U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration claimed that 106,185 people selected a health care plan through federal and state Obamacare exchanges during the month of October – well below the goal of 500,000.
Only 27,000 signed up through the federally administered exchanges.
Of course as we previously noted, even these abysmal numbers appear to be artificially high. How come? Well let’s just say there’s a big difference between putting a plan in your online shopping cart and actually paying for it – and just because 106,185 people “selected” a plan that doesn’t mean they actually purchased it.
Meanwhile millions of Americans have seen their existing coverage cancelled due to Obamacare – while millions more have seen their premiums increase.
Nonetheless the Obamacare “good news” was heralded by a White House eager for something – anything – positive to say about the law in the wake of its disastrous rollout.
“The marketplace is working, and people are enrolling,” embattled U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) director Kathleen Sebelius said.
Hmmm-kay, lady.
35 comments
There’s those pesky semantics he and Carney keep stumbling over, again and again.
These lying-ass charlatans masquerading as the “leaders” of this country can’t even keep up with all the lies they tell the American people on a daily basis. The Iraqi Information Minister has more credibility than Jay Carney. I’m not sure he conducts a press conference or stand-up routine for The Onion. Chaos and disaster ensue when you put liberals in charge, particularly with staggeringly incompetent ones like we have now.
Liberals in charge? You are out of your mind if you think Obama or any of the corporatist thugs around him are liberal.
Senator Bluster informs his staff that he is going to train his memory.
“I don’t know what system to use, but I’m looking for one that will
enable me, when I am interviewed, to remember what to forget.”
Just caught the headlines from Barry. His semantics changed.
Remember when everything was “I” ? I did this/ I did that/ I killed Bin Laden/ I’ll fix it, etc. Now today it is “WE fumbled it”….what a pissant……..
Obamacare = Romneycare = Heritage Foundation plan = Republican Plan.
THAT’S why they can’t come up with a replacement; it’s the GOP’s free market plan.
This argument from hypocrisy nonsense is a waste of time. Do you honestly believe that Obamacare is a conservative program? The fact that the Heritage Foundation ever supported it (they claim they were only ever promoting a more limited mandate for catastrophic coverage, which is a dubious claim for the reasons expressed in the attached) was a violation of conservative principles. Heritage bought into the notion that government takeover was inevitable and that a mandate was preferable to single payer and were advocating what they considered a less damaging alternative. Subsequent history showed their political calculus to have been incorrect (Americans remain stubbornly hostile to single payer) and Heritage has unequivocally retracted their support. But yes, lets keep talking about a position a think tank advocated 20 years ago as the eternal and perfect embodiment of conservative thought.
As to a replacement, the status quo ante was preferable to Obamacare. So no plan would be better than this plan. But of course this liberal talking point is completely dishonest. Ryan has put forth a number of plans. DeMint put one out. Scholars at Heritage and other think tanks have put out plans (with nary a mandate in sight). You might not like them for ideological reasons or think they will not work as designed (kind of how I feel about Obamacare, and so far I am not being forced to reconsider), but to continue to deny their very existence is bordering on pathological.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204618704576641190920152366
Do you honestly believe that Obamacare is a conservative program?
It depends.
The exchange site, for the most part, is a conservative idea (although I imagine conservatives would not like it run by the government). Creating a website where insurance companies can all offer their product to the consumer and effectively compete for customers is not a bad idea. The free market is supposed to compete, and for a wide variety of reasons, it did not before these exchanges opened
Expanding Medicaid and offering insurance subsidies to cover the poorer people? Conservative, no, but Nixon came up with something similar.
Mandates? No, but Republicans pushed for them. Nixon thought up employer mandates. An individual mandate was also thought up by the Heritage Foundation and pushed by prominent Republicans (Newt Gingrich in particular) as part of an alternative solution to HillaryCare, not to mention implemented in RomneyCare.
Regulations preventing insurance companies from dropping customers with preexisting conditions? Absolutely not conservative.
Barring lifetime maximums? Absolutely not conservative.
Requiring coverage for various services? Absolutely not conservative.
I would honestly consider a lot of these changes much further to the right than real universal health care reforms. For all the huffing and puffing about “SocialCommuMarxist” ObamaCare, the effort NEVER considered single payer and effectively trashed the notion of a public option during the hashing out before its passage.
The simple fact of the matter is that conservatives don’t want universal health care, primarily because it is impossible to achieve without a significant amount of government interference, but also because they honestly just don’t give a shit. Yes, tell us how horrible it is that people are having their policy cancelled or that their plan is going up, but since when did they ever give a shit about the millions of people who couldn’t afford to be in the system, or who were wrongfully thrown out of it by an abusive for-profit private industry? How many people will not be insured due to red states refusing to expand Medicaid, which is funded at LOWEST by 90% by the feds? How many people would have had a better experience if their state chose to run their own exchange? No, states were encouraged not to partake in these two things, specifically because it would hinder reform. This was done by none other than Jim DeMint, suggested right here on this site.
