Humana says Obamacare enrollee mix 'worse than expected' ".......Just about everything the administration has done with Obamacare so far encourages the old and sick to sign up while making it easy for the young and healthy to avoid buying insurance. What did they expect?
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Reuters:
Health insurer Humana Inc said on Thursday that it projected its enrollment mix in private plans through the exchanges created by President Barack Obama's healthcare law will be, "more adverse than previously expected."
Humana attributed the enrollment trend to regulatory changes allowing people to remain in previously existing plans not sold on the exchanges. Obama proposed allowing insurers to keep selling plans that did not comply with the Affordable Care Act after political fallout that he was not keeping his promise that people can keep insurance plans if they like them.
Humana released its projections in a U.S. securities filing ahead of meetings next week with investors and analysts. Despite the negative projections about the exchange enrollment, Humana backed its 2014 earnings forecast of $7.25 to $7.75 per share.
The company, one of the largest providers of Medicare plans for the elderly, expected higher membership gains in its Medicare Advantage and Medicare prescription drug plans in 2014, following the enrollment period for Medicare.
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No wonder we haven't heard squat from the administration about the breakdown between sick and healthy enrollees. For them, no news means that the bad news doesn't exist. Eventually, they'll get around to giving us the numbers - probably late, Friday afternoon on Super Bowl weekend......."
Can we say “BAILOUT?”
I have also been pointing our for some time exactly what Humana said: while it is true that the healthier or younger insurees were supposed to subsidize the sicker or older ones, in reality even this isn’t workable. While older insureds may pay less for their plans, the benefits have been severely reduced by everything from a reduction in covered procedures to a huge rise in the deductibles and out of pocket expenses. This is going to be devastating to Medicare Advantage subscribers.
So in other words, no one benefits from Obamacare.