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Wednesday, November 13, 2013

We're Starting To Hear/Read The Human Toll -- Wait Until The Employer Mandate Kicks In Next Year ... The Death Spiral

Breitbart is reporting: only 1 percent of those Massachusetts folks who had their policies canceled have been able to find new insurance. This has to be playing havoc with the entire health care industry, from those who are delivering care, to those who are trying to access health care. This is truly incredible. Folks come down with pneumonia daily; their kids break their bones; women become pregnant.

As I've said before, the GOP dodged a silver bullet when the Tea Party failed in efforts to defund ObamaCare. Or was it, the Tea Party dodged a silver bullet when the GOP failed in efforts to defund ObamaCare. Regardless, President Obama and his party now "own" ObamaCare. And what an incredible mess.

Each day, policies expire, and folks will continue receiving notices of cancellations through March 31, 2014. This is one of the few ObamaScare stories that has legs. This story is not going to go away.

Insurers are in deep, deep trouble. Think about it. They are losing millions of premium-paying customers, to be replaced by high-risk consumers of health care who will start racking up expensive as of January 1, 2014, and with NO lifetime medical caps. Once that $12,000 deductible is paid, the insurance companies have bought the entire risk. Yes, I know, the $12,000 deductible is an annual deductible.

But back to the Breitbart story. In case the link is broken, some key paragraphs:
There are too many rolling and coming catastrophes caused by ObamaCare to keep track of. Just wait until the employer market is hit late next year. But within a few weeks, a humanitarian crisis is about to hit millions who could find themselves without health insurance. Millions who had their insurance policies cancelled are now unable to re-insure themselves on the broken ObamaCare websites. 
In liberal Massachusetts alone, only 1% of those cancellations have re-enrolled. The Boston Herald reports that ObamaCare and the president's broken promise have already cost 150,000 Bay Staters their health insurance plans. But of those 150,0000, only 549 are in the Massachusetts Health Connector to be re-enrolled on time. Even that small number are not officially enrolled. 
Overall, only 47,781 total accounts have been created and a paltry 16,282 applications have been completed. What you likely have here is a toxic mix of people who either can't access the state site due to the technical problems, or those who have decided not to re-enroll. There is still 32 days to sign up in time, but it is obvious many are in no hurry
And then this:
On top of that, if a large portion of the millions who had their insurance cancelled simply refuse to re-enroll, you can bet that those refusing will be the young and healthy needed to keep ObamaCare financially viable. The result of an insurance pool filled with the sick and elderly would be skyrocketing premiums; which means more healthy people drop out, which mean prices go even higher.
That is called the death spiral
On October 21, 2013, I first used the phrase "Death Spiral" to describe what is going on with ObamaCare which is now AmericaCare.

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