Is Obamacare imploding?

[miles]

It sure looks like it.

The website is an unmitigated disaster. People are disgusted with the whole mess. If this continues the Democrats will get pummeled in 2014.

For those of you who bow down to Obama, you better start praying.

 

[miles]

The Obamacare implosion is worse than you think



By Marc A. Thiessen, Published: October 14

Obamacare is imploding. But thanks to the government shutdown, everyone is talking about the implosion of the GOP instead.

The shutdown drama has distracted from the fact that Obamacare’s debut is worse than many realize — and it threatens the fundamental viability of the law itself. The administration claims the Obamacare online exchanges crashed because the Web site got more than 8 million hits in the first week. Please. You know how many people visit Amazon.com every week? More than 70 million. The difference is: 1.) Amazon seldom crashes, and 2.) on Amazon, people actually buy something.

It appears virtually no one is buying Obamacare. While administration officials brag about how many visitors the site is getting, they refuse to divulge how many people actually signed up. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was asked that directly by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.” “Fully enrolled?” Sebelius stuttered. “I can’t tell you. Because I don’t know.” That is a frightening admission of incompetence. If the Obama administration can’t even track how many people signed up, how on earth is it going to verify whether those people are eligible for subsidies? How will it protect against fraud?

The Post reported this past weekend that the failure of the Web site is worse than previously known: “Even when consumers have been able to sign up, insurers sometimes can’t tell who their new customers are because of a separate set of computer defects.” It turns out that in some 99 percent of applications, the Obamacare site did not provide insurers with enough verifiable information to enroll people in their plans.

Computer experts say the problems with the site are not because of heavy traffic but are the result of structural flaws in system architecture. It is going to take months to rebuild it. That raises a question: If the federal government can’t manage a simple Web site, how on earth is it going to manage the health care of millions of Americans?

It also means that President Obama may have no choice but to delay the individual mandate. As my American Enterprise Institute colleague, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, points out, how can Obama penalize people for not having health insurance if the government’s Web site to provide that insurance doesn’t work?

Without the individual mandate, Obamacare unravels. The only way the law works is if the government forces young, healthy people into it by threatening them with penalties for not carrying health insurance. But if there is no penalty for not signing up, then fewer Americans will sign up.

Even if the administration manages to fix the Web site and finally implement the individual mandate, people still may not join — because the plans being offered are so unattractive. To entice people to join the exchanges, the administration forced insurers to offer low monthly premiums and cover people with preexisting conditions. Insurers have responded by increasing deductibles — the out-of-pocket costs people must pay before insurance benefits kick in — to stratospheric levels.

According to an analysis this weekend by the president’s hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, “21 of the 22 lowest-priced plans offered on the Illinois health insurance exchange for Cook County have annual deductibles of more than $4,000 for an individual and $8,000 for family coverage. . . . Plans with the least expensive monthly premiums — highlighted by state and federal officials as proof the new law will keep costs low for consumers — have deductibles as high as $6,350 for individuals and $12,700 for families.” Even with federal subsidies, few Americans will bother to buy insurance with a $4,000 to $12,700 deductible — and millions won’t even be eligible for the subsidies.

If enough Americans don’t join the exchanges, Obamacare collapses. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the administration needs at least 7 million people to join the exchanges for Obamacare to be financially viable. While the administration won’t reveal sign-up rates, London’s Daily Mail reported that total sign-ups in the first week were just 51,000 people. If accurate, that would mean they have just 6,949,000 more to go to break even.

Bottom line: It turns out Obamacare is blowing itself up just fine without Republican help. Far from a few “glitches,” the president’s signature program is in free fall after only a week. But instead of focusing on the Obamacare debacle, the news is filled with stories about . . . the government shutdown. The irony is, the shutdown was intended to stop Obamacare. Instead, it is rescuing Obama from his own incompetence.

 

[Busybody]

I posted a story from a Daily Kos writer.......his insurance tripled, is screaming like a stuck pig

 

[miles]

I posted a story from a Daily Kos writer.......his insurance tripled, is screaming like a stuck pig

He's screaming at conservatives. It's his fault.

Countdown to Litlibs attacking me begins....now.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

It sure looks like it.

The website is an unmitigated disaster. People are disgusted with the whole mess. If this continues the Democrats will get pummeled in 2014.

For those of you who bow down to Obama, you better start praying.

Sure.

But Obama, like Joe Stalin, will go on tv swearing that Tea Party traitors tossed wrenches in the computers to make a black man look bad. He had no idea it was so bad.

 

[miles]

Sure.

But Obama, like Joe Stalin, will go on tv swearing that Tea Party traitors tossed wrenches in the computers to make a black man look bad. He had no idea it was so bad.

He was warned it wasn't ready for prime time, but he ignored them.

Sebelius' head should be on a stake. But then again, she's just another run of the mill incompentent in the Regime.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

He was warned it wasn't ready for prime time, but he ignored them.

