http://www.nextgov.com/health/2013/09/hacked-data-brokers-could-spell-trouble-obamacare/70958/?oref=ng-HPtopstory
A service that sells personal data to identity thieves has been getting its wares from hacked data brokers storing information similar to what Obamacare marketplaces plan to use, setting the scene for fraudsters to collect government subsidies.
According to a new investigative report by cybersecurity researcher Brian Krebs, the service, known as SSNDOB, hacked LexisNexis and other large data aggregators that supply ID check information.
Lenders, health insurers, and other organizations that need to confirm who they are dealing with use this information for knowledge-based authentication -- screening that quizzes a user about information only the valid user is likely to know, such as a former home address or parent’s middle name.
"They also have a bunch of bogus questions that they can serve up to see if you really are who you say you are," explains Gartner identity fraud analyst Avivah Litan, who, in a blog post, raised alarms about the impact of the data broker hacks on Obamacare implementation.
Criminals can get their hands on anyone’s "identity information through the black market exchanges that Krebs writes about. Frankly, it’s another ominous and bad sign for Obamacare, since as I understand it, the new health care insurance exchanges will be using the same [knowledge-based authentication] to verify applicants for healthcare insurance," Litan wrote in her blog post. Krebs interviewed Litan for his story.
She added: "The likely results will be chaotic and troublesome, and will no doubt fuel the fire of Obamacare opponents."
The online exchanges set to open Oct. 1 are expected to attract scammers seeking financial gain or personal data, according to security specialists.
The targets of the identity theft service were LexisNexis, business information company Dun & Bradstreet, and Kroll Background America, Inc., a company that provides employment background, drug, and health screening. The health marketplace exchanges use similar tools, such as Equifax databases, to ensure applicants are who they claim to be.
Officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is responsible for protecting Obamacare records, said they currently are not contracting with any of the three breached companies for work on the federally managed exchange. They could not confirm whether states running their own exchanges are using the firms.
CMS officials said the privacy and security of consumers’ personal information is a top priority. The marketplace systems are designed to prevent security vulnerabilities by storing as little identifying data as possible.
One single application asks for some personal information necessary to determine eligibility, such as the applicant’s name, address and date of birth, they said. All exchanges will be required to validate an applicant’s identity for registering in a plan, and, if the enrollee requests, the exchanges will confirm the individual’s qualifications for tax credits, cost-sharing reductions, Medicaid and other affordability programs.
SSNDOB's customers have paid for Social Security numbers, birthdates, driver’s license records, and unauthorized credit and background reports on more than four million Americans, according to Krebs.
SSNDOB penetrated the data brokers' systems with a botnet, a collection of hacked computers manipulated remotely. "This botnet appears to have been in direct communications with internal systems at several large data brokers in the United States," Krebs wrote. "The botnet’s Web-based interface . . . indicated that the miscreants behind this ID theft service controlled at least five infected systems at different U.S.-based consumer and business data aggregators."
LexisNexis acknowledged that two systems listed in the botnet were company Web servers that had been compromised, according to Krebs. The company is believed to manage the biggest database for legal and public-records related information in the world. The affected servers apparently have had access to LexisNexis' systems for at least the past five months.
The company said that, so far, there is “no evidence that customer or consumer data were reached or retrieved,” via the hacked systems. Officials with Altegrity, a Falls Church, Va.-based holding company that manages Kroll Background America, told Krebs a range of internal and external incident response specialists are investigating his allegations, but declined to confirm or deny the breaches. Dun & Bradstreet officials said they were aggressively investigating the matter and are in touch with the appropriate authorities.
The company said that, so far, there is “no evidence that customer or consumer data were reached or retrieved,” via the hacked systems. Officials with Altegrity, a Falls Church, Va.-based holding company that manages Kroll Background America, told Krebs a range of internal and external incident response specialists are investigating his allegations, but declined to confirm or deny the breaches. Dun & Bradstreet officials said they were aggressively investigating the matter and are in touch with the appropriate authorities.
Since its inception in early 2012, the identity theft peddler has granted customers more than 1.02 million unique SSNs and nearly 3.1 million date of birth records, according to Krebs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/reports-of-computer-problems-and-logistical-glitches-proceed-launch-of-obamacare/2013/09/27/4ca18dcc-2792-11e3-b3e9-d97fb087acd6_print.html
Reports of problems precede launch of Obamacare
By Sandhya Somashekhar, Lena H. Sun and Sarah Kliff,
Buying health insurance will be as easy as purchasing a plane ticket or shopping on Amazon, the president has promised.Maybe, but perhaps not on Tuesday — the day that millions of Americans are supposed to be able to start buying coverage under the sweeping law referred to as Obamacare.
