Good news for us re: Obamacare/ACA

[carlfense]

Oh, plenty will sign up because they have families to take care of and their employer has discontinued their coverage due to this law --- there just won't be enough young people willing to overpay to keep the enterprise afloat.

We'll probably know who is right around 2016.

Or maybe before then . . .

Key Marketplace Enrollment Statistics

• Over 8 million people have selected a plan through the Health Insurance Marketplace (SBMs and FFM) through March 31st (including additional special enrollment period (SEP) activity reported through Saturday, April 19th).
• 2.2 million (28 percent) of the people who selected a Marketplace plan during the initial open enrollment period were young adults between the ages of 18 and 34. A total of 2.7 million (34 percent) were between the ages of 0 and 34 (including additional SEP activity reported through Saturday, April 19th).

http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2014/MarketPlaceEnrollment/Apr2014/ib_2014Apr_enrollment.pdf

Hence . . . a dramatic pivot by the Congressional GOP to #BENGHAZI!!!! I suppose that's one way to distract the base from realizing that they've been systematically lied to by their own party.

 

[tschu]

Benghazi is the made-up political scandal that never ends. Yes, it goes on and on my friends. Some people...started complaining about it not knowing what it was. And now they'll keep complaining until the 2016 general election just because this is the made-up political scandal that never ends...

 

[carlfense]

Benghazi is the made-up political scandal that never ends. Yes, it goes on and on my friends. Some people...started complaining about it not knowing what it was. And now they'll keep complaining until the 2016 general election just because this is the made-up political scandal that never ends...

. . . until Billary's elected, my friends . . .

 

[BigRedBuster]

As I have said before, I am taking a wait and see attitude towards this. It is here to stay and so I hope and pray it works as well as some people think it will. I am neither going to boast and say it is a great success nor trash it as the tyrannical take over of humanity crap that the other side claims it is.

However, the 8,000,000 figure is somewhat if a faux number to throw around. Yes....I think their goal was to have 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 signed up. But, that isn't the number that will actually get insurance through the exchange.

LINK

7. Is 8 million people signing up for private insurance a success? That's hard to say.The number is higher than the 7 million people the Congressional Budget Office projected would use the exchange. The number could fall slightly below that target depending on how many people pay their premium: if Ignagni's estimate of 85 percentof customers paying holds true, for example, that would work out to 6.8 sign-ups.

THERE ARE 20 MILLION PEOPLE WHO COULD HAVE PURCHASED OBAMACARE AND DIDN'T

You could see the 8 million as a proof-of-concept: there was a sizable audience of people who decided they wanted what Obamacare was selling. This wasn't taken as a given at the start of open enrollment, or even as recently as December, when health law sign-ups lagged far behind projections.

At the same time, there are lots of people without insurance who didn't sign up. Kaiser Family Foundation estimates 28 million people were eligible to buy coverage on the exchanges (this includes the uninsured, and those already buying coverage in the individual market).

About a quarter of them decided to. That still leaves another 20 million people who didn't purchase insurance – maybe because they didn't want to, or were confused, or never even heard there were options to begin with.

"CBO has enrollment ramping up next year to 13 million and that feels like a pretty big leap given how hard it was to hit 8 million," says Levitt.

The people who signed up in 2014 were likely the most motivated, the low hanging fruit for enrollment workers. The people who will be pitched in 2015 sat out the first round of sign-ups and, come next year, could be a tougher sell.

On the good side, (so that I'm not accused of being against Obamacare because I'm echoing the political right trash) it appears the number of uninsured is lower than it has been in 6 years. That is good. 80-90% of the people who have signed up are paying their premiums. That's a good thing too.

 

[carlfense]

BRB, the expectation is that the number will continue to grow. Given the accuracy of the predictions to date (arguably even a bit too conservative) that seems reasonable.

Again, we'll see . . . but so far the law seems to be working as expected if not a bit better than expected. All the more impressive given the awful rollout of healthcare.gov.

 

[BigRedBuster]

I know....I guess my point is, I wish the conversation would switch away from this 8,000,000 mark of people who have signed up because it is deceiving to an extent. This is simply the number of people who went on line and searched for a plan and went far enough into the web site to act like they are buying a plan.

To me, there are really three major numbers that I care about:

a) Number of uninsured (has gone down some)

b) Number of insured getting insurance through the exchanges

c) Affordability of the insurance that everyone is getting be it through the exchanges or the employers/employees buying their plans as a group.

Really, a and c are the most important but b is thrown in there to see how many are actually getting their insurance directly through the system the government set up.

 

[carlfense]

I know....I guess my point is, I wish the conversation would switch away from this 8,000,000 mark of people who have signed up because it is deceiving to an extent. This is simply the number of people who went on line and searched for a plan and went far enough into the web site to act like they are buying a plan.

It's not deceiving if the projection and the results both use the same criteria. That's required for accuracy.

The 8 million number isn't a guarantee that all is well with the ACA but it is certainly evidence that reality is matching expectations.

Now if you want to talk about deception . . . that lie about only 67% of people paying would be a decent place to start. (Or if you want to go back in time, death panels, government takeovers, pull the plug on granny, etc. would also work.)

 

[BigRedBuster]

I know....I guess my point is, I wish the conversation would switch away from this 8,000,000 mark of people who have signed up because it is deceiving to an extent. This is simply the number of people who went on line and searched for a plan and went far enough into the web site to act like they are buying a plan.

