Can the ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers Be Believed? 723
An anonymous reader writes "When the Obama administration announced on April 1 that an estimated 7.1 million had signed up for ObamaCare by the end of March, it seemed a nearly impossible achievement. To reach 7.1 million, sign-ups had to rocket up by 67% in just one month. That's astounding enough, but an IBD review of existing ObamaCare enrollment data shows that the mathematical challenge of reaching 7.1 million sign-ups was even tougher."
Can the number of Christmas Gifts be Believed? (Score:5, Insightful)
To reach the number of Christmas gifts said to be bought for Christmas, gift purchases would have had to rocket up by 67% in December alone...
"Obamacare Enrollment"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't care how accurate the numbers are; I care about the sloppy language. What they mean is that 7.1 million people have applied for coverage through the Federally Facilitated Marketplace.
I'm really fed up with this lazy language. It's ended up confusing millions of people who are just looking for some healthcare coverage. A lot of people seem to think that "Obamacare" is now some federal version of Medicaid, or young-people version of Medicare--a government program that pays medical expenses.
I don't care whether the Republicrats or Democans started the confusing talk; let's all be part of stopping it.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:0, Insightful)
This ALWAYS this you crybabies whine about right up until it is your ASS being left out front of the hospital. Then it is all about SAVE ME!
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise, I'll say how dare you expect the rest of us to pay for your health care because you don't want to.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
You really expect to believe the numbers coming out of Washington? Gullible aren't we?
Sure, this is the worst administration for lies in our lifetime, but even before this one, they still fudged numbers. It's just the way the game is played out there.
define "lifetime."
also, i'm pretty sure THIS was the worst falsehood from a U.S. presidential administration in our relative lifespans: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/st... [cbsnews.com]
Re:"Obamacare Enrollment"? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not sloppy or lazy language. It's deceitful language.
They know full well that there are not 7.1 million newly insured people who are previously uninsured, which is basically what Carney claimed in a press conference yesterday.
About 5 million of those people are those who had their policies canceled, and about 2 million are previously-uninsured/uninsurable people who signed up. The number of people who have actually paid, out of these 7 million, remains a closely-guarded secret.
It's California (Score:5, Insightful)
California's exchange is well capable of providing a mere 7 Million registrations and was not ever having problems while the Federal site was the subject of so much news controversy.
I am celebrating this event because This is the first time that Bruce Perens can get insurance coverage! I operate my own company and have previously only had access to insurance through my wife's employer. All of my family, my wife, my son, and I, have each individually been rejected by private insurers for what was esentially medical trivia. In my son's case, it was because he took a test they didn't like even though he passed it.
Not everyone understands the B.S. that private insurers were permitted to put people through.
And that's surprising why? (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a deadline. People put stuff off to the deadline, especially when it means it's going to cost them money.
For comparison, this page [blogspot.com] has a graph of tax-related Google queries. Big shock: they spike right before deadlines in January and April. (That's a proxy for tax filings, for which I couldn't find a decent source. I suspect that tax filings are probably even more spread out, since many people get money back and would rather do it early.)
Combined with problems that would have caused people who tried earlier to fail, it doesn't seem at all likely that numbers would go up by a factor of 2/3. If you'd told me it was an order of magnitude, I might have been surprised. IBD has a history of a negative view of the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") and so I'm not especially inclined to see their incredulity is anything other than ideology.
Terrible article (Score:3, Insightful)
Actual summary of article:
"It seems really unlikely the enrollment numbers got met because that would have meant a lot of last minute sign-ups *shrugs*"
"Oh and by the way even if the enrollment numbers got met, it probably doesn't count because if you haven't paid your first month's premium you don't count as an enrollment number for some reason because we said so"
Not so fast, cowboy ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Until there is solid evidence of malversation, rants of the calibre of "Gee ... those numbers are big ... so can they be true" cannot be taken seriously.
Oh, and have you filed your demand to see Obama's birth certificate yet? Be sure to demand that he proves he's got a pulse too. And demand that he be doused with Holy Water too ... just in case, eh?