Widespread reports of computer problems and logistical glitches are casting a pall over what many supporters envisioned would be a triumphant day for the embattled program. State and federal health officials have said in recent days that some key functions of the online insurance sites called “marketplaces” will not be ready right away. Some of the consumer guides meant to help people sign up for coverage are not yet certified to do so.
Some people who had planned events in conjunction with the opening of the marketplaces have called them off.
“We just kind of laughed and said, ‘Well, I guess we’ll have to reschedule,’ ” said Jason T. Andrews, an insurance broker in California. He had planned on Tuesday to get on the state’s online marketplace and enroll a couple of people who were excited about the health-care law and wanted to be among the first to sign up for coverage.
But he hasn’t been certified by the state to do the work. He hasn’t been able to see the exact rates his clients would have to pay on the marketplace. And he’s not confident that California’s site will be up and running, and fully functioning, come Tuesday. California officials insist the marketplace will be ready, and that the brokers will be certified in early October.
Obama administration officials have warned there might be rough spots in the early days. They also have said those problems aren’t likely to prevent people from signing up for coverage that starts Jan. 1, when many of the law’s benefits and consumer protections kick in.
However, widespread problems on Tuesday, if they occur, will further fuel Republican attacks on the law’s viability. The program is at the center of a standoff between the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill that could lead to a government shutdown on the very day the marketplaces are to open and an eventual default on the nation’s debt.
Under the law, more low-income citizens will become eligible for Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, while others will receive federal subsidies to help pay their premiums for private coverage bought on the marketplaces. Some of the marketplaces, also called exchanges, are being operated by the states, but most are being run at least partly by the federal government.
Some problems could be worse than mere glitches:
In the District, people who use the online marketplace will not immediately learn if they are eligible for Medicaid or for subsidies.
In Oregon, people will not initially be able to enroll in an insurance plan on the Web site.
In Vermont, the marketplace will not be ready to accept online premium payments until November.
In California, it could take a month for an insurer to receive the application of someone who applies for coverage on the exchange on Oct. 1.
“Nobody is going to say we’re not starting on October 1,” said Joel Ario, a health-care consultant who formerly oversaw exchanges at the Department of Health and Human Services. “But in some situations, you may see a redefinition of what ‘start’ means.”
From a practical standpoint, a slow start might not have a big impact on consumers. According to the latest poll by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, just 12 percent of the uninsured know that open enrollment starts Oct. 1.
One problem insurers have pointed out is that there are some errors in the premiums that shoppers would see online. A senior administration official said that such problems are being worked on and that the marketplaces will be ready on time.
But as the launch nears, more delays are occurring. On Thursday, the administration announced a delay in the online shopping system for small businesses and confirmed that the Spanish-language site for signing up for coverage will be delayed until mid-October. Earlier in the week, officials said Medicaid applications will not be electronically transferred from the federally run exchange to states until November.
Jon Kingsdale, former head of the Massachusetts health exchange who is now a consultant to many states about their exchanges, described a particularly worrisome problem. In testing, he said, some exchanges have been unable to immediately send to insurers information about what amounts consumers would owe for health plans. The impact should be minimal if addressed in October.
“If that isn’t working on an automated basis by the end of October, we’re really in deep doo-doo,” Kingsdale said.
On Thursday, President Obama touted the ease with which people will be able to buy health insurance on the federally run marketplace, Healthcare.gov.
“Now, this is real simple,” he said during his speech at Prince George’s Community College. “It’s a Web site where you can compare and purchase affordable health insurance plans side by side the same way you shop for a plane ticket on Kayak, same way you shop for a TV on Amazon.”
He said there would be glitches but predicted they would be few and exaggerated by political foes. “They’ll have their cameras ready to document anything that doesn’t go completely right,” he said.
Joanne Peters, an HHS spokeswoman said: “The Health Insurance Marketplace will open in every state on October 1. As we have said, we expect that adjustments will be needed along the way, and will be ready to address them.” She said that thousands of in-person helpers have been certified across the country.
