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One-third of Obamacare federal exchange signer-uppers haven’t paid

One-third of Obamacare federal exchange signer-uppers haven’t paid

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barack_Obama_and_Joe_Biden_react_in_the_Roosevelt_Room_of_the_White_House,_2010.jpg

A press release from the House Energy and Commerce Committee (emphasis added):

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. Nationwide, only 25 percent of paid enrollees are ages 18 to 34….

…bThe committee has compiled the data that provides a snapshot of the true enrollment picture as of April 15, 2014, after the official end of the open enrollment period. Due to the administration’s repeated and unilateral extensions and changes, as well as the fact that many insurers have reported that individuals will still have time to pay their first month’s premium, the committee plans to ask the insurers in the federally facilitated marketplace to provide an enrollment update by May 20, 2014.

On April 17, 2014, President Obama declared the success of his law, claiming that 8 million Americans had signed up for health insurance, but data from the insurance providers reveals that the president’s figure is largely misleading. As of April 15, 2014, insurers informed the committee that only 2.45 million had paid their first month’s premium for coverage obtained through the federally facilitated marketplace. While the administration has relied on questionable nationwide figures to boast the law’s success, the state-by-state breakdown compiled by the committee underscores the serious problems facing some states.

For months, the committee and members of the press have urged the administration to provide rudimentary details about enrollment under the law, including information regarding the makeup of the risk pool and who had actually paid for their health care plans. Administration officials repeatedly insisted they were incapable of collating that data and that the insurance providers are the only ones with those details. The committee followed the administration’s suggestion and went directly to the insurance providers.

CBS News points out these numbers are a far cry from those predicted by Kathleen Sebelius:

The data also diverges from the estimate that Sebelius gave in March.

“What we know from insurance companies… tell us that, for their initial customers, it’s somewhere between 80, 85, some say as high as 90 percent, have paid so far,” Sebelius told Oklahoma City CBS affiliate KWTV. However, she noted, “Lots of companies have different timetables for when their new customers have to send their first payment.”

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Comments

I was trying to think of the superlative for “EPIC FAIL”.

Alas… Words fail…

mumzieistired | April 30, 2014 at 7:26 pm

It’s kind of like the toilet paper packages that say “12 = 16″…

“Lots of companies have different timetables for when their new customers have to send their first payment.”

If you like your payment, you can keep your payment.

So if the administration(who were lying, naturally)didn’t know how many had paid, how do they know there were 8 million who signed up?
2.45 million is only 30% of 8million and the insurance companies are saying that the 2.45M is 67% of the sign up(on the federal exchange and the state exchanges?). That means the actual sign up is somewhere around 3.6 million, not 8 million.
And I believe that it was estimated that at least 2 million were insured and lost plans due to Obamacare. So all this to insure 1.6 million.
I’m not a math major, so feel free to correct the math. Regardless, none of this actually adds up or makes sense.

    pablo panadero in reply to Uh Huh. | May 1, 2014 at 8:06 am

    The 8 million number includes “signups” from both the Federal exchange and the State exchanges. The Republican numbers are from the Federal exchange ONLY. There is nothing to suggest that the state exchanges have a significantly higher or lower ratio of “signees” to “payees”. So it is very likely that the 8 million number is more like 5.5 million, which is close to the number of people who lost their insurance due to Obamacare regulations.

MaggotAtBroadAndWall | April 30, 2014 at 8:08 pm

Pass a law making 6 million insurance policies illegal, mandate them to buy government approved insurance, and then get fewer than 3 million people to buy the government approved insurance. Success!

The thing that depresses me the most is that despite the lies, the government abuse, government intrusion into our lives, the outright failure, and this clown still has over 40% approval ratings.

Henry Hawkins | April 30, 2014 at 8:25 pm

Oh, it’ll get worse. Those who did pay the first month won’t necessarily pay the second, third, fourth months and so on. There will be attrition, especially when premiums begin their inevitable rise.

A typical ‘cheap end’ Obamacare individual policy might be $493/mo with a $187/mo fed subsidy, for a net premium of $306/mo. Wow. More than a third off! But that $187 handout doesn’t mean shit to those who can’t pay $306/mo. Factor in that this would be a very high deductible, limited doctor plan, and I see a lot of people saying, “f**k this,” after paying several months’ premiums for a near worthless product, and one being forced on you to boot.

    Bruce Hayden in reply to Henry Hawkins. | April 30, 2014 at 8:44 pm

    Good example – a friend signed up in one state based on a drug frmulary that claimed to cover her meds. Paid for Jan., and they didn’t pay. So no Feb. premium was paid. Still getting mail from them, and they consider her a policyholder. Signed up starting in May in another state (legitimately – she owns a home there and spends half her year there), with a federal subsidy, and a multistate Gold plan for much less. Before subsidies, the Bronze plan in the first state was more than the multistate Gold plan in the other. So, she counts as two signups nationally, with two payments made so far. New policy is supposed to pay for her meds – we shall see. In any case, the subsidized price is so low that it doesn’t really matter.

    Another Voice in reply to Henry Hawkins. | April 30, 2014 at 8:48 pm

    It will especially hit home the first few times they need to use the insurance and are handed a bill at the time services are given because you need to meet your deductible before the insurance kicks in. Do you tap into the premium payment to pay the bill and not pay the monthly premium or do you just go back to the E.R./Walk In clinic and claim no insurance coverage and hope they still give you the sliding scale rate and generic script?

    Estragon in reply to Henry Hawkins. | May 1, 2014 at 4:24 am

    Exactly so, even those who struggle and pay the premiums are going to be shocked at their deductibles and co-pays, many in the Bronze plans will have deductibles equal to the premiums, or more if the premiums are subsidized.

    There are going to be some very angry folks later this year.

    And the future isn’t any brighter for ObamaCare, either. Once the employer mandate kicks in, the problems will be multiplied by ten or so.

So, there’s 313,000,000 Americans. Assume everyone is in a family of four, that’s 78,250,000 households. Roughly 10% are insured and that’s considered a success? Is this a common core word problem?

    Estragon in reply to windbag. | May 1, 2014 at 4:19 am

    The liberal answer is always: “Well, at least we TRIED, gosh darn it, and if it wasted trillions of dollars and costs thousands of lives, it was worth it. Our intentions were pure. We’ll do better next time – promise!”

when do we get to see little boy barry’s face rammed into the steaming pile of shit that is obamacare? this destructive little marxist punk needs to be run out of office and shamed into silence for the remainder of his life. he has done more than enough damage already.

Remember also that CBO projected the need for 7 million PAYING enrollees on the exchanges, with 40% of those “young healthies,” or more importantly, healthy working people who wouldn’t qualify for subsidies. The Obama Administration fully agreed with those projections right up until the fumbled rollout.

And as has been already noted, if the actual numbers were favorable, Obama would have had a victory press conference over them. Instead, they just can’t seem to find the data . . . it was here somewhere . . .

Disillusioned Millennials: “You go into these small towns…” like a most places in America, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and especially through the Obama administration and each successive administration has said that somehow communities like Detroit are gonna regenerate and they have not.”

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to their Obamacare or climate change religion or antipathy toward people who are white and male or Occupy Wall Street sentiment or Noam Chomsky-Howard Zinn books as a way to explain their frustrations.”

An April 2014 quote from some unnamed source in the WH.