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:3, Insightful)
This ALWAYS this you crybabies whine about right up until it is your ASS being left out front of the hospital. Then it is all about SAVE ME!
What you say could be 100% true and the ACA could still be unconstitutional. What you are doing here is attacking the person (an imaginary person) rather than attacking the argument. If you want to argue that it is constitutional your best bet would be to go to the constitution and find the parts that you think would allow for this legislation. For help you could read what the supreme court justices said about the legislation.
15-20% of enrollees have not paid, not insured? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose that instead of calling it a fine for not buying insurance, they had simply described it differently. Suppose they decided to tax everyone by a fixed amount, and then offered a tax rebate to anyone who bought insurance. Would you still feel that was unconstitutional? The government has the right to levy taxes - no question about that. And they have the right to spend money however they want, including giving it out as tax rebates to encourage particular behaviors. Yet the two situations are completely identical as far as money is concerned. The only difference is how they describe it. What makes the first unconstitutional and the second not?
Anyway, your claim about the Supreme Court is simply wrong. They've ruled that choosing to spend money in particular ways in particular circumstances is protected free speech, but they've never made any blanket claim that money=speech. For example, they still allow lots of restrictions on donations to political campaigns. You can't donate more than a fixed amount to any one candidate, and while you're allowed to buy political advertisements on your own, you can't coordinate with the campaigns you intend to support. And much more relevantly: so far as I know, they have never ruled in any context that you have a right to refuse to pay taxes or fines levied by the government.
HSA plus catastrophic (Score:3, Insightful)
Is the way it should be. No one should have to pay for your runny nose or whatever. Set aside the money like any normal and prudent person would do and use it for that. If the SHTF, the catastrophic insurance has you covered.
People will pay $60 to get their hair done once a month but think paying $60 for an office visit is robbery. Crazy. Have your hair dresser prescribe the antibiotics then.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:4, Insightful)
Such as the smokers, the obese, alcoholics and drug users who can continue with their merry lifestyles, safe and secure in the knowledge everyone else is forced to hand over their money so they don't have to take personal responsibility for their actions, right?
Obamacare (as well as Romneycare) does nothing to lower health costs or ease the burden on the system so long as people are not forced to live healthier lifestyles. All they are doing is extracting money from people simply for the sake of extracting money and giving it to insurance companies who have gotten a huge financial windfall.
Considering how people on here rant about big bad corporations, this point should have been obvious, but I guess when you can take money from people, simply because you can, that never enters into the equation.
Wah, wah (Score:2, Insightful)
"The numbers turned out *much* higher than Fox News predicted, and I *know* that many people couldn't possibly want health insurance, because that brochure from the Heritage Foundation said so. It must be a conspiracy..."
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c... [nytimes.com]
Re:Politics as usuall (Score:2, Insightful)
Like most numbers that come out of government, it takes a bit of creative license. Both major parties have mastered this deception. The real question is... Are we better off now that this law is in place? To which I have to think, probably not.
"Probably not?" You're going to have to explain that one. Maybe some people are worse off, but millions are MUCH better off by not being denied health care for pre-existing conditions, being able to stay on their parent's healthcare plans, etc.
Granted, this IS a right-wing change to health insurance (from the previous generation of right-wingers, not the Tea Party wacko set we have now). This is a gimme to health care insurers, with no single payer, etc. It's a single step, but it's a good one until the Tea Party flames out and we can get back to having a somewhat functional Congress again. That's going to be a long time in coming, I suspect, so for now, it seems as good as we're going to get.
Re:Not so fast, cowboy ... (Score:4, Insightful)
That the Fugitive Slave Act was deemed constitutional? But the 13th Amendment to the CONSTITUTION made that irrelevant, didn't it?
Re:i pledge to you... (Score:5, Insightful)
When government saves a life, Jesus punches a dolphin in the gills.
So does he ask his father to put the gills on the dolphin first, or how does that work?
Plan not grandfathered and minimum standard. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you able to show us the terms of your plan? The reason I ask is that I was offered what turned out to be a "trash plan", and the sort of things that aren't being grandfathered are rejected because they don't meet a minimum standard of care. In my case, a catastrophic injury such as in an auto wreck would not have been covered significantly.
