The Daily Mail is reporting a story that should be some cause of concern. The enrollment for the health insurance exchanges under the PPACA has been quite small:
Just 51,000 people completed Obamacare applications during the first week the Healthcare.gov website was online, according to two sources inside the Department of Health and Human Services who gave MailOnline an exclusive look at the earliest enrollment numbers.
The career civil servants, who process data inside the agency, confirmed independently that just 6,200 Americans applied for health insurance through the problem-plagued website on October 1, the day it first opened to the public.
Neither HHS nor the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would comment on the record about the numbers. Enroll America, the president’s organization of health care ‘navigators’ who are charged with helping Americans sign up, didn’t reply to a request for information about its level of success so far.
The White House also did not respond to emails seeking comment.
But several administration officials have claimed this month that they didn’t have access to the kinds of raw figures MailOnline obtained from the people who work for them. And the anemic totals suggest a far lower level of interest in coverage through the Affordable Care Act than the Obama administration has hoped to see.
That’s consistent with the results being reported anecdotally by the individual states.
The open enrollment period for the exchanges is six months. If enrollments continue at the present rate, the total enrollment, including for the state-run exchanges, would be roughly 2 million people.
My experience with open enrollments conducted by my clients is that they typically follow a pattern. There’s substantial inquiry and interest at first which simmers down to a much lower level and then there’s a final flurry of enrollments at the end. Pretty much as you might expect. All the more reason for a much smoother rollout than has actually been experienced.
Don’t confuse me with someone who wants the PPACA to fail. Quite the contrary. I want it to succeed to whatever degree it will succeed as quickly as possible so that we can recognize the scope of the problem and turn to addressing the problems with our healthcare system that are in such desperate need of resolution and which, sadly, the PPACA mostly just kicks down the road.
Perhaps the problems with the web site can be corrected by throwing hardware at it and bug resolution. That woud be a best case scenario. If the problems are more basic, resolving them while the site is up and running could be quite difficult. Imagine conducting brain surgery while the patient is playing a game of tennis.
There definitely seem to be problems with the government web site roll-out — glitches that range from “traffic” overload, sign-in problems, to intrinsic architectural ones. Now they’re talking about having to reset passwords???? In the meantime, a few computer geeks/bloggers are chiding the government’s half billion plus price tag to build such an incompetent system, saying they could do it for “a couple hundred dollars.” Of course that’s pure folly. But, IMO, the mocking is well deserved. Also, a mathematical computation shows that signing up the Obama-estimated 48 million people not having health care, at the rate it’s now going, would take around two and half years — definitely going well beyond the 6 month sign-up period allotted.
Putting the entire government program together — inept techs handling a dysfunctional roll out, a corrupt IRS in charge of finances, doctors being mysteriously fired, the continuing economic malaise of a politically feuding country — yeah, this is going to be great!
Then you have people who aren’t happy when they see the increases in their health insurance premiums. One of the truckers participating in a rally in DC today had this to say:
It seems things are going swimmingly here in the civilized part of America: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/us/politics/health-act-embraced-in-california.html?hp
Of course we were able to sideline our last remaining Republicans, so things generally have been going well here. Jerry Brown could be re-elected by acclamation at this point.
I’m not surprised there are system issues–my own experiences in re-enrolling in my employer-provided insurance every year have been frustrating. The password-reset seems to be a common feature–this year I had to speak to customer service four times in five days, each time about my password not working. And each time, the same poor person on the other end had to ask the same question: you’re aware, sir, that it’s case-sensitive?
The real question for Obamacare will be how are the exchanges doing in a month, obviously.
California Admits Only 1.65% Of Exchange Visitors Signed Up For Obamacare is another Covered California assessment, that’s a tad less optimistic than the NYT’s one. I guess it depends on one’s HC perspectives, as well as the adjectives ascribed to that perspective. Think Progress, for instance, has glowing remarks about how California’s sign-up are going…however, they are also a right arm appendage of social progressive mind sets.
Modulo Myself is right, of course. We’ll have a much better handle on how the site is doing in a month’s time.
Michael, to get some perspective on things, consider that according to the Census Bureau there are about 50 million people without insurance. Roughly 7 million of those are in California.
