Is Obamacare on death's door?

[DieChecker]

Is there numbers on how many people had their insurance canceled and were forced to buy new insurance that was significantly more expensive?

[ninjadude]

Is there numbers on how many people had their insurance canceled and were forced to buy new insurance that was significantly more expensive?

yes. It was 2-3 million.

[DieChecker]

yes. It was 2-3 million.

Where did you get that number Ninja? I was just googling that question and it appears some people say less then 1 million, and some say 6+ million. I personnally think you are about right... It is probably less then 3 million.

I'd like to see a CBO number if one is ever figured out.

Edited April 2, 2014 by DieChecker

[Merc14]

Not really, their numbers are almost certainly understated. 7.1 million is merely the number of people who've enrolled in private coverage through an exchange so far. Those still "in line" as of yesterday will get to continue enrolling for at least a couple weeks. Anyone experiencing a change in life circumstances will also be able to buy a plan through an exchange at any point. So the number of exchange enrollments will climb above 7.1, perhaps toward 8 million.

Then there's another ~4.7 million that've enrolled in Medicaid since October due to the ACA's new eligibility rules, and ~1.8 million "woodworkers" in Medicaid who owe their enrollment to the ACA and related outreach efforts. The Medicaid numbers will growth throughout the year, as there's no end to Medicaid enrollment and more states are beginning their Medicaid expansions (Michigan and New Hampshire are just launching their expansions now).

Then add on all the folks (who haven't even been counted yet) benefiting from ACA-compliant plans they purchased off-exchange (and so aren't counted in the 7.1 million).

Then add on the ~3 million or so 20-somethings who have coverage due to the ACA's rules that plans have to allow folks to stay on family plans through age 26.

So 7.1 million is in fact a misleading number. It's vastly underestimating the impact the ACA has had so far.

So which one are you?

[Merc14]

It is hilarious that after months of not knowing how many are signed up or who has paid that on the day of the "deadline" the administration suddenly know to, a decimal point, how many have signed up. What kind of an idiot believes anything coming out of DC any longer. Of that phony number the best guess is 1/3rd (that is being very generous) are of the previously uninsured variety, the whole point of taking over 1/6th of the economy.

Now let's consider how many millions have lost their coverage because of ACA and how many tens of millions will lose their healthcare coverage when the employer mandate is finally instituted

[Rafterman]

This doesn't make the numbers look very good:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/03/31/rand-only-one-third-of-obamacare-exchange-sign-ups-were-from-the-previously-uninsured/

Now in all fairness, the full study hasn't been released so we know nothing about methodology, but I think we can all agree that this thing has and will never live up to all of the promises that were made a few years back.

So what we're left with is another bloated Government program that's going to cost way more than estimated and never meet its original goal - remember, this thing was supposed to provide affordable insurance for upwards of 40 million uninsured Americans.

[Socio]

Looking at this it would suggest the only thing exceeding for Obamacare are the lies to make it appear contrary to reality;

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/03/31/Obamacare-Real-Enrollment-Just-1-7-of-Uninsured-Covered

Obamacare, the plan purportedly created to provide health coverage for the uninsured, has enrolled just 1.7% of America's 48.6 million uninsured.

News of the disastrous numbers comes as nervous Democrats and President Barack Obama, ahead of the November midterm elections, did their best on Monday's enrollment deadline to put a positive spin on the deeply unpopular Obamacare program.

[Rafterman]

Does it also seem somewhat ironic that the ACA essentially cancelled the insurance policies of millions of Americans and then the administration claims victory when those people sign back up? What the hell else were they going to do?

[Michelle]

Does it also seem somewhat ironic that the ACA essentially cancelled the insurance policies of millions of Americans and then the administration claims victory when those people sign back up? What the hell else were they going to do?

Exactly!

[Agent0range]

snip

Edited April 2, 2014 by Agent0range

[Rafterman]

And just so we're all on the same page and remembering things correctly, here's a little HuffPo piece from last September when Camelot and the Land of Milk and Honey was apparently just on the horizon:

48 Million Americans Are Uninsured Ahead Of Obamacare Changes

The number of Americans with health insurance held steady in 2012, according to a Census Bureau report issued Tuesday morning. The number of insured Americans should increase significantly in 2014 when Obamacare is expected to cover an estimated 14 million Americans.

In the first year of the Obamacare coverage expansion, 14 million people will gain health insurance, the Congressional Budget Office projected in May. By 2023, there will be 25 million fewer Americans without health insurance than if the law had not been enacted, although 31 million will remain uninsured, according to the CBO.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/census-uninsured-2012_n_3941339.html

[DieChecker]

This doesn't make the numbers look very good:

http://www.forbes.co...usly-uninsured/

Now in all fairness, the full study hasn't been released so we know nothing about methodology, but I think we can all agree that this thing has and will never live up to all of the promises that were made a few years back.

So what we're left with is another bloated Government program that's going to cost way more than estimated and never meet its original goal - remember, this thing was supposed to provide affordable insurance for upwards of 40 million uninsured Americans.

That could be kind of good in a way... If only the uninsured signed up, you'd only have people in bad health signing up. That 3/4 of them were previously insured means that at least those people are, presumably, insurable under normal circumstances.

