obamacare's rules and regulations, are trying to work with the administration in hopes of turning the health law effort around. But how long will their cooperation last if the technical problems and administrative bumbling continue? We already know about one insurer that is so far refusing to submit its enrollment information into the administration's system for fear of further corrupting their data. And insurers can expect more headaches even if the technical issues recede. As Jon Kingsdale, who ran the Massachusetts health exchange and consulted on the federal system, noted in the Post over the weekend, billing and tracking issues for the insurers are likely to be significant. That's not going to make insurers too happy.
How does this all work out for the millions of Americans who have lost their plans as a result of Obamacare? The White House has suggested that it's working on an "administrative fix" to aid individuals whose plans were cancelled, but the options for an executive branch fix are limited at best. Cancelled plans generally can't be reinstated. Tweaking the law's grandfathering rules won't work, because of the start dates of many of the plans and because insurers, who have spent months if not years preparing their systems for the changeover, can't rapidly reorganize their computer systems to accommodate a sudden change in policy. Expanding subsidies to individuals above 400 percent of the poverty line in order to mitigate the cost of buying a new plan wouldn't be legal, and also wouldn't help much if the online enrollment systems are still malfunctioning.
This could still be turned around, perhaps even soon. But it's time to start considering the worst-case scenarios: that the exchanges continue to malfunction, that plan cancellations go into effect, that insurers see the political winds shifting and stop playing nice with the administration, and that significant numbers of people are left stranded without coverage as a result. Rather than reforming the individual market, which was flawed but did work for some people, Obamacare will have destroyed it and left only dysfunction and chaos in its wake.
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In private, even many critics of the law are at least a bit surprised by how poorly the rollout has gone.
In private? They are? So like, Rush Limbaugh (shrike bait) after his show, pulls his producer aside and says (in that low, mumbly quiet voice) “Man, this thing is worse than even I imagined, but let’s just keep that b’tween you and me…”
No, but many of the wonks who thought that Obamacare would be a policy disaster did not fully foresee the way the technical challenges would interact with the policy problems to create even worse problems.
Ah, policy wonks.
“On the one hand…”
You do realize that “policy wonks” are some of the stupidest people on the planet, right, Suder-Man? There’s a reason they had to come up with a retarded term like “policy wonk” to describe what is basically a sports announcer for politics. Their “predictions” are like the Monday Night Football announcers talking about whether Adrian Peterson showed enough respect for his dead son that he didn’t know.
Well folks, when you’re right 52% of the time, you’re wrong 48% of the time.
Why didn’t you say that before???
Yes, but they are also missing the saving grace for many of us, which is that the cancellations are really notices of non-renewal, so the policies do not terminate until their anniversary date. If you can get a policy issued this year, it will be cancelled a year from now. Also, before October 31, you could cancel your non-renewed policy and re-apply for a December 1 effective date on the new policy to carry you through 2014.
That assumes the insurers are willing to issue you a new plan at this date. I would assume that the administration is putting as much pressure on them as possible to block such policies. The administration planned on the currently self-insured signing up in mass for Obamacare. They are the group that actually have money and are willing to spending it on health care insurance. They were the low hanging fruit for non-subsidized Obamacare enrollees.
Aetna contacted me and helped me do just this – apply for a policy starting Dec 1 that runs until Dec 1, 2014. Of course the premium is about 15% higher (after a rise of 17% last May) for essentially the same coverage.
In Washington, Regence Blue has basically all policies dying 12-31-13, not sure what if any are grandfathered.
However, I have signed up with them for their Gold plan, $ 4K more a year than last, but the Bronze plan 3K more and I could end up paying way more if I had any medical expenses.
So in what world is it reasonable for a typical reader to make the jump from “critics of the law” to “policy wonks”?
Even dipshit critics of the law like me saw “technical challenges” with trying to substitute a government market place for a real market….and the constant criticism of how huge the actual page count of the law and how “we must pass it know what is in it” is an explicit criticism of policy problems.
“Many critics” of this law knew it would be a catastrophic boondoggle. Your statement strips away the credit they are due for predicting it.
The bridge was better thought out!
At least the bridge only destroyed itself and not the entire Puget Sound region. This mess will destroy vast swaths of the economy and many families and individuals left is the destructive wake. The only hope is the we end up with a radical opening of the insurance market (the real kind). Only the private economy can save us now. Will the government loosen the reigns and let it work for once? One can hope.
Not fair. The bridge worked for a few months, then imploded. Totally got Clowncare beat.
In Washington at least, I signed up for a new plan direct from Regence – their Gold because it made the most sense for me & I kept the Blue network. (still a lot more $ than I am paying).
The exchange plans were no cheaper, but crappy network coverage.
I AM NOT GIVING A FLEA BAG NO SECURITY WEBSITE MY FINANCIAL DATA – DUH!
They could allow for direct sign up, then when the site finally works add in the subsidy.
I’m one of them – I assumed the rollout would be problematic, but that they’d get the technical stuff fixed quickly. I had no idea it would be this bad, and I’m not exactly a fan.
They’ll start passing fix after fix, each one more bloated than the last, until the Frankenstein’s monster that is Obamacare will become even larger and more incomprehensible. On the plus side, new chances for pork.
Regardless, health care as we know it in this country is over. The next generation has no idea what it’s in for.
That’s why it must be implemented now now now now now!
The next generation has no idea what it’s in for.
Buying their spleens the old fashioned way, with bitcoins on the black market. Uphill. Both ways.
in the snow. with no shoes.
Sounds like you’re describing Microsoft Windows.
In other words, the way the health insurance market as we knew it pre-ACA.
I love that the history ignorant left simply can’t acknowledge that the then-existing issues with health insurance were caused by a series of government barriers.
My analogy was that government trenches, blocks, or potholes all the roads. Then when people start to complain about the perils of driving, the government does not stop distorting the driving experience by simply ceasing their destructive efforts.
Instead, they just bulldoze a new road straight across the existing roads, people’s lawns and backyards, sidewalks, etc. and then begin patting themselves on the back for saving the day.
Flashing forward to today.
Now that many of the existing roads have been closed and completely walled off, we’re learning that the prayer answering government road is an engineering nightmare-it’s poorly built, improperly sized, and just as perilous to travel on.
The problem with your analogy is that the new road they bulldozed goes off a cliff.
-jcr
Indeed.
If the Republicans, who hate Roadz, hadn’t shutdown the government and imposed austerity and sequesters on the nation, the Obama administration would have been able to finish the road properly.
There’s no sugarcoating it. This project NEEDZ MOAR MANDATEZ, and the lack of such mandates is letting down America much like the Cleveland Browns.
P.S. – A good bonus meme would be “CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL MANDATES”. Thank you.
Hey – the Browns are, er, punting .444 this season. Which is more than you can say for Our Healthcare Reform.
Why do we need enrollment periods and sign up deadlines? Don’t need any for auto or health insurance. It’s another obstacle for a free market. I can switch my auto insurance at any time during the year. Liability is required in Pa, and if one go more than 30 consecutive days without they are subject to penalties.
At least we’ll all be able to print M1911s to fight off the post-government-collapse zombie invasion.
Little known fact: Obamacare includes a requirement that all embalming fluids be replaced with Worcestershire sauce, though due to Buy American regulations, they have to call it Heinz Awesome Salty Sauce.
Heinz Awesome Salty Sauce
From The Midnight Adventures of John and Theresa Heinz Kerry.
I don’t like 3-D printed plastic pistols. Ice pistols are much better. Plus they melt before the quickest possible court date leaving nothing but an evidence baggy full of water.
Or, in warmer areas, an evidence baggy full of “I swear to god there was a gun in here”…
Little known fact: in an upcoming iteration of ObamaCare, premiums will be boosted for firearms owners to cover the healthcare costs caused by private ownership of firearms.
That’s been coming for a couple of years now. Every year I fill out my “health questionnaire” about weight, exercise, drinking, smoking, and it started including whether I have guns in the house. I have always declined to answer so far, but i’m guessing it won’t stay optional for long.
Funny, they never ask if the guns are stored in biometric safes, just whether or not I have them.
Not sure how it’ll ‘work’, but I’m pretty sure the result will be some fancy numbers under “Extraordinary Income” in a bunch of insurance company annual statements.
The insurance companies estimate how much of a subsidy the customer gets. If they estimate too low they est the loss, if they estimate too high they keep the additional money; this would result in the companies estimating too high a lot more often then low.
This reminds me of how the electric generators in California offered to generously sell the California government energy at 3x the regular price in the middle of the California energy crisis. The one where California’s fake energy “deregulation” caused rolling blackouts.
