This may hurt a little!
Obama Care Woes
Mike Walker, Col. USMC (retired)
All,
Having had to work health care insurance issues with a Public School District for nine years, the problems facing ObC seem very serious.
They are not website glitches that are simply inconveniences, they appear to be deeply rooted problems now that the enrollment window is open and some hard data is leaking out.
A policy cannot be issued unless the application data is clean. According the Blue Cross/Blue Shield and several other major carriers, ObC has proven incapable of transferring the data for those that have been SUCCESSFUL in signing up on the exchanges.
Remember, getting through the exchange is just one step, the carrier then has to create an individual health care insurance policy, confirm it, set up the billing, etc.
Also note that there are NOT the required minimum of seven million completed applications awaiting processing. As of today, there may not even be 70,000 completed applications (just 1% of those needed).
That spells B-I-G T-R-O-U-B-L-E as it is highly unlikely that the processing needed for seven million applications will be completed by 31 December (seventy days from now counting the Holiday Season).
Not sure exactly how the fines (er, ah, "taxes" according to the Supreme Court) work, but my understanding is that if you are not ID'ed via employer (which has been in place for two years) or through the new exchanges (the current point of failure) by 31 December, then you will get taxed by the IRS come April.
For those who tried to sign up and failed and then get wrongly taxed, it will be a bad day. The Republicans should build on the anger over the Tea Party abuses to really pour it on the IRS at that point.
Even before any problems surfaced, there were grave concerns. No health plan can financially survive unless the majority of the souls are healthy. Their money is pooled to cover the costs of the sick and injured.
For young healthy people, the tax is cheaper than the policy, so many may not sign up. Also, young people do not like giving the government personal data that is demanded by ObC and the NSA scandal exacerbated the “trust” problem. That will further reduce the number young healthy people in the pools. Finally, the website is not transparent as to the total cost which may scare away more people or make them angry at the cost.
The bottom line is that the pools may be too unhealthy to make it and may go broke in 2014, making everyone unhappy. DISASTER!
If the President has to issue a waiver for the individual mandate in December to avoid the disaster then WHY IN THE HELL did he and Harry Reid shut down the Government over that very issue in October?
I truly believe that most in Washington DC do not understand the real dangers and those that do are keeping their mouths shut while not sleeping well at night.
Mike
