Pete the Banker: ObamaCare: Apology or unremitting deception?

November 15, 2013

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Carney On “Keep Your Plan” Bills: “We See That As Throwing The Baby Out With The Bath Water”

obamacare sorryDon’t you hate trite rebuttals from politicians and yet White House spokesman Jay Carney’s response seems fittingly appropriate. Throwing the baby out with the bath water seems an apt description of what President Obama and the Democrats did to the individual health insurance consumer. Those consumers had a perfectly good product and government threw it out!

And despite this travesty, the President merely says “Sorry” without adequately addressing either the individual consumers loss or the additional millions of consumers who face loss of the group health insurance plans provided through their employers a year from now.

His speech and subsequent news conference on the issue were merely intent on perpetuating his deception, doubling down on his legacy — the Affordable Health Care Act or should one say “Atrocity”. One expects honesty and transparency from the President, not a stream of distortion and deception. This plan was sold under the pretense of consumers having uninterrupted better quality health insurance coverage at lower cost.

Yet the Administration knew in 2010 that millions would lose policies and Obama continues this deception.  McClatchy reports that millions of those covered under group insurance are at risk, estimating that “between 23 million to 41 million” would eventually lose coverage under ACA. Even with the President’s apology he is perpetuating the illusion that only a small number will lose their insurance, trying to ignore the fact that millions covered under group insurance will lose their insurance at the end of 2014 when their current group coverage must conform with ACA mandates. This was estimated by the President’s own Department of Health and Human Services in 2010.

“Many changes in the old insurance plans could trigger the loss of the protected status. Regulations issued by HHS state that the grandfathered status would be lost if the policies eliminate coverage for a particular condition, reduce the annual dollar limit on benefits, increase co-payments by as little as $5 or 15 percent, or increase out-of-pocket maximums by more than 15 percent or premiums by more than 5 percent.
Later in June 2010, Sebelius’ department published estimates in the Federal Register that 39 percent to 69 percent of employers’ fully insured plans would relinquish the coverage they had prior to the March 2010 passage of the ACA and thus would have to cancel or change policies.
About 60 million people are covered in fully insured plans, which make up about 40 percent of employer-provided health plans.”

And the Administration and Democrats in 2010 structured ACA Standards and coverage that is of lower quality than most pre-existing private plans. Premiums will be higher, actuarially reimbursable expenses much lower. How else was the Administration going to gain Health Insurance Industry support. But Administration has continued to parlay the “better” quality deception to a credulous press.

Three lies were perpetuated in the President’s Apology speech,

1. The loss of policy under ACA will impact only 5% of those covered under health care plans, obviously intent on addressing the individual policy market where the current headlines persist. This distorts and ignores estimates by HHS and independent consultants who admit the numbers will be far higher when group insurance renewals hit in late 2014, interestingly just after the mid-term elections.


2. “Sub- par” health plans will be replaced better quality insurance and yet replacement insurance plans under ACA compliance will cost as much or more than pre-existing private plans and will only actuarially reimburse 60% +/- of out of pocket costs of those covered versus 80%+ under pre 2010 private policies.   This is a “higher” or “better” quality product?

3. “This is like having a really good product in a store, and the cash registers don’t work”,  said the Prsident.  And yet his cash register has given glimpses, when working, of the elevated costs of the ACA health insurance. Perhaps the President would have been more accurate in stating that this is like having a high priced dubious product that never seems to show up at the store cash register. What happened to those assurances of lower cost health insurance?

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One expects solutions to problems, not creation of problems from government. Yet the Affordable Care Act has created major problem for many with individual health insurance. Others covered under employers will face the same problem in the future when employers are forced to conform offered health insurance plans to ACA standards or end coverage. A dilemma that the Presidents “apologetic” deception intended to perpetuate.