OK, this is sort of what I thought at first, but then I thought “No. No one could be so stupid to let the insurance companies do this. Because they will absolutely estimate high.”
Evidently I fell for the optimism article hook, line, and sinker.
Do you know how many staffers of Dem. Max “trainwreck” Baucus’ came from insurance companies such as Wellpoint and went on to Health Insurance lobbyists – it’s not only possible but likely.
It won’t work.
Rest your mind.
Mmmm…pretty sure the feds are supposed to pony up the whole premium…talk to them… No way this ends up a whole box of fraud…
It’s yet another giveaway to health insurance companies.
But don’t you dare call it a fascist program.
Godwin forbid!!!
The subsidy should be paid via tax return, the same as the penaltax.
It won’t “work”. I don’t think the insurance companies want any part of this. They’re establishing what they think are insanely bad terms that no sane person would be stupid enough to accept. I fear they’re underestimating the Obama administration.
This could still be turned around, perhaps even soon.
When you use a prior that takes into account the incompetence displayed so far, the probability of this becomes vanishingly small.
Meh, don’t leave out the possibility of an Obamacare 360. Yes We Can!
I don’t EVEN want to imagine what the RROD rate would be.
I have every faith of a 360 — which, you see, would put it right back where it is now. A 180 is less certain.
Waiting until way too late to just do the sensible thing to begin with before considering possible worst case scenarios has become an American tradition.
We’re such a brilliant people!
Are those dueling banjos I’m hearing?
The Acorn navigators are just going to steal their identities and buy BMWs and Rolexs with their new credit cards anyway. They won’t need healthcare because they’ll all become meth addicts and crack-whores and democrat voters. See, the system works just fine.
Hey, what do you have against addicts and whores?
“Can this possibly be legal?”
Not to worry, Roberts will find a way to claim it is.
“General welfare” means Congress can generally spread around welfare any damn way they want.
There was a time when people were claiming Roberts would be an asset for years to come.
People never tire of making nonsensical claims.
One too many syllables in that object.
Hey–its only the 5% of the population with “substandard” plans in the individual market who are having their insurance cancelled and unable to get new coverage. Of course, since (a) the law was made necessary because some people were denied coverage based on pre-existing conditions and (b) the only people denied coverage in the past for pre-exisitng conditions were the ones in the individual market, it is only the poeople the law was designed to protect who will be left without coverage.
You left out the fact that their coverage will be better, cause they will have substance abuse coverage and pediatric dental care. Even though their deductible is higher and they can no longer see their old doctor.
but with the higher deductibles, most generally healthy people will never see any benefits payed out for their pediatric dental care.
My ‘Substandard’ plan from Regence Blue had the full blue network, $2,000 deduct then 50% copay until 7K was out of pocket. The AWESOME BRONZING full coverage plan has 5K deduct, 6.5K out of pocket all for only 240 more a month.
I need some of that Hopium they are smoking
So it covers bronzing too, then? I may have to get a Gold plan because I can get my highlights free.
So, what yer sayin’ is – we started off 2013 with 30ish million uninsured and we’re going to go into 2014 with over a 100 million uninsured?
Its a good thing we have such smart, dedicated people running this op. Can you imagine the clusterfuck if they had just LEFT WELL ENOUGH ALONE.
Well, you didn’t have any BETTER idea, Mr. Wisenheimer!
And we just had to do SOMETHING! ‘Cause, uh, elections.
LEFT WELL ENOUGH ALONE.
TeaBilbobagginsfucker!
TEAHADDI! LALALALALALALALA!
I think I go through to some progs with the the following reasoning: “Okay, so if we O’care critics are wrong we’ll look like fools. If we’re right then our healthcare system will be fucked for decades. Feeling lucky?
But, this way the 3 people who get insurance will be democrat voters and Obama’s political donors, the insurance companies, will get billion$. And republicans lose their insurance and get to pay for everything. You really have to admire them.
100 Million uninsured? This sort of crisis demands the President develop and institute a new system of health care. We could call it BaraCare or something
CareBaraCare?
There are those who say that the free market will cure all ails. Well, uh, to those, I say that we tried libertarianism and it, umm, failed.
It’s time to stop, uh, reject those voices that don’t want any government whatsoever.
It’s time to, uh, try something new.
(Insert some series of creative euphemisms that are really just single payer)
Top Men aren’t mandated to leave things alone.
And in this one statement you have basically summed up the workings of the entire bureaucratic machine. Well done.
The 30 million number was always over estimated, and my lovely home state has done the twenty year test to prove to the rest of the country that enlarging those Medicaid roles will do nothing to help the poor except make them feel marginally better about themselves. What kind of idiot looks at Massachusetts and Oregon and says, “You know what? I totally want to imitate those guys…”
We already know about one insurer that is so far refusing to submit its enrollment information into the administration’s system for fear of further corrupting their data.
Simply stated, we will not stand idly by while insurers refuse to submit their enrollment information.
/White Witch
If the system isn’t working smoothly at least a couple weeks prior to that rapidly approaching date, then large numbers of people simply won’t have a chance to sign up.
I’ll say it again, a website front end printing data out to paper with runners taking chits to a typing pool. It’s their only hope.
The Clerks’ Local 645 of the SEIU endorses your suggestion!
Ar you running for office? Here’s some money!
The Ministry of Information Retrieval use air tubes like a bank drive-thru. Of course theirs exploded.
Due to racist teabagger terrorists.
You say “typing pool” like they are gonna be using some old manual machine or something. You know they’ll have the finest technology and such that tax money can buy.
Are you racist ?
So, are you kidding about this? Because I think Oregon is actually going to do this…
The Bank of Hong Kong Luna had to use chits once when the military took their central computer. If it worked for them it’ll work for Obamacare!
Can this possibly be legal? Can the administration seriously be considering this idea, which is potentially costly and politically disastrous?
What a strange question. Did we ever get an answer as to why the President could unilaterally delay aspects of a law passed by Congress?
The answer to both questions is “who’s gonna stop him?”
The… do-nothing congress?
Nope, sorry. Lack of deference to the Great Man is indistinguishable from sedition or treason.
“Rather than reforming the individual market, which was flawed but did work for some people, Obamacare will have destroyed it and left only dysfunction and chaos in its wake. ”
Oh it won’t be the fault of Obamacare – not according the statist supporters of it.
It will be proclaimed a “market failure” and proof that the only solution is a direct government runs single payer healthcare system.
Ultimately, I don’t really blame ObamaCare or Obama for this.
I blame the people who voted for him.
Really. It’s people I know! They voted for him.
They’re to blame.
I’ve tried this more than once, but the response, every time, is some gibberish about republicans/insurance companies/Fox News/Bush
Exactly. Most of my cousins (those precious minority voters) thought ACA was “insurance for poor people” as recently as August.
“Low information” voters aren’t a theoretical for me. I live and interact with them. These people will safely cocoon themselves in ethnic enclaves will exist for years without learning anything substantial about the country.
Unfortunately the average person thinks it’s all the insurance companies fault that healthcare is so expensive despite the fact that Insurance companies only have a 2% profit margin.
People think this because they pay a lot for “insurance” (which functions more like financing) and assume that the Insurance company ceo’s dump all that cash straight into their gold-lined swimming pools. They don’t understand that insurance costs alot because the healthcare is expensive in the first place.
And obviously the outrageous cost of Healtcare has nothing to do with government interference in the marketplace.
Because after this cluster fuck, the voters are going to trust the Democrats to run a lemonade stand.
If the lemonade is “free” they won’t care who is in charge.
Lemonade is a right, not a privilege!
The lemonade won’t be free, but it will be mandatory.
“The dates he lists are important, and not only because of the administration’s self-imposed deadline of November 30.”
We should consider the possibility that they’re expecting some new, fresh hell of a fiasco to materialize by then.
This is all just about the news cycle to them. And if nothing happens by then, Obama can pick another fight with Assad or something.
But how long will their cooperation last if the technical problems and administrative bumbling continue?
The problem isn’t that the rollout of Obamacare has flopped, the problem is that the Administration believed that human beings were up to the task in the first place.
The smart man is not the one who says, “Yeah, we can control an entire sector of the U.S. economy with top-down management”, it’s the man who says, “No one’s smart enough to do it, period,” and then doesn’t even try.
but the options for an executive branch fix are limited at best.
Wait, because of what, enumerated powers or something? How quaint.
One of the few tools libertarians have in their rhetorical war is the fact that big government fails.
