WH: We've 'Enrolled' 3.3 Million People, But We Can't Say How Many Are Actually Covered

[SrWoodchuck]

Maybe Dexter could have a...meeting with His Obamaness?

 

Is Obama a Cereal Killer? We might get a variance on that basis...

[Valin]

Empty Souk
The uninsured aren't buying what the ObamaCare marketplace is selling.
James Taranto
March 7 2014

ObamaCare is now in the sixth and final month of its extended inaugural open-enrollment period. If you want to buy medical insurance through the exchange--a big if, we realize--you have until the end of the month to do it, or wait till autumn to buy a policy for next year.

This column has analyzed the disaster of ObamaCare in terms of three phases. Phase 1, the technical failure, was evident as soon as open enrollment began on Oct. 1 and many of the exchange websites proved to have been incompetently designed. Technical problems continue to emerge, including, as noted here last week, the Internal Revenue Service's tardiness in preparing the final instructions for Form 8960, which taxpayers must file if they owe the new ObamaCare "net investment income tax."

 

Phase 2 is the revelation that ObamaCare's central promise--"if you like your plan, you can keep your plan"--was fraudulent. In an effort to appease defrauded consumers, the Obama administration has announced a series of unlegislated exceptions to the law, which the president himself attempted to explain the other day. The Heritage Foundation's Amy Payne has the quote:

 

(Snip)

 

The third phase of failure is the slow revelation that the basic economic assumptions behind ObamaCare are wrong. A new survey from McKinsey & Co., conducted in February, found that only 10% of those who lacked insurance pre-ObamaCare had signed up for an exchange plan, and that of those who had signed up, just 27% were previously uninsured.

(Snip)

[Valin]

I fear I have some very very...Distressing New on the New Hotness that is Obamacare

Prepare yourself.....

Why won’t the White House explain how off-budget ObamaCare money got spent?
Ed Morrissey
March 8, 2014

Democrats designed the ObamaCare system to mainly fund itself. The low-income subsidies come directly from taxes levied in the so-called Affordable Care Act, as well as some other spending functions. However, it became clear early on that the Obama administration miscalculated the operational costs of ObamaCare when Kathleen Sebelius began pressuring insurers to contribute to Enroll America after the non-profit hired Obama administration figure Anne Filipic to assist HHS in preparing people for the sign-up launch in October. Republicans called this an attempt to get around the Constitution by creating new lines of funding for executive-branch operations, while they also wondered exactly where HHS got its funding for other efforts in ObamaCare.

 

In the last bipartisan budget deal, House Republicans got an amendment that forces the White House to reveal its money transfers in HHS to explain how they found the cash. However, as Politico reports, that’s only half of the problem:

 

(Snip)

 

In other words, in just three line items, the federal government got its hands on more than one billion dollars of loose cash, used for purposes that Congress never authorized. Remember when Obama demanded an end to the “era of austerity” last week in his budget proposal?

 

So … how did all of this money get spent? Republicans may need another amendment to find out:

 

(Snip)

 

 

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I must admit I am totally at a loss to explain how something like this could happen.

 

[Valin]

From Pravda On The Prairie

 

March is on to enlist more people to sign up for MNsure

Those eligible have three weeks left to enroll without penalty.

JACKIE CROSBY , Star Tribune

March 10, 2014

 

Halimo Khalif, 40, gave a thumbs up as she got assistance from navigator Mary Pargo while signing up for MNsure before months end.

 

With just a few weeks remaining before the gate closes on Minnesotans ability to buy health insurance for 2014, a full-court press is underway to sign people up for coverage.

 

Health fairs are being held at schools, churches, libraries and community centers. Signs are plastered on billboards and city buses. And a steady drum beat of reminders are going out on radio, TV, Facebook and Twitter, as insurance leaders and social service agencies work feverishly to break through confusion and apathy to get people insured before the end of March.

 

Weve turned up the volume up to 11, cracked MNsure interim CEO Scott Leitz, who announced a March to Enroll campaign last week of more than 650 sign-up activities statewide.

(Snip)

 

 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________

 

Ahem.....