We know what “conservatives” want to do with the country. Tort reform (even when it has done little to help Texas and other states and done much to hurt actual victims of malpractice), allow insurance companies to sell across state lines (thus making whichever state has the lowest insurance regulations king, as Delaware is to credit card companies), change Medicare into a voucher system that will not rise with the growing cost of health care (and flooding Medicare dollars into private insurers’ coffers), turn Medicaid into a block grant system (which is an awful, awful fucking idea, especially for a state as corrupt as SC), let high risk pools continue to work ever so perfectly (thanks for that gem, McConnell, but high risk pools are absolute crap, as many who have looked into those pools would happily tell you), etc. Sounds like an even better wet dream for health care middlemen than the ACA.
Democrats failed to put up better legislation (plenty of Democrats don’t mind letting insurance companies write a good bit of their reform for them, others will simply take it because that’s the best they are going to get) but the legislation at least tries to improve things. I’d gladly call for an end to the ACA if we could get actual universal health care reform. I still believe the ACA improves things and is far better than going back to what we had before, and far, far better than a majority of the crap Republicans keep dreaming up.
I was just about to reply, “No one is going to read everything you just posted”.
But then I caught this gem, “I still believe the ACA improves things.”, and realized it doesn’t matter.
+3
I covered the background with Heritage already. Yes Obamacare is less socialist than single payer, but just because Obama could not get his dream system does not suddenly make it conservative. And lets not forget many Dems are on record as needing ACA as a stepping stone to single payer.
There is also a lot of framing in your answer like “Regulations preventing insurance companies from dropping customers with preexisting conditions? Absolutely not conservative.” Of course answering every problem with more government regulations is not conservative. But every Republican proposal I have seen starts from the need to cover preexisting conditions. Just because they do not use the same regulatory fiat model does not mean Republicans are heartless bastards who hate sick people. That you honestly believe Republicans “just don’t give a shit” is astonishingly closed minded and bigoted. I hate to break it to you, but many of us actually think market based reforms will work much better than any centrally planned monstrosity liberals dream up. I get that you disagree and think that conservative ideas wont work, but to impugn bad motives to ideological disagreements is just nuts.
Obamacare is already costing people more coverage than it is providing. Does that mean Obama hates the people who have lost coverage because of his program? What about the 25+ million who were estimated to be without coverage even under Obamacare (and before the disastrous roll out)? Does Obama hate them as well?
Romneycare is a large part of the reason O-man is still at 1600 Penn.
I don’t even believe the 27,000 number. The government lies about every other statistic, why should I believe them on this one? Especially with the politics in play.
Btw, plenty of people want socialized healthcare, many of them are unemployed or gaming “disability”, etc. and are the type of people that have no shame and do just enough to get by in life-taking whatever they can get for free.
Why haven’t these people signed up in mass yet? Because, simply, they are lazy and/or stupid.
The process isn’t easy enough yet. For the same reasons they don’t have a jobby job, they haven’t yet been able to successfully sign up for their subsidized healthcare.
I doubt the process will become easier anytime soon, so one of two things will happen:
1. Obamacare will fail, if not outright, it will just be a massive taxpayer funded failure servicing a small percentage of the population.
or
2. It’s failure will be the excuse for a “single payer” system, maybe even via Executive Order so that Obama can save his masterstroke.
They signed up….for Medicaid that is because if you make below a certain threshold you qualify. So the shitards that were working will quit and sit on their ass. The country is in such a shape you can get more by doing nothing than doing something. In short its ASSBACKWARDS….SDRAWKCABSSA.
Good point. There’s probably a half way point/sweet spot, where they are motivated enough to get a shitty ass job and meander through life in mediocrity, but in my estimation still not going to go through the bullshit for Obamacare, yet making more than medicaid eligibility allows.
These are the people that would probably wait in line at some government agency and fill out forms by instruction of the welfare industrial complex(known as government) “workers”.
The Navigators are supposed to fill the role of enrolling the stupid and/or lazy, but the system is so fucked they can’t even do that so the parasites will wait until it all get easier.
Here’s the numbers put out by HHS.
You might want to read the fine print, or rather the notes, especially Note (8). It does not say they actually have an insurance policy and coverage.
Perhaps someone can explain exactly what “pre-effectuated enrollment”
means.
