ObamaCare on Day Two

Posted by Michael Becker on Jan 2, 2014 in ObamaCare

ObamaCare is now into its second day of restructuring life for Americans.


The website, at least the front end, seems to be working and the administration tells us that 2.1 million people have “enrolled”. The critical part of all of this is not what the administration is telling us, it’s what they’re NOT telling us.
Here’s a snapshot of the tip of the ObamaCare iceberg as of today.

Things we don’t know …

  • How many have paid for their coverage?
  • How many of these people didn’t have coverage before?
  • What happened to the 5 million people who lost coverage with plan they liked?
  • How many people who think they have coverage are lost in the data pool and the insurers don’t know about them?
  • What’s going to happen when they show up for actual health CARE?

We’ve been insisting all along that the website really was just a glitch and would be fixed sooner or later. The website was the easiest part of the program. The fact that it took some $600 million and more days than it took to defeat both the Germans and Japanese after Pearl Harbor is simply a testament to the incompetence of Obama and his administration.
With respect to the website, all we really know is that the front end is working most of the time. The administration refuses to discuss the back end. That’s the part where information is passed to the insurers and the actual billing process happens.

No one will comment on the accuracy of the information going to the insurers which leads us to believe there are still problems with that interface. As of one month ago no one had started coding the billing system. We seriously doubt that is up and running.
The next set of headlines will likely have to do with the cost of actual care to the insured. We’ve seen some discussion about the huge premium increases that people are dealing with, next – and a much bigger deal – will be the fact that most of the ObamaCare policies have a deductible that must be met before the actual insurance kicks in. That deductible averages – averages – a little over $5,000.
ObamaCare is a long way from being out of the headlines, no matter how many goodie-goodie stories the administration is able to dig up over the next couple of months. Lord knows they’ve got thousands of people working on that, and the media is drooling to run those “good news” stories. It’s called “spin”.
We think the real test will come this summer.
First issue will be the cost of insurance in 2015 and the companies will be setting their rates this summer, they should be public no later than September. We don’t know the age breakdown of the current people enrolling and that will be the critical breakdown for 2015 rates. If not enough young people enroll, the cost curve goes off the rails. 2013’s rates – with about a 30% increase over 2012 – will skyrocket if less than 40% of new enrollees are under 35.
The second issue will be the healthcare plans that are part of employee benefit packages for people who work in large companies. The current estimate is that 50 – 90 million people will lose the coverage they’ve got now because of ObamaCare. Look for that to hit the news in September-October. Just before November and the midterm election.
2014 is going to be an interesting year.



http://joeforamerica.com/2014/01/obamacare-day-two/