Special troubleshooting teams also will be available around the clock.
Still, Colorado’s marketplace, Connect for Health Colorado, decided to delay certain online functions after testing fell behind. People seeking to buy coverage with federal subsidies in the initial weeks will at some point have to call a hotline to finish the process.
“We don’t feel comfortable with it running automated right now,” spokesman Ben Davis said.
The Colorado marketplace was testing more than 100,000 types of scenarios that it might encounter, ranging from relatively simple situations with individuals to more complex cases involving sprawling families. In the more difficult situations, software that was supposed to determine the size of a subsidy was not always coming up with the right number.
In some places, applicants may run into trouble initially finding people to assist them through the enrollment process.
As of Friday, Iowa had no certified “navigators” — groups and individuals who have been approved to serve as in-person helpers. State officials expect the navigators to be certified by Tuesday.
On the federally run marketplaces, the system for brokers to become certified to help people sign up on the marketplaces has been plagued with problems, say insurance brokers.
The certification site “ is constantly crashing. It’s been a complete pain,” said Wes Bissett, senior counsel for state government affairs at the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America.
and...
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/26/abandon-ship-senate-democrat-calls-for-delaying-obamacares-individual-mandate-as-wh-announces-new-delay-for-exchanges/
Abandon ship: Senate Democrat calls for delaying ObamaCare’s individual mandate as WH announces new delay for exchanges
POSTED AT 1:21 PM ON SEPTEMBER 26, 2013 BY ALLAHPUNDIT
Two words, my friends: “Bipartisan support.”
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia broke ranks with fellow Democrats and said he’d support a stopgap spending plan that delays the individual mandate in President Barack Obama’s health-care law.“There’s no way I could not vote for it,” Manchin said at a Bloomberg Government breakfast today. “It’s very reasonable and sensible.”…Manchin, 66, said he’d be willing to delay the individual mandate as part of the budget negotiations because the Obama administration in July gave businesses an extra year to provide their workers with health insurance.“Don’t put the mandate on the American public right now,” Manchin said. “Give them at least a year. If you know you couldn’t bring the corporate sector, you gave them a year, don’t you think it’d be fair?”
Two intriguing footnotes. One: News of this broke while The One was busy delivering his umpteen-thousandth speech about how terrific O-Care will be if we just give it a chance. Coincidence, or did Manchin time this for maximum impact? Two: Unlike many other red-state Democrats, he’s not up for reelection next year. He’s safe in West Virginia until 2018. Either he supports delay on the merits (he ran an ad three years ago in which he literally shot a hole through a copy of the bill) or he thinks the political fallout of backing O-Care will be so gruesome that it’ll still be a liability for him in five years. Either way, this is just the sort of political cover that Democrats who are up for reelection in conservative states need to vote with the GOP. Pryor, Landrieu, Begich, Hagan — Republicans could conceivably have 50 votes or more for delay headed into debt-ceiling negotiations. That won’t break a filibuster but it does complicate the White House’s message of blaming everything on those darned wingnuts and their anti-ObamaCare monomania.
But Manchin’s announcement wasn’t the only news breaking during O’s speech:
The Obama administration is delaying another piece of Obamacare – this time postponing online enrollment in some of the small-business exchanges scheduled to open Oct. 1, sources tell POLITICO.Small businesses looking to enroll in coverage on so-called SHOP exchanges run by the federal government will be able to submit a paper application on Oct. 1 – they just won’t be able to enroll online…The SHOP applications represent the latest glitch in the federal exchange infrastructure. Federal health officials recently said they won’t be able to transfer Medicaid applications to states right away, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week.
So there’s the answer to the question I asked last night. The D.C. exchange was promoted by the media as ahead of the curve relative to other exchanges, and yet they still couldn’t get the subsidies calculations right in time for launch day — with three years to prepare. If that’s the shape that a comparatively well-run exchange was in, when would the more poorly-run exchanges start postponing elements of the rollout? Well, here you go. It took less than 24 hours.
