What We Learned About Obamacare July 8-14, 2014

“1.) AEI’s Joseph Antos and James Capretta present “A health reform framework: Breaking out of the Medicaid model.” Here’s a peek:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that about one-third of the additional insurance coverage expected to occur because of the law will come from expansion of the existing, unreformed Medicaid program. The rest of the coverage expansion will come from enrolling millions of people into subsidized insurance offerings on the ACA exchanges — offerings that have strong similarities to Medicaid insurance. Unfortunately, ample evidence demonstrates that this kind of insurance model leaves the poor and lower-income households with inadequate access to health care….
2.) “Some still lack coverage under health law,” notes The Wall Street Journal:
Months after the sign-up deadline, thousands of Americans who purchased health insurance through the Affordable Care Act still don’t have coverage due to problems in enrollment systems. In states including California, Nevada and Massachusetts, which are running their own online insurance exchanges, some consumers picked a private health plan and paid their premiums only to learn recently that they aren’t insured.
3.) “Brace for the next round of Obamacare rate shock,” comments Philip Klein at The Washington Examiner:
As insurance companies begin to propose premiums for 2015, it’s time for Americans to brace themselves for the next round of rate shock in the wake of President Obama’s health care law. There are several ways in which Obamacare drives up the cost of health insurance. The primary way is that it requires insurance plans to offer a certain raft of benefits specified by the government and to cover everybody who applies, regardless of pre-existing conditions. It then limits the amount that insurers can charge older and sicker patients relative to younger and healthier patients, driving the costs up for the latter group.
4.) “Automatic Obamacare enrollment is anti-patient,” according to Diana Furchtgott-Roth:
With a new Avalere study showing that many Obamacare participants will face premium increases in the fall, the administration’s proposed rule that would automatically reenroll Americans in their existing federal health exchange plan is likely to leave many people paying higher premiums than necessary. Plus, Uncle Sam will be unable to verify correct amounts of health insurance premium subsidies. America is not yet ready for auto enrollment in Obamacare.