pacino wrote:

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:Half a million people have insurance that they did not have september 30th, fwiw.

Link? I read the October enrollment was 106k. Did 400k enroll in the last 2 weeks?

Medicaid

They're poor, no doubt entirely owing to their own deficiencies of character. They don't count. Ideally they wouldn't even be allowed to vote.

Monkeyboy wrote:Yeh, I'm not sure how we go from website problems keeping down enrollment to a failure on the level of the Titanic, which is what the opposition wants everyone to think. Sure, you need people to sign up for it to work, but we're talking about a delay of a few months. In the olden days, like just a few years ago, it would have taken 2-3 months to do anything. You know, back before the intertubes said we had to have everything done yesterday.

Look, I voted for Obama twice (I also voted for Christie twice) but it is hard to get past the idea that ACA became law in March 2010. That means they had 3.5 years to get the website right and they still screwed it up badly. Surely you can understand how the shine on Obama's new Maserati might be dulled a bit by the fact that it can't get above 15 mph.

It might not quite reach the level of disaster the GOP would like us to believe but there is no getting around the fact that this is a major problem for the administration AND for the those trying to get insurance. John Boehner is 100% wrong when he says that the website problems are a symbol of the failure of the ACA; the website is not the law, it is merely a conduit for implementing the law. You don't scrap the Maserati because it has a flat tire; you fix the flat and continue down the highway - hopefully at speed exceeding 15 mph.

Monkeyboy wrote:Yeh, I'm not sure how we go from website problems keeping down enrollment to a failure on the level of the Titanic, which is what the opposition wants everyone to think. Sure, you need people to sign up for it to work, but we're talking about a delay of a few months. In the olden days, like just a few years ago, it would have taken 2-3 months to do anything. You know, back before the intertubes said we had to have everything done yesterday.

Right, this is what blows my mind about this whole thing. Not so much from a partisanship standpoint (nothing surprises me there), but mostly from a "look at how our expectations have changed in less than a decade" standpoint. We are FURIOUS that we don't have an instantaneous response on health insurance pricing/eligibility/enrollment. Less than a decade ago, at best you would've been able to fill out an online form so that the feds could mail you a stack of brochures and enrollment documents, which you would've had to review yourself and mail back, then wait several weeks (if not months) to receive a mailed response informing you that you have coverage or that you screwed up on your previous submissions.

Technology is crazy.

traderdave wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:Yeh, I'm not sure how we go from website problems keeping down enrollment to a failure on the level of the Titanic, which is what the opposition wants everyone to think. Sure, you need people to sign up for it to work, but we're talking about a delay of a few months. In the olden days, like just a few years ago, it would have taken 2-3 months to do anything. You know, back before the intertubes said we had to have everything done yesterday.

Look, I voted for Obama twice (I also voted for Christie twice) but it is hard to get past the idea that ACA became law in March 2010. That means they had 3.5 years to get the website right and they still screwed it up badly. Surely you can understand how the shine on Obama's new Maserati might be dulled a bit by the fact that it can't get above 15 mph.

It might not quite reach the level of disaster the GOP would like us to believe but there is no getting around the fact that this is a major problem for the administration AND for the those trying to get insurance. John Boehner is 100% wrong when he says that the website problems are a symbol of the failure of the ACA; the website is not the law, it is merely a conduit for implementing the law. You don't scrap the Maserati because it has a flat tire; you fix the flat and continue down the highway - hopefully at speed exceeding 15 mph.

1.4 million people have been processed. A third have decided on a plan or been covered by MA. Coverage doesn't even start until January. It isn't failing. The website is. There's a big difference.

pacino wrote:

traderdave wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:Yeh, I'm not sure how we go from website problems keeping down enrollment to a failure on the level of the Titanic, which is what the opposition wants everyone to think. Sure, you need people to sign up for it to work, but we're talking about a delay of a few months. In the olden days, like just a few years ago, it would have taken 2-3 months to do anything. You know, back before the intertubes said we had to have everything done yesterday.

Look, I voted for Obama twice (I also voted for Christie twice) but it is hard to get past the idea that ACA became law in March 2010. That means they had 3.5 years to get the website right and they still screwed it up badly. Surely you can understand how the shine on Obama's new Maserati might be dulled a bit by the fact that it can't get above 15 mph.

