Avik Roy, Forbes:
Obamacare’s disruption of the existing health insurance market—a disruption codified in law, and known to the administration—is only just beginning. And it’s far broader than recent media coverage has implied.
[…]
If you read the Affordable Care Act when it was passed, you knew that it was dishonest for President Obama to claim that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” as he did—and continues to do—on countless occasions. And we now know that the administration knew this all along. It turns out that in an obscure report buried in a June 2010 edition of the Federal Register, administration officials predicted massive disruption of the private insurance market.
On Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney attempted to minimize the disruption issue, arguing that it only affected people who buy insurance on their own. “That’s the universe we’re talking about, 5 percent of the population,” said Carney. “In some of the coverage of this issue in the last several days, you would think that you were talking about 75 percent or 80 percent or 60 percent of the American population.” (5 percent of the population happens to be 15 million people, no small number, but let’s leave that aside.)
By “coverage of this issue,” Carney was referring to two articles. The first, by Chad Terhune of the Los Angeles Times, described a number of Californians who are seeing their existing plans terminated and replaced with much more expensive ones. “I was all for Obamacare until I found out I was paying for it,” said one.
The second article, by Lisa Myers and Hanna Rappleye of NBC News, unearthed the aforementioned commentary in the Federal Register, and cited “four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act” as saying that “50 to 75 percent” of people who buy coverage on their own are likely to receive cancellation notices due to Obamacare.
[…]
But Carney’s dismissal of the media’s concerns was wrong, on several fronts. Contrary to the reporting of NBC, the administration’s commentary in the Federal Register did not only refer to the individual market, but also the market for employer-sponsored health insurance.
Section 1251 of the Affordable Care Act contains what’s called a “grandfather” provision that, in theory, allows people to keep their existing plans if they like them. But subsequent regulations from the Obama administration interpreted that provision so narrowly as to prevent most plans from gaining this protection.
“The Departments’ mid-range estimate is that 66 percent of small employer plans and 45 percent of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfather status by the end of 2013,” wrote the administration on page 34,552 of the Register. All in all, more than half of employer-sponsored plans will lose their “grandfather status” and get canceled. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 156 million Americans—more than half the population—was covered by employer-sponsored insurance in 2013.
Another 25 million people, according to the CBO, have “nongroup and other” forms of insurance; that is to say, they participate in the market for individually-purchased insurance. In this market, the administration projected that “40 to 67 percent” of individually-purchased plans would lose their Obamacare-sanctioned “grandfather status” and get canceled, solely due to the fact that there is a high turnover of participants and insurance arrangements in this market. (Plans purchased after March 23, 2010 do not benefit from the “grandfather” clause.) The real turnover rate would be higher, because plans can lose their grandfather status for a number of other reasons.
How many people are exposed to these problems? 60 percent of Americans have private-sector health insurance—precisely the number that Jay Carney dismissed. As to the number of people facing cancellations, 51 percent of the employer-based market plus 53.5 percent of the non-group market (the middle of the administration’s range) amounts to 93 million Americans.
This is a failure of leadership that I don’t believe the GOP recognizes that we recognize. And by allowing Democrats to break ranks and call for legislation delaying the individual mandate — something the Cruz/Lee plan had already prompted House conservatives and Republicans to call for — even the political calculus argument fails, and shows yet again that a party run on pragmatism is a party that will work diligently to bracket principle if they see some political advantage in doing so (even if, as is so often the case, they are wrong in their assessments).
The truth is, it was the TEA Party and its supporters — whose numbers are only growing, despite the constant claim that these people are despised — who were out front actively attempting to block implementation of the law. To prevent them, they knew Obama was prepared to shut down parts of the government.
Had the GOP stuck together and rode out the shutdown until this debacle unfurled publicly, they’d have benefited from taking a principled stance. Instead, they joined the left in hounding and mocking those who stood up for the American people, not for some political goal but because it was the right thing to do.
Which is why today so many people have moved to independent status.
Funny, when you think about it: the GOP establishment has long told us we need to win over independents in order to win elections. Turns out they were right, but for all the wrong reasons.
And of course, most if not all of those newly uninsured will remain so on January 1, because there is no “approved” avenue to purchase any replacement coverage at any price. If we think things are in meltdown now, wait until then.
And BTW, I don’t think there’s any fix, short of repealing this abomination. Even if there’s suddenly a delay in the individual mandate, insurers are not suddenly going to reissue old policies. They’ve destroyed those policies and revamped according to the ACA. The administrative burden would be tremendous. Nope, the destruction of the American Health Care system is all but complete. We will now be faced with something which, though horrible, will be deemed by the GOP worthies as “too big to fail.”
My wife and I can hardly wait for my employer coverage to go away. Even more awesome, I’ll probably get a raise, but nowhere near enough to cover the increase in premiums.
So, we’ll pay the fine and pay cash for prescriptions and doctor visits.
Yay us!!
The administrative burden would be tremendous. Nope, the destruction of the American Health Care system is all but complete. We will now be faced with something which, though horrible, will be deemed by the GOP worthies as “too big to fail.”
