Posted by Tina
The Obamacare exchanges have not started out well. Americans are watching to see whether or not the troubled exchanges will indeed end in a train wreck or after a few minor “glitches” deliver a viable product for the American people. From Oregon to Washington DC and from Florida to Alaska, the news has not been very promising. A few initial numbers will give us an idea about how well it’s going so far and where we actually need to be as we take this rocky ride into 2014.
The early numbers have been, collected by David Freddeso of Conservative Intelligence Briefing. These numbers may not be perfect or completely up to date but do give us an idea about the starting point and what the Obama administration’s baby needs for a successful launch.
According to Freddoso, Obama’s goal for the various exchanges is 500,000 enrollees this month.
Freddoso questions whether that number includes those with low incomes who will be placed in Medicaid:
In terms of getting more people insured, it might seem like a minor detail. But the private insurance exchanges, a centerpiece of Obamacare, need a very large number of people to sign up if they are to be viable insurance pools. By the Obama administration’s estimate, they need about 7 million people to sign up for the exchanges nationwide. (They also estimate they need 2.7 million of those to be young/healthy types, a separate but related issue.) There is a separate goal of enrolling another 8 million poor people in Medicaid.
I’m thinking the 500,00 refers to private insurance only since the success of the program depends on the paying public.
Freddoso then digs into the numbers reported by various states and finds that so far, a majority of the successful enrollees turn out to be those eligible for Medicaid.
In Minnesota out of 3800 applicants only 406 were private insurance customers.
In Washington State 90% of applicants were placed in Medicaid but they did have 3,000 private insurance enrollees.
California added 600,000 people to the Medicaid (Medical?) rolls; only 17,000 have signed up for private insurance. (week old figures) California is apparently among those being a bit crafty about their figures.
Wisconsin reports less than 100 private exchange enrollments. It claims it will shift thousands of Medicaid patients into the private program…we’ll see.
Colorado had 305 applicants with 226 enrollments, last count. No report on Medicaid numbers.
Maryland enrolled “more than 1,120″ last week.
Alaska reports zero persons enrolled as of late last week.
The slow roll out of Obamacare is indeed chugging at a snail’s pace.
Early reports of big technical problems within the federal and other exchanges have not helped to give the people of this land much confidence:
WASHINGTON — The federal health care exchange was built using 10-year-old technology that may require constant fixes and updates for the next six months and the eventual overhaul of the entire system, technology experts told USA TODAY.
The site could be perfect, but if the systems from which it draws data are not up to speed, it doesn’t matter, said John Engates, chief technology officer at Rackspace, a cloud computer service provider.
“It is a core problem in the sense of it’s fundamental to this thing actually working, but it’s not necessarily a problem that the people who wrote HealthCare.gov can get to,” Engates said. “Even if they had a perfect system, it still won’t work.” …
… “The application could be fundamentally flawed,” said Jeff Kim, president of CDNetworks, a content-delivery network. “They may be using 1990s technology in 2.0 world.” …
… “I think it’s a data problem,” Kim said. “It always comes down to that.”
And if that’s the case, the problems are beyond “rocky,” he said. Instead, it would require a “fundamental re-architecture.” In the meantime, “I think they’re just trying to shore up as quickly as possible. They don’t have time to start from scratch.”
See what I mean?
A number of changes have already occurred in response to this laws passage. People have reported losing their current insurance under their employer or being advised that their current insurance has been cancelled. If these people are unable to enroll cleanly through the exchanges will the healthcare system work for them or will they experience chaos…will people’s lives be upended or materially damaged?
Those who are cheering for Obama are certain this is just a temporary “glitch” but I’m not convinced after listening to the tech guys. I’ve also dealt with bureaucracies and when something goes wrong it can be a nightmare trying to sort it out. So, how often might big bureaucratic snafus happen over the next year? Think about it…a patient arrives at the emergency room with a swollen belly and in deep pain. After his name is called he seats himself gingerly and the nice lady behind the desk asks:
“Do you have insurance, Mr Skerood?”
“I think so.”
“Did you sign up through the exchange?”
“Yeah”
“Let me just take a look…is that Skerood with one “r” or two?
“Just…just one.
(typing)
“Sorry sir, I know you’re in pain, but I can’t find anything under the name I. M. Skerood…you do live at 2 Bummer Lane here in the city?
(Skerood Nods)
“Well I’m still not finding it. Did you receive a paper confirmation through the mail?”
“No…well, I got this confirmation enrollment number when I signed up, and I printed it out, but now they’re saying the computer has that number associated with someone else…and they can’t find my application. I’ve called and sent emails but…”
Well, don’t worry…we can admit you…but, you do know that if we can’t figure this out you will be charged the full amount for the care and the government may also charge you the tax for failing to get an insurance plan….sir?”
“Oh dear, Mr. Skerood…Mr. Skerood…are you alright?
“Nancy, Nancy…get the Doctor, Mr. Skerood is in deep trouble”
(Nancy, running toward the emergency room)
(under her breath) “Oh well…we’re all shafted. What difference does it now make?”
Flashback to Paul Ryan’s takedown of ObamaCare.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o1yTY2MciOk
I sure wish we could post these video’s to our own front page, Peggy.
Paul Ryan was exactly right. Obamacare will exacerbate the problems that were already plaguing the government, creating growing debt. The best line had to do with a giant ponzi scheme that would put Bernie Maydoff’s scheme to shame.
