The evidence that Obamacare is failing is building up fast. Let me remind you that in June I pointed out that Obamacare had barely reduced the number of uninsured (LINK). The point I made then was this: when Obamacare was being sold, we were told that 42 million people were uninsured. Those were the people Obamacare was supposed to help. Well, then came all the Obama Administration-generated numbers which told us that as many as 35 million people had signed up for Obamacare, depending on how you counted it... and if you squinted. Well, in June we learned that 11.9% of the population remains uninsured. That works out to 38 million people. That means that Obamacare only moved five million people from the ranks of the uninsured to the ranks of the insured. The rest was smoke and mirrors. And that's a total failure.
What's more, the number of people who signed up through the exchanges remains ridiculously low. The original estimates were in the neighborhood of 10-12 million people signing up in the first year, 20 million by the second and the rest within five years. The Obama administration has dropped those numbers time and again so they could declare victory. In the latest, we were told that there would be 8ish million in the first year, then 15 million in the second and so on. Well, Obama claimed to get 8 million in the first year, but recent data released show the number was only six million. Now they're estimating there will be only ten million in this second year -- around half of what they originally claimed even after lowering expectations repeatedly. And even at that, there is no sign that ten million will sign up.
This is all very bad news for Obamacare. Not only does it make a mockery of the whole idea since it did almost nothing to help the uninsured, but it endangers the system if more suckers won't sign up. And in that regard, the data has indeed shown what we long suspected, which is that young healthy people are not signing up. That will make the finances even worse.
And it gets worse yet. One of the things that was supposed to help Obamacare was the creation of healthcare co-ops, which were supposed to provide the cheap alternatives which would force the big insurance carriers to lower their rates. Well, guess what? As of this week, eight of the 23 co-ops created have gone broke and are closing. This includes the largest, a New York coop that was supposed to be the flagship model for success. Eleven of the remaining 15 have received warnings from HHS about the way they manage their businesses and their finances. Interestingly, the co-ops are claiming that part of the problem they face is that HHS is starting to cut their subsidies.
Whoops.
This whole thing reminds me of East Germany. It started great because there was money, optimism and fear of not going along. But the whole system was so badly designed that its collapse was already obvious just beneath the surface and each year saw the problems mount until the system just ground to a halt and then fell apart.
23 comments:
Obama wants it to hang in there until he leaves office so that he can blame the collapse on the Republican who succeeds him in office. It's the cornerstone success of his presidency after all and will be the subject of the bulk of his Presidential Library, and monument to himself.
LL, I agree. I think he just wants to have it in place when he leave office. Then, whatever happens, he'll spend the rest of his life telling us how it was working and would have worked if only the people who came after him hadn't messed it up.
BTW, this is kind of funny. The Daily Caller is running an article today claiming that Obama is trying to "hide" a "secret list" of "eleven staggering Obamacare insurers." Those are the ones I mention near the end of my article. Nothing secret about it... no one trying to hide it. In fact, it's all over the news after being announced by HHS.
Nothing like feeding the paranoids with lies.
BREAKING: Obama secretly living in the White House, and has been since 2009!
I guess my big question in response to this news is what is the policy prescription for the GOP? We all know that when Obamacare crumbles, they'll be saddled with the blame even as work try to patch it up. How might they sidestep this mess and portray it to the public as it is: a failure of liberal largess?
Obama-care is turning into as big a disaster as Hillary-Care would have been in the 90s. I have my gripes about health insurance companies, but it seems to me that the system should have been tweaked and not overhauled.
So basically, those people who didn't have insurance didn't actually WANT insurance. Oh, no, who could have thunk it. And the "major medical/catastrophic injury" policies that young people would buy are no longer available. Yeah, Critch, the system DID just need to be tweaked, not dramatically overhauled. I believe that Republicans were saying that at the time. We should pull out the Commentarama-Care articles that Andrew and LawHawk wrote about the tweaks. Sadly no one listened.
As an aside - I have started seeing TV and print ads from the NY exchanges lately having to explain just how insurance works...you know, like what a "premium" is and that it has to be paid every month to keep your insurance, and "deductible" is that thing that you have to pay before your insurance will cover anything. Yeah...this may be why so few are buying into Obamacare. The shocking reality that one has to pay each month, but can't afford to use the insurance because of the massive deductible.
Even the people who were thrilled that it passed, are angry that it isn't the free-ride they were led to believe.
Prior to Obamacare my cost for health insurance for my wife and I here in Missouri would have been around $700.00/MO. Now it would double that at $1400.00/MO. Luckily I have good healthcare through my agency, however, I still pay $350.00/MO for the wife and I.
Bev, I've seen similar things even here in Nebraska, I'll be the first to admit that it took me years after college to understand the whole premium/deductible/co-pay setup. So I'm sympathetic to those who are confused by it. However, I have no sympathy for the credulous dupes that thought Obamacare was going to do away with all that without ever even looking into it. As for the Obamacare shills, for their sake I hope they sincerely didn't realize that some people don't know how insurance works, because otherwise there is a special fire in Hell being stoked for them.
LOL! I love that PNN news break! :)
Critch, In terms of the system, the system needed an overhaul really, but they actually didn't do that... they tweaked in a few significant and disastrous ways. Seriously, they basically left the system in place, added more regulations everywhere and then imposed a penalty for not playing. They really never did anything to change the underlying system itself.
The reason they did what they did was that they were trying to do a couple key things without doing them so openly that anyone noticed. First, they tried to create universal coverage without saying that is what they were doing. To make that happen, they forced everyone to buy insurance and then subsidized the hell out of it for poor and lower middle class people. Essentially, they thought they made a deal that was too good to pass up for low income people and to painful to avoid for the people who would be footing the bill. But it still cost too much for the poor and it wasn't painful enough for the middle class. Hence few signed up.
