OBAMACARE DEBACLE - Update 4/1/2014

[bsteadman1]

Study: Obama and the Democrats Disrupted the Whole Healthcare Industry for Just Two Million Uninsured

PJ Media
Bryan Preston
3/31/2014

Excerpt:

A RAND study pours buckets of cold water on the Obama administration’s claims that it has nearly reached 7 million sign-ups for Obamacare. The whole point of Obamacare, supposedly, was to insure the uninsured and bend the cost curve down. Those who had insurance were supposed to be able to keep it. Families were supposed to start saving about $2500 a year. If you believed the Obama administration.

Reality, according to RAND‘s study, is that the Obama administration’s 7 million figure is deceptive. Supposing 7 million have actually signed up and paid their first premium — which is not a given, as the administration claims it does not know how many have paid — two-thirds of those who did sign up already had insurance before Obamacare.

One important finding of the McKinsey survey was that the proportion of those who had formally enrolled in coverage, by paying their first month’s premium, was considerably lower among the previously uninsured, relative to the previously insured. 86 percent of those who were previously insured who had “selected a marketplace plan” on the exchanges had paid, whereas only 53 percent of the previously uninsured had.

If you apply that math to the RAND figures, you get this: of the people who have paid their first month’s premium on the Obamacare exchanges, and are thereby enrolled in coverage, 76 percent were previously insured, and 24 percent were previously uninsured.

Two caveats. First, we know little about RAND’s survey methodology at this time; we’ll have to see the actual study to see the details of what they did. Second, we don’t know how many previously uninsured people signed up for off-exchange coverage, above and beyond the normal rate of churn that this market would traditionally see.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that nearly all Obamacare sign-ups would be from the uninsured, not the insured. So the numbers coming in show, at a minimum, that Obamacare is not working as it was sold.
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View the complete article at:

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/03/31...ion-uninsured/

[bsteadman1]

White House boasts 7 MILLION Obamacare enrollments, but secretive study shows just 858,000 newly insured Americans have paid up!

• Press secretary Jay Carney will only say 'we're aggregating a lot of data' when asked how many enrollees have paid for coverage
• Also dodges questions about damning study that showed very few Obamacare customers were uninsured before the law took effect
• Percentages from a hush-hush RAND Corporation study suggest barely 858,000 previously uninsured Americans have enrolled and paid premiums
• President Obama will deliver a triumphant speech Tuesday afternoon following a panic-induced enrollment flood at the last minute
• HHS Secretary Sebelius met a televised challenge Monday about 'unpopular' Obamacare with lengthy awkward silence

The Daily Mail - Mail Online
David Martosko, U.S. Political Editor
4/1/2014

A triumphant White House press secretary Jay Carney stopped short of saying 'I told you so' on tuesday, but chided a sparse press corps in the briefing room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for ever doubting that the Obamacare system would enroll 7 million Americans.

'At midnight last night we surpassed everyone's expectations,' he boasted, 'at least everyone in this room.'

Carney announced an enrollment total of 7,041,000, not including stragglers who waited until march 31 to sign up on some state-based enrollment websites.

But while he took great pains to enphasize that the number would grow – saying 'we're still waiting on data from state exchanges' – he dodged tough questions about other statistics that reporters thought he should have had at the ready.

Those numbers included how many Americans have paid for their insurance policies, and are actually insured. Also, he had no answer to the thorny question of how few signups represented people who had no insurance before the Affordable Care Act took effect.

Numbers from one study, a RAND Corporation effort that has been kept under wraps, suggests that barely 858,000 previously uninsured Americans – nowhere near 7 million – paid for new policies and joined the ranks of the insured by Monday night.

Aside from the issue of the numbers' likely decrease when non-paying enrollments are taken into account, administration officials have been coy about a RAND Corporation study that shows relatively few Obamacare enrollees were previously uninsured.

'What I can tell you is that we expect there to be a good mix of people who were previously uninsured who now have insurance,' White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday.

'Certainly, there’s a significant number who now have qualified for Medicaid in those states that expanded Medicaid who will have insurance who didn’t have it before.'

But the Affordable Care Act carried with it the promise of covering 'every American,' and it appears to have fallen tremendously short.

The RAND study, which has not been published – only the Los Angeles Times has seen it – found that just 23 per cent of new enrollees had no insurance before signing up.

And of those newly insured Americans, just 53 per cent have paid their first month's premiums.

If those numbers hold, the actual net gain of paid policies among Americans who lacked medical insurance in the pre-Obamacare days would be just 858,298.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to issue his own triumphant proclamation Tuesday afternoon at 4:15, less than a day after the Obamacare open enrollment period technically came to a close.

'The president will deliver a statement on the Affordable Care Act ... in the Rose Garden,' the White House announced mid-morning, providing no hint about whether Obama will take any questions from journalists.

Carney and chief of staff Denis McDonough distributed donuts to reporters in the press center on Tuesday morning – presumably without checking with the first lady – and eagerly pitched talking points to journalists writing about the milestone day.

But questions remain about the effectiveness and affordability of Obama's plan, which he sold to congressional Democrats and the American people as a scheme to cover the uninsured, and about how the law is contributing to the spiraling cost of medical care.

As information about the chasm between Obamacare's promises and its reality have reached the public, the program has become more and more unpopular – a fact that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius met with awkward silence during a Monday television interview in Oklahoma.

'At last check, 64 percent of Oklahomans aren't buying into the healthcare plan; they don't like Obamacare, and they've been pretty vocal about it,' a KWTV-9 reporter told her.

'Now that's going to be – still continue to be a tough sell, but we'll see how that plays out over the coming months.'

Sebelius, a deer trapped in TV's headlights, offered only a blank stare. Asked if she had lost the audio feed, the icy secretary responded, 'I can hear you. But I – thanks for having me.'

Hours earlier, she tooted Obama's horn during a fawning Huffington Post interview, claiming that healthcare.gov saw a surge in traffic when the president appeared on the gonzo show 'Between Two Ferns' on the Funny or Die website.

Obamacare 'definitely saw the Galifianakis bump,' she said, referring to the show's host Zach Galifianakis.

'As a mother of two 30-something sons, I know they're more likely to get their information on "Funny or Die" than they are on network TV,' she added.

Americans who missed the online broadcast still knew enough to queue up Monday for panic-induced sign-ups. Crushed with traffic, healthcare.gov crashed twice.

On its way to 7 million, the Obama administration has never answered some key questions about the open enrollment period.

The White House has instead kept to its talking points.

'What I can tell you is that we expect there to be a good mix of people who were previously uninsured who now have insurance,' Carney said Monday.

'Certainly, there’s a significant number who now have qualified for Medicaid in those states that expanded Medicaid who will have insurance who didn’t have it before.'
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View the complete article, including video, at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...igning-up.html