For the most part that tool is often waved away with claims about landing on the moon or how the government invented the internet. (funny they never bring up the Soviet’s White Sea-Baltic canal)
This is why Suderman’s statement “In private, even many critics of the law are at least a bit surprised by how poorly the rollout has gone.” is so much bullshit.
Every fucking libertarian on the planet predicted this and not a few non-libertarians as well. Why Sudderman chose to dismiss their predictions is just plain shitty.
For the most part that tool is often waved away with claims about landing on the moon
If you’re able to put a man on the moon using 1960s technology, but you can’t register some names and PHI in a backend SQL database using 2013 technology, that’s your sign you’ve overreached.
Every fucking libertarian on the planet predicted this and not a few non-libertarians as well. Why Sudderman chose to dismiss their predictions is just plain shitty.
I’m not sure if Suderman is dismissing our criticism. Maybe I’m reading it wrong.
I think the bigger problem is the same problem we’ve had all along: Progressives get their way, we predict failure, failure occurs, Progressives act shocked and surprised, claim that only they can fix it. *cough*Krugman*cough*
I’m not sure if Suderman is dismissing our criticism. Maybe I’m reading it wrong.
He could have framed the story with “Every big government critic knew Obamacare would fail, but many just did not know the specific minuet details that would do it.”
Instead he said critics were privately surprised…how about the fucking supporters? Were they surprised? Why is the onerous put on the people who saw problems with it?
Actually, I was surprised. I had thought it would putter along for a little while then gradually circle the drain. Who knew it would be so bad so soon?
Progressives get their way, we predict failure, failure occurs, Progressives act shocked and surprised, claim that only they can fix it.
Yeah, I’ve commented about this for a while now. The people who accurately predicted the policy consequences were dismissed at the time and their predictions are consistently thrown down the memory hole as they’re dismissed again. I’ll start believing the proggies when I start seeing them get tattoos on their foreheads saying “Not as Bright as Rush Limbuagh or Sarah Palin”.
When has abject failure ever stopped the statists?
Since NEVER! Abject failure = need for more statism.
And the reason why is because even journalists working for libertarian magazines blame big government critics for being privately surprised in their articles about government failure.
Every fucking libertarian on the planet predicted this and not a few non-libertarians as well. Why Sudderman chose to dismiss their predictions is just plain shitty.
Because as bright and thoughtful as Suderman is (and he is quite bright and thoughtful), he’s a DC person. And for DC people, the notion that they might not have all of the world’s answers and that the rest of the world might know a thing or two that they don’t is anathema.
If the system isn’t working smoothly at least a couple weeks prior to that rapidly approaching date, then large numbers of people simply won’t have a chance to sign up.
Obviously the solution is to just deem everyone covered by the Gold Plan on January 1.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
This IS the answer. Just DEEM them enrolled. Problem solved.
After all, deeming it passed is what got us into this mess in the first place. You are brilliant my friend.
Additionally, there are technical parts of O’care which are pretty much hidden from the ‘consumers’ (‘victims’, more properly).
I have now heard from two MDs who are in management positions at local hospitals that O’care mandates certain guarantees of compliance. In one case, the guy claimed he was forced to hire two $100K employees to guarantee ‘cleanliness’; he might have been joking when he said they were to watch staff wash their hands.
The second (different hospital, different conversation) simply said his staff had still not confirmed with the legal department what sort additional staff they would need, but they were budgeting (guessing) $500K for 2014.
I guess this constitutes part of the “Affordable” section of the law.
Health for all *and* JOBS! Is there no *end* to the benefits of Democratcare?
Rather than reforming the individual market, which was flawed but did work for some people, Obamacare will have destroyed it and left only dysfunction and chaos in its wake.
Up next: destroying the employer based market. Wait until the shit hits that fan.
You mean, this is just a test run?
They’re already making tons of headway toward making it more expensive.
Give it a little time and same people who think the ACA is the cat’s meow will be crying for the government to step in and “finally regulate” these companies to stop “unfair” rising costs.
That will prove disastrous, in which case “the only thing left to try” will be single payer (really some horrible mutant version of it).
Libertarian solutions? Sorry, we tried that and it failed. Remember the economic collapse in 2008? That was another example of how libertarianism failed us.
The Order try to stand their ground, while every battlefront is shifting
They still believe that they can hold the reins
But then they’ve got no sense of history
So let the whirlwind blow
—NMA, “Whirlwind”
See I don’t give a fuck, that’s the problem
I see a motherfucking cop and I dodge him
But I’m smart, lay low, creep awhile
And when I see a punk pass, I smile
–NWA, “Straight Outta Compton”
And to pile on some more:
This last weekend added ‘mental health coverage’ to plans allowed under O’care. So in addition to the technical problems, we have admin problems of integrating this coverage and the costs into the acceptable plans, adjusting the subsidies, ad nauseum…
In that WaPo article linked last week, they mention O’s staff held many meetings establishing what was going to be covered, and absent price signals, anybody’s idea was just as valid as any other. I’m sure the meetings had all the validity of some Gosplan apparatchiks trying to decide how many high-top and low-top sneakers Workers Factory #4 had to make next year.
The F’ing ran right into the knowledge problem of central planning and then scheduled it as if they were competent!
Idjits.
Don’t worry, they’ll get it right eventually. I mean, look at the awesome Obamacare control room. With that setup and the right top men, they can easily micromanage one-sixth of the American economy.
It was designed in accordance with Gestalt principles in order to give users a platform that would enable them to absorb information in a simple but comprehensive way.
That is *awesome*, Fatty.
Needs more levers.
Now THAT is how to manage a centrally planned economy!
The futuristic operations room was designed by a team led by the interface designer Gui Bonsiepe. It was furnished with seven swivel chairs (considered the best for creativity) with buttons, which were designed to control several large screens that could project the data, and other panels with status information, although these were never functional and could only show pre-prepared graphs.
A Potemkin operations room. How apropos.
“A Potemkin operations room. How apropos.”
Yep, for a Potemkin insurance scam.
This was an “Artifact” in one of the issues of Reason earlier this year.
It’s called ‘brainstorming’. Of course you need a key ingredient.
That’s funny.
What the fuck are all the “Navigators” doing?
Are we paying tens of thousands of people to NOT sign anyone up?
I fucking hate social workers and anyone whose job is remotely like being a social worker even more than I did before, if that’s the case.
We have to totally destroy these people and liquidate them as a class. It would almost be worth a brief period of a GMI or NIT plus single payer, just to burn them all.
What the fuck are all the “Navigators” doing?
That’s phase one of my “Runners” option. My plan would work perfectly if implemented properly.
I think the problem is, they’ve got the runners, but the runners don’t yet have anywhere to run to. This will work, just give it time.
Collecting a check and registering poor people as Democrats.
How many social workers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two- one to screw in the bulb and another to start a ‘Survivors of Darkness’ support group.
And the correct term is ‘Human Services Administrator’.
They’re busy download everyone’s SSN and bank account numbers.
They needed to find jobs for all the laid off ACORN workers.
This — http://www.nationalreview.com/…..-john-fund
They ARE the laid off ACORN workers.
??? ????????? I just got paid $858o working off my computer this month. And if you think that’s cool, my divorced friend has twin toddlers and made over $9k her first month. It feels so good making so much money when other people have to work for so much less. This is what I do,
???????? http://www.jobs53.com
As awful as the rollout has been no one has been harmed yet.
That is right. Even if you received a cancellation letter for 2014 you are still insured for 2013 and eligible to buy other private insurance effective Jan 2014. Some people are too stupid to shop as reported by Fox Fake News.
So the “worst case scenario” won’t begin until January and would consist of mass numbers of uninsured who were previously insured.
I will check back in then.
It only gets worse when the people can shop.
“Low income women with pre-existing conditions, especially substance abuse or mental disorders” just aren’t a big enough group to counterbalance “everybody else”. And “everybody else” gets fucked by the ACA to pay for the first group.
When people start writing checks – and when people start losing their tax refunds – they’re going to want Democrat blood.
If true then Democrats deserve to lose big.
Like a CEO who makes a spectacularly bad decision (see Time Warner buying AOL) you deserve to get fired with a vengeance.
Personally, “low income women with PE conditions” will fall into Medicaid and not cost insurers.
I am a market fan (the biggest here) and I look at insurer share gains and know that they will do fine. Not that the market is infallible, but it is usually right.
The losers of the ACA will exist between the cracks IE, a 24 yr old high income self employed married man whose family is not eligible for subsidies and is not on his father’s insurance.
