Based on the numbers in this post, I’m beginning to wonder what the net effect of the PPACA will be:
Health plans are sending hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters to people who buy their own coverage, frustrating some consumers who want to keep what they have and forcing others to buy more costly policies.
The main reason insurers offer is that the policies fall short of what the Affordable Care Act requires starting Jan. 1. Most are ending policies sold after the law passed in March 2010. At least a few are cancelling plans sold to people with pre-existing medical conditions.
By all accounts, the new policies will offer consumers better coverage, in some cases, for comparable cost — especially after the inclusion of federal subsidies for those who qualify. The law requires policies sold in the individual market to cover 10 “essential†benefits, such as prescription drugs, mental health treatment and maternity care. In addition, insurers cannot reject people with medical problems or charge them higher prices. The policies must also cap consumers’ annual expenses at levels lower than many plans sold before the new rules.
But the cancellation notices, which began arriving in August, have shocked many consumers in light of President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their plans if they liked them.
“I don’t feel like I need to change, but I have to,†said Jeff Learned, a television editor in Los Angeles, who must find a new plan for his teenage daughter, who has a health condition that has required multiple surgeries.
Fortunately, under the PPACA Mr. Learned won’t be denied insurance due to pre-existing conditions.
Just three insurance companies mentioned in the article—Florida Blue, Kaiser Permanente, and Blue Shield of California—account for 579,000 cancellation notices being sent out. That’s more than the 476,000 enrollments the administration is claiming under the law.
Another issue: between 25 and 30% of Americans who have Internet connections don’t have broadband. Those are disproportionately the very people that the PPACA is trying to reach.
So, that’s a hard 579,000 in the minus column, and a soft 476,000 in the plus column. (That is, the number isn’t backed up by anything other than the word of the people that said everyone could keep their old coverage if they like it, and that costs would be reduced by $2,500 on average once this thing was passed.)
So three weeks into the rollout, and three and a half years after PPACA was signed into law, the Administration is actually 106,000 in the red.
That there is some impressive work. If WWII had gone that well, by August 1945 the Japs would have been bombing San Francisco from their bases in Hawai’i.
Not to make this all about me, but Blue Shield would be doing me a favor. Saves me sitting on the phone with them.
Actually, Mr. dot dot dot, WW2 went rather poorly at the beginning, what with Pearl Harbor, Corregidor, the Bataan death march . . .
Probably not the analogy you’re looking for. How about the Iraq War? Or not.
So, that’s a hard 579,000 in the minus column, and a soft 476,000 in the plus column.
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….and yet, from the perspective of the hard core PPACA people, it’s all going fine, and no one is to fret or complain about the malfunctions, glitches, or even perhaps the revealed discrepancies between Obama-speak and the realities of the PPACA. I keep wondering — if this were a republican-implemented policy, what would those same social progressive ‘lambs’ be saying?
In the public’s eye, yea or nay judgments are primarily based on whose ox is being gored. But, in the political arena it’s more about whose party is the driving force, as to how the scuttlebutt flows.
In other news steak houses are sending hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters to people who bought pre-paid gift cards, and bankruptcy notices to their lenders, frustrating some consumers who want to keep what they have and forcing others to buy more costly cards.
The main reason restaurants offer is that the cards fall short of what the Affordable Steak Dinner Act requires starting Jan. 1.
By all accounts, the new cards will offer consumers Morton’s quality dinners, in some cases, for comparable cost — especially after the inclusion of federal subsidies for those who qualify. The law requires cards sold to cover “essential†benefits, such as lobster sides, free asparagus and ample Smith Haut Laffite. In addition, insurers cannot reject people of, uh, dimension or charge them higher prices. The policies must also cap consumers’ annual expenses at levels lower than many plans sold before the new rules.
But the cancellation notices, which began arriving in August, have shocked many consumers in light of President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their current steak house cards if they liked them.
“I don’t feel like I need to change, I like Outback Steakhouses, but I have to,†said Jeff Learned…………..
In a press conference later today President Obama intends to outline his new ACA, Affordable Clothing Act proposal…
We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg, as another 1000 employees become subjected to the negative consequences of this HC bill.
While many pundits, including myself, thought the best way to deal with issues concerning steak was to deal with the steak producers, the Obama administration felt that this carried too much risk. People wanted to purchase steak with pre-paid gift cards, and making sure everybody had a card, of some sort, was seen as a significant stride towards social equity. Still turning cards into steak has proven problematic since its increasingly become clear that cards are a means of acquiring steak, and are not edible.
I’m not sure it matters too much in the grand scheme of things if the currently insured transfer to the exchanges — I rather think that some supporters would find that a feature, not a bug. But there is some insinuation in that link that the insurance companies are selectively cancelling policies to dump those with pre-existing conditions on the exchanges.
Also, Obama should not be speaking-out today about how 85% of Americans with insurance are unaffected by the law on the same day that Kaiser Health News is reporting stories like this.
Big Government Projects Part II.
California continues to go full speed ahead on its high-speed rail project connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco, as construction starts far away from either end of the system in the Central Valley. The engineers have arrived to start the first 30-mile leg to and from a city that few will want to visit on the line, and the locals aren’t exactly impressed. In fact, they’re getting angrier as the project slowly rolls forward:
Now, engineering work has finally begun on the first 30-mile (48-kilometer) segment of track here in Fresno, a city of a half-million people with soaring unemployment and a withering downtown core littered with abandoned factories and shuttered stores.