 

MNsure spin

Gary Gross

18 February 2014.

 

When it comes to MNsure spin, Scott Leitzs spin ranks right up there. Heres what he said:

 

MNsures interim CEO Scott Leitz appeared on WCCO Sunday Morning.

 

With regards to the private side, we are running about 30,000 right now, but we do anticipate because of the mandate that people have health insurance coverage by March 31, Leitz said.

Notice that Leitz didnt say that they anticipate people enrolling because MNsure is selling a great product. Leitz didnt say that people would buy at the last minute because theyre having a difficult time picking between a bunch of great options at great prices either. What Leitz said in this unguarded moment of truth is that people would buy health insurance because the government pointed a gun at their head.

 

(Snip)

 

Thats just part of the terrible news. According to the latest data, only 21% of the people signing up for QHPs are in the 19-34 age group. If that percentage doesnt double by April 1, next years premiums will jump through the proverbial roof. If MNsure falls that far short of their goal, Minnesotans would be totally justified in thinking of that the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, isnt affordable.

 

(Snip)

[SrWoodchuck]

OBAMA-CARE: WORLDS LARGEST INCONGRUITY

[Valin]

First Union to Endorse Obama Slams ACA

3/10/14

 

The first labor union to endorse President Obama over Hilary Clinton in 2008 is now aggressively turning against the Affordable Care Act. Unite Here, a union with 400,000 members mostly in the hospitality industry, posted a new report to its website arguing that Obamacare will promote income inequality. At the heart of Unite Here’s case is a complaint unions have lodged against the ACA from the beginning. Many unions offer their members what are called “Taft-Hartley” plans. Labor leaders at Unite Here and other unions believe that the ACA’s requirements—for example, the requirement for all plans to cover a set list of “essential benefits”—will raise the costs of Taft-Hartley plans. At the same time these plans are ineligible for federal subsidies. Unions want either the subsidies to be extended or the regulations changed, but the administration has supported neither of these.

 

But Unite Here’s new report goes far past this initial complaint to issue a broader condemnation of the law. The arguments and rhetoric in it sound exactly like the arguments and rhetoric offered by conservative critics of the law. A taste:

 

Yet polling commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the International Franchise Association found that nearly a third of U.S. franchise businesses have already cut workers’ hours, and more than a quarter of franchisers have replaced full time with part time workers. A majority of businesses close to the 50-worker employer mandate threshold said they planned personnel moves to stay below 50 full time workers.[/url]

 

(Snip)

 

 

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We Got Trouble, Right Here In River City!

[clearvision]

Supposedly 1M or so more people have insurance now than right before O'care started. Seems like a lot of work, pain and money for "helping" 1M people.

[Valin]

Supposedly 1M or so more people have insurance now than right before O'care started. Seems like a lot of work, pain and money for "helping" 1M people.

 

 

Source? How many are medi-care, how many are young healthy people?

[clearvision]

 

Supposedly 1M or so more people have insurance now than right before O'care started. Seems like a lot of work, pain and money for "helping" 1M people.

 

 

Source? How many are medi-care, how many are young healthy people?

 

Source was radio. There is actually no direct connection to O'care necessarily. The study they were referring to said something like 18% without is now 16.5% without.

[Valin]

 

 

Supposedly 1M or so more people have insurance now than right before O'care started. Seems like a lot of work, pain and money for "helping" 1M people.

 

 

Source? How many are medi-care, how many are young healthy people?

 

Source was radio. There is actually no direct connection to O'care necessarily. The study they were referring to said something like 18% without is now 16.5% without.

 

 

 

Thanks

[Valin]

LET JOY BE UNRESTRAINED!

CNN reports ObamaCare approval “rebounding”
Ed Morrissey
March 11, 2014

This will undoubtedly appear in everyone’s timelines today as we approach the deadline to avoid the tax consequences of ObamaCare’s individual mandate. After several months of cratering in the polls, CNN reports today that its approval rating is “rebounding slightly.” How slightly? It doesn’t even get outside the margin of error — or crack the 40% mark:

 

 

According to the poll, 39% of Americans say they support the health care law, up from 35% in December, a record low in CNN polling. The uptick of four percentage points is within the survey’s sampling error. Fifty-seven percent of those questioned say they oppose the measure, down five points from December.

