“In recent opeds for the Los Angeles Register and the Orange County Register, I explain how ObamaCare’s requirement that insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions at the same price as healthy people dramatically reduces the risks associated with not having health insurance, and therefore creates a perverse incentive for people to drop their coverage and wait until they get sick to re-enroll.”
“Around 900,000 Medi-Cal applicants statewide — 300,000 of them in Los Angeles County — are still awaiting final processing of their applications, state and local officials said Wednesday.”
“My mother is not one to seek attention by complaining, so her recent woeful Facebook post caught my eye: “The poor get poorer.” It diverged from the more customary stream of inspirational quotes, recipes and snapshots from her tiny cottage in Pierce County, Wash. The post continued: “I just received a notice: ‘In order to comply with the new healthcare law, your current health plan will be discontinued on December 31, 2013.'”
“Data provided to the committee by every insurance provider in the health care law’s Federally Facilitated Marketplace (FFM) shows that, as of April 15, 2014, only 67 percent of individuals and families that had selected a health plan in the federally facilitated marketplace had paid their first month’s premium and therefore completed the enrollment process.”
“Just more than a quarter of the eight million people who signed up for health plans under the Affordable Care Act are in the prized demographic of 18 to 34 years old, falling short of the figure considered ideal to keep down policy prices.”
“Hispanics, a key demographic for the Affordable Care Act, did not appear to sign up for health insurance through the law’s marketplaces at the rate the Obama administration had hoped, according to new government data.”
“Almost two-thirds of the 8 million Americans who enrolled in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act picked mid-range “silver” plans, according to new data on sign-ups released Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services Department.”
“Even if Obamacare really has enrolled 8 million Americans through its health insurance exchanges, that’s not good enough. For the exchanges to work, people must enroll and stay enrolled.
If too many enrollees drop out, premiums will climb until the exchanges collapse.”
“Around two-thirds of people who had picked insurance plans through HealthCare.gov paid their first month’s premium by April 15, according to a report released Wednesday by Republican lawmakers using data from insurers.”