There you go conservatives: Obamacare is failing

I don't know how forky can find plans on the web site since you are not provided a price until after you fill out the application with one's own personal data.

Today is the last day to apply if one want's to be covered on Jan 1. With all the exemptions granted by obama is there anybody left who has to be covered by Jan 1?

Hmm, . . . well, . . . if one's individual insurance has been cancelled, one is eligible for a "hardship exemption" and allowed to enroll in a bare bones catastrophic plan, not including all the new mandated coverages, which is typically restricted to people under 30 years-old or others with an exemption.
[The "hardship exemption" was not intended by Congress for this purpose, . . . but, heckfire, the whole Affordable Care Act is really nothing more than a bag of suggestions anyway, . . . open to whatever interpretation the President employs.]

But, if one has not had one's insurance cancelled one must purchase the new, improved, all-Obamacare-requirements-included health insurance, . . . or face a penalty-tax.

In the second post of this thread DonDiego made some predictions, . .. some of which are already apparent.
Today, he will make another: No one will actually pay the penalty-tax in 2014.
The Government would have significant difficulty collecting the penalty-tax of those who don't pay anyway, . . . but as those unfortunates who remain under the burden of the tax realize the unfairness of it all, legislation, . . . or, more likely, yet another Presidential Executive Action will lift this burden. He That Must Be Obeyed is, above all, beneficent, . . . especially with other persons' money.


A Clarification
Just to explain more clearly the "exemption" for those who have had their insurance cancelled:

"The insurers, . . . got late notice Thursday night of the new rules: People dumped by their insurers could buy bare-bones 'catastrophic' plans or get a hardship exemption from having to buy health insurance at all."
[Either option lowers potential revenues and thus concerns the insurance companies, which had] "calculated that the prospect of millions of new customers brought their way by the Affordable Care Act and its coverage requirements would make up for any disruption that came along with the law."
__from The Wall Street Journal 12/23

What a softball! - I win the internet! - I so rulez you!!!!! Wait, I'm really sorry about that...I was channeling malibber for a moment there.

Here's how Illinois resident Ms. Matzen, or an actual "journalist," could have done it.

1. Goto healthcare.gov, select "See Plans Before I Apply"
2. Select individual insurance and then input the state, county, age, income, number of people in the household, if any household members have employer health insurance, and whether pregnant or not.
3. Click "View Marketplace Plans" and select Silver if that's what you are looking for.

And if you are quick - like me - you can do that in about one minute. And here is one of the plans she would have found:



Cool, huh?

But without the actual details of an application one cannot determine the actual premium.

What plan did you sign up for?

Well I took a wild and craaaaaazy guess that she is an American citizen, makes $19,000 (the "journalist" stated it was under $20k), that she lives in Chicago and is single and not pregnant.

Now I can go to healthcare.gov, and armed with that information, get a quote within one minute. For you, I bet it wouldn't take longer than 25 minutes, 30 tops.

Here are the updated Obamacare enrollment figures we all like to incorporate into our discussions:

2.1 million have bought policies through the federal and state exchanges.
4.3 million have qualified for expanded Medicaid coverage.
3.1 million young people have been added to their parents' coverage.

9.5 million uninsured have been covered.

And that doesn't include the unknown number of people who purchased their policies from insurers directly, rather than through the exchanges. Hard to tell how many of them there are.

Another 4.8 million apparently would have been brought under Medicaid by now if the 25 GOP-run states would agree to the expansion they're helping pay for, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Since when does missing one's goal by 2/3s or more a cause for celebration?


Michael Moore

What goal has been missed by 2/3 or more?

And who's celebrating?

Remember when we were being sold the story that obamacare would save money by reducing emergency room visits. Turns out that isn’t true either according to the NY Times

Supporters of President Obama’s health care law had predicted that expanding insurance coverage for the poor would reduce costly emergency room visits because people would go to primary care doctors instead. But a rigorous new experiment in Oregon has raised questions about that assumption, finding that newly insured people actually went to the emergency room a good deal more often.

The study, published in the journal Science, compared thousands of low-income people in the Portland area who were randomly selected in a 2008 lottery to get Medicaid coverage with people who entered the lottery but remained uninsured. Those who gained coverage made 40 percent more visits to the emergency room than their uninsured counterparts during their first 18 months with insurance.

hoops2 with a rare good point.

That same New York Times article also says that, under a longer Romneycare study, Massachusetts found an 8 percent decline in emergency room visits. But it was probably asking too much of hoops2 not to cherry-pick.

The theory is that, with health insurance, people will do better at preventing and managing health problems and will need less emergency care. Makes sense to me, but apparently it's something to keep track of.