It's not deceiving if the projection and the results both use the same criteria. That's required for accuracy.

The 8 million number isn't a guarantee that all is well with the ACA but it is certainly evidence that reality is matching expectations.

Now if you want to talk about deception . . . that lie about only 67% of people paying would be a decent place to start. (Or if you want to go back in time, death panels, government takeovers, pull the plug on granny, etc. would also work.)

Neither one of us is in that idiotic group so let's leave that out of the conversation.

The 8,000,000 mark was a good statistic to look at at the beginning because obviously in the first few months nobody is paying premiums yet who signed up. It was a measure of how many people are interested enough in the system that they went through the process of signing up. Signing up doesn't mean I'm getting insurance. It simply means I went and checked it out.

The longer time goes on with the program in place, that "sign up" number means less and less. Let's say I went on the system the first week and signed up but didn't end up paying the premium. Does my name stay on the rolls as "signed up"? If so, the statistic has a built in guarantee that the figure is going to grow. Hopefully there is a mechanism in the system so that this isn't the case. Hopefully if your "signed up" for a certain amount of time without paying a premium then you aren't listed as a "sign up" anymore.

Now, as time goes on, if you look at the number of people who actually paid their premiums and are getting insurance through the system, it means much more and is a much better barometer as to how the system is working.

 

[carlfense]

Neither one of us is in that idiotic group so let's leave that out of the conversation.

The 8,000,000 mark was a good statistic to look at at the beginning because obviously in the first few months nobody is paying premiums yet who signed up. It was a measure of how many people are interested enough in the system that they went through the process of signing up. Signing up doesn't mean I'm getting insurance. It simply means I went and checked it out.

The longer time goes on with the program in place, that "sign up" number means less and less. Let's say I went on the system the first week and signed up but didn't end up paying the premium. Does my name stay on the rolls as "signed up"? If so, the statistic has a built in guarantee that the figure is going to grow. Hopefully there is a mechanism in the system so that this isn't the case. Hopefully if your "signed up" for a certain amount of time without paying a premium then you aren't listed as a "sign up" anymore.

Now, as time goes on, if you look at the number of people who actually paid their premiums and are getting insurance through the system, it means much more and is a much better barometer as to how the system is working.

Sure . . . and you can find this in the HHS pdf that I linked:

However, some issuers have made public statements indicating that 80 percent to 90 percent of the people who have selected a Marketplace plan have made premium payments.

 

[BigRedBuster]

However, some issuers have made public statements indicating that 80 percent to 90 percent of the people who have selected a Marketplace plan have made premium payments.

I know, I already quoted that statistic above.

 

[carlfense]

The 8,000,000 mark was a good statistic to look at at the beginning because obviously in the first few months nobody is paying premiums yet who signed up. It was a measure of how many people are interested enough in the system that they went through the process of signing up. Signing up doesn't mean I'm getting insurance. It simply means I went and checked it out.

The longer time goes on with the program in place, that "sign up" number means less and less. Let's say I went on the system the first week and signed up but didn't end up paying the premium. Does my name stay on the rolls as "signed up"? If so, the statistic has a built in guarantee that the figure is going to grow. Hopefully there is a mechanism in the system so that this isn't the case. Hopefully if your "signed up" for a certain amount of time without paying a premium then you aren't listed as a "sign up" anymore.

Now, as time goes on, if you look at the number of people who actually paid their premiums and are getting insurance through the system, it means much more and is a much better barometer as to how the system is working.

If you know and accept the 80-90% number why such concern in the bold?

 

[BigRedBuster]

If that 80-90% stays constant, it doesn't matter. However, that won't stay the same. It may go up(which would be a good thing) or it might go down (which would possibly signal a bad thing).

Also, if a mechanism isn't in place like I mentioned, there is a built in guarantee that number will keep going up which gives political hacks a false number to throw around if in fact the percentage of premiums being paid goes way down.

Let me ask you this, taking politics completely out of it and just looking at facts and only looking at that statistic, does it really mean anything significant? I say no. The number of insured and the number actually getting their insurance through the system means much much more.

 

[carlfense]

Let me ask you this, taking politics completely out of it and just looking at facts and only looking at that statistic, does it really mean anything significant? I say no. The number of insured and the number actually getting their insurance through the system means much much more.

The significance of that statistic is that it is the best available number (so far) to estimate how many are getting insurance through the system.

 

[BigRedBuster]

Let me ask you this, taking politics completely out of it and just looking at facts and only looking at that statistic, does it really mean anything significant? I say no. The number of insured and the number actually getting their insurance through the system means much much more.

The significance of that statistic is that it is the best available number (so far) to estimate how many are getting insurance through the system.

And, I've acknowledged that in the beginning, it's the best we had.

What I'm saying is, moving forward, we should be concentrating more on the number of uninsured and the number actually paying premiums in the exchange.

edit...and they should be able to give us a statistic of how many are actually insured through the system almost as easily as how many are "signed up".

 

[carlfense]

edit...and they should be able to give us a statistic of how many are actually insured through the system almost as easily as how many are "signed up".

Maybe? Many, many, private insurers with different rates, payment schedules, etc.

In truth, single payer is simple compared to our current system.