Time to Start Considering Obamacare's Worst Case Scenarios

Reason.com ^ | 11/11/2013 | Peter Suderman

[ReaganÜberAlles]

The question that many are asking is: How bad can this really get?

The answer is...worse. A lot worse.

Over the weekend, several reports suggested that, despite continued assurances that Healthcare.gov, the problem-plagued online insurance enrollment portal run by the federal government, would be running smoothly for most users by the end of the month, it increasingly looks likely that the deadline will be missed.

[ReaganÜberAlles]

This could still be turned around, perhaps even soon. But it’s time to start considering the worst-case scenarios: that the exchanges continue to malfunction, that plan cancellations go into effect, that insurers see the political winds shifting and stop playing nice with the administration, and that significant numbers of people are left stranded without coverage as a result. Rather than reforming the individual market, which was flawed but did work for some people, Obamacare will have destroyed it and left only dysfunction and chaos in its wake.

[FlyingEagle]

Ask yourself: why should I sign up for a tax?

[AlexW]

“why should I sign up for a tax?”
_____________________________________________
Comrade, it is your patriotic duty to dear leader.
Do we need to send you to reeducation camp?

[Cowboy Bob]

Will insurance companies and their investors sit quietly and go bankrupt under ObamaCare?

Sure, the reason why the insurance companies sold themselves out and supported ObamaCare in the first place was because Obama promised them that they would get millions of healthy, young customers who would pay premiums, and rarely collect.

Looks like this was another broken promise by Obama. Are the insurance companies just going to sit there, quietly, and lose all their customers because ObamaCare is forcing them to cancel their insurance companies?

[Oldexpat]

Very soon the RATS will propose a fix..a single payers system to go into effect immediately..only solution to cover all those people loosing their insurance because of the greedy insurance companies supported by the evil GOP.

[ToastedHead]

It’s a good article. Who do the millions of people with chronic conditions sue when they’ve been booted off their own policies and have no access to enroll in the new ones for continuing care on Jan 1st?

[mylife]

Old Peter Suderman is right on top of this thing /S

[DaxtonBrown]

This article understates the potential problems by an order of magnitude. There are so many potential collapse paths that I’ve lost count. Doctors not being reimbursed. Hospitals refusing obamacare patients. Devastatingly low sign up numbers. Small employers going belly up. Massive civil disobedience.

It’s gonna be Fugly.

[Veto!]

Signing up for a tax is bad enough, but signing up to die early is even worse.

What will happen to our medical care? Life-expectancy tables will reveal all.

[llevrok]

Very soon the RATS will propose a fix..a single payers system

Will be done by executive order on an "emergency" basis to save the now more millions of uninsured.

That's been the plan all along. Just happening faster than the death by a 1000 stabs was to have taken.

[Lmo56]

The potential problems are not confined to the near term either. Very soon, the short-term technical troubles could begin to have meaningful longer-term policy consequences. Insurers must decide what plans to offer and what rates to charge in the first half of next year. If enrollment is low, if the exchanges are still broken, and if the president and his administration are still losing credibility and popularity as a result of the rollout debacle, how will insurers react? By pulling plans from the market? By raising rates?

This is problematic - some states require insurance companies to post their rates for 2015 by then end of February 2014. And almost all states require it by the end of June 2014.

If not many people are signed up by these dates, how are the insurance companies going to be able to conduct accurate actuarial analyses in order to arrrive at the new rates ?

[Mike Darancette]

how will insurers react? By pulling plans from the market? By raising rates?

Both, they have to.

[Marcella]

“Do we need to send you to reeducation camp?”

You live in the Philippines so you can’t send any US citizen to a reeducation camp.

[RobbyS]

The public option?

[TigersEye]

The end result could be that many people—thousands, perhaps even millions—end up with their current private insurance plans terminated due to the law, but no way to sign up for new coverage.

Seems more like a certainty to me rather than a 'could be.' The only question is how many million? Rope and pitchfork manufacturers need to know.

[ToastedHead]

I assume they’d have to use a worst case scenario, and cover it with rate hikes. Speedy death spiral.

[CatOwner]

Massive civil disobedience.

Only in our dreams. It certainly won't be the conservatives who will disobedient.

[AlexW]

“Very soon the RATS will propose a fix..a single payers system to go into effect immediately.”
_______________________________________________
Is that no the whole objective of this fiasco?
Socialized medicine is all part of any Communist system.

[Political Junkie Too]

Any examination of worst-case scenarios that doesn't include a recalcitrant Obama digging in and turning on the American people in response to his failed "signature" legislation is short-sighted.

-PJ

[A_Former_Democrat]

“Paying taxes is patriotic” Bonehead Biden