Tag Archives: Obamacare

Obamacare – Shihfting Blame

Barack Obama

Insurance companies are cancelling policies by the hundreds of thousands.

I wonder how long it will take before the official line out of the administration regarding such cancellations is that the law didn’t cancel the policies, rather it’s the insurance companies doing it.

Obama Is Losing His Media Advantage

Media

Since before he was elected, Obama has had a strong ally in the press.  This has allowed him to remain personally popular and likeable all while his policies have proven to be UNpopular.

Perhaps such a relationship is seeing its expiration date:

After emerging from the showdown over the Republican-led government shutdown relatively unscathed, the Obama administration finds itself under assault on three fronts: problems surrounding Obamacare, revelations of the U.S. spying on allies, and the 2012 attack on the U.S diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya — over which a senator has threatened to hold up all of the administration’s nominations.

The controversies are sure to fuel continued Republican attacks on Obama and his Democratic allies as the nation gears up for midterm elections next year, and the White House has portrayed the attacks as so much partisan chatter.

But to CNN senior political analyst David Gergen, they reflect the relative inexperience of the Obama White House.

“This is an administration that has been very, very good at its politics, but has never been very good at execution of policies from Day One,” he said Monday.

“It’s an administration which has some really smart people in it, and a lot of younger people. It doesn’t have very many heavyweights,” he said.

This isn’t news here and was certainly predicted during the first election cycle that Mr. Obama survived.  And, I have to admit, now that he’s President, the fact that he is largely ineffectual may be my most favorite thing about him.

But this ACA rollout is a disaster.  A disaster the likes of which would get an executive in the private secotr fired.

Obamacare – Accountability

Barack Obama

At some point the man in charge has to be held accountable for the success or failure of the organization.

Right?

So far, Obama has escaped that.  But this is an interesting metric:

Obama Unaware

83,300 results for “Obama Unaware”.

However you feel about the Affordable Healthcare Act, at some point you have to admit that Obama simply has no clue as to what is going on.

The Problem With Obamacare

Health Care

Or at least two of them.

Cost and need.

First, consider cost:

For 2014, the penalty is either $95 per adult or 1% of family income, whichever results in a larger fine. (Income is defined as total income above the filing threshold, which is $10,000 for an individual and $20,000 for a family in 2013.) That’s still a lot less than premiums, which are generally $200 to $300 a month on average for a silver plan.

So a person making $50,000 would not be eligible for a subsidy and would pay full price — typically around $2,400 to $3,600 a year in premiums — for a plan. If he declined to get insurance, he would only be subject to a $400 penalty for the year.

A couple earning that amount would receive a roughly $1,300 subsidy, leaving them to pay about $4,750 in premiums for the year. But that compares to a $300 penalty.

For some folks, the economics just doesn’t make sense.    The penalty is the better way out.

Then there is the case of the need.  Young people generally don’t need the insurance.  Why?  Because they aren’t sick:

For some folks, health insurance just isn’t a good deal. Take Jessica Birge, 29, who is studying nursing and works as a medical assistant. Her job gives her $100 a month for medical expenses, though she does have dental and vision coverage through her employer. But she doesn’t have a lot of medical expenses since she rarely goes to the doctor, opting instead to go to a local clinic for her annual exams.

Though she knows she needs insurance in case she gets into an accident, she doesn’t think Obamacare is very affordable.

“I don’t really want to pay a penalty, but it’s more economical for me to pay $300 a year [in fines] than $200 to $300 a month for insurance I don’t use,” said Birge.

Now, you can argue that the young folks should contribute to the system in order that the elderly and the sick may obtain coverage.  And  I would argue that such a ideal is a noble one indeed.  But we’ve now moved away from an insurance conversation to one more properly defined as an entitlement conversation.

The fact is, Ms. Birge and millions like her are simply making the choice to self insure.  A choice that I myself made when I was that age as well.  Lookig back I wish that I had taken a catastrophe policy and matched it with an HSA.  Not that ever was sick or hurt, but it’s a curse of being older to look back on the mistakes of youth and shake your head.

Plus I would now have an HSA account that would have grown tax free over the last 22 years.

Government Shutdown

First, I would like to point out that I fully support a shutdown of the government.  The aspects of the State that I think are essential are not in jeopardy of being turned away; we only face the fat of the pig.

Second, this is the hammer I would wield if I were a republican lawmaker.  I would simply slip the paper to Reid and Obama, look them straight in the eye and say, “Manage your career as you see fit.”

There is support across the political spectrum for delaying the individual mandate one year and using the government funding bill to implement the delay. Additionally, the survey found that by a 5-point margin, respondents support using every opportunity to defund or delay the ACA rather than simply passing a “clean” bill to fund the government.

Fully 56 percent of respondents support the individual mandate delay in the context of a continuing resolution debate, including 55 percent of independents, and 52 percent overall in “swing districts.” The survey also found that strong majorities across the spectrum oppose the Affordable Care Act, including 60 percent of independents, and a majority in “swing districts.”

If brought before the people in districts that will swing, defunding the bill will win.

Game over.

Obamacare – Law Of The Land

So, as the country moves into a government shutdown, I’m reflecting on politics.