Perhaps a better metric of the success of Obamacare would not be how many sign up, but how many uninsured remain uninsured? If there were 50 million uninsured previously and 49 million now, the math says that is only one million less. So even if 10 million signed up, if only 1 million of he 50 million were helped, that smells like failure to me. At least as far as the stated goals are concerned. (Numbers are for discussion purposes only)

Edited April 2, 2014 by DieChecker

[Yamato]

That could be kind of good in a way... If only the uninsured signed up, you'd only have people in bad health signing up. That 3/4 of them were previously insured means that at least those people are, presumably, insurable under normal circumstances.

Perhaps a better metric of the success of Obamacare would not be how many sign up, but how many uninsured remain uninsured? If there were 50 million uninsured previously and 49 million now, the math says that is only one million less. So even if 10 million signed up, if only 1 million of he 50 million were helped, that smells like failure to me. At least as far as the stated goals are concerned. (Numbers are for discussion purposes only)

I think that's the better metric too, which will be coming up in the form of how many people are paying penalties for lack of coverage. How that figure compares to the alleged 40 million in the beginning will be a meaningful comparison of failure or success (as these discussions seem to go anyway). The democrats will interpret any results in the way that helps them out politically. Even if there are 80 million paying fines, they'll just write those people off as not wanting insurance while keeping every uninsured person before Obamacare on their PC list of desperate people who actually needed it.

[ninjadude]

Where did you get that number Ninja? I was just googling that question and it appears some people say less then 1 million, and some say 6+ million. I personnally think you are about right... It is probably less then 3 million.

It's all on ACAsignups. The graph thing. http://obamacaresignups.net/14/03/25/one-more-post-re-omg-5m-cancelled-talking-point

[ninjadude]

It is hilarious that after months of not knowing how many are signed up

wrong. I've posted the numbers from ACAsignups for months.

the administration suddenly know to, a decimal point, how many have signed up.

that's not what they said

[ninjadude]

Now in all fairness, the full study hasn't been released so we know nothing about methodology,

because if we did, it would leak like a sieve

[ninjadude]

Does it also seem somewhat ironic that the ACA essentially cancelled the insurance policies of millions of Americans and then the administration claims victory when those people sign back up?

no. Go back and look at the graph from ACAsignups. There are some 20 million people who benefited. So far. The cancelled insurance thing is only about 2-3 million.

[ninjadude]

And just so we're all on the same page and remembering things correctly,

And gee ACAsignups shows 17-22 million affected so far. This is just year 1 of enrollments.

[ninjadude]

Even if there are 80 million paying fines,

Yam, you don't seem to really get this. That's more people than are uninsured. So no, 80 million is fantasy. More like a few thousand.

[F3SS]

It's not going to get interesting until after the second year of fines. How many people pay the $95 one-shot doesn't have enough people caring if they get insurance or not.

[DieChecker]

no. Go back and look at the graph from ACAsignups. There are some 20 million people who benefited. So far. The cancelled insurance thing is only about 2-3 million.

Actually your link says....

So, here's what I'm willing to do: Since 5M is the most-cited figure, I'm willing to use that. And since 1.5 million appears to be the maximum number that have taken the administration up on their extension offer, I'm even willing to knock a couple hundred thousand off of that in the interests of being, shall we say, "conservative".

This means that we can subtract 1.3 million from 5 million, leaving 3.7 million people who genuinely had to replace their existing non-compliant health insurance policy with a fully-compliant one...via either the ACA Exchanges or off-exchange, directly through the insurance companies.

And as I explained yesterday, until I know how many of those 3.7 million replaced their policy off-exchange instead of on the exchanges, I have no way of knowing how many to "subtract" from the graph and therefore can't do so.

3.7 million lost their insurance. The only point of discussion is as to where they went to get their insurance back? Off the exchanges or off the regular market? But either way it was almost 4 million people.

Edited April 3, 2014 by DieChecker

[Merc14]

I have had my warning and am out of this thread.

[Yamato]

Yam, you don't seem to really get this. That's more people than are uninsured. So no, 80 million is fantasy. More like a few thousand.

Huh? It was a hypothetical statement about the future. Please don't confuse theory with fantasy.

A few thousand is only a tenth of one percent of a few million. Are you suggesting that 99.9% of people will sign up for Obamacare and the Fesses of the country only amount to 0.1%? You don't think there are any republicans in the US who will refuse to participate? Right.

[aztek]

Sebelius Says Another 3 Million In Medicaid Thanks To ObamaCare

The Obama administration announced an additional three million people enrolled in the expanded Medicaid health insurance programs for the poor, bolstering the White House’s numbers of Americans with medical care coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Earlier this week, President Obama said 7.1 million people have signed up for coverage in private health plans available via state and federal marketplaces known as exchanges.

But also part of the President’s signature health legislation is the expanded Medicaid program. Though states were given the option to participate in the expansion, 26 states and the District of Columbia did so seeing an opportunity to increase benefits at little cost to state taxpayers.

The federal government traditionally picks up a little more than half of the cost of Medicaid. But funding under the health law is unlike past efforts to expand Medicaid in that the federal government will pick up the full tab for the first three years. The state gradually has to pick up some costs in 2017, but by 2020, the federal government is still picking up 90 percent or more of the Medicaid tab.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceJapaneseen/2014/04/04/sebelius-says-another-3-million-in-medicaid-thanks-to-obamcare/?partner=yahoofeed

Edited April 4, 2014 by aztek

[F3SS]

You don't think there are any republicans in the US who will refuse to participate? Right.

That makes me question what libertarians plan on doing?