Sunday, October 27, 2013

Odds and Ends

++The HHS website--not to be confused with healthcare.com--notes that 4.2 million Americans have opened accounts for ACA, according to the Social Security department. To be a success,ACA needs 7 million to sign up for healthcare in the first six months. 

++The shaky rollout of the federal exchanges hasn't deterred Vermont from speeding to their 2017 deadline of being our first single-payer state where everyone will have health insurance.

++Surprise--the New York Times reports that the health insurance industry will do just fine with new regulations because the increased market will more than compensate for their costs. The last few months have shown health insurance stocks soaring.

++There has been discussion on the Intertubes that the increase of the Medicaid-eligible participants will increase the number of sick in the uninsured poll and thus sabotage the system. Preliminary findings are that these people, which include kids, are actually in better health than the uninsured who do not qualify for insurance.

++It is believed that ACA only needs one state to be successful to prove it works. The website ,we are promised, will be fully functioning by the end of November but still 770,000 have managed to get fully enrolled and accepted.

++Rural Americans are not likely to get any deals in ACA because these areas have fewer insurance companies wiling to enter this market. Premiums for places like Wyoming are higher because of too few competitors.

++The latest screamfit from House Republicans is that Americans will be fined even though they can't buy insurance. I doubt it since the Administration is making adjustments on the penalties as I write.

++Robert Reich writes in the Huffington Post about why did the Democrats approve a Republican healthcare plan when theirs would have been cheaper. The answer is political necessity and that the single payer which would save America $1trillion a year was simply not doable.

++Health insurance premiums will rise in cost as they have every year in my lifetime. But there is a difference of mine rising 10-20% and the average of 5% since the law was passed.

No comments:

Post a Comment