THCB reader Ed Vandenberg writes in with this friendly little conversation starter:
The voluntary enrollment in Obamacare will provide an interesting perspective on the liberal ‘factoid’ that some 43M people are uninsured. The actual number of long-term uninsured, of course, is something like 15M (and even that number probably assumes some static population).
So essentially, enrollment in Obamacare will give lie to the story board of the uninsured. If the liberals are correct, and poor people simply can’t get insurance and it’s an intractable number, then something like 30M people should be signing up as soon as they are able to access it.
What actually will happen (my prognosis) is that even when made mandatory, the actual number of enrollees will be something less than 10M. Because the number of uninsured counted to justify this massive legislated solution far overstates the actual number of truly uninsurable people.
Many people, counted in the big number simply don’t insure and won’t even under ACA. Hopefully, we can start tackling the problem with the real numbers …
Have questions or comments about the Affordable Care Act? Send them to editor@thehealthcareblog.com. We’ll publish the good ones…
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If Jesus was real, he would be so unhappy with you fools.
These are students from colleges, high schools and universities throughout
the world. Of all the possible global disruptions, the two most likely are global warming and a super pandemic.
t walk into the grocery store without being asked if I.
Interesting. What you are saying is that those temporarily uninsured do not count as uninsured. Does that mean those recently getting cancellations are not really uninsured, even if they cannot get insurance again?
Steve
“this massive legislated solution”
Solution to some. What was the solution to health coverage for over 65s – a massive legislated solution? Or to the very poor, a massive legislated solution. Are food stamps a massive legislated solution?
“Do you really think the insurance companies can re-instate those with a snap of the finger?”
In NC BCBS did – and promptly raised premiums 16-23%.
All this negativity will be reversed when the system is up and running, and the media starts gushing heart-warming tales about Pete and Suzy have managed to acquire coverage at little cost to themselves, their whopping premiums funded by John Q. Taxpayer. Shut your trap, John. No one wants to hear it.
This in the NYTimes on Sunday, but, those not chained to Democrat partisan agendas know this:
“Americans want a fair and fixed insurance market,” said Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who advised Mr. Obama’s team as it designed the law. “You cannot have that without some redistribution away from a small number of people.”
Yeah, redistribution is no big deal.
As long as it isn’t from YOUR pockets, right, Democrats!?
Again, this is antisocial stuff folks, and pay attention to the attackers of this, as they are entrenched in the mind set as well!
MD as HELL,
I don’t think it’s a lack of courage at all. It’s a very calculated strategy, just like the retraction of not being able to keep your policy if you like it. Do you really think the insurance companies can re-instate those with a snap of the finger?
Many of the Democratic supporters, I think are now reconsidering the wisdom of pushing this through without really addressing the consequences.
Very soon it will be all Americans are uninsured. No one will buy the lousy coverage they are offering and everyone will have had their previous coverage cancelled.
Delaying this until after the midterm election is indicating a lack of courage from those in power. Should they not be running on it rather than from it?
I realize it is not an authoritative source, per se, but according to the wikipedia entry on ‘Romneycare’: … approximately 400,000 Massachusetts residents (were) added to the rolls of the insured in 2006/2007 via an expansion in Medicaid eligibility rules and the subsidization of the Commonwealth Care insurance program. A 2011 view of the data released by the state in 2013 shows the number of people receiving employer sponsored insurance ESI) in Massachusetts has decreased by approximately 500,000 people (about 8% of the population) in Massachusetts since the enactment of the RomneyCare law in 2006. The state of Massachusetts stopped putting out regular information on various types of insurance enrollment altogether between 2011 and 2013; prior to 2011 it released such data quarterly… when combined with what has been released concerning 2011 indicates that a substantial portion of Massachusetts residents remain uninsured compared to the number that was uninsured before RomneyCare”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_reform)