Exit question: At this point, would the White House rather meet Boehner’s demand for a one-year delay of all of ObamaCare or Manchin’s demand for a one-year delay of the individual mandate specifically? I think there’s more political risk to the latter than the former, no? If you delay the whole law, you buy yourself time to work out all the bugs before trying again at a rollout next year. It’ll be hugely embarrassing to the White House to postpone things when they’re this close to launch, and there are doubtless lots of congressional Democrats who don’t want O-Care becoming a key issue right before the midterms, but that’s survivable. What’s potentially not survivable is rolling out the exchanges now minus the individual mandate, which means lots of young adults will face no legal compulsion to buy in. If (as Bill Clinton noted two days ago) healthy uninsured people refuse to fork over their money, then insurers suddenly don’t have a pool of revenue to cover all the people with preexisting conditions who are signing up, and then the whole scheme starts to collapse. There’ll be no delays after that; if insurers start crumbling, we’ll be in post-ObamaCare mode as a country. Better, then, to hit pause on the whole thing if you’re O to prevent that sort of collapse, right?
House GOP to tie one-year delay in ObamaCare to debt-ceiling hike
POSTED AT 12:01 PM ON SEPTEMBER 26, 2013 BY ED MORRISSEY
According to Reuters, at least, the House Republican caucus has settled on a new strategy to fight ObamaCare — and on new ground. The caucus has decided to shift away on a defunding strategy based on a continuing resolution needed by the weekend to keep government funded, and instead tied the debt-ceiling raise needed by October 17th to an agreement to delay the rest of the ObamaCare mandates for one year:
Republicans in the House of Representatives will demand a one-year delay of full implementation of the 2010 healthcare law known as Obamacare in its opening offer to increase the U.S. debt limit, their leaders announced on Thursday.
Earlier today, John Boehner rejected Barack Obama’s refusal to negotiate on a debt-ceiling raise, telling the media, “It doesn’t work that way.” Obama should know better; he negotiated on the debt ceiling in 2011, for instance, and voted against a similar hike in 2006 as a Senator during the Bush administration. When he claimed that Republican demands for negotiations amounted to extortion and were unprecedented, the Washington Post slapped him with four Pinocchios for the claim.
The shift in battlegrounds for Republican caucuses in both chambers had been noted earlier by Politico:
A large number of Senate and House Republicans are raising the threat of a debt default to curtail, delay or defund President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement. It’s a major gamble — risking the prospect of a first-ever default on U.S. debt — but it’s one seriously being considered by the same Republicans who have refused to join Cruz’s filibuster attempt of the stopgap spending bill to keep the government running.“I think the debt ceiling is a good opportunity … to defund or at least delay,” said Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn, who opposed his Texas colleague’s tactics on the spending bill. “I’m for delay, defund, repeal, demolish, destroy, whatever the ‘d’ is, when it comes to Obamacare — I’m for.”Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who dubbed Cruz’s threat to shut down the government over Obamacare the “dumbest idea” he’d ever heard, said Congress shouldn’t give Obama a debt ceiling increase without attaching strings, and the president “is going to pay some price for it, which is a benefit for the American people.”“I hope [an Obamacare] delay is either part of the next [continuing resolution] or I hope it’s part of the debt ceiling,” Burr said.
Byron York also reported earlier that the predictable failure of the all-or-nothing defunding strategy had Republicans on Capitol Hill thinking about more subtle ways to impact ObamaCare and other priorities:
House GOP leaders have lots of options. They could always re-attach a defunding provision and send the continuing resolution back to the Senate. I’m told that idea is off the table; it would do nothing except provoke a government shutdown. The House GOP could also attach a measure to delay the implementation of Obamacare, or of the individual mandate at the heart of Obamacare, for a year or some other period of time. I’m told that is also off the table; Senate Democrats and President Obama have shown no more inclination to agree to delaying Obamacare than they have to defunding it.House GOP leaders could also decide to surrender completely and simply pass the “clean” continuing resolution, ensuring funding of the government and doing nothing about Obamacare. I’m told that’s off the table, too.
York didn’t mention a delay, but instead reported that Republicans might offer one or both of two other options. One would be a repeal of the medical-device excise tax, which some Senate Democrats want to see eliminated, but which would create a shortfall of statutory revenue for the ObamaCare exchanges. The other would be to force a reversal in the White House decision to exempt Congress and its staffers from the provisions of ObamaCare and its exchanges. Both options would make it difficult, if not impossible, for vulnerable Senate Democrats to oppose.
