D.C. Outlawed Private Health Insurance Sales

Kaiser Family Foundation ^ | 10/01/2013 | Kaiser

[Mike Darancette]

In June 2013, the DC City Council passed legislation requiring carriers to sell all individual and small group products through DC Health Link, effectively dissolving the non-Marketplace individual and small group markets. Individual plans may only be offered through the Marketplace beginning on January 1, 2014, while small group plans have until January 1, 2015 to transition to DC Health Link.6 In addition, the SHOP and individual markets will be merged into a single risk pool.7

[Mike Darancette]

In effect the exchange set itself up as the sole marketplace for new health insurance in Washington D.C. Have other stated done this --- Can They?

[originalbuckeye]

And so the slide toward single payer begins. Who is surprised it starts in DC?

[lowbridge]

bump

[Mike Darancette]

So health insurance could only be purchased at a certain time of year in D.C.?

[GeronL]

Not a surprise.

I still think this was all planned, the failure and everything

[CitizenUSA]

The left loves a woman’s right to choose to abort her baby and a homosexual’s right to bugger other guys. Yet, they cannot permit people to make their own health insurance decisions. If the left’s programs are so good, I have to ask. Why aren’t people free to opt out of them????

[blackdog]

In government their is an incentive to perform dismally. You can then only celebrate improvements. If you leave the gate at a full run and performing well, you can't get your budget increased or have any need to build the bureaucracy.

[Jim Robinson]

Communist bastards are going all in.

[dfwgator]

FU Justice Roberts.

[Mike Darancette]

Yep.

Hope you are feeling better.

[Jim Robinson]

Feeling great! Thanks!

[originalbuckeye]

I am hoping all those ‘pro-life’ Dems that voted for Obamacare (Bart Stupak- ‘I trust Obama when he says taxpayers will not be paying for abortions’) will have trouble sleeping at night, thinking about all those dead babies. Heartwrenching.

[nathanbedford]

Nathan Bedford's first Maxim of American politics: all politics in America is not local but ultimately racial.

Is this conscious step toward single-payer socialized medicine a product of local politics or racial politics?

[TBP]

Is that legal?

[aquila48]

“Is this conscious step toward single-payer socialized medicine a product of local politics or racial politics?”

Why does it have to be one or the other? That’s a false choice argument.

The answer is neither - it is made up of special interests groups of all races and all localities.

I would include the following groups.

1. Those with leftist ideology whose self interest is central control, and single payer would take them a long ways there.

2. The intellectually lazy so called “low information voters” (ignoramusus) who are easy targets of the government propaganda machine (msm). Their self interest is implanted in their brains by the media convincing them that medical care is a right and that central control is the best solution.

3. The “guilt ridden” whites and well to do, who feel that their success was a stroke of luck, and that less fortunate must be taken care of regardless of their circumstances. Their self interest is relief of guilt, so they can enjoy guiltless affluence.

4. The poor - those who for whatever reason haven’t made it in this system and are thus eager for a handout. The self interest is rather obvious in this case.

5. The irresponsibles - those that are able and even earn a decent living yet blow it all on frivolities instead of taking care of the more important things first - like their health care. Their self interest is to let somebody else worry about the “important things” so they can enjoy life. They don’t worry about long term implications.

6. And then of course you have the moneyed interests, like insurance companies, unions, etc. who have colluded with the ruling class in return for a piece of the action.

I may have left out one or two...

[Jacquerie]

Plato’s republic is here.

[EVO X]

So health insurance could only be purchased at a certain time of year in D.C.?

It is my understanding that the open enrollment period is for all individual plans whether one acquires insurance through an exchange or directly from the insurance company. The states get to decide how insurance is sold. In some states you can buy directly from the insurance company and they will process the subsidy for you if you are eligible. Of course, that is if they ever get it to work..

[Carriage Hill]

[Hoodat]

It frustrates me to no end when liberals replace a competitive free market with a monopoly, thinking [sic] that the monopoly will provide better service for less money. I have a co-worker who supports everything Obama does solely because Obama has a ‘D’ after his name. When I ask him to give me a single case where a monopoly provides more service for less money than a competitive free market, he comes up empty every time. Yet he still supports the monopoly over the free market because it’s the Democrats who did it.

[Mike Darancette]

It is my understanding that the open enrollment period is for all individual plans whether one acquires insurance through an exchange or directly from the insurance company.

Since, next year, the Obamacare open enrollment period will be the same as Social Security (10/15 - 12/7) can you imagine the cluster fudge if the private insurers are thrown in too? Seems to me that the well to do (no subsidy) healthy folks will opt for an off exchange policy. This would seem to be a conflict of interest for insurers who sell individual products on and off of the exchange. DC is attempting to avoid any competition.

As for insurance bought outside of the exchange AFAIK ACA law states that only "Silver Level" policies bought through "STATE operated" exchanges is eligible for a federal subsidy.