Consider North Carolina.  We here have elected a republican governor, a republican controlled house and a republican controlled senate.

All legitimate.

Together, these bodies have submitted, debated, passed and vetoed laws; only later to be over ridden.

One of the most controversial laws passed is the Voter ID law; of which the United States has sued to challenge.

Is there a democrat alive that would not support using any means legally necessary to overturn that law?  Shenanigans or not.

Now, consider the opposition.  That is how they feel concerning Obamacare.

And like it or not, it is the House of Representatives that are negotiating and compromising, not the Senate.

ObamaCare: The Price Of A Policy

There has been much joy and excitement over the recently released report declaring that policies are coming in lower than projected:

The report also gives an overview of pricing and the number of coverage options across the nation.  It finds that the average premium nationally for the second lowest cost silver plan will be $328 before tax credits, or 16 percent below projections based off of Congressional Budget Office estimates.

Now, to be sure, had the report come out and reported that the premiums were going to be 16 percent above, HHS would be hammered, so a 16 percent below expectation is positive news.  But in truth, this report is only comparing what the policies will cost compared to what people THOUGHT they would cost.  It mentions nothing without being able to compare costs to existing costs.

AEI makes the point very well:

In short, HHS is not saying that people will be paying lower premiums on the exchanges than they’re paying now. HHS is just saying that people will be paying less than HHS thought people would be paying. They’re trying to sell this as good news—people will not have to spend as much as HHS originally thought they would. However, when determining what’s affordable, what really matters is what people think they should be spending.

When we’re trying to figure out if the new premium estimates will be affordable for people, then, we can’t just set a federal standard—which is how the Affordable Care Act defines affordability. We should compare what people (to a large extent, in this case, the uninsured) think they should pay and what HHS says they’ll be paying.

I think that the administration knows that this roll out is going to go very poorly and this report is nothing but an attempt to spin some good news.

Unintended Consequences

UPS

I’m sure this is exactly what Obama had in mind when he urged Americans to support him in passing Obamacare:

United Parcel Service Inc. plans to remove thousands of spouses from its medical plan because they are eligible for coverage elsewhere. The Atlanta-based logistics company points to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as a big reason for the decision, reports Kaiser Health News.

The decision comes as many analysts are downplaying the Affordable Care Act’s effect on companies such as UPS, noting that the move reflects a long-term trend of shrinking corporate medical benefits, Kaiser Health News reports. But UPS repeatedly cites Obamacare to explain the decision, adding fuel to the debate over whether it erodes traditional employer coverage, Kaiser says.

Rising medical costs, “combined with the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act, have made it increasingly difficult to continue providing the same level of health care benefits to our employees at an affordable cost,” UPS said in a memo to employees.

This is exactly what Pelosi meant when she mentioned that we should pass this bill so that we can see what’s in it.

Obamacare And Setbacks

Setback

In shocking news this morning we learn that the Obama administration is going to miss another deadline:

(Reuters) – The Obama administration has delayed a step crucial to the launch of the new healthcare law, the signing of final agreements with insurance plans to be sold on federal health insurance exchanges starting October 1.

Needless to say this does NOT come as a surprise but rather as an expectation from this administration.  What does it mean?

Coming at a time when state and federal officials are still working to overcome challenges to the information technology systems necessary to make the exchanges work, some experts say that even a small delay could jeopardize the start of the six-month open enrollment period.

U.S. officials have said repeatedly that the marketplaces, which are the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare reform law, would begin on time.

But the October 1 deadline has already begun to falter at the state level, with Oregon announcing plans to scale back the launch of its own marketplace and California saying it would consider a similar move.

I’m betting January 1 is already dead in the water.  But don’t worry:

But having everything ready on October 1 is not a critical issue.

Well, what IS the critical issue:

What matters to people is January 1, which is when the coverage is supposed to start. If that were delayed, it would be a substantive setback.

Strap in for a substantive setback.

This Is Obama’s Economy

Barack Obama

The United States is experiencing job growth, to be sure.  But look at the kinds of jobs being created:

(Reuters) – U.S. businesses are hiring at a robust rate. The only problem is that three out of four of the nearly 1 million hires this year are part-time and many of the jobs are low-paid.

Executives at several staffing firms told Reuters that the law, which requires employers with 50 or more full-time workers to provide healthcare coverage or incur penalties, was a frequently cited factor in requests for part-time workers. A decision to delay the mandate until 2015 has not made much of a difference in hiring decisions, they added.

“Us and other people are hiring part-time because we don’t know what the costs are going to be to hire full-time,” said Steven Raz, founder of Cornerstone Search Group, a staffing firm in Parsippany, New Jersey. “We are being cautious.”

Raz said his company started seeing a rise in part-time positions in late 2012 and the trend gathered steam early this year. He estimates his firm has seen an increase of between 10 percent and 15 percent compared with last year.

Other staffing firms have also noted a shift.

“They have put some of the full-time positions on hold and are hiring part-time employees so they won’t have to pay out the benefits,” said Client Staffing Solutions’ Darin Hovendick. “There is so much uncertainty. It’s really tough to design a budget when you don’t know the final cost involved.”

Watch the word from the Left as they mention “anecdotal”