 

 

(Snip)

 

 

_________________________________________________________

 

HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!

[SrWoodchuck]

 

LET JOY BE UNRESTRAINED!

CNN reports ObamaCare approval “rebounding”

Ed Morrissey

March 11, 2014

 

This will undoubtedly appear in everyone’s timelines today as we approach the deadline to avoid the tax consequences of ObamaCare’s individual mandate. After several months of cratering in the polls, CNN reports today that its approval rating is “rebounding slightly.” How slightly? It doesn’t even get outside the margin of error — or crack the 40% mark:

 

 

According to the poll, 39% of Americans say they support the health care law, up from 35% in December, a record low in CNN polling. The uptick of four percentage points is within the survey’s sampling error. Fifty-seven percent of those questioned say they oppose the measure, down five points from December.

 

 

(Snip)

 

 

_________________________________________________________

 

HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!

 

 

@Valin

 

"Rebounding" per-supposes "bounding"....doesn't it?

 

Maybe it's a referral to the B-ball term....requiring sharp elbows, fall from great heights, head-knocking & sometimes stitches.

[Pepper]

Supposedly 1M or so more people have insurance now than right before O'care started. Seems like a lot of work, pain and money for "helping" 1M people.

 

 

"If it helps just one person out of three hundred million keep or get new health care or prevent their corrupt business owner drop them from coverage, it will be well worth it, @clearvision, you heartless racists anti-union bigot" -- Kathleen Sibelius

[Valin]

 

Supposedly 1M or so more people have insurance now than right before O'care started. Seems like a lot of work, pain and money for "helping" 1M people.

 

 

"If it helps just one person out of three hundred million keep or get new health care or prevent their corrupt business owner drop them from coverage, it will be well worth it, @clearvision, you heartless racists anti-union bigot" -- Kathleen Sibelius

 

 

I think everyone in the United States of America should send me a dollar. Its only a dollar and it would really help me...and I'll be able to stimulate the economy....or something.

[Valin]

It Isnt Funny, So Is It Dead?

John Hinderaker

 

(Snip)

 

http://youtu.be/8s_ZAMP9DGE

 

(Snip)

 

I will leave the last word to my oldest daughter, who is a young person and therefore part of the videos intended audience. She tweeted:

 

 

 

I might find @BarackObamas attempts to be hip cooler if he wasnt so horrid at his job.

[Valin]

4.2 million sign up for Obamacare, but only a quarter are young adults

Meghashyam Mali

MARCH 11, 2014

 

Enrollment in Obamacare's new insurance exchanges rose to 4.2 million, but the percentage of young consumers signing up remained below targets despite the administration's efforts.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced the new figures Tuesday and pressed Americans to sign up during the last few weeks before open enrollment ends.

 

(Snip)

 

The overall figure, though, is still well behind the administrations target of 7 million enrollees on March 31. On that date, the individual mandate will kick in, subjecting those without health insurance to penalties.

Critics, though, say that the administrations numbers dont tell the full story and want more data on what percentage who have actually paid their first months premiums and how many were previously uninsured.

 

The figures also show a continued uphill struggle for the administration to sign up the young health consumers needed to offset older, sicker patients and keep the health law afloat.

The administration initially projected that 40 percent of sign-ups would be between the ages of 18 and 34, but the latest figures are well behind that target.

Twenty-seven percent of those who signed up in February on federal marketplaces were in that demographic, matching Januarys percentage and ahead of the 24 percent mark from October through December.

 

(Snip)

[Draggingtree]

The libre Initiative

President: Choose Between Cable, Phone or Health Care
Posted by: |Mar 12, 2014

President: Choose Between Cable, Phone or Health Care

Latinos Know there is a Better Way

 

(Washington, D.C.) - The President recently participated in a health care town hall with Spanish-language media. He responded to a question received via email, from a consumer who makes $36,000 per year and cannot find insurance for a family of three for less than $315 per month. The President responded that "if you looked at their cable bill, their telephone, their cell phone bill... it may turn out that, it's just they haven't prioritized health care." He added that if a family member gets sick, the father "will wish he had paid that $300 a month."

