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LQD: Obamacare: number of enrollees today vs news coverage in October/November 2013

by Xavier in Paris Thu Mar 27th, 2014 at 07:30:52 AM EST

Via http://acasignups.net

  • Sub 26-er: includes young people getting health coverage through their parent's plan
  • Medicaid and CHIP: Federal program Medicaid that includes different groups of people depending on the state, and CHIP (children coverage) program
  • Medicaid "woodworkers": people who were actually already qualified for Medicaid/CHIP programs before Obamacare but who didn't enrol prior to the law
  • SHOP: small business health program, a provision under Obamacare which allows small business to purchase health plans for their employees
  • QHP exchanges, Paid/unpaid: plans purchased through the internet exchanges (federal or state) and dully paid for, or not. There have been some billing problems for some insurers so some are still legitimately unpaid for

The graph of enrollees gives a good insight of Obamacare success today, which we could compare to a few news items from October/November 2013 (below). It also explains the tone of news a few months ago: the startup was slow and then began to build up power. Will narratives change over time?



Washington post : October 25, 2013 Sorry liberals, Obamacare problems go much deeper than the website (Ezra Klein).

The White House has time to right the ship. But not much. Health-care experts suggest the Web site needs to be running smoothly by Thanksgiving at the latest. And even then, it's possible that the initial disruption will have produced a worse risk pool in year one, leading to higher premiums in year two. In that way, the amount of help that this program will deliver to the people who need it most, at least in its early years, is degrading by the day.

Fox News  |  October 04, 2013
As ObamaCare launches, people in all age groups report problems Jim Angle.


"For young adults, Holt said of one recent survey, "if they saw 30 percent increase in their insurance premiums - these are the ones that already had coverage - 45 percent of them said they would drop coverage."
[...]
But what about the subsidies in ObamaCare that are most generous at lower income levels?
For any young person making more than $20,000 a year, insurance premiums -- not even counting deductibles of several thousand dollars -- would cost more than paying the penalty for not getting insurance.
That raises the prospect of young people deciding the plan makes no sense for them.

National Review : October 8, 2013
Thirty Obamacare Fails  Andrew Johnson

Here are some of the biggest "fails" from both the federal and state-run sites from the past week:
1. 99 Percent of Obamacare Applications Hit a Wall
Nearly every application on the federal exchanges either failed to sufficiently submit the necessary information or was inadequately processed due to issues with the website and its software.
[...]

2. Media's Favorite Obamacare Enrollee Didn't Actually Enroll
Chad Henderson drew tons of attention from top media outlets when the Obama administration identified him as a successful enrollee on the federal exchanges, only for it to be revealed by his father that he did not, in fact, enroll.
[...]

9. Less Than 1 Percent of Visitors Apply in Connecticut
Connecticut Democratic congressman Jim Himes heralded the 167 applicants on the first day for Access Health CT, the state-run exchange. That's 0.6 percent of the site's 28,000 total visitors on the first day.
[...]

11. No Enrollments in Delaware After Three Days
"If anyone in Delaware has enrolled in an Obamacare health insurance plan yet, it's news to state officials," read the lead of the state's News Journal three days into the enrollment period.
[...]

The week : November 15, 2013
ObamaCare's big millennial problem  Keith Wagstaff

.
The early ObamaCare enrollment numbers are in and they are not impressive. Only 106,000 people have signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act's exchanges, far less than the 500,000 that the White House had hoped for.
[...]
Young people who don't qualify for government subsidies -- basically, people who make more than $45,000 a year -- don't have a huge incentive to sign up for health insurance they might not even use. The $95 tax penalty for failing to buy insurance might seem worth it to a 30-year-old who would otherwise have to spend $400 a month on a private health-insurance plan.

Boston Globe : November 25, 2013
Obamacare fail isn't the site -- it's the law John E. Sununu

Obamacare is in crisis, but as the blood flows and the patient becomes ever more lightheaded, the president desperately pretends it's all intentional. As with Aykroyd's grisly "Saturday Night Live" sketch, we know it won't end well, but it's impossible to look away.
[...]
But a working website was never the real problem; it's the law itself -- which, tragically, performs as designed. By setting unrealistically high coverage standards, Obamacare renders millions of insurance policies illegal. Since Oct. 1, about 100,000 have signed up for new coverage under the law, while nearly 5 million families have had their current plans canceled.

Simple economics tells us that nearly everyone dropped by their current insurer will see rate increases; if the law demands new features, those features will cost money. We also know that prices will increase for the younger, healthier purchasers who are expected to subsidize the older and less healthy.

Blomberg : November 25, 2013
Obamacare Fiasco Erodes Government as Problem-Solver Idea Michael Tackett

The flawed rollout of Obamacare, his signature legislative achievement, is testing that premise, giving Republicans a chance to re-litigate the role of government and Democrats pause that the damage could lead to congressional losses.
[...]

Fox news through mediamatters : November 20, 2013>
Fox News Absolves GOP Of Any Blame In Obamacare Problems Thomas Bishop & Samantha Wyatt


Washington Times' Hurt: "The Fact That Republicans Were Opposed To This To Begin With Doesn't Mean That They Have Contributed To The Failure Of The Launch."
[...]
Fox's Kelly: "The Republicans Had Nothing To Do With That, I Mean Literally They Voted Against Obamacare." Fox News host Megyn Kelly claimed that GOP lawmakers had nothing to do with Obamacare problems claiming the "The Republicans had nothing to do with that, I mean literally they voted against Obamacare"
[...]

This is just a quick review from Google, so if you can find other harsh criticisms that proved unfounded, I would be glad to link to them here...

[update] added definitions for the graph

Display:
Can you concisely explain what the different parts of the graph are for?

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Thu Mar 27th, 2014 at 08:45:47 AM EST
I tried to add some definitions. Sorry I didn't managed to it before for lack of time in real life.
by Xavier in Paris on Mon Apr 7th, 2014 at 06:04:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]
So most newly insured are via the internet site and the expansion of Medicaid, while the number of those under 26 insured via their parents reduced slightly.

But this is the part I don't get: from the graph, it appears that the sub-26er option precedes Obamacare, so what is intended to change for this segment in Obamacare?

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Apr 7th, 2014 at 08:04:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]
OK I looked into this myself. This is about forcing insurance companies to keep providing under-26 insurance via their parents even if they leave college. It is non-zero at the start of the graph because this was implemented in 2010 already, the 2013 full roll-out of Obamacare maintained this with minor changes.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Mon Apr 7th, 2014 at 10:49:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes, I understand that the previous situation was that young people were dropped from coverage when coming of age. Obamacare expands their coerage in time.
by Xavier in Paris on Mon Apr 7th, 2014 at 10:51:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]


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