On the other hand, with defunding dead, does it make sense to delay or nibble at this at the late stage of a game of fiscal chicken? The exchange rollout is already a disaster, withpremiums skyrocketing and even the smallest and most Democratic government unable to get its act together. Perhaps the best way to argue for a later dismantling of ObamaCare is to get out of the way of the train wreck and make sure that the Obama administration and Democrats own it entirely, rather than allow the claim that the troubles have been caused by Republican efforts to stop it. That’s the “let it burn” strategy, and at this point, it might be a better play, especially if Democrats really want to own it — as they have proven this week. It’s still worth forcing Democrats to vote against a one-year delay for consumers while endorsing delays that let employers and insurers off the hook, though. Get that on the record, and then perhaps it’s time to get out of the way.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-26/obamacare-most-polarizing-legislation-history-congress
Obamacare: The Most Polarizing Legislation In The History Of Congress?
While everyone knows that there is a profound ideological schism when it comes to those for and against the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, what may not be appreciated is that Obamacare was, and still is, the most contentious and polarizing legislation in the history of Congress. At least, it is according to JPMorgan. In the chart below, JPM's Michael Cembalest shows that the "disagreement gap" between Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate, over 100 years of impactful legislation, has never been greater than with Obamacare.
Additional commentary:
While debt sustainability is still a matter of dispute, the heart of the existing impasse is Obamacare. In the 21st century, the concept of universal health care (single payer, two-tier or insurance mandate) occurs just about everywhere in the developed world, and increasingly, in the developing world. Nevertheless, and regardless of what anyone thinks about its merits and failings, Obamacare has an “original sin” problem: for the first time in 100 years, one party crammed down a bill with national implications without any agreement from the opposing party.As shown in the table below, whether the issue was civil rights, creation of entitlement programs, welfare reform, labor relations, tax preferences or the first-time imposition of Federal controls over the environment, financial markets and the money supply, major (and at times controversial) bills of the 20th century were passed with some level of participation and consent from both parties in both chambers. Obamacare was not. It’s too soon to judge whether the country will adapt to something about which their elected representatives were so deeply divided. As things stand now, the bill’s support in a recent CNN poll is around 39%. Benjamin Franklin’s quote comes to mind when thinking about one-sided enactment of nationally impactful legislation: “We must hang together, or most assuredly, we will all hang separately”."
ObamaCare..... first some mockery !
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Obamacare 2.0: How To Tell The Sham From The Wow!
Wow! Imagine the nerve of that guy - spouting off on healthcare like that when he doesn’t have the faintest idea what he’s talking about.
No, not this guy:
This guy:
I trust you’ve read this report that claims that Big Guy and his Big Brains came up with the whole idea of Obamacare as a “throw away applause line” in a campaign speech:
and Big Guy’s own penchant for fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants strategic planning; butt seriously – universal health care has been the Holy Grail ofcommunists socialists progressives since their inception.
And I know for a fact that BHO didn’t build that strategy on his own; somebody else did that for him:
Anyway, the Hot Air story makes it sound like BO’s campaign was rather slovenly pulled together and implies that Big Guy would say anything to get elected. How racist is that?
So maybe the Really Big Brains hadn’t thought the whole Obamacare implementation thing through, butt that’s not their job. That responsibility falls on the shoulders of the little people: highly trained and skilled government functionaries.
New cost-effective, reusable hypodermic needle designed by a government bureaucrat
Butt seriously, how tough could it be? All we had to do was figure out how to give 20-40 million uninsured (documented and undocumented) citizens free health care insurance (which is their right) without raising the government’s cost or driving doctors out of practice. It’s just a matter of spreading the wealth around, right? And we sure know how to do that. It’s so simple, any clown can do it:
Take Nancy Pelosi for example; she did it without even reading the bill!
So don’t try to scam me into believing that Big Guy’s eponymous bill - designed to win the hearts, minds and votes of millions of poor, unemployed, and disenfranchised citizens for decades to come - was a “throw away line.”
Let me be clear; Obamacare was a well conceived idea,
that ran into a few little problems, mostly caused by Republicans,
h/t SADHILL News
and temporarily ran off the rails. Butt don’t worry: we’ve got plenty of Big Brains left around here to get it back on track. Of course we’ll need a little more money to complete the track before things are 100% operational.
Every Big Idea hits a few bumps in the road along the way
And since our economy is now in the fifth year of a robust Obama recovery, there’s no problem with increasing taxes on everyone the filthy rich in order to fund the rest of the track.