It might not quite reach the level of disaster the GOP would like us to believe but there is no getting around the fact that this is a major problem for the administration AND for the those trying to get insurance. John Boehner is 100% wrong when he says that the website problems are a symbol of the failure of the ACA; the website is not the law, it is merely a conduit for implementing the law. You don't scrap the Maserati because it has a flat tire; you fix the flat and continue down the highway - hopefully at speed exceeding 15 mph.

1.4 million people have been processed. A third have decided on a plan or been covered by MA. Coverage doesn't even start until January. It isn't failing. The website is. There's a big difference.

Unless I am misreading your post, I think we are in total agreement here.

traderdave wrote:

pacino wrote:

traderdave wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:Yeh, I'm not sure how we go from website problems keeping down enrollment to a failure on the level of the Titanic, which is what the opposition wants everyone to think. Sure, you need people to sign up for it to work, but we're talking about a delay of a few months. In the olden days, like just a few years ago, it would have taken 2-3 months to do anything. You know, back before the intertubes said we had to have everything done yesterday.

Look, I voted for Obama twice (I also voted for Christie twice) but it is hard to get past the idea that ACA became law in March 2010. That means they had 3.5 years to get the website right and they still screwed it up badly. Surely you can understand how the shine on Obama's new Maserati might be dulled a bit by the fact that it can't get above 15 mph.

It might not quite reach the level of disaster the GOP would like us to believe but there is no getting around the fact that this is a major problem for the administration AND for the those trying to get insurance. John Boehner is 100% wrong when he says that the website problems are a symbol of the failure of the ACA; the website is not the law, it is merely a conduit for implementing the law. You don't scrap the Maserati because it has a flat tire; you fix the flat and continue down the highway - hopefully at speed exceeding 15 mph.

1.4 million people have been processed. A third have decided on a plan or been covered by MA. Coverage doesn't even start until January. It isn't failing. The website is. There's a big difference.

Unless I am misreading your post, I think we are in total agreement here.

Yep, I was backing you up. I thibk I said a few weeks back I'd have canned sebelius for not managing this well. That's her job. I'd fire Carney and whoever else for not having proper messaging, either. Whomever told him to apologize opened up a can of worms they won't see coming for whatever dumb reason.

Rob Ford Denies Eating Pussy During Live, Televised Press Conference (Video and possibly the page in general NSFW)

What an amazing man

drsmooth wrote:said another way, what is "it" that will go down in flames?

Any patch/loophole that is introduced is going to weaken the law and encourage the death spiral of premiums of folks on the exchange. These patches are going to ensure the demise of the ACA.

And that's to say nothing of the logistics. I saw a headline pop up that something was in the works, but I havent read details yet. But I'm not sure how the federal government is going to compel insurers to "un-cancel" the plans that they cancelled. What a mess.


(And to answer a question that may come up, I don't know what I do "right now" if I was a Democrat who wanted this to succeed. Probably remove the fine for 2014, but don't re-open the can of worms on cancelled plans being allowed to resurface.)

They're not going to compel them. They're going to say insurance companies can sell the cancelled policies, knowing full well it's too late/far too inconvenient for them to do so now in many cases. Then they're going to say it's the insurance companies fault, not theirs, for the cancellations.

Just looking to pass the buck, again.

dajafi wrote:

pacino wrote:

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:Half a million people have insurance that they did not have september 30th, fwiw.

Link? I read the October enrollment was 106k. Did 400k enroll in the last 2 weeks?

Medicaid

They're poor, no doubt entirely owing to their own deficiencies of character. They don't count. Ideally they wouldn't even be allowed to vote.

Do you have a count on the individuals who had their plans cancelled? That number should be the target minimum of Medicaid + ACA signups, right? Basically, I think it's way too early to tell if this law even has gotten more people onto health insurance of any quality. Of course, I could very easily be missing something, too.

jerseyhoya wrote:They're not going to compel them. They're going to say insurance companies can sell the cancelled policies, knowing full well it's too late/far too inconvenient for them to do so now in many cases. Then they're going to say it's the insurance companies fault, not theirs, for the cancellations.