The Presidents speech this morning was so telling. He completely avoided the problems and ultimate cost and patted himself on the back for coming up with another redistribution scheme.
All of the problems this bill is supposed to fix could have been resolved with legislation that would not damage our economy, would not rack up more debt, and would not subject us to this complex, unworkable system.
I was surprised at just how many of the problems Ryan presented with ObamaCare back then have come true. Ryan’s facts per the CBO’s findings and other good bookkeeping practices proved it was a Ponzi scheme, yet he was ignored and it was shoved down our throats without a single Republican vote.
Hopefully, now that the mask are off every progressive Republican will be replaced in both the House and the Senate with true Constitutional Conservatives who are willing to fight with Cruz and Lee for our Republic.
The whole thing is a giant mess. They should have just expanded Medicare to everyone and charged us for it. Done. The infrastructure was already in place. Instead we had to make sure that the insurance companies make millions more off of us. The ACA is a giant scam on the American taxpayers and one more example of how contractors soak us and deliver a crap product, then need more money to make it work. Did the Defense Department make this website?
Privatization of health care at taxpayer expense is stupid. The guy who runs Medicare for the government makes $170,000 a year. The guy who runs United Health Care makes $40 million. Hmmm, which is a better place to put tax money?
Fox had a great perspective of the exchanges from one of their contributors. She had a positive experience, but I think its interesting to see what options are available to people if they can ever get to use the website. One more example of private contractors screwing the US
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/10/21/was-obamacare-guinea-pig/
“The guy who runs Medicare for the government makes $170,000 a year. The guy who runs United Health Care makes $40 million. Hmmm, which is a better place to put tax money?”
Amen.
Do you remember … it almost happened … the first step anyway, Congress actually debated dropping the Medicare age to 55. That was a blissful couple of days.
Libby: ““The guy who runs Medicare for the government makes $170,000 a year. The guy who runs United Health Care makes $40 million.”
I won’t argue that CEO’s are underpaid but oh, how you love to distort things!
First of all that $40 million probably includes stock options and other compensation like healthcare coverage. It is a lot of money but not more, or much more, than other highly paid people in sports, entertainment….or education!
Second, the single salary for “the guy” that runs Medicare isn’t a good comparison. The giant bureaucracy under him is extremely costly for taxpayers. a friend who worked in one of those federal bureaucracies as a secretary was told not to work so hard because if she kept that up they’d have to fire people. We paid her to read for several hours each day!
The LA Times published information from an investigative report back in 1994 that showed the bureaucracy for social programs was growing faster that the number of needy applying for services:
I can only imagine what the bureaucracy costs now with the implementation of a bill with thousands of new regulations to plow through. CATO will give you an idea.
During this failed dismal recovery the folk in Washington DC have been living large…and larger. They have not experienced the suffering going on outside of DC.
There are better ways to take care of poor people. Families and churches and church hospitals should be encouraged and given incentives to take care of their own. Instead we are demonizing, punishing and shoving them to the back of the bus.
From Forbes magazine…”As you know if you’ve been reading this blog, Obamacare cuts $716 billion from Medicare in order to pay for its $1.9 trillion expansion of coverage to low-income Americans. It’s one of the reasons why seniors are more opposed to the new health law than any other age group. So why is it that the group that purports to speak for seniors, the American Association of Retired Persons, so strongly supports a law that most seniors oppose? According to an explosive new report from Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), it’s because those very same Medicare cuts will give the AARP a windfall of $1 billion in insurance profits, and preserve another $1.8 billion that AARP already generates from its business interests.” Avik Roy
All the mainstream media bought out by the huge amounts of Billionaires money flowing through non profit orgs all in an effort to overthrow the gov for a corporate takeover…..
The privatization of gov is a major issue that the outsourced website builders are showing.
I say why are corporations and especially a foreign company all skimming the taxpayers money.
Privatization of government programs for profit has failed. Privatize is the evil word.
The ACA is simply Affordable health care , There are still the same old Ins companies having to use 80% for actual healthcare.
Wall Street is not my master. Privatizing everything to wall street is fascism period.
The ACA worked well for me and I changed policies. Saving money was good for me.
Forbes is a wall street rag which is pushing the agenda to privatize America all to wall street profit. That 716 Billion is the waste. The money the crooks are scamming off the top for un necessary stuff. That $716 Billion is merely put to work back in the pot as expansion.
The propaganda by the fake think tanks is thick but I find it unacceptable people have not learned what the bill actually does.
Forbes never said what that $716 Billion was. It was wasted money. Now during the election The Paul Ryan Plan took that same $716 Billion identified as waste and turned it into tax cuts for the billionaires.
How can people not even remember that. All sides agreed the $716 Billion was the money being wasted. The disagreement was Obama wanted to put it back into medicaid to be used on Humans and the Tea Party wants to divert it to tax cuts for the rich.
Remember the Democrats wanted single payer and the Republicans came up with the plan. There will be things that need to be ironed out but this is the GOPs healthcare act. Obama just finished it.
The Koch brothers have it plainly written no healthcare reform.
The hate for the first African American president is clearly showing the ugly side of America.
States that did not create their exchanges now complain …they have no right. It is not socialized medicine, it is simply the same insurance companies having to stop ripping us off as much.
Again the media should address the problem with private contractors ripping us off and why was a Canadian company rewarded the web contract?
They have bills in Congress to take away our internet freedom, & The TPP which will end our sovereignty by a tribunal court, and all anybody talks about are the Koch Brothers talking points
How about we all agree to fight against the TPP?