Obamacare Going Into Death Spiral As Predicted

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_bcspace
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Obamacare Going Into Death Spiral As Predicted

Post by _bcspace »

The Obama administration is having trouble selling insurance plans to healthy people. That’s a big problem: When the young and healthy don’t enroll, premiums have to be hiked to cover the costs of older, sicker people, discouraging even more young people from signing up.

Last Thursday, the administration predicted enrollment for 2016 will be less than half what the Congressional Budget Office predicted in March.

Despite subsidies to help with premiums and out-of-pocket costs, most of the uninsured who are eligible for ObamaCare are saying “no thanks.” Only one in seven is expected to sign up. That’s despite a hefty increase in the financial penalty next year for not having insurance.

The president sees the writing on the wall. You won’t be seeing the customary nationwide TV campaign to encourage sign-ups, as there were in previous years. Remember the young guy in plaid pajamas — “Pajama Boy,” to conservatives — well, he won’t be back this winter.

Bad enough that healthy people aren’t buying. Worse is that the administration is spending billions of your tax dollars covering up the problem, paying insurers to keep offering the plans, even though they’re losing their shirts. But facts are facts — and there’s no hiding these.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell predicts ObamaCare enrollment will inch up by 1 million or so, to 10 million people — half what the CBO forecasted. Open enrollment for the coming year, which begins Nov. 1, “is going to be a challenge,” she said.

David Wichmann, UnitedHealth Group’s president, announced higher premiums last week because enrollees will “require more medical services than original expectations.”

Many states (though not New York) are looking at premium hikes of 30 percent or more, according to a new Robert Wood Johnson/Urban Institute analysis. The Heritage Foundation estimates that insurers lost 12 percent selling ACA plans in 2014, with more losses this year.

Don’t shed any tears for the insurance companies. Though they’re losing money on exchange plans, overall they’re profitable and their stocks are doing well. It’s John Q. Public who’s bearing the brunt. Just as ObamaCare intended.

If you get insurance at work, you’re paying an extra tax to fund “reinsurance” for ObamaCare plans. It’s a fund to defray the cost of their most expensive enrollees.

So far, insurers have collected about $7.9 billion. Recent congressional testimony shows the payments kept ObamaCare sticker prices about 11 percent lower than they otherwise would have been. In short, you pay a tax to make ObamaCare look more affordable than it is.

But even with these hidden subsidies, ObamaCare isn’t working because the design is fatally flawed. The 5 percent of the population with serious medical conditions consume nearly 50 percent of the health care. When you try to sell insurance to sick and healthy people for the same price, the healthy don’t sign up. It’s too expensive.

New York state learned that in the 1990s, when one-price-for-all insurance laws pushed premiums to the highest in the nation, crushing the individual insurance market here.

ObamaCare repeats that mistake. Despite slapping the uninsured with penalties — which will jump to 2.5 percent of household income in 2016 — they’re not signing up. The need to coerce enrollment with penalties is proof the plans are a bad deal.

How long will big insurers play along? There are political considerations, and for most, ObamaCare losses are still just a dent in their overall business. Not so for the 23 co-op insurers set up under the health law. Eight state plans have already failed, including New York’s Health Republic, and most of the rest are bleeding money.

With ObamaCare enrollment floundering and losses mounting, the nation needs alternatives. The Republicans are coalescing around a reform plan, but Democrats are doubling down. Hillary Rodham Clinton wants to burden the existing, unpopular plans with more “free” goodies, and make it harder to dodge the mandate. That won’t work.

A real reform would cover the seriously ill — people with pre-existing conditions — in separate plans with separate pricing and subsidies to make them affordable.

Just like the high-risk pools many states used to maintain. That’s the lesson of the failing ObamaCare scheme.

ObamaCare is heading toward a death spiral.


