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Obamacare's Next Hurdle: Getting People To Pay
Healthcare.gov may or may not be fixed, depending on who one listens to (and if one reads the WSJ's, "Errors Continue to Plague Government Health Site" this morning, there is much more fixing left despite the administration's most sincere promises), but a greater issue is already looming: payment. "We have a bigger number of applicants than people who have paid," Aetna Chief Financial Officer Shawn Guertin said in an interview today in New York. "That’s a situation that I am a little bit worried about, that people will think they have completed the process but haven’t paid the premium yet." Whether Americans didn't realize there would be an actual payment involved in America's socialized healthcare system, or simply there is too much confusion over how the process is run, is irrelevant - the bottom line is that for whatever reason people are simply not paying their premiums.
As Bloomberg reports, the disjointed process of having customers shop through the government-run marketplace and then pay insurers separately has created a risk that people who have chosen a plan won’t actually be covered Jan. 1. And if people don’t pay by Dec. 31, insurers may end up stuck with a disproportionate number of sicker and costlier customers.
“You have to remember that many times we are dealing with low-income people,” Robert Laszewski, an Alexandria, Virginia-based consultant to carriers, said in a telephone interview last week. “They signed up and they certainly want the insurance, but do they have the money or have they changed their mind by Dec. 31? Nobody’s done this before.”
And while the government has been touting the surge in sign up numbers, with the CMMS announcing yesterday that some 365,000 people have signed up for a private plan through November, what the government has not said is how many of these people have already paid their premium. Judging by the Aetna CFO remarks there is a major, gaping discrepancy between the two. And even if people do expect to get completely free healthcare, that is not what Obamacare is about, at least not yet. So suddenly Obama may have a situation where he has millions signed up for the ACA, and only a fraction has actually paid. Recall that Obama has a goal of 7 million sign ups by the March 31 end of open enrollment.
In the meantime, while it remains to be seen if the new plans will be feasible, the old healthcare plans have already been largely scrapped.
Aetna, based in Hartford, Connecticut, also said it faces too many administrative hurdles to reinstate policies that it’s terminating next year because they don’t meet the new standards set by the health law. Hundreds of thousands of people around the country have gotten cancellation notices from insurers this year, prompting a political firestorm for President Barack Obama.
Obama responded last month by giving insurers and state regulators the option of extending the policies by an extra year. Aetna decided it would be too difficult to do in time for Jan. 1, Guertin said. Some customers were able to renew their policies early before the termination notices arrived. Guertin declined to say how many.
“It gets them a plan frankly that we’re ready to service,” he said. “It would just be too administratively burdensome to try to get everything ready to restore all the old plans.”
Well, nobody said central planning works everywhere. The good news that for now, at least, the fourth - monetary - branch of government is offsetting any and all other disappointments created by the legislative and executive. Because no matter how vast the shock, or how acute the disappointment, one can always point to an S&P that is just shy of all time highs. And all is well if the "markets" say it is...
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Obama is not a negro. His father was an East African muslim, his mother a white woman born in a wealthy Hawaiin familly. Although he runs on the color of his skin, he is NOT a negro in the American sense, nor share the Negro American history, nor has any of his forefathers been enslaved (unless the Arabs did at some point in time).
You're making a mulatto-bout nothing.../s I was telling people that said I was racist for NOT voting for this multi-cultural freeloader and asswipe that I was only half-racist; how could I be racist against black AND white at the same time being that I am white? They insist he is the first BLACK president when in fact he is NOT. He is the first mulatto or mixed-race president. Well, that's if you buy into the birth certificates. Anyways, voting for someone BECAUSE they are black and not because he is qualified is racist to begin with. The Left/Progressive/FSA/Dems just can't make up their f'in minds...
All Muslims are slaves. Read the Koran (on second thought, don't bother).
It's Not Fair! We have to pay?
Don't forget the $ 6,000.00 deductible you must PAY before coverage commences. This is what we call "Self Insured" there is no coverage. You signup and pay and pay and pay and pay..
The way I see it, the insurance companies will collect juicy premiums, but not have to pay up because so many people will be cut off from any health care because they can't pay the co-pays or deductibles.
What do you mean you can't afford to pay the deductible? Answer: "I spent all my savings on the premiums. I'm broke!.!"
?
?
I hoped for change and now they want my fucking money? Bullshit!
NSA f'n stop it! OK?
Like the Jay Leno "Jay walking" interview in Las Vegas demonstrated several weeks ago:
The lady pedestrian on the strip didn't like Obamacare (because it wasn't free or affordable).
But she really liked the Affordable Care Act (because it was free or affordable).
There is no problem getting people to pay once they have your bank account number:
http://classicalvalues.com/2013/12/now-that-we-have-your-bank-account-nu...
If I claim I am an illegal alien, do I have to pay. I will just say... "No hablo english"
Why would .GOV worry about getting people to pay? They can just take the money from people through the IRS or better yet some new agency created to police Obamacare payments. Isn't that what .GOV is for? Regulations and enforcement of laws? LOL.
All governments are tyranny. The only difference between different governments is the varying degrees of tyranny.