Sebelius' head should be on a stake. But then again, she's just another run of the mill incompentent in the Regime.

Stalin got away with it for 30 years. Sebelius' will lose her head eventually, its how the game is played. But not before the train wrecks.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The GOP antics will go away.


Obamacare will not.

 

[zipman]

It sure looks like it.

The website is an unmitigated disaster. People are disgusted with the whole mess. If this continues the Democrats will get pummeled in 2014.

For those of you who bow down to Obama, you better start praying.

Pure comedy gold.

Thanks.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

https://scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/1378749_593799997344154_1914130517_n.jpg

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Is that a Gecko?

 

[miles]

Is that a Gecko?

I think it's a happy liberal.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I think it's a happy liberal.

tee hee

 

[renard_ruse]

It sure looks like it.

The website is an unmitigated disaster. People are disgusted with the whole mess. If this continues the Democrats will get pummeled in 2014.

For those of you who bow down to Obama, you better start praying.

Too much is being made of the website. If that's your best argument against it what do you say once its fixed?

 

[Ishmael]

A look at the technical problems.

Aetna CEO on ObamaCare code rollout


At the end of the interview, "The question is: How do we get from here to there?"

He said it could take three years or so before the marketplace's problems are fully sorted out."

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Too much is being made of the website. If that's your best argument against it what do you say once its fixed?

That there is very little incentive for the targeted groups to sign up thanks to the cost-benefit analysis that happens every day in the free market.

It won't be until the fines are terrifying that young people will rush to sign up.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

There was a focus on proving to the user that they would get subsidies (with no verification) before they could be shown the pricing. The background information snooping by the portal would make the NSA proud.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Too much is being made of the website. If that's your best argument against it what do you say once its fixed?

PS - Those people showing up in the emergency rooms, driving up our costs. They won't sign up, they'll still show up at the emergency room. It is a "lifestyle."

 

[renard_ruse]

That there is very little incentive for the targeted groups to sign up thanks to the cost-benefit analysis that happens every day in the free market.

It won't be until the fines are terrifying that young people will rush to sign up.

Ok, fine. So, if the number of people who sign up is below a certain threshold in three years we still have a chance to modify or repeal it at that time?

I'm afraid our last chance was with President Cruz' valiant efforts to stop it a few weeks ago. Now that anyone has signed up I don't see how we can get rid of it, but we'll see.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Ok, fine. So, if the number of people who sign up is below a certain threshold in three years we still have a chance to modify or repeal it at that time?

I'm afraid our last chance was with President Cruz' valiant efforts to stop it a few weeks ago. Now that anyone has signed up I don't see how we can get rid of it, but we'll see.

No. It has to go sooner.

It is financed on the dream of 7 million young people paying the bills for the elderly, who vote in droves.

If it works, that is capital denied to them for their own advancement to give them a product they will have little use for; there is no economic upside other than to the elderly, but trust me on this one, the iPAB will fuck them, it will have to. The money will not be there...

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

A look at the technical problems.

Aetna CEO on ObamaCare code rollout


At the end of the interview, "The question is: How do we get from here to there?"

He said it could take three years or so before the marketplace's problems are fully sorted out."

Ishmael

There's no fix on the horizon.

Back in 1995 Florida tried to stuff all its agencies in one tent, and 11 years later, when I retired, they were still trying to get it to work.

The trouble, and its always the same trouble, is: Every agency has its own IT people and princes ordering modifications no one else knows about.

Its like the 1942 North Africa invasion. After Pattons army landed the first fleet of navy ships unloaded Cadillacs and Buicks and linen and silver service and liquor and female lingerie etc. The ammunition was forgotten and left back at Norfolk. Then loaded aboard a garbage barge and towed to Africa.

 

[Ishmael]

That there is very little incentive for the targeted groups to sign up thanks to the cost-benefit analysis that happens every day in the free market.

It won't be until the fines are terrifying that young people will rush to sign up.

That pretty much sums it up. When you look at the deductibles and co-pays as compared to the catastrophic coverage premiums that they young once had it's a royal financial screwing over.

But I think we all knew that this was essentially designed to fail anyway as part of a step towards the ultimate goal.

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

That pretty much sums it up. When you look at the deductibles and co-pays as compared to the catastrophic coverage premiums that they young once had it's a royal financial screwing over.

But I think we all knew that this was essentially designed to fail anyway as part of a step towards the ultimate goal.

Ishmael

President Obama is like Eddie Haskel (to revisit an old theme); what he tells his fellows is completely unlike anything he tells the adults.

We have the quotes.

We know that is what he told Kucinich on the AF1 ride...

 

[miles]

President Obama is like Eddie Haskel (to revisit an old theme); what he tells his fellows is completely unlike anything he tells the adults.

We have the quotes.

We know that is what he told Kucinich on the AF1 ride...

I trust Eddie more.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I trust Eddie more.

Is it his lack of press credentials?