HEALTH INSURANCE MARKETPLACE: NOVEMBER ENROLLMENT REPORT
November 13, 2013
http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2013/MarketPlaceEnrollment/rpt_enrollment.pdf
Total Marketplace Applications, Eligibility Determinations, and Marketplace Plan
Selections By Marketplace Type and State 10-1-2013 to 11-2-2013
Number of Individuals Who Have Selected a Marketplace Plan (8).
Notes:
(8) “Individuals Who Have Selected a Marketplace plan ” represents the total number
of “Individuals Determined Eligible to Enroll in a plan Through the Marketplace” who have selected a plan (with or without the first premium payment having been received directly by the Marketplace or the issuer) during the reference period. This is also known as pre-effectuated enrollment .
“pre-effectuated”…sounds like it went off in their hand.
Interesting, so basically they draw no distinction between those who have paid and those saying they are going to pay.
lol…welp, the people running this program couldn’t even manage a used car sales lot.
There’s no doubt that at least 50% of those “signed up” but have not paid, are not going to pay.
PERIOD. It’s not even doubtful. I’d say they would be lucky to have 14,000 enrolls at this point.
I agree. I think 50% of those signed up but haven’t paid yet will not pay is a high estimate. I would be willing to bet it will be around 20%, maybe even less.
Well, it’s no longer Bush’s fault – after the President’s presser this morning, it is now the federal gubamint’s technology purchasing procedures that are the problem:
“And you combine that with the fact that the federal government does a lot of things really well (Really? Name three that don’t involve making war). One of the things it does not do well is information technology procurement. You know, this is kind of a systematic problem that we have across the board….that I think is — is worth noting, a lot of focus has been on the website and the technology, and that’s partly because that’s how we initially identified it; you know, these are glitches. What we’re discovering is that part of the problem has been technology, hardware and software, and that’s being upgraded…What is true is that, as I said before, our IT systems, how we purchase technology in the federal government is cumbersome, complicated and outdated…
Notice not one reference to the crony capitalist deal between Michelle Obama’s friend and the US gov’t?
I wonder where in the procurement procedures it says, “When the President’s wife in a friend seeking gov’t business, nothing in this manual applies.”?
Man, I’m slipping, I completely missed that – he only mentioned software twice and “glitches” four times so obviously Moochelle’s friend can’t be at fault. Ha! The most basic problem as I understand it is the software code. But it is all
Bush’sthe “technology purchase’s” faultI’ll bet those in the purchasing department involved with ‘technology’ don’t appreciate their boss, Michelle Obama, not coming to bat for them.
I blame Bush
Yeah so what else is new…
Bank Bailouts
The President may have just doomed his own legacy:
“Already people who have plans that pre-date the Affordable Care Act can keep those plans if they haven’t changed. That was already in the law. That’s what’s called a grandfather clause that was included in the law. Today we’re going to extend that principle both to people whose plans have changed since the law too effect and to people who bought plans since the law took effect.
He only gave some folks an extra year so before the DINOs, RINOs and LINOs are done this thing is going to be an even bigger legislative mess. Congressman (particularly Dims) are getting hammered at home about the ACA and are going to feel obliged to do something to save themselves in the mid-terms.
Yawn . . . same old Circle Jerk of Losers with their same old boring shit they post day after day after day and think they’re funny and witty and cute. Do you clowns even have a life outside of Obama-Hating?
Don’t hate the players baby, hate the game.
Speaking of socialized medicine… I flew over to the UK several years ago, met a Episcopalian priest (a woman). Gave her a ride to Cambridge since I was renting a car, driving a little further up north. Her son was in the US military, his wife was having a baby over there. She said their medicine/hospital reminded her of ours 20 years ago. So, Ocare/ACA is really a stepping stone, to socialized? So we have to revert? What a crock.
Oh well, we’ll see, I guess.
Nice if you can afford them. In the US healthcare is very rationed.
Obamacare isn’t socialized medicine. If it was no one would have dropped and everyone would be on it. You would be able to go any hospital or any doctor and not worry medical bills.
“You would be able to go any hospital or any doctor and not worry medical bills.”
But you would definitely be worried about getting adequate care in a timely manner.
Sarcasm: Yes, I watch the nightly news of those people protesting in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Germany, France, etc. So many people carrying signs saying “Please! We need to exclude those with pre-existing conditions” and “I want my health care cancelled when I get sick!” and “ME ME ME Screw everybody else!”
Good post, Jon. I watched Bill Moyer’s Journal last night and two Green Party spokeswomen, Jill Stein and Margaret Flowers expressed, most eloquently, how Obamacare is nothing more than a sop to the creepy, crooked health care industry.
http://billmoyers.com/segment/preview-the-path-of-positive-resistance/