Obamacare website dysfunction is least of our worries, the entire system is missing
12/04/13
Today ex-President Bill Clinton said that when the healthcare website is fixed in the next few months, few will even be talking about Obamacare.
The ease of this coming out of his mouth is remarkable, for I am sure it was nearsighted and biased based on his support for the president, his plan and his party.
Short term and long term future projections of problems are glaring. Let’s look at a few issues facing the facilitation and implementation of Obamacare.
On January 14, unless something drastically happens the employer mandate will go away. 80 million more Americans will lose their healthcare plans with their employer. Your employer can do away with the shared subsidy that has burdened them for years, essentially putting millions back into the company and shifting the burden to the employee, who is forced to purchase a plan from a government exchange at a higher rate. This simple maneuver by big business and supported by the Chamber of Commerce speaks volumes of their self interest in catering to this plan. It fully explains the deafening silence from big business. Small business, so what, they are an after thought in this process and portray themselves as the red headed step child that has been thrown from the supportive teet.
The newly revealed aggregation rule is going to stifle small business and further place a financial burden on those struggling to survive in today’s economy. For instance, if a small business backs down to 45 employees to dodge the forced purchase of healthcare and hires part-time employees but aggregates or accumulated to an equal of 5 FTEs or full time equivalents they meet the 50 employee threshold and will be forced to purchase insurance for all.
Young adults are running from Obamacare in droves. Mostly this age group coming out from under the 26 year old protection plan of their parents will soon be out on their own facing huge premiums and less care with extremely high deductibles. So much that many will only pay deductible expenses for their healthcare, essentially seeing no benefit from their plan, assuming they choose to participate.
20 percent of young folks say they are likely to sign up for Obamacare. Which means 80 percent are not going to sign up which spells failure. The young are graduating from school with a burdensome student loan debt, starting a family, buying a home and are in relatively good health. They are not going to be inclined to pay premiums that are 200 to 300 percent more expensive than it was a year ago.
Less numbers means higher premiums! Fewer people in the share pool will only raise premiums and limit choice. Obamacare reporetdly needs 100 million people enrolled and paying high premiums for the plan to work, to start paying for itself. The risk of less is costly and will drive higher premiums with progressively less and less healthcare choice. If young people dont assume the burden and purchase the insurance, it only makes sense that those enrolled shoulder the burden regardless of their age or ability to pay. This is the death spiral we speak of.
The risk pool is thin. Insuring pre-existing conditions and covering all disease types leaves many layers of risk meaning needs will out live the money pool. Many with disabilities and debilitating pre existing conditions will run to Obamacare because they see it as a bargain, which will drain the system inside a thin risk pool. This measure will drive higher cost and result in higher sharing of that cost on you.
States are not even ready for the onslaught. Tennessee for example, elected not to participate in the federal exchange and opted to allow the government to control the state. Two things stand in the way of this happening. Tennessee is not ready to handle the government enforcing Obamacare and TN has no known plan in place to implement the needed demands of Obamacare. We do not even have a website or a process in place to handle the claims. To complement this statement, we have to date refused to expand Tenncare, an essential component that could contribute to the success of Obamacare, but remains costly.
When you do sign up there is really nothing more contained within than that. You have signed up. Period! There should really be no discussion beyond this point. But I will digress.
Hospitals are not prepared for implementation of Obamacare. No plans are in place to facilitate the movement of patients through a system designed on Obamacare. No plans whatsoever. Hospitals and providers squawk about the plans but no government sponsored “magic” pill has been delivered. Healthcare providers are moving along the same course and acting as if we are in the same system as before. Nothing had changed that is visible. No education to the public, staff or providers within that system being relied upon to enact and enforce this dreadful system. And this system was accepted in 2010.
Accounting software, enforcement guidelines, payment structure, reimbursement, legal challenges, nothing is in place. The healthcare system is not prepared and things are not in place to get it done.
There is no overseeing authority communicating between the local level, state level or federal level. So far, it’s just been said do it but no one is doing anything, or more accurately no one knows what to do.
The idea of redistributing the wealth on a large scale is not enticing to those having to pay for it. The old saying is that under socialism, you eventually run out of other people’s money. You take from the old, give to the young, wealthy to the poor, those who have to those have not. Many Americans are simply sending a message that we will not continue to pay for someone else or will not participate. Not signing up is a strong message that something is awry.
Small business will take a beating! The concept that large corporations will be protected while small business gets the shaft. This goes in the same vein as redistribution of wealth. This coupled with increasing minimum wage will shut down jobs and businesses all over the nation. Can we see what is happening here folks? The president is implementing the Cloward-Piven strategy that he was mentored to implement. Overwhelm the system till she collapses, then rebuild it, with total dependence on the government.
Just wait till the population that does participate begins to see the problems inside the system and realizes the many promises unkept. A backlash and further dis-enrollment surely to follow.
Out of network caregivers are going to inconvenience and baffle many that are wanting to keep their doctor. Many within the area are and will be seeing a Dr perhaps in Nashville or Memphis. Can you imagine going to see your Dr in Nashville, crossing Monteagle Mountain and hitting the traffic to find your out of network provider for a cold or to refill a prescription.
We do not have a subsidy verification system in place. No computer system that links with our government on any level. There is no communication or grids that can be followed, just a phone call remains as the only way to communicate and if you have ever tried to get a procedure approved or a bill payed by phone you know what a headache that is.
Insurance companies are now going to be given subsidies based on an honor system with insurance companies where insurance companies take taxpayer money to provide healthcare and then settle the difference on the backside. Can you imagine with this fluid reimbursement structure the wide variability in reimbursement causing a great fluctuality in payment and fee schedules?
Patients are showing up at hospitals with the self conceived concept that they will be turned away or asked to go to another hospital for their care because perhaps this particular hospital didn’t cover their care or they were not covered by Obamacare. As we speak some hospitals are starting to turn patients away based on the demands of Obamacare.
The upwards of 20 or more new taxes made to pay for or fund are not palatable to many folks moving forward. Less money in your pocket is never acceptable.
Doctors are not gonna bother with the insurance obstacles, going to cash for service. Completely bypassing the system. It’s already happening.
The end product is Americans are without more of their hard earned dollars and the government is taking it!
It does not get more simple than this!
We are being raped of our healthcare and we are being forced to like it or suffer.
We think that fixing the website will fix Obamacare, think again!
This is only a distraction.
It is not the real issue. The “guts” the “nuts and bolts” are missing. The plan has been spoken but nothing else.
It has been revealed today that Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of HHS, only met with president Obama one time before the launch of the ACA, ie, Obamacare website. This is somehow not surprising. The whole system is lacking detail. No plan is in place whatsoever!
Obamacare is crumbling, it’s in a death spiral and you are on the receiving end of it.
Contact your elected officials. Your vote and voice is the only one that can change things.
Bradley County News Network 