Posted on 11/12/2013 7:03:30 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Either version of the law (Upton’s or Landrieu’s) likely creates an adverse selection problem that will further hurt the insurance industry, which let’s recall, was in bed with the administration on Obamacare because of all the new customers that would be required to buy its product. Obamacare has, with an impressive combination of incompetence and irony, seemingly been optimized to create a death spiral.
But is it logistically possible for people to keep their plans? For insurance companies to reinstate them? John McCormack at the Weekly Standard:
With millions of Americans losing their health insurance because of Obamacare, bills have been introduced in Congress to let people keep their plans.
But health industry consultant Bob Laszewski says it’s too late for these measures to help Americans losing their policies on January 1. If Congress and the president agreed to a new law, insurance companies would still need time to re-open canceled plans, state insurance commissioners would have to expedite the approval of those plans (a process that usually takes months), and Americans would need time to choose to sign up for their old plan or hold out for a subsidized Obamacare plan. “You’ve got to have a process where [insurers] send them a letter, and you have to work with their questions, and they have to affirmatively sign up for left or right,” Laszewski tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “You’re not going to do that in six weeks.”
Health policy expert Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center disagrees with that assessment. “I think this notion that ‘Oh, you know, it’ll take too long’ is just an excuse,” says Capretta, a former Associate Director at the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Capretta points to California, where the insurance commissioner forced Blue Shield to delay cancellations for over 100,000 people because of a technicality (the insurer sent its cancellation letters out later than required by law).
There is a chance that, even if already canceled policies can’t be replaced, maybe those currently scheduled for cancellation in 2014 could be saved:
Although Laszewski thinks it’s too late to help people losing their plans on January 1, he says there is enough time to save the plans of millions of Americans who haven’t lost their plans yet but will at some point in 2014. “There’s enough time not to send the cancellation letters out for April, May, June,” he says.
Cancellation letters will continue to go out in 2014 as plans expire each month, and some people were able to renew their current plans through December of 2014. “People who haven’t gotten the cancellation letter yet, or people like me who took the early renewal and my renewal date is now December of 2014, hopefully you can conceivably get something done by then,” says Laszewski.
There’s political pressure for Congress to make sure people can keep their plans, but there’s existential pressure on insurance companies to prevent them from keeping them. What do the poll numbers look like, pray tell, on a bailout for insurance companies?
Just heard from an unreliable, unverifiable source that the lyin’ king had his fingers crossed behind his back when he made himself perfectly clear that we could all keep our plans and that no one can ever take them away. Period. /s
LOLOLOLOL! I knew someone had the picture out there.
“People who haven’t gotten the cancellation letter yet, or people like me who took the early renewal and my renewal date is now December of 2014, hopefully you can conceivably get something done by then,” says Laszewski.”
I took the early renewal also, in the hopes things get so bad that by mid 2014 that I am offered better options later in the year.
But it still won’t address the fact that O’care can’t exist alongside the individual market. Well, I guess it can, with enough money printing/shuffling.
Nobody can tell me that key GOPES (gop elite snobs) weren’t aware that this was in the offing and Cruz and Lee’s efforts might have been successful.
What they’re going to do is come up with some cock-a-ma-mie credit scheme which will supposedly cover the additional costs that will supposedly defray the extra costs. For 100 million cancellations the costs to American taxpayers will be another few trillions.
A taxpayer-funded bailout of the ObamaCare insurance companies is already a provision of the law if there aren’t enough enrollees.
Details:
http://www.rwjf.org/content/dam/farm/reports/issue_briefs/2012/rwjf72568
If GOP goes along with this then they better get something for it, like to make it forever and anyone can sign up for the grandfathered ones.
ima keeping my plan...teehee
P.S. There is NO CEILING to the BAILOUT funds that HHS can dole out to the insurance companies. The bailout formula is part of the existing law and the bailout money is not subject to congressional appropriation. Only a formula to make sure the insurance companies do not take any type of profit hit.
It’s gonna be like rent controlled apartments in NYC. The old guy in the second floor apartment is paying 300 a month and been there since 1965. You, on the other hand, just moved in and are paying $6k a month.
What if the insurance company no longer offers your plan?
You can still go to each insurer and price compare without going to the .gov jungle.
For example, shop.anthem.gov (what I’ve most recently used) shows me available policies for 2014 based on my zip code and the ages of my dependents. No other info required for a quote with details.
(I just looked and premiums are about $200/mth higher than they were back in September when I looked for our family.)
The insurance industry will soon figure out they have been snookered.
They are canceling plans( and revenue ) by the millions and only 50,000
have signed up for Obamacare?
They are about to take revenue cuts, they likes they have never seen.
In fact, the entire insurance industry could collapse.
The Rats are hoping they can unspill the spilt milk. Ain’t gonna happen. For one thing they got only 6 weeks before millions find themselves without health insurance. Ain’t enough time to fix ANYTHING before then. And besides those polices are kaput, and no amount of legislation can make them come back any more than legislation can undo the damage wrought by a Cat 5 tornado.
Let's not forget that the new individual ACA compliant policies sold on and off the exchanges are higher premium and higher deductible. The new plan are much more profitable.
I can't see the insurance companies having the old policies revamped for guaranteed issue or the expanded ACA coverage. And I can't see Obama allowing his legacy neutered.
Too late.
Declaring it so doesn’t make it so.
Imagine a zoning law draconian enough that whole neighborhoods had to be bulldozed to comply. As the last houses tumble, the occupants scream “but you said we could keep our homes!” loud enough that the zoning board relents and declares “fine, you can keep your homes.” Too late, the homes are destroyed and gone.
Likewise health care plans. Anything which doesn’t comply with the new law has been overhauled to a modified & more expensive form, or cancelled outright. The plans we wanted to keep are gone. The insurance companies are not going to recreate them for a few people, as they required broader adherence to work. “You can keep your plan!” the Left will declare. Too damn late: the plans are gone, the declaration meaningless but as an example of how far out of touch with reality the Left is.
Yes, it’s too late. Employer plans changed back in 2011. It’s now three years too late.
Yep. Can't get the toothpaste back in the tube. The DemoSocialists are holding a lit stick of dynamite that's super glued to their hands.
It’s a frightening meme that “It may be too late”. If it is true with something as raw as Obama Care, then it is true for all the leftward trends that have been destroying us.
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