Don't understand why Obama didn't just copy Canada's quasi-socialist healthcare system. I'd be pissed off if I paid more than the LESS THAN 60 bucks a month I pay now for admittedly flawed healthcare with no deductible charges whatsoever (and I am forced to pay the 60 bucks). Of course if a Doctor screws up in Canada, good luck getting anything much for it (we don't have much in the way of powerful lobbies like that of the trial lawyers, AMA or health insurance providers) I'm no socialist but if you have to have socialism why not do it at least half ass like Canada? Just askin
Canada's demographics are a bit different than down here.
Y'mean colorgraphics ?
sunnyside - that was very polite. 'demographics'. meaning lawyers, huge law suits, and the people behind that motivation. i want to be able to keep posting here, but just sayin. this is code. everybody knows what i'm saying. so - really, what does that really say?? we all know.
The tactics of downgrading and degeneration
The Greek government, as an authentic representative of the neoliberal dictatorship in Greece, deliberately destruct public benefits and services
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2013/12/the-tactics-of-downgrading-an...
When everyoine has given all their info and signed on - the insurance companies will really start jacking the premiums.
Getting people to pay will be simple.
Any working person stupid enough to enroll, and then not pay, will have their paychecks garnished.
No money, no problem, IRS agent will come to your home and remove your liver, accounts balanced.
This is a good question for sure...do they have the money is the big one. Meantime this week silly Seblius decided she was going to launch an investigation from the Office of the Inspector General on the webiste...come on..
"Sebelius Asks Inspector General To Review Healthcare.Gov, How Many JBoss, Red Hat, Linux, Oracle, MarkLogic And Other Experts Does OIG Have? Time Elements of Baking A Cake From Scratch With Writing Custom Code Was Just Not There.."
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/12/sebelius-asks-inspector-general-t...
Color me stupid, but if you hold someone at the point of gun to purchase a product would the price not naturally increase and the quality naturally fall.
This stupid law has literally priced me out of health insurance. I'm currently making a list of Democratic supporting companies with whom I can terminate my business relationship to help subsidize my Obamacare penalty.
Enjoy your turd sandwich you Obamacare supporting fools.
It's
A
Fucking
Tax.
"A tax" that was sold to you and everyone else as, a really phenomenal savings of $2,500 a year...BUY NOW!...lol.
Anyone feel snookered yet?
I've got bridge for sale if anyones interested ;-)
Prints some mo' money, den it be free.....
I don't think too many folks have seen this one. Obamacare exchange call backs from a computer that tries to act like it is not a bot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unRDMy7O62o
But, but, but...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio
CHANGE!!!!
Problem solved!
http://www.kgw.com/news/Enrollees-report-erroneous-debits-by-WA-Healthpl...
Just charge peoples' bank accounts whether they like it or not. BRILLIANT!
If anyone wants a good laugh, read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/nyregion/with-affordable-care-act-canc...
Yes, it is the NYT. It is NYC ultra liberals who voted for Obama twice, who are now finding out that the old system of buying one's insurance though a trade association, has been banned by Obamacare. You will get to read of the weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth of self-employed NYC lawyers, playrwrights, actors, musicians, all of whom LOVED Obama. Now they are having serious buyer's remorse; one actually says that if she had known she would have voted for Romney!!! These people used to be able to buy excellent policies for a good price though, e.g., the state bar association. Now they get to buy sh*t policies for a fortune on a crummy website: no, they can't keep their doctor; no, they can't keep their hospital.
I feel no sympathy for these idiots, but the banning of this source of insurance is horrible. I grew up in a rural area, and people would join the Grange in order to be able to buy as a member of a group. Well, it worked. All those rural Grangers are now f*cked.
The mainstream population is already in debt up to their eyeballs and these fucking morons can't understand why they aren't paying? I guess you have to move out of your home and into a 12 person dwelling to afford this bullshit?
Another example of all the richy rich millionaire politicians that just can't fathom why a min wage worker can't pull an extra couple hundred bux out of their ass.
Fk the US gov't.
Oh, they understand the poor and the rich. What Obama's technocrats don't understand is the struggling middle class. That $6k deductible is nothing to a technocrat, so they figure why should it matter to a middle class person??? They truly are not capable of picturing what it is like to have a typical income and expenses, and even if they were capable they certainly wouldn't care.
And one final bitch............NO ONE is ready for Obamacare. Except for the IRS.
If you like your insurance you can keep it period. Change you can believe in. I feel your pain. Read my lips, no new taxes...... Politicians keep feeding us cat vomit. Get used to it, your vote is an illusion.
"Did you fix the website yet, daddy?" - Sasha Obama
(Just thought I'd throw it in here...lol)
Call it what it is, Section 8 healthcare.
i can't help seeing this as the same business as car insurance, with the caveat that obamacare is the no fault option. once you pass that hurdle there is really no reason for ME to buy insurance to protect YOU. it amounts to massive tort reform. ( you can't buy a car loan without car insurance you can't buy a home loan without home insurance, and pretty soon you won't be able to buy either without ACA.) so buy shares in insurance companies, the scramble is on, as they all diversify into each others business, and they BUNDLE your insurance needs (greater synergy, why should you pay a premium on a med clause on your auto policy, when you have ACA?) and its mandated for the benefit of corporate america, not your puny healthcare needs. its a tax on credit. we don't want you to get sick and die and leave those loans you are holding in arrears do we?
Hey, they are going to STEAL THE MONEY from your account even if you never sign up for PhonyCare!
I guarantee it!
Millions of Americans will wake up to NO MONEY in their accounts one morning, quite soon.