Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Wow! Mainstream Journalists Just Woke Up!

Yesterday it was CBS discussing the Benghazi disaster, and today it is NBC News reporting that while Obama was saying, "If you like your coverage, you can keep it" the White House knew that this was false:
President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.
It is a very detailed report:
Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC News that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.” 
Some of the examples are astonishing.  One couple is going to see more than a quadrupling of their insurance costs:
George Schwab, 62, of North Carolina, said he was "perfectly happy" with his plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield, which also insured his wife for a $228 monthly premium. But this past September, he was surprised to receive a letter saying his policy was no longer available. The "comparable" plan the insurance company offered him carried a $1,208 monthly premium and a $5,500 deductible.
Even the exchange was still a 415% increase in insurance costs -- so Schwab is going to do what a lot have feared would happen, which will destroy health insurance:
"I'm sitting here looking at this, thinking we ought to just pay the fine and just get insurance when we're sick," Schwab added. "Everybody's worried about whether the website works or not, but that's fixable. That's just the tip of the iceberg. This stuff isn't fixable." 
This is why insurance is mandatory under Obamacare -- so that people don't enroll in insurance programs on their way to the emergency room.  But the fines are not enough to make people enroll until they are on the way to the hospital.

Some think that the Obama Administration did this intentionally, to force us all into single payer.  I think that is giving Obama and crew too much credit for intelligence.

UPDATE: Wow!  Even CBS News is covering the Obamacare "If you like your insurance you can keep it" nonsense:
But people across the country are finding out they're losing their existing insurance plans under Obamacare because requirements in the law, such as prenatal and prescription drug coverage, mean their old plans aren't comprehensive enough.
In California, Kaiser Permanente terminated policies for 160,000 people. In Florida, at least 300,000 people are losing coverage.
That includes 56-year-old Dianne Barrette. Last month, she received a letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield informing her as of January 2014, she would lose her current plan. Barrette pays $54 a month. The new plan she's being offered would run $591 a month -- 10 times more than what she currently pays.
Barrette said, "What I have right now is what I am happy with and I just want to know why I can't keep what I have. Why do I have to be forced into something else?"
According to HealthCare.gov, Barrette is eligible for some subsidies, CBS News' Jan Crawford pointed out on "CBS This Morning." But Barrette told CBS News she has no idea what those subsidies would be because she cannot log on to the website -- an issue U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is sure to be asked about when she testifies on Capitol Hill Wednesday.
So the real question is: how can Bush and the Republicans be blamed for this?

7 comments:

  1. "Medicare Part D" and "RomneyCare" are still the standards, I think. And the report that the Heritage Institute wrote in the early 90s; one might also include the Patriot Act and vacations at the Crawford Ranch.

    Cheers

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  2. A slight caveat...

    To reduce adverse selection, you can only sign up for insurance once a year, so the "buy insurance when I get sick" isn't as strong as one would think. However, a lot of people won't know this, or don't care, and will still not buy it.

    In the short term, the Democrats have a plan that will make adverse selection even worse: they want to delay the mandate a little bit (because of the software issues). The will leave insurance companies underwriting plans where they won't even know the composition of the risk pool.

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  3. If something really, really bad has happened to you, and you sign up on the way to the hospital for a year, it still pays for itself. Say, if you discover that you need an aortic valve replacement.

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  4. Aren't you suspicious of the Dianne Barrette case? $54 a month? I bet that was junk insurance, essentially a policy that says, "Pay us $54 a month and you get nothing in return". She says she was happy with it, but that probably means that she is normally healthy and never uses it. She may think it provides protection in case the big one hits, but I bet it doesn't. Not at that price.

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  5. It might be a very high deductible insurance plan. Several years back, a lobbyist I know told me that she was paying $99 per month for individual health insurance, because it had a $9000 annual deductible.

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  6. I must confess -- at age 56, $54 a month seems quite low. It might be a "mini-med" program, the kind that limit total expenses to $50,000 per year.

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  7. The media is hitting on Obamacare because they know that it can't hurt Obama now that he's in his second term.

    They'll be careful not to provide critical coverage of any vulnerable Democrats that are up for re-election in 2014.

    They will do everything they can to point to Republican "obstructionism" as the culprit.

    Any coverage they give to Benghazi will point the finger at people not named Hillary Clinton.

    They are protecting the brand, which is libralism and the Democrat party. They are also protecting Hillary and in the end the finger of blame will be pointed to Obama for any foreign relations debacles.

    They want Hillary in the White House, they NEED Hillary in the White House.

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