So listen up Senator Cruz; we have no intention of putting this train where you think it belongs:
Train at Henry Ford Museum (photo credit: Michael Lavander)
So save your breath. We don’t need to have you shooting your mouth off like some huckster on the Atlantic City boardwalk about all the lies in Obamacare. That’s Barry’s job.
Barrack Hussein Obama: Sham-wowing us since 2008
Sham…
WOW!
No, not this guy:
This guy:
I trust you’ve read this report that claims that Big Guy and his Big Brains came up with the whole idea of Obamacare as a “throw away applause line” in a campaign speech:
Soon-to-be-candidate Obama, then an Illinois senator, was thinking about turning down an invitation to speak at a big health care conference sponsored by the progressive group Families USA [in January 2007], when two aides, Robert Gibbs and Jon Favreau, hit on an idea that would make him appear more prepared and committed than he actually was at the moment.Why not just announce his intention to pass universal health care by the end of his first term?…
I know that sounds entirely plausible, given the relative inexperience of our campaign staff,“We needed something to say,” recalled one of the advisers involved in the discussion. “I can’t tell you how little thought was given to that thought other than it sounded good. So they just kind of hatched it on their own. It just happened. It wasn’t like a deep strategic conversation.”
and Big Guy’s own penchant for fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants strategic planning; butt seriously – universal health care has been the Holy Grail of
And I know for a fact that BHO didn’t build that strategy on his own; somebody else did that for him:
Anyway, the Hot Air story makes it sound like BO’s campaign was rather slovenly pulled together and implies that Big Guy would say anything to get elected. How racist is that?
So maybe the Really Big Brains hadn’t thought the whole Obamacare implementation thing through, butt that’s not their job. That responsibility falls on the shoulders of the little people: highly trained and skilled government functionaries.
New cost-effective, reusable hypodermic needle designed by a government bureaucrat
Take Nancy Pelosi for example; she did it without even reading the bill!
So don’t try to scam me into believing that Big Guy’s eponymous bill - designed to win the hearts, minds and votes of millions of poor, unemployed, and disenfranchised citizens for decades to come - was a “throw away line.”
Let me be clear; Obamacare was a well conceived idea,
that ran into a few little problems, mostly caused by Republicans,
h/t SADHILL News
Every Big Idea hits a few bumps in the road along the waySo listen up Senator Cruz; we have no intention of putting this train where you think it belongs:
Train at Henry Ford Museum (photo credit: Michael Lavander)
Barrack Hussein Obama: Sham-wowing us since 2008 “In the 2008 campaign, affordable, universal health care for every single American must not be a question of whether, it must be a question of how,” Obama said at the Families USA conference. “We have the ideas, we have the resources, and we must find the will to pass a plan by the end of the next president’s first term.”
Sham…
WOW!and.....
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/25/colorado-our-exchange-wont-calculate-subsidies-online-for-at-least-a-month-either/
Colorado: Our exchange won’t calculate subsidies online for at least a month, either
POSTED AT 10:01 PM ON SEPTEMBER 25, 2013 BY MARY KATHARINE HAM
Allahpundit asked, “If D.C.’s in as bad a shape as this, what shape are other exchanges that need to serve bigger, more complicated markets in?”
Pitched to the public as a Travelocity-style online marketplace for health insurance, Colorado’s new health exchange won’t allow customers to get online tax credits for at least the first month.Colorado exchange managers revealed Monday during a board meeting that customers who want tax credits to make health insurance more affordable will have to call for help, rather than navigating the multi-million dollar computer system on their own.One of the target audiences for the new exchange is “young invincibles,” healthy 20-somethings, many of whom prefer to do research and make purchases for everything from athletic shoes to college tuition online.
Normally, these two stories would go in the same piece, but it’s worth highlighting exactly where and how each of these exchanges is falling short of one of the last remaining promises they could have kept. I imagine D.C. and Colorado are just the first couple of dominoes.
The state had a Colorado Benefits Management System in place notorious for glitches, but just like D.C.’s exchange flacks, Obamacare supporters, and Obama himself, the folks in charge of the exchange kept promising it would launch on time and better than ever.
Even customers working with in-person navigators in Colorado (the ones with 20 hours of training and no background checks) will have to call into a customer service line, whereanother bureaucrat will walk them through an application on the phone. This sounds like a process perfectly tailored to entice young invincibles into the system, amirite, Millenials?