The lady who famously confronted Obama on this issue had a plan that limited its payout to a few hundred dollars.
Re:HSA plus catastrophic (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, only problem is because most other people rely on buffet-style all-you-can-eat-for-fixed-price, the cash price for many services is stupendously high.
Last year I had a month-long cold of some sort and needed a checkup to find out what was wrong and get anti-biotics. I don't have a family doctor because the last two I've had retired (drove out of business due to poor medicare reimbursement rates), so I went to Patient First. I asked them how much the checkup would cost, and they said they could not tell me until after the services were performed. Great.
Got a bill in the mail a month later for $300 for a 5 minute checkup and chest x-ray. Anti-biotics were another $80. I don't mind paying these prices if that's what they actually cost. That's what the HSA is for. The problem is they would not tell me what the costs would be up front, and I had no way of shopping around for better prices at competing clinics. That's like going to McDonalds for a hamburger, but they won't tell you what the price is until they mail it to you a month later. And the cost of the burger ends up depending on how hungry you were at the time and how many poor people and illegal immigrants they had to give free hamburgers to.
Re:i pledge to you... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's California (Score:2, Insightful)
What about incorporating in order to move that tax burden off of your books and onto that of your business? Should help your subsidy eligibility. I'm not an accountant (and can't speak to the intricacies of an LLC vs an S-Corp), but I know that a lot of self employed people who recently made the jump from sole proprietorship to incorporation and they all wish they had done it years ago.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm just curious. Why is it that so many countries in the world have universal health care paid by the population (through taxes) yet one of the most prosperous and powerful countries in the world can't figure it out or refuses to implement it?
Is capitalist greed getting in the way or am I missing something?
Re:It's California (Score:5, Insightful)
I totally feel for you. I am lucky enough to be insured, but when I was shopping around for cheaper insurance, I also was rejected for trivial stuff. My grandmother (who is not a doctor) said to me several years ago: "I think my mother and uncle might have died from the effects of Marfan's Sydrome (which can cause aorta rupture), and I think I have some of the symptoms, so you should consider getting checked out." At my annual checkup I ran it by my doctor, and he said: "I doubt it, but there are a couple cheap tests I can do to be more sure." In the end he concluded that I do NOT have Marfan's Syndrome.
Fast forward 2 or 3 years. I apply for insurance with a company other than my current insurer. They request permission to do a medical history check. "No problem," I think, because I've been given a clean bill of health by my doctor.
Insurance company decision: Coverage rejected for reason--"Question of Marfans." In other words, they don't trust what my doctor said with enough confidence to risk taking me on....
Part of the idea of Obamacare is that crap like this shouldn't happen anymore.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Insightful)
Pre-tax deductions have not changed. I don't know what wacko changes have changed your taxes, but it ain't ACA.
Re:Lies, damned lies, and statistics... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently the possibility that people might take advantage of the "no pre-existing condition" clause of the ACA to get insurance when something catastrophic happens disturbs the insurance companies' bottom line deeply.
This is precisely what's happening...it's called "adverse selection".
I personally know someone who switched plans during open enrollment to get a different carrier who would pay the $100k for her experimental treatment. She has to pay slightly higher premiums than the first plan she was on, but it's not a bad tradeoff when you're "buying" $100k of value for a few hundred a month. She can't be declined and her preexisting condition must be covered.
Everyone understands why you can't buy auto insurance coverage for a collision that already has happened. The same holds for health insurance—it's absolutely untenable otherwise. Not that there is any love lost between me and the scumbag health insurance industry. I'm just pointing out it literally actuarially/mathematically cannot work the way some people want it to. You simply can't let people wait until they have, say, cancer to sign up for insurance and then demand that insurance pay for the treatment.
What's the solution? Well, since we as a society have decided we do not want a free market in health care (a free market would necessarily entail leaving those who cannot pay to die outside the doors of the ER), then our next optimization is to save money. We spend more per capita and in total than every other nation, and we get worse average outcomes for our population.