A quarter of those 7 million aren’t eligible for insurance under PPACA rules. That leaves about 5 million people. If California were to register 25,000 people every day for the next six months, they’d register everybody.
By the way, what is the means of registering if you don’t have good internet access or comfort? Or is this group (non-Medicare; non-Medicaid; skewing young) pretty well covered by the website?
Here’s an interesting wrinkle on the question. Apparently, it’s illegal to help people.
According to a Pew Poll from August of 2011, 78% of adults report using the internet, including:
68% of Hispanics
62% of those w/ household incomes under $30k
43% of those w/o high school diploma
41% of those over 65
Internet use is a broader class than the one I’m thinking of — I’m thinking of how many people have regular access to hi-speed internet and are comfortable with entering private information on a website.
@Dave, interesting link. I know they’re considered about fraud here. Locally, an insurance agency has been advertising on the radio that it provides help with this, and its good agency, they are the insurance agent for our business. But I think of them as an agent for small businesses or more well-healed individuals, so I don’t know who they’ll reach.
A month ago, I looked at my state’s (NY) rates for consumers. They were what I expected and if I ever, for example, quit my job and tried to make it as a writer, what I would definitely pay for real insurance. At the same time, I’ve had insurance for years, and have a good idea what it costs.
For people who are uninsured, it may be like leaping into a new world.
I would add that apparently NY’s rates for individual buyers went down, due to Obamacare.
Jan:
You do realize that trucker is lying, right? Or maybe he’s just delusional. After all, they were going to bring the country to a grinding halt by driving 3000 trucks around the beltway. Which is already comical, and then was rendered more sad than funny when only 30 guys showed up.
The 30 truck protest that was going to send 100 million people into the streets to protest.
You really should think about giving up on Fox News.
John McAfee’s take on the health care web site:
McAfee has repeated, in other interviews, how easily hacked the site is because of ‘lacking of safeguards.’ He also has talked about IT work being outsourced to India, creating code job description problems. He estimated too, that spending $5 million dollars, could have produced a much better, safer system than the one in place now, costing untold millions more. But, isn’t that the way of government, when they are spending other people’s money — imprudent and wasteful most of the time.
Modulo:
My rates are way lower under Obamacare. Like hundreds a month lower for better coverage.
I’ll have to figure out how to do this since I’m insured via a group policy for my corporation. A corporation I only had to form thanks to the previous system, so beloved by Republicans. A corporation that costs me probably 3000 a year just in accounting and serves no other purpose than to get me insured.
Jan,
Well that settles it–an insane drug-addict murderer/programmer says the website sux.
Jan:
Another good source, John “Bathshit” McAfee. First your delusional trucker, now the guy who says he doesn’t use his own software because it’s too much trouble, and, well. . . you can read all about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee
Interesting life story.
Michael,
I’m one of those delusional people who is impressed when only one person takes on the monolithic government — be a truck driver or a lawn mower guy. Most, though, endeavor to be a part of a popular fad, movement, party, social group, cultivate PC opinionated dialogues, all to demonstrate a solidarity with mass behaviors — cool and ‘with it’ enough to be seen as having all their s**t together. For me, the power of one, standing up for what they believe in, is worth a commendation. IMO, it’s far more admirable than blending with the crowd, becoming a nation of sheep, mainly because of fear or self-consciousness in expressing an opinion that differs with the majority.
BTW, I listen to CNN, FOX, and local news broadcasts, as well as do a lot of internet journal/blog reading to get as many sides of a story or issues as possible.
Michael,
I’m really laughing now…I’ve already know about the quirky life story of McAfee. Nonetheless, most incredibly brilliant people have screws loose in some areas, or are social deviants in others — womanizers, drug addicts etc. Basically, they are non-conformists — hard to get along with, stay married to, but do think out of the box with their creations and innovations.
Well crap, another Illinois Governor in trouble with the law:
“Governor Quinn, 34, of East St. Louis, arrested on suspicion of criminal trespass to land and warrant arrest by East St. Louis police.”
Police Blotter
Oh, I see you’ve turned to getting your domestic news from the British press, as we have, out of necessity.