Obamacare is going as badly as was predicted before it passed. Insurance is far more expensive than it otherwise would be. Coverage is far lower than it otherwise would be. It looks better than it is because the government bails out Big Insurance to cover their losses. Not to mention the loss of income and employment as employers scramble to cut costs. No one on the Left knows history or understands economics.
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_moksha
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Re: Obamacare Going Into Death Spiral As Predicted

Post by _moksha »

The author from London would certainly know the failure of a heath care system. What we need is a vibrant plan to unload employers of the burden of heath care and show the world (including England) that health care is an unnecessary failure. Right?

Welcome back Bc.
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_MissTish
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Re: Obamacare Going Into Death Spiral As Predicted

Post by _MissTish »

Ah, the NY Post....my hometown's version of the Daily Mail :rolleyes:
People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis. You can't trust people, Jeremy.- Super Hans

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_Maksutov
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Re: Obamacare Going Into Death Spiral As Predicted

Post by _Maksutov »

BC's back! Good to see you. Yes, alas, the Democrats don't do math. Unfortunately, the Republicans don't do science. So we're screwed.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_Kevin Graham
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Re: Obamacare Going Into Death Spiral As Predicted

Post by _Kevin Graham »

As predicted?

Literally dozens of predictions were made and they all failed. Then you disappeared conveniently, only to show up later with more "proof" of fulfilled prophecies that are really based on more predictions!

LOL!

Stop trolling us Brian.
_SteelHead
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Re: Obamacare Going Into Death Spiral As Predicted

Post by _SteelHead »

Wait..... bc is back!
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_Brackite
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Re: Obamacare Going Into Death Spiral As Predicted

Post by _Brackite »

Maksutov wrote:BC's back! Good to see you. Yes, alas, the Democrats don't do math. Unfortunately, the Republicans don't do science. So we're screwed.


Yep.

by the way: Welcome Back, Bcspace!!
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_cinepro
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Re: Obamacare Going Into Death Spiral As Predicted

Post by _cinepro »

bcspace wrote:Obamacare is going as badly as was predicted before it passed. Insurance is far more expensive than it otherwise would be. Coverage is far lower than it otherwise would be. It looks better than it is because the government bails out Big Insurance to cover their losses. Not to mention the loss of income and employment as employers scramble to cut costs. No one on the Left knows history or understands economics.


The most tragic part of Obamacare is that it wouldn't have even been needed had the Republicans actually done something when they had the Presidency and Congress under George W. Bush.

Obamacare might not have been the best answer, but the existing system was ineffective and unsustainable, so I honestly can't begrudge Obama for trying to do something. But until Republicans actually step forward with a solid, realistic plan to address the healthcare issue, conservative whining about Obamacare (of which I have and will do plenty) is going to accomplish nothing.
_Quasimodo
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Re: Obamacare Going Into Death Spiral As Predicted

Post by _Quasimodo »

cinepro wrote:
bcspace wrote:Obamacare is going as badly as was predicted before it passed. Insurance is far more expensive than it otherwise would be. Coverage is far lower than it otherwise would be. It looks better than it is because the government bails out Big Insurance to cover their losses. Not to mention the loss of income and employment as employers scramble to cut costs. No one on the Left knows history or understands economics.


The most tragic part of Obamacare is that it wouldn't have even been needed had the Republicans actually done something when they had the Presidency and Congress under George W. Bush.

Obamacare might not have been the best answer, but the existing system was ineffective and unsustainable, so I honestly can't begrudge Obama for trying to do something. But until Republicans actually step forward with a solid, realistic plan to address the healthcare issue, conservative whining about Obamacare (of which I have and will do plenty) is going to accomplish nothing.


I believe (there's that word again) that ACA was the best Obama could accomplish, given the mindless opposition he faced. I would have much preferred a single payer program or Medicare for all. You know, just like every other mature country in the world.
This, or any other post that I have made or will make in the future, is strictly my own opinion and consequently of little or no value.

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_ajax18
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Re: Obamacare Going Into Death Spiral As Predicted

Post by _ajax18 »

I believe (there's that word again) that ACA was the best Obama could accomplish, given the mindless opposition he faced.


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