-The losers of the ACA will exist between the cracks
Or anyone who values something like the freedom to enter into an insurance arrangement that the powers that be do not think will be sufficient for them.
Or anyone who values something like the freedom to enter into an insurance arrangement that the powers that be do not think will be sufficient for them.
OK, good point.
That is about 300,00 people.
Sockpuppet on sockpuppet ACTION!
I am a market fan (the biggest here)
Cheering 100% stock market gains all of which were created by the fed’s money printing while 90 million people can’t find work does not equal a market fan.
It makes you a blind idiot.
Liar, the Fed’s tiny $3 trillion in bond buying is dwarfed by the $24 trillion evaporated in 07/08.
That is why inflation is dead. The goldbugs don’t get money supply.
Eventually the Chinese et al will figure out that they are getting ripped off and stop buying our bonds so we will start paying higher interest rates. It may well turn into a death spiral for the dollar as we print more to pay off the high interest bonds and thus drive down their value even further.
Oh look… Keynes!
The losers of the ACA will exist between the cracks IE, a 24 yr old high income self employed married man whose family is not eligible for subsidies and is not on his father’s insurance.
Make that ANY self-employed person above the subsidy level and you’d be right.
And there are a lot of those people. And they aren’t between the cracks, and they have friends and families.
And networks. If your a self-employed person, chances are, you have a social network.
Self-employed high-income basement dwellers are few and far between.
Self-employed high-income basement dwellers are few and far between.You’re saying bloggers aren’t well paid?
Fluffy you’re being an inconsiderate racist. You forgot about the low-income colored womenfolk / women of color
That strikes me as incredibly callous. It is like saying ‘that person just got a letter they will be evicted from their home, but not until January, 2014, so no big deal right now.’
And, those people are too stupid to shop.
If democrats really want to help poor people, why do they blame their policy failures on their stupidity? I thought only the callous would hold the poor simpletons responsible for their healthcare. How compassionate to throw them under the bus for this cluster fuck, which they are in no way responsible for.
Next time Palin’s Buttplug wants to whine about the poor and the sick and the social safety nets, I guess we should remind him that it’s not everyone else’s fault stupid people can’t take care of themselves.
It is terrible not to realize how much someone is harmed by being told that something they count on, like their insurance plan, is being terminated soon. Incredibly callous.
When have you seen me whine about the poor?
We are in the high anxiety phase of the ACA. There are currently no benefits and all the conversation is about premium costs from paranoid sufferers of a law not yet in force (no one is paying ACA premiums yet).
There are currently no benefits and all the conversation is about premium costs from paranoid sufferers of a law not yet in force (no one is paying ACA premiums yet).
Right. Those crazy people who plan their finances more than three months in advance!
What the fuck is their problem?
Their problem is that they don’t get the concept of “annual contract”.
It means they end every year and a new one takes it place.
And if one year it ends and is replaced the next year with a much more expensive one, and everyone knows the price change is your fault, you should expect people to fucking hate you.
And if one year it ends and is replaced the next year with a much more expensive one, and everyone knows the price change is your fault, you should expect people to fucking hate you.
Logical, as usual. Let’s see the numbers when voters turn out in Nov 2014.
I am on record here that the ACA will be a big “So what?” and neither side will claim victory.
I would bet on that (remember I am always on the winning side – x-football).
Lord Humungus:
Palin’s Buttplug:
Palin’s Buttplug:
Palin’s Buttplug, 09/16/2013:
So, you changed your mind, then?
So, you changed your mind, then?
No, he moved the goal posts.
His mind hasn’t changed, he will say anything possible to deflect blame from Team Blue.
No!
It is unknown if the ACA will fail.
Dude, let me drag this all out for you:
You said, in reply, that if the healthcare rollout was a disaster, that Dems would get slaughtered in 2014. And that you’d know by this Christmas.
Now you’re saying that the jury is still out on Obamacare, and you want to wait until almost next Christmas, after the November elections.
Why the sudden change? When will it be OK for anyone to dislike Obamacare? 2016?
And they usually have a clusterfuck healthcare law go into effect at the end of each one that says “if you like your insurance plan, you can keep it. And nothing will change. But your premiums will go down… HAHA Just kidding! Lose your coverage and pay up, sucker!”.
I mean, what stupid people they are for not seeing it coming and shopping around. On the broken healthcare exchange. For higher priced insurance.
I mean, what stupid people they are for not seeing it coming
Nonono, they’re paranoid people for trying to figure out if this will cost them. They should not think about it AT ALL until they actually get the bill.
Manana, baby. Manana.
Don’t worry. Be happy.
In the long run, we’ll all be dead.
Yeah but in the past they haven’t needed to carry nearly so many obamaphone owners in addition to paying for themselves.
But seriously, your bigger problem is that most of the so-called benefits of the ACA will be completely invisible to the people paying increased premiums.
“But now you can get insurance with a pre-existing condition!” is an irrelevant statement to me if I’m one of the overwhelming majority of people with no pre-existing condition.
“But now you can get mandated substance abuse treatment!” is irrelevant to me if I’m not a crackhead.
“But now you can get mandated maternity care!” is irrelevant to me if I’m a man, or a woman not in the market for babying this year.
And so forth.
The benefits are stacked to a relative handful of parasites who were rock-solid Democrats to begin with. The costs are piled on to people in the right demographic and social strata to unload on the ACA with limitless rage.
But Fluffy! Mother Jones says 137 million Americans will get cancellation notices if Obamacare is repealed:
You can’t argue with that impeccable logic, man!
That’s because insurance firms would no longer be required to provide a host of benefits and cover certain conditions.
This is the point that the reason.com commentariat does tend to overlook….shreeeky can now get that pap smear he’s been hankering for!
But seriously, your bigger problem is that most of the so-called benefits of the ACA will be completely invisible to the people paying increased premiums.
The few people paying increased premiums will be insignificant.
The vast majority of us (employer based) don’t care. Medicare/caid won’t care.
The majority of people paying per rata are 50ish and liable to benefit from PE clauses that let them afford insurance for once.
The individual insurance market is set on BOOM.
Dude, EVERY SINGLE PERSON who is currently uninsured will be paying increased premiums.
As will the vast majority of people who are currently in the individual market.
Do you think the formerly uninsured in Massachusetts like Romneycare? Because they don’t.
The people paying the tax penalty in MA don’t like paying it.
The people forced to buy insurance that isn’t economically rational for them to buy don’t like buying it.
And by August of next year people in employer-based plans will be getting the news that they’re next. Are you counting on public-spirited employers hiding the cause of plan changes from their workers, when the time comes? ‘Cause that ain’t gonna happen.
I disagree, Fluffy.
I will be here next year to face the thunder. OBVIOUSLY, I am not afraid to stand alone amidst the Sea of Faith*.
* a reference to the sublime poem Dover Beach – which is a favorite of mine.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear[15]
And naked shingles of the world.
Awesome.
You will lose and I will win.
Palin’s Buttplug:
Dude, you already said that if the healthcare exchange rollout is a disaster, that democrats would be hosed in 2014:
What made you change your mind so recently?
Dude, give it up. Your prediction abilities are on par with the psychic friends network.
Palin’s Buttplug|9.16.13 @ 9:10AM|#
Real desperation on the part of IBD.
The exchanges are in disarray. –IBD
Total hearsay. Why not wait until Oct. 1 and bombard the exchanges when they open to see?
I plan on doing it.
How did October 1st go for you?
Buttplug and 5 friends got in!!
Just BELIEVE hard enough and I’m sure ObamaCare will work.
You’re the one running on blind faith. This system will fail big time. It has too. It attempts to control a very large and complex segment of the market with an incompetence that is showing itself weekly.
Only a very strong blind faith will stem the tide of evidence otherwise.
Prediction: The employer mandate will never be enforced.
Palin’s Buttplug:
Your faith in government mandates over rational consumer thought is amazing. It’s inspiring, in a way.
Let me guess: we just check back in 3-6 months, and it’ll all be great, right?
Never heard you say that before.
If you believe, clap your hands! Don’t let Obamacare die!
…And now to rescue the economy!
Your faith in government mandates over rational consumer thought is amazing
Dumbshit, I have no faith in government!
I have faith in the market ACA exchanges
!!!!
Why do you hate markets?
Did you also have faith in the California Power Exchange?
Markets don’t function on faith. Markets function on the ability of producers and consumers to appropriately price goods and services, and enter into contractual relationships that suit their needs.
“Community rating” destroys that.
No, I didn’t say that. The paranoia is justified per the Private Exchange website errors.
