Unexpected Good News About Obamacare

[Jazzy]

The number we've been tracking most closely in the other surveys on insurance is the number of uninsured who got coverage via Medicaid or the exchanges, which Rand displays in the top row of this table.

About 5 million previously uninsured people got coverage via Medicaid and the exchanges. This is slightly lower than other estimates, but only slightly. When you account for the March surge and the sub-26ers on their parents policies, you're probably back up to about 8 million. We'll have a better idea about this next month, but so far this is roughly consistent with other surveys we've seen.

But there's one stunning number in the Rand survey that we haven't seen before: the dramatic surge in people who have employer insurance (ESI). According to Rand, 8.2 million new people—7.2 million of them previously uninsured—have gotten employer insurance since mid-2013.

If this finding is confirmed, it's a genuine shocker. Although CBO projected that ESI would stay steady, there's been a lot of chatter about the likelihood of employers dropping coverage thanks to Obamacare. But that sure doesn't seem to have happened. So in addition to the usual sources of coverage—Medicaid, exchanges, sub-26ers—it looks like Obamacare has yet another big success story to tell, one that was almost completely unexpected.

For now, this should all be considered tentative. We'll have firmer numbers in April and May, once the March surge is fully accounted for and we know how many people have paid for coverage. But for now, it looks as if Obamacare is not merely hitting its target, but in a broadly unforeseen way, it's wildly exceeding it. This is terrific news.

Source

Comments?

 

[DrLeftover]

The above article has been spun through the Mother Earth News, one of the few remaining house organs for the Obama Fan Club.

This one hasn't:

Many reporters and politicians have assumed that this meant that CBO predicted that 6 million would be enrolled in the exchanges (and separately an additional 8 million in Medicaid) when the enrollment period ended on March 31. Indeed, on Sept. 5, 2013, Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, sent Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a memo titled, “Projected Monthly Enrollment Targets for Health Insurance Marketplaces in 2014.” That document laid out month-by-month enrollment targets, culminating in 7 million by March 31.

But that’s not really what the CBO estimate says. CBO provided a calendar-year estimate, meaning that the equivalent of 6 million people would be enrolled for an entire year. So each of those 3 million or so people who signed up for coverage in the past few weeks would really only count as two-thirds a person, for calendar-year purposes. (That translates to 2 million people over a calendar year.) People who only were on an exchange health plan for a month, and then either stopped paying or got a job that provided health insurance, would count as 1/12 calendar year.

Given that only about 2.25 million people signed up by Dec. 31, and thus in theory would have coverage for the whole year, you can see why CBO lowered its estimate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/04/04/cbos-obamacare-estimate-its-more-complicated-than-you-think/


The CBO report: http://www.cbo.gov/publication/45159

 

[DrLeftover]

and the other shoe just dropped....

April 10, 2014

Barack Obama wasted little time last week declaring victory as the deadline for enrollment in Affordable Care Act exchanges expired – well, more or less, anyway. The White House celebrated as it announced that 7.1 million consumers had signed up for health insurance through the federal and state exchanges, slightly exceeding their original goals and significantly outpacing expectations after the disastrous rollout of Obamacare last October. “The debate over repealing this law is over,” President Obama told the press on April 1. “The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.”

Last week, that sounded like wishful thinking. Two new studies released this week prove it.

Before we get to these studies, though, we should recognize why we need outside organizations to validate White House claims in the first place. The Department of Health and Human Services still has no way to quantify important data about those consumers signing up for health insurance through state and federal exchanges.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2014/04/10/Two-Studies-Raise-Red-Flags-Obamacare-s-First-Round

 

[DrLeftover]

Oh, yes, this is "Unexpected good news..." as well.

April 10, 2014 4:45 AM

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A growing number of California doctors are charging their insured patients extra fees to cover everyday office expenses — a practice that’s illegal under most health care policies, according to KNX1070′s investigative reporter Charles Feldman.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/04/10/knx-1070-report-more-calif-doctors-illegally-charging-insured-patients-extra-fees/

 

[DrLeftover]

Obamacare,

the gift that keeps on giving.

10 April
Sebelius Resigns After Troubles Over Health Site
WASHINGTON — Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, is resigning, ending a stormy five-year tenure marred by the disastrous rollout of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Obama accepted Ms. Sebelius’s resignation this week, and on Friday morning, he will nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to replace her, officials said.

The departure comes as the Obama administration tries to move beyond its early stumbles in carrying out the law, convince a still-skeptical public of its lasting benefits, and help Democratic incumbents, who face blistering attack ads after supporting the legislation, survive the midterm elections this fall.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/11/us/politics/sebelius-resigning-as-health-secretary.html?_r=0


You'll notice, of course, that EVERY rebuttal was from those disgusting haters at Fox News... oh, wait, only a couple of them were... oh, well... none of them were, but they could have been.