According to the National Center for Public Policy Research, the health care law is reducing choice and increasing premiums for millions of Americans. Ehealthinsurance reports that consumers are paying an average of 39% more http://www.thelibreinitiative.com/press/president-choose-between-cable-phone-or-health-care#sthash.EmvlvN0L.dpuf

[Valin]

The libre Initiative

President: Choose Between Cable, Phone or Health Care

Posted by: |Mar 12, 2014

President: Choose Between Cable, Phone or Health Care

Latinos Know there is a Better Way

 

(Washington, D.C.) - The President recently participated in a health care town hall with Spanish-language media. He responded to a question received via email, from a consumer who makes $36,000 per year and cannot find insurance for a family of three for less than $315 per month. The President responded that "if you looked at their cable bill, their telephone, their cell phone bill... it may turn out that, it's just they haven't prioritized health care." He added that if a family member gets sick, the father "will wish he had paid that $300 a month."

Talk about a caring answer!

[Valin]

Oh, by the way: Obama just quietly suspended ObamaCare’s individual mandate until 2016
Allahpundit
March 12, 2014

He forgot to mention it. Minor oversight, could have happened to anybody.

 

The mandate, remember, has already been suspended this year for people who had their old insurance canceled and who now regard it as a “hardship” to purchase insurance on the supposedly affordable Affordable Care Act exchanges. For them, as Ezra Klein put it at the time, “ObamaCare itself is the hardship.” But there’s an obvious problem with that scheme: The “hardship” exemption applies only to people who used to have insurance, and it applies only for this enrollment period. The mandate penalty would continue to bite people who didn’t have insurance before, which seems unfair, and it’d be back in full force this fall even for people who did have it, right around the time that America votes in the midterms.

 

And so a political problem gets a policy solution. Again.

 

 

(Snip)

 

In other words, the new and improved “hardship” exemption isn’t limited to people who used to have insurance. Anyone can claim it, purely on their own say-so that they can’t afford it, which is an … interesting loophole coming from a guy who’s now going around the country nudging people to drop their cable and cell phones to pay for his expensive insurance instead. I wonder if he’s seen this graph. I’m thinking he probably has:

 

(Snip)

[clearvision]

 

The libre Initiative

President: Choose Between Cable, Phone or Health Care

Posted by: |Mar 12, 2014

President: Choose Between Cable, Phone or Health Care

Latinos Know there is a Better Way

 

(Washington, D.C.) - The President recently participated in a health care town hall with Spanish-language media. He responded to a question received via email, from a consumer who makes $36,000 per year and cannot find insurance for a family of three for less than $315 per month. The President responded that "if you looked at their cable bill, their telephone, their cell phone bill... it may turn out that, it's just they haven't prioritized health care." He added that if a family member gets sick, the father "will wish he had paid that $300 a month."

Talk about a caring answer!

 

The truth though is not always caring.

[Valin]

Sebelius vs. Accuracy

The HHS chief confirms her secret waiver of the individual mandate.

3/12/14

 

There have been dozens of ObamaCare delays or major revisions via administrative fiat, including four so far this year, but there's one in particular that the Health and Human Services Department prefers to keep hidden: the individual mandate waivers that we exposed Wednesday.

 

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also happened to testify Wednesday in front of the HouseWays and Means Committee, and Tennessee Republican Diane Black asked about "ObamaCare's Secret Mandate Exemption" (March 12). Ms. Sebelius said she hadn't read the editorial but did call Ms. Black's gloss "not accurate"before going on to confirm that it was, in fact, accurate.

 

"The hardship exemption was part of the law from the outset," the Secretary said. "There was a specific rationale there, and it starts with the notion that if you can't afford coverage you are not obligated to buy coverage." That's true: But in December last year HHS ruled that ObamaCare itself was a hardship; people whose coverage was cancelled and believe the new plans are unaffordable were thus relieved of the requirement to buy insurance or else pay a penalty for the law's first year. Our scoop was that HHS last week quietly extended this dispensation until 2016.