This is the worst of all conditions – a frantic and uninformed client base that can’t readily get information.
They’re not ‘errors’ dipshit. Not sharing your delusions =/= ‘uninformed’
This is the worst of all conditions – a frantic and uninformed client base that can’t readily get information.
Oh those guys…yeah…in the real world we call them “the democratic base”.
A bunch of the ACA’s requirements have indeed taken effect and have had the affect of increasing premiums in existing group and “compliant” private plans.
Well those five people previously uninsured people who managed to enroll looked a little heavy, but calling them mass numbers is maybe a little mean.
They be glad to know they can keep their chemo through the holidays.
Bless us one and all.
As awful as the rollout has been no one has been harmed yet.
You really are dumb as a stump!
Man falls from a 20th floor window and is heard as he passes by the 6th floor window, “So far, so good.”
Some people are too stupid to shop
pretty sure all the people getting cancellation letters shopped for the insurance that is being canceled.
no one has been harmed yet.
By the way how is it Obamacare helps the uninsured by insuring them but when the insured gets their coverage taken away by Obamacare they are unharmed.
In what magical universe is losing one’s insurance with no way of replacing it not being harmed?
The only way it could have not harmed anyone is if insurance offered no benefit what so ever.
Look guys, they’re only being put onto trains for a short ride. No one has been hurt yet.
You are as despicable as it gets.
Sure. Why not keep your head in the sand.
Palin’s Buttplug|11.11.13 @ 6:04PM|#
“As awful as the rollout has been no one has been harmed yet.”
You slimy turd:
“Who Is Edie Littlefield Sundby, The Stage 4 Cancer Patient Losing Her Insurance Coverage Under ‘Obamacare’?”
http://www.ibtimes.com/who-edi…..-obamacare
LOL!
I assume the operative word is “yet”. This reminds me when all the Obamacare critics were describing many of the problems it has already caused, and you told us just to wait until the law has been fully implemented. OK, we’re here now. We just need to keep waiting, right?
On the other hand, really? So the president lies to everyone, and tells everyone they can keep their insurance, if they like it. So, they assume they don’t have to shop for insurance, and then, bam, they get a cancelation letter, totally unplanned for, letting them know they have a few months to get a new insurance plan on a broken exchange, and deal with the change in price, or the possible new taxes.
And this doesn’t count as “being harmed yet”? I assume this isn’t happening to you, then.
And I’m sure that, if success is still just around the corner, we’ll hear you say the same thing.
My employer pays my premiums and we will not be affected by the ACA (per HR).
However, I know that a few hundred thousand people will see a premium increase (just like in any other year 1985-2012).
Next year.
Tick tock, baby.
That’s the great thing about the ACA. Obama was too shit scared to make it all take effect at once, so he spaced the impacts out.
That means that there will be SOME element of the ACA creating incredible harm and rage nationwide for the next 18 months.
YAY!
Burn, baby, burn.
That is the thing about health costs! They go up every year!
(like every year since penicillin was invented!)
Because of retards like you!
That fucker Alexander Fleming caused inflation! And, I bet he was a Christfag, too!
And also every year, government at all levels gets more involved in regulating health care.
Weird, huh?
“Palin’s Buttplug|11.11.13 @ 6:37PM|#
My employer pays deducts my premiums from what I would otherwise have to be paid
Fixed that for you
Yes, Gilmore, you are more correct than I was – my employer DEDUCTS my premiums from my paycheck.
I admit it.
Not quite. Your employer deducts your share, and adds the share they pay. How much of that will end up in your paycheck when you get kicked onto the exchange and Obama takes a big chunk from your employer to support redistribution? Can you say NADA? The primary purpose of Obamacare is to shift the cost burden from employers to taxpayers and citizens. Gotta keep those multi-billion dollar supporters of the democratic party solvent by helping them compete against foreign companies who don’t pay emlployee health care costs…Meanwhile, small employers take a big hit.
“However, I know that a few hundred thousand people will see a premium increase (just like in any other year 1985-2012).”
Those increases were likely gradual. Now sost middle American families now have to pay up to 900 dollars more a month, and their deductibles are going up. And this isn’t 2005 or 1998, when there was free money running amok in the streets.
You better check with HR to make sure the company’s plan offers you the “essential benefits”. Otherwise, they’re cheating.
Obamacare is creating a real “Hockey-stick graph” of health insurance premium rates!!
Hah! The consensus is against you affordable health care deniers. Obamacare works, and the government has computer models that prove it!
Obamacare failed the moment people figured out Obama was lying and sold them a ponzi scheme. All that’s left is the fallout, like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
My employer pays my premiums and we will not be affected by the ACA
That apparition you keep shouting at in the city library is not your employer.
As long as you are happy.
So you work for the Fedral Goverment ?
But the Affordable Healthcare Act was supposed to make healthcare…more affordable. So you admit that it failed at its number one goal?
We have to wait 3 more years to find out what’s in it.
We’re turning a corner! Dead-enders!
And none of this even touches on the bureaucratic dmv nightmare that will be our healthcare system when everything is up and running.
Other big things that happen.
– Employer payed insurance policies will start getting cancelled….so basically this will be like all the individually insured who go their polices canceled multiplied by 100.
– With Obamacare everyone has to do tax returns, even the unemployed. That will be great fun.
According to the White House, once the employer mandate kicks in, between fifty and seventy five milion more people will see their policies cancelled, and they said so in the Federal Register in 2010.
This is why I don’t think Republicans should settle for passing a law that just extends existing plans for a year.
They could get so much more. I don’t think a full-on repeal is in the cards, but they could effectively eviscerate the central tenets of the law, and render them meaningless.
They could gut ObamaCare without actually repealing it and it would pass the Senate because the Democrats will be so afraid of the electoral repercussions.
For one thing, right now it would be very very easy to reduce the “mandatory minimum” to catastrophic coverage. They could also GET the much-needed individual tax deduction for health insurance that would actually help repair the market FOR REAL. Add to that a widening of the “community rating” ratio to 5-1 or even 7-1.
Of course, full repeal is the Holy Grail, but it’s going to be a remote possibility unless Republicans sweep the House and Senate in 2014.
It’s almost tempting to do nothing and let the catastrophe unfold. It will be still more delicious if the D’s refuse to go along with Republican measures (as I outlined above) to modify the law.
It’s kind of funny though how all these people losing their health care insurance is a big emergency, yet it apparently was no big deal that so many Americans didn’t have it to begin with…
No, it was a big deal that we had 30-40 million uninsured. And it’s a bigger deal that we are on course to have a lot more people uninsured at the start of the year.
When your plan to fix something, actually makes it worse, that’s a disaster.
All those people went to the emergency room for their major health events. It amounted to about 1.6% of the industry. No big deal.
Before when people didn’t have insurance, it was Republican’s fault. Now that Obama has forced millions off their policies, and once the employer mandate kicks in between fifty and seventy five million more will lose their coverage, yet that somehow won’t be Obama’s fault…
The distinction is that those losing their health insurance were willing consumers of health insurance at their own expense. The uninsured prior to Obamacare included many who made the rational decision to self-insure and those who expected someone else to pay for their insurance.
They lied they lied they lie that sums it all up you can go back to before the fast and furious scandal they lied about that then pulled executive privilege to keep their lies secret. Then they went to Libya unknown to the American people to a town called Benghazi where they continued to relieve America of weapons! I would tell you the reason they left those man for slaughter but it doesn’t matter all that matters is they lied again. IRS scandal, NSA scandal, there are many more some will come to light most but most will lurk in the dark!
The biggest problems are ahead when the millions kicked off their plans get sick then Obama will have a good laugh!! so foolish America all you had to do was listen to his words!
Not even Veterans Day can stop Suderman from writing about Obamacare. Is he a man or a machine?
The truth of the matter there will be millions of Americans without health care Period!! Doesn’t anybody understand that as long as this law is active there will be millions and millions they won’t be able to sign onto Obama care.
Stipulations are put in that would try and control this process will never take place! This is just like another hurricane or earthquake Obama can drag this out way beyond the existence of this nation under No God indivisible, with his own liberty and no justice for all!!
lol, US POlitics. Best politics money can buy!
http://www.Privacy-Road.tk
As I’ve said from the beginning, and is being proven daily, Obamacare was designed from the beginning to fail, to turn into one giant debacle. That is the only way to destroy the free-market health industry and simultaneously force government health care on everyone.
unfortunately It will destroy much more!
No, VjKlander, they aren’t that clever. It may have been designed to be onerous and oppressive, but not to fail. Obama would never have agreed to it if he really thought it would be a failure – it’s his signature achievement, after all – but of course he likely didn’t have a clue and was just given talking points to spout.
