2014***ObamaCare***2014

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Originally posted by: hoops2
Interesting article from IBD on the problems of Medicaid.

Its ridiculously low reimbursement rates — in some areas, Medicaid pays less than 40% of what private insurers pay — had already driven nearly a third of doctors to refuse new Medicaid patients.

In California, more than half of the doctors have closed their doors to Medicaid. That, in turn, led to chronic doctor shortages in many areas for existing Medicaid patients, who then ended up in the ER looking for care, getting lousy care, or going without.

The problem is that, rather than fixing this badly broken system, ObamaCare is shoving millions more into it. In fact, twice as many people who applied through an ObamaCare exchange in the first three months ended up on Medicaid rather than a private insurance plan.

With these added millions competing for increasingly scarce doctors, many will likely end up piling into ERs. And, since an ER visit won't cost them, they'll have even more incentive to make that the place to go.
Many critics of ObamaCare pointed out this adverse side effect long ago, but their concerns were, of course, ignored. As a result, millions now stuck in Medicaid will learn the hard way that ObamaCare is an empty promise


I already know my clinic will be accepting very few if any medicaid patients for that very reason.I don't believe it's limited to my clinic either.

J

J

Quote

Originally posted by: hoops2
. . . in some areas, Medicaid pays less than 40% of what private insurers pay — had already driven nearly a third of doctors to refuse new Medicaid patients.

When poor old DonDiego's family physician closed his practice last Fall in anticipation of implementation of all the brand-new improved Obamacare rules, he approached a medical group-practice, and when the receptionist learned he was enrolled in Medicare she rolled her eyes and indicated they weren't accepting new Medicare patients.

As luck would have it DonDiego's child-bride, teechur, is several years younger than he so he has kept up his family group-policy so she would have insurance. That policy acts essentially as supplemental-insurance for Medicare for poor old DonDiego so teechur and he became acceptable welcome new patients.

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Originally posted by: DonDiego
When poor old DonDiego's family physician closed his practice last Fall in anticipation of implementation of all the brand-new improved Obamacare rules, he approached a medical group-practice, and when the receptionist learned he was enrolled in Medicare she rolled her eyes and indicated they weren't accepting new Medicare patients...
Maybe they're just opposed to socialized medicine.



"If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." *


* As long as he/she is willing to accept 40% payment from Medicaid.


We still don't know how many people actually paid for their obamacare insurance. Nor do we know the age demos.
Humana "announced in an 8-K late Thursday that it expects its Medicare revenue to be substantially higher in 2014. But any revenue gains from this additional business will be fully offset by its bad experience in Obamacare. As a result, its earnings will remain flat for the year."

So, the first report that a health insurance company will lose money on Obamacare, . . . or so it would seem.
The good news, . . . if the losses are large enough, the Government will reimburse the company, . . . that's good news for Humana, not for the taxpayers.

Ref: Forbes
Oh, goodness !

"The Obama administration has decided to jettison CGI Federal, the main IT contractor that was responsible for building the defect-ridden online health insurance marketplace and has been immersed in the work of repairing it, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Federal health officials are preparing to sign a 12-month contract worth roughly $90 million, probably early next week, with a different company, Accenture, after concluding that CGI has not been effective enough in fixing the intricate computer system underpinning the federal Web site, HealthCare.gov, the individual said."
Ref: The Washington Post

"When the Obama administration selected a main contractor for healthcare.gov, they decided to use the prequalified contractors, rather than starting afresh, in order to save time, according to Bloomberg. CGI was chosen as the lead contractor for the Website over three other bidders: IBM, QSSI, and Computer Sciences Corporation. According to congressional testimony, CGI stands to be paid $292 million for its work on healthcare.gov."
Ref: Vanity Fair

So, CGI will have been paid something over $292-million, . . . and now Accenture will be paid at least $90-million to fix CGI's screw up.
$292-million here, . . . $90-million there, . . . pretty soon it adds up to real money.

But. anyway who could've foreseen the problems CGI would create?
Umm, . . .how about The Washington Post.
"CGI Federal, the main Web site developer, entered the U.S. government market a decade ago when its parent company purchased American Management Systems [AMS], a Fairfax County contractor that was coming off a series of troubled projects. CGI moved into AMS’s custom-made building off Interstate 66, changed the sign outside and kept the core of employees, who now populate the upper ranks of CGI Federal.
They include CGI Federal’s current and past presidents, the company’s chief technology officer, its vice president for federal health care and its health IT leader, according to company and other records. More than 100 former AMS employees are now senior executives or consultants working for CGI in the Washington area."

__" . . . the number of high-profile AMS projects that went awry before it was acquired, over such a relatively short period, was unusually high for a large and experienced company."

__From a former employee "“It became well known that AMS came in, and prices would go outrageously high because we were far behind. It was just kind of standard practice.’’

__"An AMS tax system prototype for Fairfax County produced some wrong addresses and erroneous taxes."

__". . . three of the new state health-care exchanges that CGI Technologies and Solutions helped develop — in Hawaii, Vermont and Colorado — have also encountered major glitches and delays."

__"Perhaps the biggest federal failure was the project for the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which manages the 401(k) accounts of 4.6 million former and current federal employees. With about $100 billion in investments at the time, it was one of the world’s largest defined-contribution benefit plans.
In 1997, AMS signed a $30 million contract to update the board’s archaic computer system. Four years later, with projected costs rising to $90 million, AMS was terminated. The company never delivered a workable system, according to a report by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs."


The Good News: Toni Townes-Whitley is a senior vice president with CGI Federal. In her current role, she oversees services to 22 U.S. federal civilian agencies. She and Michelle Obama participated in the Organization of Black Unity and the Third World Center on the Princeton campus before graduating in 1985 and becoming members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni. White House visitor records show that Townes-Whitley attended meetings at the White House at least four times between 2010 and 2013.
So far as DonDiego knows Ms. Townes-Whitley has not suffered any harm from the Obamacare debacle.


Oh, . . . look ! There's "record-keeping snags", . . . not to be confused with "glitches".

This foul-up is spawning its own language:

"orphan files" - files for which the government has a record but the insurer does not. [Some folks, for whom healthcare.gov has confirmed enrollment, have tried to pay but the insurance company rejects the payment because they have no record or account.]

"ghost files" - files for which the insurer has an enrollment record but the government does not. [DonDiego assumes healthcare.gov cannot confirm these folks are enrolled or notify them that they are enrolled.]

"unnamed errors" - files in which the government has assigned the same identification number to more than one person

"[Insurers] say they have to manually compare the lists of enrollees the government sends them with their own records because the government never built an automated system that would do the work much faster."

Ref: The Denver Post

If you ever browsed ****edcompany back in when it was in operation the wordplay joke on that company's name was Assenter. Then they had that whole debacle with Tiger Woods where at the same time woods got caught being a serial cheater Accenture had big posters up all over that had a shot of Tiger that said "Go on be a Tiger" these would great you just as you got off the plan at most major airports.

Quote

Federal health officials are preparing to sign a 12-month contract worth roughly $90 million, probably early next week, with a different company, Accenture, after concluding that CGI has not been effective enough in fixing the intricate computer system underpinning the federal Web site, HealthCare.gov, the individual said.


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