 

(Snip)

[Draggingtree]

VIDEO: Obama Blames Texas For Obamacare’s Unaffordable Health Care Costs

 

March 12, 2014 By The Federalist Staff

 

President Barack Obama held a Spanish language town hall at the Newseum last week in which he was interviewed by reporters from some of the largest Spanish media outlets in the world. During the interview, he was asked a question from a man who wanted to buy Obamacare for a family of three but couldn’t afford it.

 

The individual said he makes about $36,000 per year, and the minimum Obamacare insurance price for the policy he needed was about $315 per month. “I think that’s too much for me,” the man said, according to an English translation of his question.

 

“Is the Affordable Care Act really affordable?” the moderator then asked Obama. Obama couldn’t settle on a single answer to the question, so he instead suggested that the man should just sign up for Medicaid, blamed Texas http://thefederalist.com/2014/03/12/obama-blames-texas-for-obamacares-unaffordable-health-care-costs/

[Valin]

VIDEO: Obama Blames Texas For Obamacares Unaffordable Health Care Costs

 

Part of the problem is the Federal/State/Local Government (as far as I can see) has never heard of K.I.S.S...Keep It Simple Stupid

[Valin]

How Expensive Is Obamacare? Wait Til Next Year

John Hinderaker

3/13/14

 

Across America, millions of people have been forced out of health insurance which they chose and with which they were satisfied, and have been forced onto the government-sponsored Obamacare exchanges. That process is barely beginning; the second and third waves of lost insurance will occur when administratively-imposed delays in the application of Obamacare to small group and employer-sponsored policies finally expire. But already, many have spoken out about the higher costs they are incurring under Obamacare, and a few have appeared in television commercials to talk about their personal experiences.

 

(Snip)

 

Insurance companies set premiums based on experience. When they lack experience, as with Obamacare, they make assumptions. One assumption that carriers used in setting 2014 premiums was that a bailout would be available if premiums turn out to be too low. The law establishes risk corridors for individual and small group insurance, under which the government will reimburse insurance companies losses, up to a point. The risk corridors encourage insurers to quote lower premiums, since they are protected (again, up to a point) by the federal government. But the risk corridor provisions of the act expire in 2016.

 

Even more fundamental is the composition of the risk pool in the Obamacare exchanges. The economics of Obamacare, and therefore the premiums charged by insurers, depend entirely on how healthy or sick the people who enroll in Obamacare turn out to be. The Obama administration made projections on this subject, as did the insurers. I dont think there is any doubt about the fact that actual enrollments in the exchanges have been disappointing from this standpoint. There are nowhere near as many young, healthy people signing up as will be required to make the system work. This is why the Obama administration has embarrassed itself in trying to recruit young people into the program, with Pajama Boy, Obamas pathetic Between Two Ferns interview, Angry Mom, and so on. What this means is that once the insurance companies are able to set premiums based on actual experience, as opposed to rosy projections, those premiums inevitably will rise due to the risk pool being lower-quality than predicted.

 

(snip)

[Valin]

Obama: Yeah, a lot of you won’t be able to keep your doctor after all
Ed Morrissey
March 14, 2014

Voters in November might be ready to show Democrats what they think about removing choice and hiking costs, as well as their arrogance in determining that a few politicians in Washington know better about their choices than they do. Unfortunately, Barack Obama doesn’t appear to have figured out this problem. In an interview with WebMD, Obama finally acknowledged that, contra his promise, people might not be able to keep the doctors they liked, but that they probably shouldn’t have liked those doctors in the first place:

 

 

(Snip)

 

More than one option? Not in Covered California, which replaced preferred doctors with no one at all, or sent people tens of miles away from their own communities for the few options left. When employers changed insurers, moreover, they had a big incentive to find plans that also included their employees’ current providers — the employees themselves, who could walk away from the employer to find better coverage. In GovernmentCare, as Californians are discovering, that option doesn’t exist.

 

(Snip)