Never attribute to malice or conspiracy, what you can attribute to stupidity and incompetence.
Someone should write an article about how ObamaCare is like California’s fake energy deregulation.
Hint. Hint.
I have been saying this for years. Here in California, the rollout for “Covered California” reminds me of nothing so much as the propaganda heralding the faux electricity “exchange,” which occupied practically every TV commercial break in the years just before the rolling blackouts and the Enron scandal.
It’s all going exactly according to plan. Mubarak Hussein Obama gleefully rubbing his hands together (Mr Burns style) while he watches the great Satan burn.
I suppose the idea of letting people pay their own damn bills is just too radical.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvGM3ONNk5o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7dsAXPh_qw
Do illegal immigrants have to sign up too? How many American’s are going to lose their homes because of this? How many are going to have to decide between cat food for dinner or breakfast, because there isn’t enough for both? How many have already been laid off? How many part time jobs cut? How rich will this make the insurance industry?
The level of incompetence necessary to literally destroy a big chunk of the private insurance market is absolutely breathtaking. The number and frequency of lies, to themselves, their industry partners, the citizenry, the paranoia, the secrecy. Think about what it doe to trust in the presidency, trust in the federal government, much less trust in the Democratic party and to liberalism. Obama, with the smartest guys in the room, and a majority of the press acting as the propaganda arm of the White House has done incredible damage to the state and it’s citizens.
Its hard not to believe that these multi billion dollar insurance companies just trashed their old setups. I defies sound business practices. Always have a plan B. IE the old plan just in case.
A re-conversion would not be as hard as these insurance companies are belly aching about. They just do not want to see their cash cows have an option not to buy insurance.
Obamacare promised to turn them into government backed utilities. Is there a sweeter gig in crony capitalism than government backed utility? I think not. That’s what they were promised, and they will settle for nothing less!
“Is there a sweeter gig in crony capitalism than government backed utility? I think not.”
The Nor Cal utility (PG&E) was ‘regulated’ for years by limiting the profits by percentage, and it was pretty healthy (like 10% for quite a while).
I’ll presume some brain-dead lefty did this, figuring that’ll stop ’em cold!
Yep, no control over expenses, salaries, capital costs; nothing! Spend as much as you please and charge the captive customers such that you don’t make more than 10%!
I think the requirement for management was the ability not to giggle during meetings with the regulatory agency.
OT, but too good to pass up. Guy’s got some homework to spin his way out of this!
“White supremacist discovers he’s part black on talk show”
…”a test determining genetic ancestry revealed Craig Cobb’s genetic makeup is 86 percent European and a whole 14 percent sub-Saharan African.”…
http://blog.sfgate.com/hottopi…..talk-show/
I for one knew the Obamacare website wouldn’t be running by November 30. Hell, by November 30 the experts they dragged in to fix it won’t even be done saying, “Good God, I wouldn’t have done it this way!” let alone rewriting code.
What’s up to all, the YouTube film that is posted at here has genuinely nice quality along with pleasant audio feature
http://farrdesign.com/jerseys/?id=1877
“Imagine how Democrats will feel about turning over the central operations of the health law to insurers. ”
If the administration (or whomever is calling the shots here) tries to do this the insurers should tell them to fuck off.
“Oh really? Your central-planning nightmare is coming undone and now you want us to help you after you vilified us this whole time? Take a hike.”
“Really? You’ll pass a law REQUIRING everyone in the country to buy our product, AND you’ll let us run both the business and the government enforcement?”
Some insurance executive just came in his pants.
“Rather than reforming the individual market, which was flawed but did work for some people, Obamacare will have destroyed it and left only dysfunction and chaos in its wake.”
You say “BUG,” but single-payer fans say, “FEATURE”!
There is only one possible fix for the Democrats, and the GOP had better be prepared to fight it. In his SOTU Address, Obama has to call for a replacement of the ACA by an expansion of Medicare and Medicaid to all – in other words full-on single payer. This will set the 2014 election up as a very stark choice, and also has the effect of making the GOP the bad guys, since they will be resisting the “fix”.
Imagine that! The US Government can not run a healthcare system for 310 million people. If only there was some way they could have known that before-hand….Hmmmm…
We executed WWII in less time than it has taken our government to develop a functioning website with straight forward rules = we’re DOOMED!!!!
Exactly! Not much of a conspiracy nut myself, and not even the most Machiavellian genius, let alone the clowns known as the Obama administration, could plan any thing so devious, but still it did work out better than hoped.
The old system is completely destroyed, the ACA can’t be fixed in time, millions of people have no health insurance…what can you do?
You may not have to institute a single payer system, but you do have to do something for those people. I suspect, (and I will entertain any bets) that the administration will be “forced” to offer Medicaid/Medicare to any effected people, no matter their income level.
So, now you have these classes of citizens enrolled in government payed healthcare: lower income, any one over 65, and now all self employed people- no matter their income.
Now consider that the employer penalty is much cheaper than the cost of covering the cost of an employee’s health insurance. Soon, even employers who want to do the right thing will simply not be able to compete with companies who do not offer health insurance.
The road to single payer is already laid out, mostly graded, and only needs to be paved…
BTW, you know what OTHER road was paved with good intentions?
BTW- still proud of the fact that I can spell “Machiavellian” without spell check…
Also, personally, a straight single payer system, with the option to purchase additional care outside the government system, is less repulsive to me than the ACA. The ACA forces me to purchase a product from a third party, under threat of government penalty. A single payer system is me paying a tax for a government program I believe could be better handled by the private market. It is hard for me to put into words, but the ACA just offends my libertarian instincts more than a single payer system, although I am firmly against either.
They say single-payer hides the costs, but it doesn’t really. See: taxes in Canada vs. America.
If America does go single-payer the silver lining there is Canadians might have a real discussion about going free-market. The lefties here have always loved to accuse reformists of wanting a “U.S.-style” system. Well, U.S. public insurance would flip the table on those critics, and any problems the Americans are having now or in the future will be a potential indictment against Canada’s healthcare. If Canada goes all free-market American politicians will see the positive changes and will eventually follow suit. /rosetintedglasses
From Pearl Harbor to VE Day was 3 years five months, and ten days. From the passage of ObamaCare to Oct 1, 2013 was 3 years, six months, and one day.
So, in the time it took to mobilize the country, manufacture the armaments, fight innumerable battles, and slog our way to the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Obama Administration couldn’t even build a WORKING WEBSITE.
You want a worst-case scenario? Either Congress has produced the most hopeless-mess, goat-rope piece of legislation in American history, OR Obama & his minions are the most fatuous cabal of incompetents ever to afflict our nation.
Or both.
The article omits another long term consequence. The budget estimates for Medicare are based on expected cost reductions provided by Obamacare. Medicare is currently scheduled to become insolvent in less than ten years and this date would be moved up if Obamacare cost reductions fail to materialize. If people can’t enroll, or if the majority of enrollees are older, sicker people and not the youth that ACA needs to subsidize them, then Medicare’s funding is in real trouble. And that’s serious.
Well, if the Koch brother’s don’t succeed in their cynical attempt to stop college students from enrolling in insurance plans, this won’t happen. Let’s all hope Obamacare succeeds, because the Republicans have no alternative, and our current system is broken and destroying our country.
mmadland|11.12.13 @ 7:15AM|#
“Well, if the Koch brother’s don’t succeed in their cynical attempt to stop college students from enrolling in insurance plans, this won’t happen.”
Hey, dipshit, maybe you can keep the lying piece of shit in the WH from his attempt at ruining medical care.
The problem exists between the government and the insurance companies. Individuals can get policies directly through the insurance company, bypassing the exchanges. They just have to forego the subsidies. People who had plans canceled and have to sign up for new ones will often have to pay more, and often do not qualify for subsides. That’s one subset of the problem, that we’ve seen covered in the media.
The second category is those who were uninsured, don’t qualify for Medicaid or a subsidy, and will be required to by insurance. Those people are going to see high prices as well.
The third category is those who don’t currently have insurance, don’t qualify for Medicaid, but do qualify for a subsidy. Those people are the ones who will have the worst time of it, because of the botched, Byzantine technical link-up between the government and the insurance companies.
All of this is just a small scale preview of what will happen when the employer mandate kicks in, which will hit an even larger number of people with many of the same problems.
Shorter version: the majority of people, who don’t qualify for Medicaid or subsidies, will pay higher premiums for policies with higher deductibles and higher out of pocket expenses.
