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Can the ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers Be Believed?
An anonymous reader writes "When the Obama administration announced on April 1 that an estimated 7.1 million had signed up for ObamaCare by the end of March, it seemed a nearly impossible achievement. To reach 7.1 million, sign-ups had to rocket up by 67% in just one month. That's astounding enough, but an IBD review of existing ObamaCare enrollment data shows that the mathematical challenge of reaching 7.1 million sign-ups was even tougher."
for some, its about getting insurance AT ALL if you want it.
pre-existing bullshit was one thing that needed fixing and its fixed.
SOME discount if you are a single buyer (not group plan based) is also there. in fact, it can be lower than cobra payments.
so, there was some benefit.
I'm unlucky in that my cobra payment is about as bad as my pre-obamacare non-group policy. I was unemployed with single policy for a while, then went contract and had a better pkg, then went full time and had a pretty decent pkg, now I'm laid off, on cobra and its back to non-group level monthly premiums that I was doing before I had that last job.
the insurance companies are raping us again, and using this as an excuse. nothing I'm doing has anything to do with obamacare but my rates went up a lot over the last yr or two and the 'discounts' are not really discounts that I can see.
but still, they can't cancel you for having pre-existing stuff and they can't totally deny you, either. those were 2 major evils pre-obama.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
To reach 7.1 million, sign-ups had to rocket up by 67% in just one month. That's astounding enough.
A very very large number of people, myself included, tend to wait until the last minute to do things, especially if it's not something they particularly want to do. Especially if it's something they don't especially NEED right now, and will have to pay by the month for.
Just ask the IRS for a graph of how many people self-file their taxes in April as opposed to Jan/Feb. At least there there is the motivation for getting a refund earlier. There may be some people who have conditions that need to be treated now, but I'm willing to bet that the list of healthier people who never got insurance is much larger.
Casual observation suggests, Republicans would find it very hard to believe and the Democrats would find it totally within the realm of possibilities. My brother is consultant for PeopleSoft benefits management module. According to him, about 10% of the employees enroll as soon as the period opens. After that spike there is a lull, and about 50% of the employees enroll in the last week (of a typical 4 week open period), and about 25% enroll on the last day. About 1 in 1000 miss the deadline and send despo emails and come up with sob stories why they missed it and beg to change their options. About 1 in 10000 realize they have missed the enrollment period only when they show up at a doctors offices and the friendly receptionist tells them, "Sorry Mrs McGillacady, the card is not going through". Based on that, I would say the profile of surging enrollment in the last few days/weeks seems to be consistent.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
In the first year of Obamacare we will still have more uninsured than in the last year of the Bush administration
7.1 million sign ups out of over 300 million people for a "mandatory" participation program is truly pathetic regardless whether it is above or below what was expected. Yes yes, I know the number of uninsured was closer to 60 million, so basically you are getting adoption among the intended uninsured population of just 12%. Just 12% of uninsured people are choosing Obamacare/ACA, that is what is remarkable.
Regardless of how you feel about the fact they decided to use a regressive fine on middle class taxpayers in order to force people to buy insurance... it simply ain't working.
Sure that meager adoption rate will go up over the next two years as the fines for not having insurance go up, but that is basically it. We are still left with millions and millions of uninsured.
Otherwise, I'll say how dare you expect the rest of us to pay for your health care because you don't want to.
Not wanting to be forced to buy health insurance by a government that has no real constitutional authority to force you to buy what it tells you to is not he same as not expecting to have to pay for health care.
I just saw the nice new box on my W2 that shows "employer health insurance" payments. It was about five times what I would have paid out of my own pocket for my health care last year. Had my employer been legally allowed to hand me that money directly and allow me to pay as I go, I'd be several thousand dollars ahead of the game.
There were two sorts of plans available: There was a company that sold a "trash plan" and sent a sales person to my home. This plan was not written to provide useful medical coverage for a catastrophic condition such as an auto accident with severe injury. Basically, it was a "feel good about being insured until you try to use it" plan which had the main purpose of producing income for a fraudster. I am very glad that such things are being prohibited now because I know there are lots of people who are not as careful readers of terms as I am.
The second was priced so prohibitively high that it seemed to be intended to deter the customer from purchase.
Bruce Perens.