I believe there existed a similar sentiment just after the conclusion of World War II, regarding the extent of government control over the economy in the war years, and the prospect of the reintegration of the returning warriors to the job market in time of peace. “We must control!”, shouted the statists, “But what an enormous prospect!”
“You needn’t control,” replied the sane-men, “Just leave them be.” And come the event? Just leave them be won out, if only because the alternative was nuts. And . . . . Boom. Economic boom.
Can we now dispense with the notion that what we need to do is “repeal and replace” Obamacare?
Obamacare takes an imperfect but generally successful system and turns it into molten slag. “Replace” it with what? Something that would have dissolved it in acid?
We told them that it would be a clusterfarg of stellar proportions–technologically, economically, politically, socially, etc.
We were sneered at, and they rammed it through, using legislative chicanery and dirty dealing.
And now it is becoming clear to at least a few of the proverbial low information voters that it’s a clusterfarg of galactic proportions, and it’s got the letter “D” and a donkey logo stamped all over it.
Sherm is right: the only “fix” for this is complete repeal. Which should have happened about a year ago. Once the Titanic touches the iceberg, it’s a bit late to attempt a course correction.
Once the Titanic touches the iceberg, it’s a bit late to attempt a course correction.
That may be, but anyone advocating for lifeboats and survival gear is just a crazy racist tinfoil hat-wearing idiot. No, really — all the cool kids say so!
Looks the gov’t is getting ahead of the chaos curve.
I wonder if government agents fantasize about using those pepperball cannons?
Squid, I can only hope that when the clusterfargers who steered the ship directly for the iceberg start putting on dresses and screaming “women and children (and red indians and spacemen) first,” they finally get a dose of karma. Good and hard.
Not holding my breath.
My theory, for what it’s worth, is that the Obama crew was counting on a robust economic recovery following the 2008-9 collapse. Consequently, they rushed through their healthcare legislation which, ironically, merely via its looming shadow, has only helped to impede a recovery.
Not that there ever was or will be a time, but this is precisely the wrong time, economically speaking, to even attempt implementing such a disruptive scheme.
– In the words of Fidel: “Theres never a good time for a revolution, you just have to go for the Utopia whenever the opportunity presents itself.”
– Which of course is true because no sane functioning society is ever going to allow it of its own accord.
It is also worth noting that amongst those of us who will be allowed to keep our coverage, it comes at a higher cost now without adding any value whatsoever.
Obviously Ted Cruz’s fault.
Utility comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
seeking out a sucker.
Odd, innit, that the only foundation fit for building Utopia on is the bones of the people they say they’re building it for?
Ask Pol Pot.
It is also worth noting that amongst those of us who will be allowed to keep our coverage, it comes at a higher cost now without adding any value whatsoever.
No value at all? Pish-tosh, my good man! It’s providing
very lucrative phony-baloney jobs to thousands upon thousands of good Dem-voting bureaucratscrappy service for people you could help much more effectively through your local charitable efforts.No value. Huh!
Hopefully they will used a much more earth friendly method in the killing fields. Do you know how long it takes those plastic bags to break down?
it comes at a higher cost now without adding any value whatsoever.
well if you’re a man you get maternity bennies so there’s that
Paradise In America 2013!
Well you’ll work harder with a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers til you starve
Then your head skewered on a stake
Now you can go where people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need my son:
Is a holiday in Cambodia
Where people dress in black
A holiday in Cambodia
Where you’ll kiss ass or crack
Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot [etc.]
And it’s a holiday in Cambodia
Where you’ll do what you’re told
A holiday in Cambodia
Where the slums got so much soul
wow, I remember when pop singers used to recognize the evils of any totalitarian state no matter what the perceived end of the political spectrum they came from.
California Über Alles
Charter 77 is a loose, informal and open association of people of various shades of opinion, faiths and professions united by the will to strive individually and collectively for the respecting of civic and human rights in our own country and throughout the world–rights accorded to all men by the two mentioned international covenants, by the Final Act of the Helsinki conference and by numerous other international documents opposing war, violence and social or spiritual oppression, and which are comprehensively laid down in the UN Universal Charter of Human Rights.
Charter 77 springs from a background of friendship and solidarity among people who share our concern for those ideals that have inspired, and continue to inspire, their lives and their work.
Charter 77 is not an organization; it has no rules, permanent bodies or formal membership. It embraces everyone who agrees with its ideas and participates in its work. It does not form the basis for any oppositional political activity. Like many similar citizen initiatives in various countries, West and East, it seeks to promote the general public interest.
link
havel tea party
“Ask Pol Pot.”
Or any one wearing the uniform of the U.S. Armed Forces who; according to Dick Durbin, are really nothing more than a modern day version of the Khmer Rouge.
His payback is coming. Arrogance always overplays and eventually has to pay.
, and which are comprehensively laid down in the
UN Universal Charter of Human Rightsus constitution.Take my word for it, Danger. A whole lot of voter fraud is going to take place here in Illinois to keep him in office.
I, of course, will be working with his opponent.