Meanwhile, those who do qualify for subsidies cannot access them because the entire government system is botched.
The only people who seem to be able to “take advantage” of Obamacare are those who now qualify for Medicaid under the expansion.
IOW, the vast majority of people will pay lots more, and may never see a dime in benefits.
85% of the population already had insurance. For the overwhelming majority of those, things will get worse. Of the 15% who did not, things will get marginally better for an undetermined number, but not all. That is how the law was designed.
What reason readers need to consider is some sobering facts. The US has the among the worst health care systems in the industrialized world (we are #1 in spending, and below Costa Rica in health care outcomes according to the WHO). The absolute worst case scenario for Obamacare is vastly superior to our current state of affairs. I have personally witnessed countless americans die in poverty because of our backwards and broken system. WE HAVE TO CHANGE! The current state of affairs should not be tolerable to anyone which a shed of human decency or the slightest inclination towards fiscal responsibility. We have the most ill conceived health care system ever devised. Despite the incredible money we pump into it, we do not get good results. The conservative critics of Obamacare have no alternative, no better idea. The Republicans are throwing everything they have into sabotaging Obamacare. But it can’t possibly fail worse than our current system. A single payer government run system would be vastly more efficient that our current privatized system, but Obamacare is a huge improvement. And if you think I’m some uninformed commie liberal, I should mention that I am an MD who works for a one of our nations largest private health care organizations.
I’ve personally spoken to a number of doctors, and they are all overwhelmingly opposed to Obamacare. I have no way of verifying your claim to be one, but I doubt it.
The fact of the matter is that 85% of Americans were already covered, and had access to the best health care in the world. The concept of helping the 15% who were not covered get insurance is noble, but the implementation was a total disaster, and it was done because of partisan ideology on a party line vote. The insanity of the Democrats is coming back to bite them, and they deserve every bit of it.
I am a physician. I would give you my NPI # or my license # but for fear of fraud. Yes, many MD’s are afraid of what the changes under Obamacare will mean for our bottom line. I am certain it will mean a decrease in my compensation. I do not take that lightly. My wife and I (both of us are physicians, only a few years out of residency) came out of med school with a combined debt of about$1/2 million. I agonize every day about how I am going to pay that off. I understand becoming a doctor was a terrible financial decision. But that’s not why I became a doctor. I suffered a decade of brutal, almost inhumane hours to help others. Any threat to our earning potential is very scary. But only the most craven person could accept our current system. Myself and all doctors will likely suffer deep cuts, but we know our patients will benefit. That’s what matters.
Myself and all doctors will likely suffer deep cuts, but we know our patients will benefit. That’s what matters.
If doctor’s are profit driven, then why is there a shortage of primary care physicians? The explanation I always hear is that is doesn’t pay well enough.
You and your wife may not care as much about the money, but you’d be the exception to the rule.
No, we are not the exception. I am profit driven. That’s why I have worked 80-100 hours a week for the past decade. I am massively in debt, and I work hard am paid well enough that someday I hope to pay off my debt and own a house. I understand how fortunate I am and thankful the salary that I make. Yes, there is a shortage of primary care physicians because they are massively underpaid. That’s why I never considered primary care. It is just not worth it, the pay is terrible. Obamacare will increase the pay of primary care physicians by increasing their medicare payments. Medicare payments set the benchmark for all healthcare reimbursement. This is a profound and very needed change. Obamacare is the best step America has taken towards improving primary care.
The best thing Obamacare could have done would have been to do away with Medicare reimbursement rates and allow prices to be set by supply and demand. A shortage in primary care physicians would lead to a higher salary for primary care physicians which would lead to more primary care physicians.
Price controls never work. They always cause inefficient allocation of resources. Obamacare will try to set the “correct” Medicare reimbursement rates and they will do so sub-optimally, which will only make the system worse overall.
mmadland|11.12.13 @ 8:04AM|#
“I am a physician…”
Assuming that’s true, you are living proof of why MDs should stay far away from anything to do with econ.
You’re an ignoramus.
Even insured Americans don’t have access to the best health care in the world. We have some spectacular specialists who do amazing things, but most insured people never benefit from that. Most insured Americans receive a lower standard of care than the rest of the industrialized world.
Most insured Americans receive a lower standard of care than the rest of the industrialized world.
How are you measuring that? By the WHO rankings that counted, among other things, whether or not a country had government provided access to health care? By rates of disease? Correct me if I’m wrong, but America also has more unhealthy people than other industrialized countries thanks to lifestyle choices (driven largely by obesity). We are also world leaders in medical research. And yes, that is expensive, but can you point to some numbers to support your earlier claim that you “have personally witnessed countless americans die in poverty because of our backwards and broken system”?
I am an ER Dr. I have seen many people who die because they avoided getting treated for chronic, treatable illness, because of cost. Just last week, a man who recently lost his job, came in heart failure because he could not afford to take his meds more than every other day. He ate one day, took his meds the other day. This story gets played out every day in every hospital in our nation.
Ironic that you point to obesity. American politicians (Sen. McGovern) basically created the worldwide obesity epidemic, and they’re paying for it the most.
Obesity is a disease of civilization so they technically didn’t create it, they just government’s heavy hand involved in health research & mislead people so badly they’ve made things worse off by encouraging people to eat “healthy” foods that will kill them to the point where life expectancy is falling.
The fact that you, a reason reader, blames obesity on “lifestyle choices” as opposed to government and media propaganda is proof of just how bad things have become. Read Gary Taubes’ GCBC and see how insane it is to take nutrition advice from government bureaucrats & gov’t-paid researchers.
If you truly are a physician, then you already know that people from all over the world come to the US to study and practice medicine.
If our health care system was truly medieval, doctors would be flocking to Costa Rica.
Our medical training is excellent. Our health care system is not.
mmadland|11.12.13 @ 5:57PM|#
“Our medical training is excellent. Our health care system is not.”
You missed the part about “practice”, didn’t you?
Are you a liar or an idiot?
“The US has the among the worst health care systems in the industrialized world (we are #1 in spending, and below Costa Rica in health care outcomes according to the WHO).”
Lie.
Read the WHO metrics. One of the most important is whether medicine is socialized. If not you get a rotten score.
You’re an idiot; go away.
The US has the among the worst health care systems in the industrialized world
You can thank medical malpractice tort laws and absurd crony capitalism regulations for that.
As a Canadian who’s seen arguments like these one too many times, I have to point out that the U.S. system is so dysfunctional it literally makes ours, even with the skyrocketing costs, look good in comparison. (a fact that is not lost on the Canadian Left) I’ve seen some well-meaning but ignorant libertarians try to argue why the U.S. system is better than Canada by using generic gov’t bureaucracy arguments (i.e. too much paperwork, limited selection of doctors), only to fail completely as the dystopian system they described was identical the the U.S. “free-market” system. Isn’t it embarrassing when a country with socialized health insurance functions more like an ideal free-market system than the U.S. healthcare system which everyone keeps telling me is a capitalist system? And yet, there is apparently no other choice you say, but to regulate it even further.
Here’s a suggestion: y u no try capitalism?
What you are seeing is your elected government in action, a complete disaster.
When you have a majority of people realize they can simply vote themselves “benefits” the institution is doomed.
We are doomed.
Doomed to what, the hope of a finally functional health care system? How do you not understand how broken our system is? How can you not see the urgent need to fix it? Why are you so content to see our nation bankrupted by a broken system? We have a chance to improve it. Why are so many people resisting our only chance at change?
You are right, the system we have now is dysfunctional, but let’s not get hyperbolic. It is among the best in the world for lots of Americans. For those of lower income, it may fall short sometimes. You seem to think that happens pretty often, and for the sake of argument, I’ll go along with that. The solution isn’t more government regulations, more attempts at price controls. and more opportunities for vested interests to tip the scales in their favor. That is the system we have now and Obamacare doubles down on it.
The solution that libertarians overwhelmingly support is to return real freedom to health care. Eliminate tax credits for employer provided care, open up the sale of insurance across state lines, and do away with requirements of minimum coverage. That way people can shop for the coverage they actually want in a market with lots of other customers, where competition will keep prices down. Insurance can go back to actually being insurance, instead of pre-paid care. Eliminate the need for doctors to increase their prices to cover administrative costs by doing away with the crushing health care bureaucracy. Costs for common procedures will come way down.
Make people fully responsible for the cost of their lifestyles. I’d bet that lifestyles, on the whole, will become healthier. Insofar as a safety net is needed, convert it to a voucher system and let people buy basic insurance in a competitive market, rather than having the government dictate reimbursement rates through Medicare. Those are just a few ideas.