To put it more plainly: a socialized medicine system like they have in the UK would COST LESS than what we have now.
Furthermore, the NHS public healthcare system in the UK works alongside a private, more "free market" type of healthcare system. We could mirror that here if we wanted to encourage the private industry innovation that appeals to our cultural sensibilities. We already have that in other realms: the USPS and FedEx operate side by side, there are private schools that operate alongside public schools, etc.
Finally, we need to realize that a huge percentage of the US population is ALREADY on socialized medicine (ie. governmental health care programs paid for by taxes): everyone who is over 65 (Medicare), the poor (Medicaid), the veterans (the VA), the Armed Forces (Tricare), all federal, state and local governmental employees (taxes pay their premiums). Does anyone believe we will ever elimated those programs, barring universal healthcare in this country? The "free market for healthcare" ship sailed a long time ago.
Let's just try to save some money and get better health for our population instead of trying to pretend a mathematically-broken insurance approach is ever going to be a good idea.
Re:Plan not grandfathered and minimum standard. (Score:5, Insightful)
This. People would be surprised truly how useless many of these cheaper plans were. If you got a chronic illness or injury that had long lasting effects, you'd get some things paid for if you mounted a massive effort to get the insurance company to pay for what they are legally required to, but will try not to do by burying you and your providers in paperwork, delaying payments and pushing deadlines.
Then, when you come up to renew, you would be given a cost you can't afford. So, you lose your plan. You can't get another one.
Yes, insurance companies are jacking up prices, but this is panic driven. What the public will so learn is that most health care insurers can't actually pool risk, and only make money by denying care and pushing people out of the system.
Obamacare is a clear signal: If the health care insurance can't sustain its business by keeping all of the US healthy, it will be legislated out of existence. It's not a matter of if but when and how hard it will be. The rest of world has shown us that. The US will catch up to the idea that every human has the right to health without concern for cost or it will fail.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:i pledge to you... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:4, Insightful)
Obamacare (as well as Romneycare) does nothing to lower health costs...
Sure it does. There's way more to the ACA than health exchanges and elimination of denials for pre-existing conditions. Whether or not the provisions aimed at controlling costs actually work or not will take a long time to figure out. But ACOs and medical homes and and PCORI...
Thank god for Obamacare. (Score:5, Insightful)
Situation 1) No law requiring people to buy healthcare, no law blocking insurance companies from denying you healthcare for pre-existing situations. They can even deny you healthcare for brain cancer because you have diabetes. (or worse, accept you, then deny coverage because you failed to disclose you had diabetes). People that get screwed: a) anyone that is not 100% healthy and also b) anyone that risks going without insurance but ends up needing it.
Situations 2) Law requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions, but no law requiring people to buy insurance. People that get screwed: Insurance companies, as people wait till after they get sick to buy insurance. Then after insurance companies all go bankrupt, everyone gets screwed.
Situation 3) Law requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions and also a law requiring people to buy insurance. People that get screwed: Anyone that wanted to risk going without good insurance and would have been lucky enough not to need it.
The first situation was what we used to have. The second situation is what we tried to avoid. The third situation is what we have now. Please note it only screw up assholes that tried to take ridiculous gambles and happened to be lucky enough to win the gamble.
We had a choice - screw over the sick, screw over insurance companies (which would have eventually led to a truly government controlled healthcare), or require everyone to buy insurance. We wisely made the best possible decision.
P.S.I am employed and have good healthcare - which I desperately need because I got sick (nasty virus) in college and my kidneys have slowly been dying over the past 20 years, despite the fact that I don't drink, etc. I have maybe 5 more years till I need a transplant and am clearly one of the people that will very much benefit from Obamacare.
Re:i pledge to you... (Score:2, Insightful)
What a lot of crap.
When the number was 6 million, the breakdown was roughly 3 million new on Medicaid, 2 million thanks to the "stay on your parents plan till 25" stuff, 1 million new exchange plans (and many, many million who lost their company plans).
