Posted on 01/27/2014 12:56:23 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The White House on Monday dismissed concerns by retiring Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), who in a radio interview on Monday said he didn't think enough young, healthy consumers would purchase ObamaCare policies.
Moran told WAMU that millennials "are less likely to sign up" for health insurance on the federal exchanges.
"I think they feel more independent, I think they feel a little more invulnerable than prior generations," Moran says. "But I don't think we're going to get enough young people signing up to make this bill work as it was intended to financially."
Healthcare experts have warned of a so-called "death spiral" if too few young, healthy adults buy into the ObamaCare marketplace to offset the costs of insuring older and sick Americans.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said he hadn't seen the interview, but said that despite the "shaky rollout" of the ObamaCare website, the government was seeing "a significant surge in the percentage of young Americans under 35 enrolling."
"Those numbers are consistent with what we saw in Massachusetts," Carney said. "And if you ask the Republicans in Massachusetts who supported and, in one case signed, into law the health insurance reform, which is the closest thing to a model for the president's Affordable Care Act, they would say that that worked and that there -- the percentage of young people who enrolled was adequate."
Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services said that 30 percent of ObamaCare enrollees were aged 34 and under, and announced last week that 3 million individuals had purchased coverage. The administration originally projected that 7 million consumers would enroll, with 39 percent aged 18-34.
The White House also dismissed an imminent proposal from Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
"What I have seen in press reports suggests that that this looks very much like just another repeal proposal, another attempt to raise taxes on the middle class, to keep uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions locked out of the market, to raise costs on seniors and to take away Medicaid from the millions of Americans who stand to gain coverage thanks to the expansion that was part of the Affordable Care Act," Carney said.
PBS - Nov 2013: Massachusetts Works to Curb Rising Healthcare Costs
To what extent is the Whitehouse the ministry of propaganda.
They get to release news when it’s convenient. Then tweak the content?
Meanwhile, companies like Target have to issue bad news as it happens, lest they get sued out of existance.
So, what are the numbers? The cannot say they are seeing an increase unless they know how many.
Now if someone grew a pair and asked?
Enrollee does not equal “Payor”.
How many of the 30% under age 34 are going to be put on Medicaid, and how many are ACTUALLY going to be paying into the system?
Is he nuts? Feeling invulnerable is part of being young; especially if you are male.
Another part of being young is being poor. Very few young persons are going to buy in to one of Obama Cares ridiculously priced plans. These young people know that they will very likely pay half or more of their income in to these plans and never need the coverage.
If they have been paying attention they also know that if they do get sick or injured enough to need health care insurance that they can sign up then because they can not be refused coverage for prior conditions.
So it is much cheaper to pay the penalty than buy a policy that for them is useless and if they work their payroll deductions right they won’t even have to pay the penalty because the penalty is only collected from a tax return payment.
A young person would have to be stupid or totally uniformed to buy an Obama Care policy. But considering how many Millennials voted for Obama I could be wrong.
Well, yesterday is was 13. Today it is 26. That’s a 100% increase. < / sarcasm >
I wish we could see the real numbers.
Has the NET number of (non Medicaid) insured actually gone down?
I bet it has.
I bought a Westinghouse LCD TV in 2006. Still going strong 7+ years in. No surge protector (and we lose power on average two times per month); constant *heavy* use. One of the best purchases I’ve ever made.
Just because I have a log-in for Amazon, doesn't mean I have bought anything!!
Enrollees do not equate to new policy holders and Jay Carney knows this all too well.
You start with a population that isn't buying a product based on a perception that they don't need it and that its too expensive. You then double the price of the product and watch them come running.
Its modeled after the success that Obama had running his own business.
Documents released this week detailed the contract between the Department of Health and Human Services and IT firm Accenture and show the federal health insurance exchange, healthcare.gov, needs big improvements quickly. The documents said that if Accenture, which is now tasked with fixing the troubled website, cannot make back-end changes to the site by mid-March, the entire health-care industry may be in “jeopardy.”
Then on Thursday, ratings firm Moody’s downgraded its outlook for the insurance industry to negative from stable, citing continued troubles with the Affordable Care Act.
If these fixes are not made by this deadline, the document says it will result in “financial harm to the government” and the “government could make erroneous payments to providers and insurers. Furthermore, these continued issues could make the “entire health-care reform program... jeopardized.”
The document is a Justification for Other Than Full and Open Competition (JOFOC) filing, which defends the government’s decision to contract with Accenture without having a full bidding process that takes time.
Experts say Accenture faces a heavy task without a lot of time.
“Payor” does not exist because that part of the website isn’t functional.
“surge” = “we walked into nine Starbucks and bought everyone a round provided they all logged on to Healthcare.gov”
I don’t think anyone has ever accused Jay Carney of being bright ... one of the dimmest bulbs on a dim string.
Well, if it was 1 yesterday and 2 today that's a 100% increase day-over-day! Course they could be in for a 50% fall by tomorrow.
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