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."
Politics as usuall (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Politics as usuall (Score:4, Interesting)
for some, its about getting insurance AT ALL if you want it.
pre-existing bullshit was one thing that needed fixing and its fixed.
SOME discount if you are a single buyer (not group plan based) is also there. in fact, it can be lower than cobra payments.
so, there was some benefit.
I'm unlucky in that my cobra payment is about as bad as my pre-obamacare non-group policy. I was unemployed with single policy for a while, then went contract and had a better pkg, then went full time and had a pretty decent pkg, now I'm laid off, on cobra and its back to non-group level monthly premiums that I was doing before I had that last job.
the insurance companies are raping us again, and using this as an excuse. nothing I'm doing has anything to do with obamacare but my rates went up a lot over the last yr or two and the 'discounts' are not really discounts that I can see.
but still, they can't cancel you for having pre-existing stuff and they can't totally deny you, either. those were 2 major evils pre-obama.
Why is this so difficult to believe? (Score:5, Interesting)
To reach 7.1 million, sign-ups had to rocket up by 67% in just one month. That's astounding enough.
A very very large number of people, myself included, tend to wait until the last minute to do things, especially if it's not something they particularly want to do. Especially if it's something they don't especially NEED right now, and will have to pay by the month for.
Just ask the IRS for a graph of how many people self-file their taxes in April as opposed to Jan/Feb. At least there there is the motivation for getting a refund earlier. There may be some people who have conditions that need to be treated now, but I'm willing to bet that the list of healthier people who never got insurance is much larger.
It depends on your frame of mind. (Score:5, Interesting)
7.1 million is pathetically low, so ya I believe (Score:2, Interesting)
In the first year of Obamacare we will still have more uninsured than in the last year of the Bush administration
7.1 million sign ups out of over 300 million people for a "mandatory" participation program is truly pathetic regardless whether it is above or below what was expected. Yes yes, I know the number of uninsured was closer to 60 million, so basically you are getting adoption among the intended uninsured population of just 12%. Just 12% of uninsured people are choosing Obamacare/ACA, that is what is remarkable.
Regardless of how you feel about the fact they decided to use a regressive fine on middle class taxpayers in order to force people to buy insurance... it simply ain't working.
Sure that meager adoption rate will go up over the next two years as the fines for not having insurance go up, but that is basically it. We are still left with millions and millions of uninsured.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:4, Interesting)
Otherwise, I'll say how dare you expect the rest of us to pay for your health care because you don't want to.
Not wanting to be forced to buy health insurance by a government that has no real constitutional authority to force you to buy what it tells you to is not he same as not expecting to have to pay for health care.
I just saw the nice new box on my W2 that shows "employer health insurance" payments. It was about five times what I would have paid out of my own pocket for my health care last year. Had my employer been legally allowed to hand me that money directly and allow me to pay as I go, I'd be several thousand dollars ahead of the game.
Re:It's California (Score:5, Interesting)
There were two sorts of plans available: There was a company that sold a "trash plan" and sent a sales person to my home. This plan was not written to provide useful medical coverage for a catastrophic condition such as an auto accident with severe injury. Basically, it was a "feel good about being insured until you try to use it" plan which had the main purpose of producing income for a fraudster. I am very glad that such things are being prohibited now because I know there are lots of people who are not as careful readers of terms as I am.
The second was priced so prohibitively high that it seemed to be intended to deter the customer from purchase.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:2, Interesting)
> 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!
Prior to ACA hospitals were required to provide emergency medical care regardless of the person's ability to pay under the EMTALA [wikipedia.org]. Granted it might not be great care, but the idea that someone would be left out of a hospital if they had a serious problem is just FUD. Theoretically people are still responsible for paying any care they receive, but in practice so often they are low income with a lot of debt already and the hospital will just write it off.
In fact, one of the reasons for ACA was because the EMTALA was a huge problem. It was estimated that about 55% of emergency care goes uncompensated. By forcing people to carry insurance, hospitals will be less on the hook for emergency care.
So to your point, with or without ACA you wouldn't be left out of a hospital, but now with ACA they can better make you pay.
Just think, you could have had universal healthcar (Score:2, Interesting)
Just think, you could have had universal healthcare, single payer, provided by the government, like Canada and every other industrialized nation on earth, but the moment that was proposed by Obama, the GOP had a cow, the Tea Party starting bringing guns to Town Hall meetings and Fox News screamed bloody murder that Obama was denying insurance companies their god-given right to make a profit at the expense of the American people, and the democrats caved in and let the heritage foundation proposed Romney-Care become the model for Obamacare. Wow that was a long sentence.
So you can thank Republicans for the current state of Obamacare, a plan they championed as a replacement for the original proposal, and then right after it passed into law, attempted to repeal it 51 times.