The major benefits seen so far could have been accomplished without the exchanges - just expand Medicaid and the "still a child at 25" thing would have gotten us 80% of the benefit without the downside of costing so many their company plans.
But then, the goal was never to help insure people. In most states, the exchanges have cost far more to set up than in would have cost to simply provide charity for everyone who managed to sign up! Charity doesn't require a bill too long for anyone to read before voting on it.
Re:Just think, you could have had universal health (Score:0, Insightful)
I love people that talk up universal healthcare in other countries but have never had to live under it. After living with it in 3 countries, I will take quality of the healthcare here rather than the crap you have to go through in elsewhere.
Obamacare is a bunch of crap that was thrown together in a few months. You can thank both parties for this mess and it should be repealed, and if a workable model can be designed and rolled out then so be it. But Democrats want the rich to pay for anything and everything, and the Republicans do not want to pay anything so you are left with two worthless parties all the way to the top. From the president on down should all be replaced, they are all failures and for the most part self serving.
Re:Plan not grandfathered and minimum standard. (Score:5, Insightful)
To follow up on this.. I actually had an employer plan once that had a maximum annual payout of $1500. Not MY out-of-pocket maximum, the Insurers out-of-pocket maximum. I took one test for Sleep Apnea and I was done. They refused to pay for anything else the rest of the year. When I confronted my employer about it, they said "Well, it's cheap, and contractors don't tend to care about health insurance". That particular employer didn't offer any other plans. Oh, and my payment for this plan? About $1500 a year.
Some health plans really NEEDED to be eliminated, as they were little more than fraud.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Insightful)
One important reason for that is that consumers can tell the producers of non-essential goods and services to get lost if they don't like the price. Essential goods and services, pretty much by definition, don't have that property.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Insightful)
If you truly cannot afford it, the federal credit kicks in to defray the monthly cost. You can be compliant with the law at basically no cost to yourself if all you take is a Catastrophic or Bronze-level plan. After the credit, I'm paying $30/mo for low deductible/out of pocket health ins. with no co-insurance, for example.
And hospitals having to write off expenses from uninsured ER visits costs many billions of dollars each year -- which get passed on to the premiums of everyone who does pay for insurance. Isn't that a bit unfair?
Re:ACA was supposed to insure 42 million (Score:4, Insightful)
My daughter-in-law attempted to sign up for Obamacare. She is in school and makes no money. Between her and my stepson, they make maybe $4-$5k per year, about $10,000 of which goes to pay for school. Yes, I know that doesn't add up. Anyway, she tried to sign up for Obamacare, and the cheapest plan she could get would have cost her $143 a month. She can't afford that, so she didn't sign up. She asked about the penalty and they said since she didn't make much money, she doesn't have to pay the penalty. So what does that mean? It means Obamacare did nothing. Poor people still don't have insurance. They don't have to pay the penalty either. They just go to the emergency room like they used to. Nothing has changed except that the people who already HAD insurance now pay twice as much.
They should be eligible for Medicaid.
I'm sure if my stepson and daughter-in-law were to drop out of school have a kid and sit at home all day THEN Obamacare would kick in and pay for them. After all, that is what Obama really wants, is for people to sit at home and make babies, not waste their time on education.
Well, at least they're trying to better themselves, rather than growing up to be a fucking ignorant bitter racist troll like yourself.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:4, Insightful)
"This shit is so unconstitutional"
please point to me where the constitution say we can't have mandatory insurance?
Perhaps you mean to say "I don't like it, so I'm going to say it' unconstitutional because I have no clue what the Constitution says?"
" How dare you fine me for not buying your services."
It's a fee, not a fine. If it was a fine it would be assigned after you failed to buy insurance on a case by case basis. IT's an amount set in the bill, hence fine. An important distinction. Which isn't to say you have to like it., only that you sound like an idiot when you scream at the wind and the term you use is incorrect.
It's a service you will use, sooner or later.
"Money is speech according to the Supreme Court, and so I say no to Obama care."
Supreme Court said no such thing.
"I'm making use of my first amendment by not giving my money to this system."
That has nothing to do with the first Amendment