Obamacare isn’t a chance to deliver a “finally functional health care system”. It is compounding everything that is wrong with the current system and it will further erode what actually works.
Should we make people responsible for their behavior or their genetics? If you think that is a simple thing to answer, you don’t foresee the enormity of what is coming in medicine.
People aren’t responsible for their genetics — they don’t have control over that. But should people be responsible for making the best of the situation they find themselves in? Yes.
Are you worried that some people may not be able to afford it? I know I am, which is why I think charity is so important. Do you worry charity might not be able to provide for everyone who needs it? I’m less worried about that, but I’ll admit that I don’t know. That’s why I’m willing to support some sort of safety net program. But it would look a lot, lot different from what we have now.
Look at another way. By what right do you force me to responsible for the genetics of other people?
I don’t know what you mean by insurance going back to “actually being insurance”. You seem to pine for some golden era when insurance was pure. Insurance is still insurance under obamacare. What insurance has always been, is healthy people subsidizing sick people. That’s how insurance works. Yes, Obamacare tweaked those metrics. Healthy people are contributing more. But we all get more. We all can live knowing that we aren’t an illness or accident away from poverty. If you don’t think that is a real risk, you are either independently wealthy, or you don’t understand the country you live in.
What I mean is insurance goes back to something that covers low probability but high risk scenarios, rather than high probability but low risk scenarios.
You seem to think Obamacare is going to lower costs and make health care more affordable, all while giving people more benefits, making doctors happy, and raising the standard of care. And maybe you’re right. I highly doubt it.
Maybe, but libertarians are always asking how we change the culture and move back towards a direction of greater liberty. I don’t know the answer, but dismissing people or being rude on the internet isn’t the way. I’ll keep responding as long as there is something worth responding to. I have no reason to believe he isn’t arguing in good faith.
I notice you never responded to this post by telling me all the “more” I’m supposed to be getting mmadland.
Why is that? Is it because you know you are spouting outright lies? I suspect so.
No, he pines for a time when the dumb ass government didn’t fuck with everyone for the sake of fucking with everyone.
…”But we all get more.”…
Lie.
To paraphrase Churchill, our health care system is the worst form of health care, except for all of the other ones.
“Why are so many people resisting our only chance at change?”
For the same reason I’d resist my accountant’s only chance at changing the field of dental surgery.
Because when people set out to change something they don’t understand, the likelihood of making things worse is very, very high. And when they also bestow upon themselves the authority to force people to do things for their own good, shutting out the signals that they’re going to fail catastrophically.
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There’s always the simple fix – revert to the 1950s.
Everybody pays what the doctor charges, and the doctor charges what they can afford to pay.
Everybody gets care.
Nobody pays premiums.
According to a report this morning, a CNN hot mic picked up Obama and Biden making fun of the new health care law. I think the worse case scenario has been attained. http://www.thedailyrash.com/ob…..-care-law/
As pointed out here, there’s little chance that this is all going to get better in the next few weeks. It’s time for the millions getting their existing policies cancelled to start looking for alternative types of coverage in the event they are unable to sign up for new coverage. A few options include short-term health insurance, membership in a health sharing ministry, or even some combo of critical-illness and fixed-benefit insurance, as described here: http://theselfpaypatient.com/2…..-policies/
The way things look now, it’s likely Jay Carney is going to be standing in front of the press corps in January having to explain how Obamacare cancelled plans and then prevented people from getting new coverage, and then in February things really get ugly when the first media reports start to cover cases where the newly uninsured get diagnosed with cancer or fall off their roof removing Christmas decorations, and are stuck with big bills their old, cancelled insurance would have covered.
This is the sort of man-made disaster that really never should happen, but seems to be the inevitable outcome of “central planning”.
and the fun is just starting!
No, the worse will show up in the coming months and years:
“People respond to incentives, although not necessarily in ways that are predictable or manifest. Therefore, one of the most powerful laws in the universe is the law of unintended consequences.” -From the book “SuperFreakonomics”
With that in mind, see:
“Obamacare: Making a bad situation worse”
http://relevantmatters.wordpre…..ion-worse/
The level of incompetence of not only this administration, but of this government, to launch this program effectively is truly breathtaking. That Obama and Sebelius seem to be genuinely surprised by the problems is even more astounding, and speaks volumes to how woefully in over their heads they really are.
I don’t see how they can allow those whose plans have been cancelled to go back to the non-grandfathered plans, and hope to make the ACA work at all. They needed these cancelled buyers to flood the ACA program with proven insurance buyers who would buy policies and, most importantly, pay their bills. Without them, the death spiral will ensue just before the 2014 elections.
If they allow this base to stay out of the program, the only people left will be costly to insure, with lower financial resources who may be likely to sign up and either never pay, or only pay until they get their health problems addressed.
This is the epitome of liberal magical thinking.
This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.
“Time to Start Considering Obamacare’s Worst Case Scenarios”
I think it should read Time to Start Considering Obama is Worst Case Scenario for this country.
My insurance agent said that because our household income is higher than the amount that would make us eligible for a subsidy, then we can go ahead an apply — we don’t need the website. We live in Florida, so we’re stuck with the federal exchange.
We’ll be meeting with the agent soon. Certainly hope she’s correct. My spouse has pre-existing conditions that are a concern — not because of needed treatment, but because of the pre-ACA status quo underwriting response to my spouse’s applications: no policy offered. I can assure you that it’s not just the cancer patients, type 1 diabetics, and recent heart attack victims who get declined for individual health insurance.
The ACA is deeply flawed — but so was our previous health insurance system. The insurers participating in the exchanges are surely afraid that very few young, healthy people will apply — and those fears are valid. Young people may have helped elect Obama, but I predict that they’ll bail as long as they can on the individual mandate.
? ? ? ? LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY ? ? ? ? ?
My Boy friend makes $75/hour on the internet. She has been without a job for 6 months but last month her pay was $16453 just working on the internet for a few hours. Straight from the source———— http://www.jobs53.com
? ? ? ? LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY ? ? ? ? ?
My Boy friend makes $75/hour on the internet. She has been without a job for 6 months but last month her pay was $16453 just working on the internet for a few hours. Straight from the source———— http://www.jobs53.com
I am thinking about the unintended consequences of the “80/20” rule that says that a max of 20% of a hospital’s budget can go to administrative costs and profit, while at least 80% has to be spend on medical care. Is that measured in dollars?
For example, let’s say a hospital had planned on spending 150k on administrative expenses, 50k profit, and 800k on care. But then some unanticipated records keeping mess and compliance with a dizzying array of new regulations (not that THAT would ever happen) makes the hospital need to spend 250k on administrative costs (needing to hire new medical records specialists, IT professionals, lawyers, and accountants). To keep the ratio at 80/20, can the hospital simply jack up the price of all its medical procedures? Or does it have to forgo the hiring of new admin staff and reduce its throughput of patients as a result, thus introducing delays or inconveniences but managing to get the same amount of medical care provided?
I don’t see how it can work without raising the cost of medical care (or changing the definition of what is “medical care.” Anybody have insight into this?
Has anybody told the gov’t that price fixing doesn’t work?
Far be it from me to defend the catastrophe of Obamacare.
But, I think it is imperative we focus on the rollback of this bureaucratic, Government control idea, turning it into a Controlled, well planned repeal.
The Nuclear result of this collapse is likely to be worse in some ways than the crippling system we are trying to avoid.
The Obama Administration loosed the Liberal control freaks, the blindly Socialist ideologues, as well as all the mercenaries of the insurance industry; That produced Obamacare.
The political crowd expected the greed of the Takers would propel this issue. Those expecting something more for nothing were expected to flock to sign up for yet another permanent entitlement to be!
There was a good chance of hiding the ball, and successfully running this Obamacare play. But be careful what you wish for!
Presently, the minority of producers/Taxpayers in this country are, not unlike Atlas, carrying the society on their backs!
Obamacare makes all, or at least most of the people to be insured, PAY SOMETHING!
The default position for the collapse of Obamacare is the SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM wherein our ATLAS described above, SHOULDERS THIS ENTIRE BURDEN, providing it literally FREE TO THE BOTTOM HALF! Dream comes true!
Who could ask for anything more?
And don’t wait with Bated Breath for the “Death Spiral”!
Obamacare, too WILL BE DEEMED ” TOO BIG TO FAIL!!
Obamacare will be Bailed out by TAXPAYER MONEY, Just like GM, the Banks and Wall Street!