And, surprise, the various databases and government and private online entities required to work together are not marrying up smoothly:
Solutions has reported for months on sparring behind the scenes between exchange managers, who operate outside of state government, and the state officials who run Medicaid. Each is using a different IT consultant, but their systems must dovetail in order for the exchange to work as promised.
The Washington Post piece assumes the federal data hub itself will work perfectly, even though it’s meant to cull an incredible amount of data and pair it with an incredibly complex set of eligibility requirements. I think even that’s an open question, but here’s the bottom line: This is a giant tech undertaking which will need to serve many localities with different needs, link existing technologies and personnel with a new, giant federal hub, and somehow make sure all of them work together to smoothly to guide consumers who have no idea what to expect in subsidies or services through a brand new web portal for health insurance. They have less than a year to accomplish this. It seems there has been no pilot program, no training, and no beta testing. This thing is ORCA on steroids.
Along with limited choices, cut employee hours, and rate shock, the predicted “pricing glitch”is now a reality.
In Colorado, the health care hacks have moved the goalposts to December 15, saying they expect a slow ramp-up to that later date. Here in D.C., some supporters are admirably candid about their newly low expectations, which we should all accept with aplomb.
It’s your family’s health care, your personal information, your time and energy, and huge chunks of your annual income on the line. But hey, don’t have a cow about it:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-25/they-got-it-wrong-all-accounts-where-obamacare-now
"They Got It Wrong On All Accounts" - Where Is Obamacare Now?
The Obamacare that consumers will finally be able to sign up for next week is a long way from the health plan President Obama first pitched to the nation. As Politico notes,millions of low-income Americans won’t receive coverage. Many workers at small businesses won’t get a choice of insurance plans right away. Large employers won’t need to provide insurance for another year. Far more states than expected won’t run their own insurance marketplaces. And a growing number of workers won’t get to keep their employer-provided coverage. But, apart from that - and all the exemptions - six more days and we will all get to see the shiny new exchanges; which may (or may not) prove Sen. Barraso right when he said "It was bad policy and bad politics. They got it wrong on all accounts."
An example from Kentucky... the only state to fully embrace Obamacare...
[Why has it changed so much?]
Every branch of the federal government played a role in weakening the law over the past three years, the casualty of a divisive legislative fight, a surprise Supreme Court ruling, a complex implementation and an unrelenting political opposition.The result has been a stark gap between the promise of Obamacare and the reality — one that has fueled a deep vein of skepticism about the law as it enters its most critical phase.
[Hope is back]
Obama will take a lead role during the six-month enrollment period in trying to convert critics...His best defense against Republican repeal efforts is a robust consumer response, and his best hope to soften years of public antipathy is a successful rollout. That’s why Obama is asking millions of Americans to just give the law a chance — go to the Web, sign up for a health care plan starting Oct. 1 and claim a new benefit that’s there for the taking on Jan. 1.
[Costs down?]
The growth rate for health care costs has slowed to its lowest level in decades, although experts dispute whether the recession or Obamacare should receive the credit.
[Set backs]
The broad pillars of Obamacare remain intact: the exchanges, the subsidies and the security of coverage for so many Americans who otherwise couldn’t afford it.But in ways large and small, the changes to the law are making the reality of health reform more challenging.The Supreme Court set back coverageChief Justice John Roberts handed the Obama administration an unexpected victory last year with his 5-4 opinion upholding the law.Less understood at the time: the dramatic consequences for his split-the-difference solution that a mandatory Medicaid expansion must be an option for each state....“It’s underappreciated how fundamentally the Supreme Court changed the law when it made Medicaid a state option,” said Drew Altman, president and chief executive officer of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. “The law that is being implemented is not really the law that passed the Congress.”
[Holes in coverage]
As written, the law required states to expand the Medicaid program to cover people who make up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level — or about $31,000 for a family of four. Now there will be a coverage gap for people who are too poor to qualify for federal subsidies to purchase insurance on the exchanges but not poor enough to access Medicaid in states where governors refused to broaden the program.
[The family glitch]
For instance, workers can opt out of their employer insurance — and go on the exchange — if their share of the premium is more than 9.5 percent of their household income. But the law calculates that based on the worker’s premium, not the whole family’s. Advocates of the law have dubbed that “the family glitch” — one that will limit coverage.
[complexity]
“Everyone knew it was complex,” said Alan Weil, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy. But as the law is actually put into practice, “you see more complexity than anyone thought when the law was passed.”
