Obamacare Exchange: Michigan Dodged a Bullet

Michigan Capitol Confidential ^ | 5/10/2015 | Jack McHugh

[MichCapCon]

In a news story titled “Nearly half of Obamacare exchanges are struggling over their future,” The Washington Post reports the following:

Nearly half of the 17 insurance marketplaces set up by the states and the District under President Obama’s health law are struggling financially, presenting state officials with an unexpected and serious challenge five years after the passage of the landmark Affordable Care Act.

Many of the online exchanges are wrestling with surging costs, especially for balky technology and expensive customer-call centers — and tepid enrollment numbers. To ease the fiscal distress, officials are considering raising fees on insurers, sharing costs with other states and pressing state lawmakers for cash infusions. Some are weighing turning over part or all of their troubled marketplaces to the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, which is now working smoothly.

The important fact for Michigan is that our Legislature did not create a state exchange, and in consequence likely avoided a mountain of grief.

Longtime, free-market health policy analyst John Goodman explains in Forbes why the exchanges are (and always will be) struggling, with a state-by-state roundup of their specific woes.

Michigan came close to creating a state Obamacare exchange. The Senate passed a bill to do so, and only in waning days of the 2011-12 legislative session did the House leadership capitulate to the reality of a reluctant Republican caucus.

There are no “wooden stakes” in Lansing though — bad policy proposals never die. If the U.S. Supreme Court rules in June that Obamacare subsidies can only be provided through an exchange created by a state, we can expect an explosion of pro-Obamacare activism pressuring Michigan legislators to “fix the problem” by creating a state exchange.

[dhs12345]

Money, money, money. Ours that is.

[cuban leaf]

I just avoided the whole thing. I cancelled my health insurance as of Jan 1, 2014. And I’m working my “taxable” income to a nice level to avoid the penalty.

The idea is that it will implode before I have to worry about it.

[dhs12345]

Unfortunately in classic government style, they'll cobble together something that sort of works that is overrun with errors and security issues and takes 10x as long to complete and at 100x the cost.

And anyone who oppose the expensive “fixes” will be labeled a hater of the poor.