Rail is meant to help Fresno, with construction jobs now and improved access to economic opportunity once the project is finished. But the region that could benefit most from the project is also where opposition to it has grown most fierce.
“I just wish it would go away, this high-speed rail. I just wish it would go away,†says Gary Lanfranco, whose restaurant in downtown Fresno is slated to be demolished to make way for rerouted traffic.
Such sentiments can be heard throughout the Central Valley, where roads are dotted with signs such as: “HERE COMES HIGH SPEED RAIL There goes the farm.†Growers complain of misplaced priorities, and residents wonder if their tax money is being squandered.
Aaron Fukuda, a civil engineer whose house in the dairy town of Hanford lies directly in one of the possible train routes, says: “People are worn out, tired, frustrated.â€
Voters in 2008 approved $10 billion in bonds to start construction on an 800-mile (1,300-kilometer) rail line to ferry passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 2 hours and 40 minutes, compared with 6 hours by car now during good traffic.
Except that’s not the apposite comparison. The correct comparison would be to other mass-transport systems, and the fact is that the route already has service — through the airlines. At least a half-dozen airlines fly that route each day, with multiple departures and arrivals through multiple airports throughout both endpoint metropolises. The costs of those flights cost less than the full projected cost of a round-trip ticket on the 160-minute train ride, and gets there in less than half the time. There is almost literally no need for this boondoggle except to aggrandize the politicians wasting taxpayer money by laying track adjacent to and across the West’s largest earthquake fault.
No one’s really sure what the end costs will be, either. A recent estimate scaled the final price tag back from $100 billion to $68 billion, but for a state in chronic debt, it’s still monopoly money:
Since then, the housing market collapsed, multibillion-dollar budget deficits followed, and the price tag has fluctuated wildly — from $45 billion in 2008 to more than $100 billion in 2011 and, now, $68 billion.
And that cost “savings†comes at the expense of the train’s supposed speed, too:
Political and financial compromises led officials to scale back plans that now mean trains will be forced to slow down and share tracks in major cities, leading critics to question whether it will truly be the 220-mph (355-kph) “high-speed rail†voters were promised. …
Even the former chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, Quentin Kopp, has turned against the current project, saying in court papers that it “is no longer a genuine high speed rail system.â€
Dan Walters pointed out in last week’s Sacramento Bee that the new specs for the project no longer meets the bond initiative’s language. This sets up a test of integrity that California and Governor Jerry Brown are failing:
Legal maneuvers aside, it’s quite evident that the project, as modified by Brown’s handpicked High-Speed Rail Authority to overcome other political and financial hurdles, cannot comply with the plain language of the bond ballot measure – language that bullet-train proponents told voters would protect the project’s integrity.
Having been integrated with commuter rail in major urban areas, for example, the bullet train could not possibly comply with the requirement of a 160-minute ride between San Francisco andLos Angeles, even if authorities insist otherwise.
Clearly, Brown, et al, hope that if they can stave off legal challenges long enough to lay a few miles of track on San Joaquin Valley farmland, it would create some kind of moral imperative to see the project to completion, regardless of the law or its costs, now pegged at $68 billion but certain to grow.
Ultimately, however, it’s a test of political integrity – especially in light of recent polls showing that most California voters now oppose the project. If the bullet train cannot honestly comply with the requirements that voters were told would guard against flim-flam, it should be derailed.
It never should have been “railed†in the first place, but Walters is right. This project has become an even bigger joke, one with a price tag that will haunt generations of Californians simply to feed the 19th-century, fixed-rail thinking of politicians. It’s insanity manifest large in the Golden State.
Hmmm. This is where Michael tells us everything is fine in California, just a few “glitches” and of course its just getting off to a “rocky” start but will soon evolve into a model of modern government………………..and, of course, good thing it isn’t being built in Kansas, the hayseeds. Speaking of Kansas executive talent………oh, never mind.
When we travel on I 5, thru the central valley, the local news stations are filled with locals vehemently against this smart train project. It’s just another example, though, of people mindlessly voting for projects, policies, people with very little critical thinking in play. It’s often only until a state/country is in crisis, has completely liquidated it’s wealth do people wake up with regrets.
@michael reynolds
Do not forget Tarawa. Actually, never forget Tarawa.
King Red, when informed that 20% of his people could not afford their daily bread, is reported to have said, “Then let them eat steak!”
Steve
Actually, Mr. dot dot dot, WW2 went rather poorly at the beginning, what with Pearl Harbor, Corregidor, the Bataan death march . . .
Yeah, but this isn’t the beginning of the PPACA is it? This is three and a half years in. And it turns out that the Administration hadn’t even done any testing to ensure someone could complete enrollment as of September 26, 2013. But keep trying to move the goalposts, lie and cheat and obfuscate. It is what you Democratic scumbags do best.
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HHS rules and regs were even held up until after the 2012 election to avoid any talking points for the republicans to have regarding it’s implementation. Consequently, they have been behind the proverbial 8 ball ever since, and are continuing to write more regulations, even as the roll-out is staggering along.