Then came the second. What they did still cost a ton, and the taxes it would take to make that happen were impossible to impose. So they tried to create a hidden tax by letting insurers charge the full costs so long as it was spread out over everyone who had insurance... not just the new Obamacare policies. This way, the middle class would subsidize the cost. They hoped that no one would figure this out and that the pubic would be furious at the insurers for opportunistic pricing (something they could campaign against for decades), instead of being upset at them. But the public attributed every single raise in insurance rates to Obamacare and blamed the Democrats.
This is why it's been such a disaster for the Democrats. The left thought they would get "free" insurance, but they instead got very expensive insurance they can't afford to use. So they feel ripped off. And then the middle class blames the Democrats for every price hike and every denial of claims. So they're pissed. Add in that every single doctor out there still slams the whole thing because of the regulations, and you have a public that just keeps getting angrier and angrier.
This has been destroying the Democrats in election after election. The Democrats are privately very concerned about this and they are even starting to run against key parts of the plan.
tryanmax, I think what the Republicans need to do is introduce a series of reforms that fix the system without really making a big deal about it -- all under the radar.
At the same time, let the subsidies die off so that the Obamacare insurers abandon the system and jack up the costs, and reintroduce catastrophic care policies off the exchange. The whole time they need to rail against the system's failures. They should even do a series of high profile pandering "fixes" that make it sound like they are trying to fix the system but make it worse -- "it's an outrage mothers with jock itch can't get that fixed for free... why won't somebody do something?!" Then, after a few years when the exchanges become untenable, they kill the exchanges and the purchase requirement and replace them with something better... letting the new system take over and declaring the system fixed.
Bev, Yes, indeed. Apparently, people didn't really want insurance after all. Imagine that!
The numbers I saw said that just over 8 million people signed up at the exchanges, but only 6 million ever paid for the insurance. Could you imagine any other business that has only a 75% payment rate?
Critch, It's only going to keep getting worse. That is the problem with the subsidy system. You get higher costs every year and less product.
tryanmax, If you've ever been involved with medical billing, you will find out quickly that many who do the billing don't understand how deductibles, co-pays and out-of-pockets work.
As a related aside, I hit my out-of-pockets long ago this year, but I still get charged everywhere I go. So every time I go to the doctor, I end up paying them and a couple weeks later, my insurer sends me a check for what I paid. //rolls eyes
"...I've seen similar things even here in Nebraska, I'll be the first to admit that it took me years after college to understand the whole premium/deductible/co-pay setup.
Tryanmax - I was shocked at how many people at my place of employment...very intelligent people, btw, who had no idea how the whole deductible/premium/co-pay thingy worked. These people have had insurance coverage much longer than I have. And of course they are mostly liberals who loved the idea of Obamacare. Of course, I was the one who pointed out that my "healthcare costs" related to insurance have gone up 247% (premiums/deductibles/co-pays) since I "liked my insurance, but I couldn't keep my insurance".
I can think of 5 people right off the top of my head who voted for Obama because he was going to give them low cost or free medical insurance...they are all very disillusioned right now.
Since Andrew seems to be posting again on a regular basis, thought I'd do one of my occasional drive bys and say hello.
Hello!
"BUILD THE DAMN FENCE AND STOP THE FLOOD OF DIRTY IMMIGRANTS!!!"...
From one of your recent posts.
Ah Andrew, still rooting out those disgusting Buchanian xenophobes and nativists, I see. Could it be that your agitation is perhaps due to your number one guy - Jeb! falling on his corpulent puss? My guess is that the stampede of Mexican illegals heading back to Mexico you go on and on about has depleted his constituency. Unintended consequences, no?
I did like the rhetorical strawman argument in your latest rant on the subject though - as if anyone who wants real immigration reform wouldn't include strict visa enforcement as well as a fence. It's interesting that your departure from your normal logical demeanor indicates, to me at least, some personal involvement in the immigration issue. Heavily into agribusiness stocks? Corn futures? Apple stock? Family member hiding from ICE? Or do you just hate paying high gardening fees?
I assume it's something like that because one of the few professions that don't have much to worry about being replaced by lower cost immigrant labor are lawyers - like you. I mean perfect english is a hell of a great asset in that profession so you don't get much competition from China or Mexico or the middle east. Professional native born engineers, doctors, scientists and union craftsmen are not nearly so lucky though. Too bad for those smucks, eh? I was perusing the 2013 yearbook of immigration statistics and noted that the period (30s through 60s) when the US was bringing in a small fraction of the present load (that's just counting the legals) was also the period when US wages and standard of living went up faster than ever before. Of course that was during the baby boom and hey, somebody has to pay the SSecurity ponzi scheme off and vote Democrat.
Till next time.
Critch, There are a lot of people in that category.
Mr. Bee/K,
You're an idiot. LOL! Keep trying, my friend. Keep trying.
One of the biggest lies (and there were several) told during the time around voting for Obamacare was the 40-45 million un-insured. When you took out illegal aliens, those who already qualified for available programs such as WIC and Medicaid, and those who could afford insurance but choose not to buy, you were left with about 10 million people who truly couldn't afford insurance.
Therefore, any number of "insured by obamacare" above 10 million was there because the bill destroyed their current insurance plan.
Besides being a turd, I'm not sure what Mr. Bee's point was. It is obvious he didn't read what you wrote.
Koshcat, not to nitpick, but you're forgetting the period when Obama was still running for president where he and his continually conflated "health care" with "health insurance" until everyone on the left was convinced that affordability of the latter was the problem and came to all but ignore the former. That, to me, is where the lie really begins.
Tryanmax, I agree although it may not have been a lie as I don't think the One knows the difference.
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