Here's the deal. One of the keys to determining whether or not Obamacare is/will work is looking at the number of enrollees. The original estimates of what were needed were rather significant and obviously unobtainable, so Team Obama quickly downgraded that number significantly. The MSM put on their amnesia caps and ran with that new number, pretending the original number never existed. The new number required that Obamacare enroll more than 8 million people in the first year and then 15 million in the second.
Well, the best Team Obama could do in the first year was a fake number around six million, so they blurred this number with people being added to Medicaid, which was never part of the projection. Combining those numbers, they just barely beat the 8 million number and declared victory. Then they just started making stuff up, claiming that 16 million or more had really signed up. Most recently, they claimed that 32 million were signed up through the exchanges (and Medicaid) and thus the program was a smashing success. Eat it, doubters!
The problem was that there was no way to verify any of this and the MSM was busy putting out their own fake studies to confirm all the BS Team Obama was spewing. Hence, no one knew what was really going on, but the MSM was busy painting the program as a stunning success.
Now we can prove differently.
According to some recent polls, which the left is touting, the percentage of uninsured adults in the US "is at a record low of 11.9%, down from 18% in 2013." Ok. Let us now consider what this means, shall well. First, the 18% figure is obviously fake. Eighteen percent of the population works out to around 57 million people. That's not a true figure. The number of uninsured has been steady at right around 43 million. That is the number that was used to sell us in the need for the program and that is the number that has come up time and again as "those without insurance." So the 57 million figure is a lie. But what interests me is not that figure. Look at the other figure: 11.9%. That works out to just over 38 million people. Subtract 38 million from 43 million and you get 5 million people. That means that since the passage of Obamacare, only 5 million more people got insurance... not 8 million, 9 million, 16 million or 32 million... just 5 million.
What's more, many of those are new Medicaid enrollees. I can't say for sure, but I estimate about 3 million fall into this category based on date Team Obama originally released. What that means is that only 2 million NEW people signed up for private insurance. The rest in the exchanges are people who previously had insurance and just jumped to the exchanges.
That is a HUGE failure of Obamacare's original purpose.
What's more, despite hearing that young people signed up in amazing numbers that were much higher than anyone expected... oh thank the Maker!, we now know that young people signed up at a rate that is 41% below the target rate. That means the program is not self-sustaining.
We also know, by the way, that 10% of the total premiums paid to insurers in the program last year were transfer payments from the government to insurers to balance out unexpectedly high costs run into by insurers in the people they enrolled. That means that the population of enrollees is 10% sicker/more expensive than expected.
None of this bodes well for the health of the program. It doesn't mean the program will die, but it means that it will cost a lot more than expected and it hasn't really put a dent in the number of uninsured. That's a major fail.
Thoughts?
BUT NOBODY COULD'VE SEEN IT COMING!
ReplyDeleteNo one, Kit. No one at all! LOL!
ReplyDeleteWhat's funny is that this strikes me as one of those scams where they plan the whole thing so carefully and then forget to hide the one vital piece. This percentage gives us a direct, clear way to determine what exactly is going on and it's contradicted everything else.
And I want to reiterate...WHO COULDA POSSIBLY SEEN THIS COMING!!
ReplyDeleteNow add to that the insurance companies are now beginning to suck each other up into giant insurance monopolies just ripe for nationization. Just waiting for the Feds/DOJ to swoop in and take over.
Bev, Even worse, the one program to protect them from getting too many customers who has huge costs, they are basically pooling the risk by being forced to compensate each other for higher-than-expected costs.
ReplyDeleteSo in effect, they are one insurance company!
nice job of peeling those numbers, Andrew. Politically, the question is what will Republican candidates do to sell a replacement, and will it matter. I have taken a long hiatus from politics, but I happened to see a clip of Dana Perino which really disheartened me. Hillary Clinton, the least ethical person to ever run for the office has only 4 swing states to concentrate on to hit 270. Worse, far too many people do not seem bothered at all. I still like Walker or maybe Kasich as decent candidates, but I have a depressing feeling we are looking at the restoration
ReplyDeleteThanks Jed!
ReplyDeleteWelcome back! I've been thinking about you lately. I'm glad you're back. And I'm glad you got a chance to take some time off from politics. I, sadly, find that the more time I spend not watching politics, the happier I am. What does that say about our system at the moment?
In terms of Hillary, I still think very strongly that Hillary won't win the nomination. I think it will be O'Malley. In terms of the few swing states though, that is the problem with the what conservatives have done to alienate voters over the past decade or so. We've turned red states like Virginia and Colorado into blue states. We need to reconnect with the public to change that or the Democrats will be guaranteed the White House every time.
hope you are right about that. I try and shame my Democrat friends into taking "the pledge" To prove ideology doesn't trump (no pun intended) keeping one's self-esteem, I ask them to not vote for her, primary or general election. Basically, the notion is "anybody who votes for her cannot be respected" Try and guilt them.
ReplyDeleteJed, We'll see, but every time I see her, she has "failed candidate" written all over her. She can't seem to catch a break anywhere and she doesn't seem to know how to fix any of it.
ReplyDeleteWe'll see about Hillary. O'Malley doesn't have the name credibility Obama did in 2008. Nor does he seem to inspire like Obama did.
ReplyDeleteKit, We won't know until it happens, but keep two things in mind...
ReplyDelete(1) Obama didn't have credibility or inspiration yet either at this point. He was just some really young black liberal from Illinois who kept attacking the big names from the left. His victory in Iowa was a shock to Hillary, who had turned off her campaign engine to coast to victory. She needed to reinvent herself before New Hampshire to win.
It was only after her New Hampshire victory proved to be underwhelming that the herd shifted to Obama. At that point, the MSM made him inspirational and all that. After that, the left then fell into place and did their usual messiah-worship routine.
So Obama didn't need to be inspiration (or competent). The MSM made him that once they chose him. They will do the same for O'Malley.
(2) O'Malley doesn't actually have to sell himself and he doesn't have to beat Hillary. He just needs to wait her out. Hillary is stumbling and will be tossed aside like a crack whore the morning after (metaphor chosen to piss off feminists). At that point, the only choices will be liberal O'Malley or geriatric joke Sanders. I think O'Malley will be crowned simply as the last acceptable alternative standing.
That's all it takes some time. I would argue that was the case for Clinton in 1992 and Bush in 2000.
One small, little correction barely worth mentioning is the US population has grown in that time so it may be closer to 8 million but I am only guessing. The 43 million was a squirrely number anyway. Half to 2/3 of those patients could afford but choose not to get insurance or already qualified for another program such as Medicaid. Of the remaining, half of those were non-citizens so the real number the ACA was going to fix has always been somewhere between 5-15 million. So you could argue it worked just like it was designed to do but not like it was sold.
ReplyDelete