This morning, I spoke to an Obamacare apologist who was nearly apoplectic over my calculation of the number of people who have lost their insurance so far due to Obamacare. This fellow kept telling me that most of the people whose policies were cancelled were offered substitute policies by their insurance carriers. How could I say that they had lost coverage, he kept saying.
The point being made is one that the Obamacrats have chosen as part of their latest response to the Obamacare debacle. The problem with it, of course, is that it is just not true.
1. The a huge chunk of the cancelled plans were issued by companies that are no longer going to offer policies in the individual market in affected states. That means that every one of their policy holders was cancelled with no substitute offered.
2. For the folks who were offered a substitute, the choice they were given is just one of the plans being sold on the Obamacare exchange. To be clear, however, the folks whose plans were cancelled cannot just sign up with their carrier for the substitute plan if they hope to get a subsidy for their premiums. The only way to get a subsidy is to buy the insurance on the exchange, and they cannot do that because the exchanges are not working properly.
As of now, close to ten million more people have seen their plans cancelled due to Obamacare than have gotten new insurance. This is all coming from a program that was sold as increasing the numbers of the insured. Instead, it is doing the exact opposite.
Those are the facts.
The point being made is one that the Obamacrats have chosen as part of their latest response to the Obamacare debacle. The problem with it, of course, is that it is just not true.
1. The a huge chunk of the cancelled plans were issued by companies that are no longer going to offer policies in the individual market in affected states. That means that every one of their policy holders was cancelled with no substitute offered.
2. For the folks who were offered a substitute, the choice they were given is just one of the plans being sold on the Obamacare exchange. To be clear, however, the folks whose plans were cancelled cannot just sign up with their carrier for the substitute plan if they hope to get a subsidy for their premiums. The only way to get a subsidy is to buy the insurance on the exchange, and they cannot do that because the exchanges are not working properly.
As of now, close to ten million more people have seen their plans cancelled due to Obamacare than have gotten new insurance. This is all coming from a program that was sold as increasing the numbers of the insured. Instead, it is doing the exact opposite.
Those are the facts.
4 comments:
Obamacare is horrible. The last thing the right has to do is engage in intellectually dishonest ad hominem attacks. The justified attacks are more than enough.
This is a good example. Everybody knows that the web site doesn't work. Obviously, people who want to sign up through the exchanges, whether because they are uninsured, had their policy canceled and need new coverage, or just want to move to a subsidized plan, have largely been unable to do so. To harp on the few who have signed up on the exchanges, doesn't make the known failure of the site any worse. It' s a debacle; maybe it will be fixed soon, maybe it won't. If it is fixed soon, there will be adequate time for people who need coverage as of Jan 1 to obtain it. If it isn't fixed soon, there will obviously have to be changes made.
Those whose received notice that their plans will be canceled in January (many notices provide for cancellations later in the year), have insurance today and will continue to have insurance so long as they can sign up in time on the exchange. Many of those canceled who are not eligible for subsidies may very well have already obtained alternative insurance directly from their existing carrier or another carrier. Of course, nowhere in your diatribe do you allow for any of these possibilities. It does sound worse the way you portray it. But shouldn't the goal be to present the arguments fairly and maintain your credibility while Obama has plainly lost his?
I want to add one additional point to avoid confusion:
I am not suggesting that if a canceled policy holder is able to sign up on the exchange, that all will be fine. It won't be. Obama will still have lied that existing plans can be kept. More important the replacement plan is likely to have higher deductibles and a smaller network, so that many will not be able to keep their doctor, despite Obama's promise that all would.
This is bad enough.
To hotpanera:
The failure is not just one of the website. Nor is it even the fact that for the most part, the possible replacement policies are worse than the ones being cancelled. The problem here is that a program that was sold on a dishonest basis is now doing exactly the opposite of what was promised. Instead of there being millions more folks with insurance, millions fewer are insured.
Jeff-
I am a self-employed individual in Connecticut who received a cancellation notice from Anthem with the news that they'd be kind enough to enroll me in a similar plan with a 40+% higher premium.
I just wasted an hour trying to deal with accesshealthct.com. After entering tons of data I was suddenly greeted with "System Unavailable", try at a later time.
So I called the phone number for accesshealthct...After pressing buttons for five minutes I finally came to the "speak with a Rep" option, and was then told "the wait time is over 6 minutes". So I pressed option for having them call me back and ended up in an infinite loop of "to leave a message in English, press 2" followed by silence (as in, no way to leave a msg). So I tried to find an "Assister" in my zip code, hell, in my county. No matter what zip I put in it's always the same answer: "No results match your search"... What a mess.
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