Posted on 10/11/2013 7:18:47 PM PDT by smoothsailing
October 11, 2013
Bob Laszewski, a health-care consultant who’s been writing a lot about Obamacare (he’s a critic) relays a bizarre observation he’s heard from health-insurance companies participating in the federal exchange, which is used in 34 states.
Based upon my survey of a large number of health plans accounting for substantial market share in the 36 states the federal insurance exchange is operating in, not more than about 5,000 individuals and families signed-up for health insurance in the 36 states run by the Obama administration through Monday.
Here is one example from a carrier–and I have received numerous reports from many other carriers with exactly the same problem. One carrier exec told me that yesterday they got 7 transactions for 1 person – 4 enrollments and 3 cancelations.
For some reason the system is enrolling, unenrolling, enrolling again, and so forth the same person. This has been going on for a few days for many of the enrollments being sent to the health plans. It has got on to the point that the health plans worry some of these very few enrollments really don’t exist.
The reconciliation system, that reconciles enrollment between the feds and the health plans, is not working and hasn’t even been tested yet.
It’s not clear if the anecdotal reports from a few insurers mean this is a really common problem, or is one that will be happening with just a few one-off enrollments, but it certainly sounds like a serious problem. If in fact it is widespread, it could explain some of the gulf between Laszewski’s estimate of federal enrollments from his informal survey — about 5,000 — and the number that was leaked to the Daily Mail by two HHS officials yesterday, 51,000. It’s not hard to imagine why insurance companies would be keeping quiet about such a massive glitch — they want to sign people up on the exchanges because they want to sell insurance (and especially need the young, healthy marginal customers — more enrollees is definitely better for their risk pool). News that the website is going to enroll you and unenroll you four times isn’t going to attract customers.
What a can of worms. Anyone with half a brain would s***can this immediately or at the very least put it on hold until Pelosi and 0bummer can explain how it will work and “make” it work...I know that won’t happen.
Ping.
Just another feature for a train wreck.
Pelosi and Zero explaining computer technology is like expecting a chicken to do algebra.
Let us never lose sight of the fact that nobamacare is merely a conveyor belt to single payer.
Wonder how many congressional staffers have even enrolled ? Bet they did not even test this software with staff. Time to fire these losers.
Yes, but it looks like a way stop on that road is "no-payer." If no one knows whether someone is enrolled or not, premiums won't be billed or credited properly, and benefits will be denied to those who did everything they could to comply. They'll have to walk in the hospital front door, which is what this program was supposed to minimize.
I’m loving it.
Absolutely. This current system is designed to fail, and destroy private sector insurance in the process.
Only then can ObamaCommieCare be ushered in.
5000 and 51,000.
Really not a mystery.
Given the miserable performance of the Federally run Exchanges for 34 states the following would be good ballpark estimates of their actual performance:
51,000 Registered but all but 5000 not committed to a plan.
5000 enrolled in a plan
The MSM continues to confuse these figures.
And note: 5000 registered in a week or two is a tiny fraction of what it will take to make Obamacare viable.
And note: 5000 registered in a week or two is a tiny fraction of what it will take to make Obamacare viable.
++++++++++
Oops. Make that 5000 ENROLLED in a week or two ...
OMB wants 7 million enrolled in a plan by Dec. 15th of this year. That’s the minimum number necessary to properly finance the system in it’s first year, beginning Jan. 1 2014, according to them.
At the current rate of 5K a week, they’ll be about 6,960,000 enrollees short come Dec. 15th.
Train wreck nothing, it is a full-fledged, all-American clusterf***.
I have also read about bad data going from the exchanges to insurers, to the point where it is unusable. If anything kills Obamacare in the short term, it will be insurers blocking anything coming from the exchanges for the sake of the data integrity of their own systems.
But wait, we have heard stories here on how many of Obama’s FB/Twitter followers are fake. This is an MO of his. He relishes using the fluidity of digital data to create a false impression of numerical support. Why could this not be the same sort of thing, at least it part? Fake sign-ins, followed by deletions, run not from outside users, but insiders running code? Politically, it is essential to come up with orders of magnitude more applicants than a mere 5000. When I heard the 51,000 number being kicked around, I wondered how that could be. But this, plus the registration versus enrollment distinction mentioned elsewhere, begins to make sense of it. Not saying its definitely so, just saying there was motive, means, and opportunity.
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