Just looking to pass the buck, again.

Ah, that makes (political) sense.

You guys have such a strong bias on this issue that you can't see that it's all going to be worked out. It won't be an ideal solution, but it will affect, at most, 1 or 2 million people. The ACA and what it stands for is an inexorable trend in this country. As the months and years pass the problems with the website and "keeping your old plan" will be viewed first as hiccups and then forgotten.

JFLNYC wrote:You guys have such a strong bias on this issue that you can't see that it's all going to be worked out. It won't be an ideal solution, but it will affect, at most, 1 or 2 million people. The ACA and what it stands for is an inexorable trend in this country. As the months and years pass the problems with the website and "keeping your old plan" will be viewed first as hiccups and then forgotten.

Unless it fails because all of the Keep Your Old Plans patches cause a premium death spiral that makes it untenable for only the most sick.

Ironic that you assert allegations of strong bias.

I have no problem admitting my bias. I'm human, therefore I'm biased. The point is that your particular biases are distorting your ability to view the situation clearly. Some form of universal health care is here to stay. There's a greater chance we'll see a single-payor system before we see the repeal or dismantling of the ACA.

words never uttered by anyone in the private insurance market prior to a month ago: "I like my insurance plan and I want to keep it!"

You are on a school board, voted for Obama twice, then voted for Christie twice?

That's kind of hilarious.

traderdave wrote:It might not quite reach the level of disaster the GOP would like us to believe but there is no getting around the fact that this is a major problem for the administration AND for the those trying to get insurance.

Dave, I feel you summed it up nicely & my only quibble is with the highlighted part, which I'd revise to "AND for the relatively few people who currently obtain their health insurance in the individual market"

Because most of the time most people ignore insurance generally, and health insurance specifically, we routinely forget that most of us of working age, most of the time, have some kind of health insurance that our employers sponsor.

I feel the pain of people who have tussled with health insurers for years thanks to state-level regulatory indifference (or, in several states, outright shenanigans) that have permitted the scandal that has been the individual insurance market. I also feel their pain does not rise to the level of a national cataclysm, and the media/political frenzy over it has me once again ashamed of most people who fancy themselves leaders in our great land.

This is surreal

Werthless wrote:

drsmooth wrote:said another way, what is "it" that will go down in flames?

Any patch/loophole that is introduced is going to weaken the law and encourage the death spiral of premiums of folks on the exchange. These patches are going to ensure the demise of the ACA.

You apparently missed the memo explaining that ACA is 2,782,000,236 pages long, ZOMG, so suspension of the dozen or so pages regarding how individuals obtain coverage via exchanges probably isn't "the demise of the ACA".

- Coverage for students to age 26 on parents' plans won't be rolled back

- Medicaid reform provisions probably aren't going anyplace right away

- Communication standards are popular (Summaries of Benefits and Coverage) and probably will stick around

Oh and pre-existing conditions probably won't go back to being the bar to obtaining coverage that they have been for generations in our invidious, state-level "regulated", utterly fucked up previous "system"

there are other appealing & already-in-force provisions that probably aren't "demised" either

Werthless wrote:What a mess.

are you referring to the decades-old mess that has been the individual market heretofore, or the latest re-arrangement of that longstanding mess?

You want to know what's a mess? The brains of 26 kids that were splattered all over a local elementary school, because the fuckwits who make such a big deal about this insurance bullshit couldn't be bothered to put down their rapid-fire mass murder weapons long enough to contemplate that THIS kind of "mess" is a teensy issue in the grand scheme of things.

That's a mess

Werthless wrote:I havent read details yet. But I'm not sure how the federal government is going to compel insurers to "un-cancel" the plans that they cancelled.

Oh, but I hope many chortling republican congresspersons rush to approve any & all proposals to do so. The longer the ugly facts of how the insurers have maltreated the state-level regulatory bodies they have had on the leash for generations are exposed to light, the easier to persuade people of the fuckedupnitude of the way the individual health insurance swindle has been permitted to operate for so long.

This is a nightmare. The Obama administration is incredibly incompetent.