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Heeeeeeere's Obamacare!

Obama Roi has created new law with his tongue yet again to help out you, his loyal peasantry! Now anyone who has lost their insurance is exempt from the Individual Mandate under the Hardship Exemption! Huzzah! Oh glorious Obama Roi! Thank you for your tender mercies! and for admitting that complying with Obamacare is a hardship. Jackass.
 
Puppycow said:
Uh-oh. Did Obama just undermine his own law?

http://m.washingtonpost.com/nationa...bc3132-690b-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html
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From your article:

Federal health officials estimated Thursday that, of all the people whose substandard health plans have been canceled, less than half a million have not chosen new coverage. But they acknowledged that they were not certain.

The insurance official suggested that some people who have chosen new health plans after receiving a cancellation notice might back out of their new coverage to take advantage of the administration's sudden offer.
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This is the crux of it. The writer is making a huge deal out of a decision to allow some 500,000 people get on catastrophic plans if they can't afford better ones, even if they're over thirty. AHIP is worried (and isn't it always a toady from AHIP who gets interviewed in these pieces?) that now that this has been allowed, some of their new customers may jump ship and go with cheaper plans or cancel altogether.

In the end, we're talking about edge cases and less than a million people out of 300,000,000.

So while it bugs me that things aren't rolling out more smoothly, this appears to be yet another sensationalist story written from the perspective of AHIP, and certainly not something that will undermine the law in any meaningful way.
 
So, to recap: Those plans that ObamaRoi said were crap plans you wouldn’t want a dog to have? Now that he can’t hit his numbers without them, they’re just the thing!

Thanks to Glen Reynolds...
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
So, to recap: Those plans that ObamaRoi said were crap plans you wouldn’t want a dog to have? Now that he can’t hit his numbers without them, they’re just the thing!

Thanks to Glen Reynolds...
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So, no. I know that you and Glen Reynolds can't wrap your mind around this crazy concept, but some people actually empathize with other people and want to ease their problems. If people who were on crappy plans are being squeezed out, then they'll be facing some tough choices. That's not good. In states like Wisconsin, where Scott Walker refused to regulate prices, they're facing much higher rates than in neighboring states. In those cases, it's either let those people claim a hardship, which enables them to at least avoid bankruptcy by getting a bare bones plan, or waiving the penalty. This was a kludge aimed at doing the most good under the current circumstances, which unfortunately includes a GOP House who will not vote, under any circumstances, to help these people.

So that is the recap. Not the wingnut version where everyone is in full IGMFU mode all the time.
 
What's the "Obama Roi" thing? Is that some free republic meme? I tried the google but I didn't find anything.
 
elbe said:
What's the "Obama Roi" thing? Is that some free republic meme? I tried the google but I didn't find anything.
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"Roi" is french for "king". The implication is that he's acting as if he had (or deserves) the power of a monarch.
 
Unabogie said:
This is the crux of it. The writer is making a huge deal out of a decision to allow some 500,000 people get on catastrophic plans if they can't afford better ones, even if they're over thirty.
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Mmmm.... it might not be as clear as that. I doubt they have any way of knowing for sure. My company, for example, cancelled policies for nearly 80,000 people, and we're relatively small. But we didn't just toss them out on their ear - we auto-enrolled them into new plans. Many carriers did the same. So... do those people have coverage already? Have they "chosen" new coverage or not? Does it count if your insurer makes the choice for you?
 
Ziggurat said:
"Roi" is french for "king". The implication is that he's acting as if he had (or deserves) the power of a monarch.
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Well, he is making sweeping decrees that have really significant and profound impacts on current and future pricing, and that have the potential to actually disastrously effect the entire ACA house of cards... without consulting any industry experts, and without any particular care or concern for what the consequences of his decrees will be. So much as I dislike the asinine term... the implication captured by it isn't all that far off.

Seriously, every time he makes one of these last minute, poorly thought out changes, it makes the entire system riskier and more likely to fail. At the moment, Obama is Obama's biggest enemy
 
The train wreck continues; even the Obama fans are beginning to scratch their heads:

6. But this puts the administration on some very difficult-to-defend ground. Normally, the individual mandate applies to anyone who can purchase qualifying insurance for less than 8 percent of their income. Either that threshold is right or it's wrong. But it's hard to argue that it's right for the currently uninsured but wrong for people whose plans were canceled.

7. Put more simply, Republicans will immediately begin calling for the uninsured to get this same exemption. What will the Obama administration say in response? Why are people who plans were canceled more deserving of help than people who couldn't afford a plan in the first place?

8. The same goes for the cheap catastrophic plans sold to customers under age 30 in the exchanges. A 45-year-old whose plan just got canceled can now purchase catastrophic coverage. A 45-year-old who didn't have insurance at all can't. Why don't people who couldn't afford a plan in the first place deserve the same kind of help as people whose plans were canceled?
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Good questions.
 
Emily Cat said:
Mmmm.... it might not be as clear as that. I doubt they have any way of knowing for sure. My company, for example, cancelled policies for nearly 80,000 people, and we're relatively small. But we didn't just toss them out on their ear - we auto-enrolled them into new plans. Many carriers did the same. So... do those people have coverage already? Have they "chosen" new coverage or not? Does it count if your insurer makes the choice for you?
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The question was one of how many people will be affected by this, and the answer appears to be "around 500,000". The people who auto-enrolled into new plans won't be affected at all, since they aren't claiming hardships. The people who went to the exchanges and got new plans there aren't affected. This affects the subset of people who:

a) had individual policies
b) had those policies cancelled because they were both cheap and crappy
c) can't afford a new plan
d) desire to get on a catastrophic plan but are over 30

So yes, the relevant number is how many people this affects, and that number does not seem to be very high. I'll agree that I don't like these rule changes, since it adds a shaky feeling to the whole thing. Not a good precedent to set.
 
Unabogie said:
This is the crux of it. The writer is making a huge deal out of a decision to allow some 500,000 people get on catastrophic plans if they can't afford better ones, even if they're over thirty.
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Affordable Care Act Not So Affordable?
 
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