[The Democrats have changed it most...]
Despite more than three years of Republican efforts to stop Obamacare, the vast majority of changes to it have come from the Obama administration.The White House delayed the employer mandate for at least a year to allow time to sort out the complicated reporting requirements. The administration also decided that the CLASS Act — a long-term care program championed by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy — was financially unsustainable.A consumer protection — the limit on out-of-pocket health costs for individuals — was pushed back to 2015 after the administration heard that insurers and employers needed more time to comply. And in most states, workers at small businesses will have only one plan to choose from in the health exchanges next year, not the multiple choices they were supposed to have.
[and it's not getting any better]
Obama promised during the health care fight that people who liked their employer-provided coverage would be able to keep it. But several large employers have announced plans to curtail employer coverage, particularly for part-time workers.
[The Republicans remain distressed...]
“The Democrats were wrong on the law in terms of what it was going to do for the cost of care, and they were wrong on the law in terms of people’s opinions of it,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), one of the Senate’s leading critics of the law.“It was bad policy and bad politics. They got it wrong on all accounts.”
[But Democratic hope prevails]
“We clearly needed a change. The law is not perfect. I don’t think there’s ever been a perfect law,” he said. “But we will see some things that will go very, very well and other things that will be less than anticipated.”
and....
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-09-25/obamacare-unintended-consequence
Obamacare - An Unintended Consequence?
Obamacare officially kicks off in nine days. What the heck is going to happen? I don't believe that anyone really knows.
I'm concerned that there will be many 'unintended' consequences. Information has being coming out in recent days about how much Obamacare is going to cost individuals. As near as I can determine, the cost of Obamacare is going to be substantially lower than what it was thought to be. The liberal press has been having a field day over these cost estimates. Yesterday Obama and Clinton were on TV touting how cheap the new insurance will be. Obama made the point that the cost of health insurance for younger people will be less than a cell phone bill.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its Obamacare cost estimates this week. (Link) If these numbers are what we end up getting across the country, then there is proof that the cost of health care insurance is going down. The HHS report has numbers for different ages and family size, and by city and state. The following are the state by state averages:
Okay, this all sounds good, but what about the unintended consequences?? Consider this report from the CBO that estimated the consequences of Obamacare. Look at the line'Employer' and note that the CBO has forecastzero change in 2014 for the number of individuals who now have private insurance who will be forced onto the exchanges.That line decreases by 2m in 2015. The working assumption is that Obamacare will have a negligible consequence on those individuals who now have private insurance.
But we know for a fact that the CBO estimates are dead wrong. Obamacare has not even started, and these four companies have announced that they will be forcing some of their workers to get Obamacare:
I think the number of workers that will be forced into Obamacare is going to soar over the next few years. The economics will force this to happen. Look again at the pricing structure from HHS. Then check to see how much you are paying for health insurance, and how much your employer is kicking in. If the total of the contributions (self and employer) is greater than the Obamacare cost, then you are in trouble.
Many employers are going to follow the lead set by IBM, Walgreen, UPS and Home Depot. They will compensate employees for the cost of Obamacare, and pocket the difference. An additional incentive is that for employers (large and small), it reduces/eliminates the overhead and problems of company sponsored insurance plans.
What if Obamacare results in substantial forced 'outsourcing' of health insurance? The CBO estimates are way off the mark, but by how much? What happens if the forced migration over the first few years of Obamacare is 20 million, versus the forecast of only 2m? If this is to be the result, then some will call it a great success. This outcome would move the country much closer to the 'single payer' system that many liberals believe should happen.
But what about those who are forced into Obamacare? What about the promise by Obama that in his 'plan' anyone who now has private insurance, could keep it?
I do not have answers to how this will play out. I'm comfortable saying (1) the migration from private insurance to Obamacare is going to be much larger than has been estimated, and (2) large groups of folks will get burnt in the process.
A question for readers:
Are there any muni workers reading? A cop/fireman, town clerk or teacher? Can you share some of the info on what you and your employer's monthly Ins. cost is? Compare that cost to the estimates for Obamacare in your area HHS report Link.
Would your muni save money if it moved you to an exchange? If the answer is "yes" then muni workers are going to be in for a rude awakening. There is not a muni in the country that is not desperate to cut the health care costs it provides for its workers.
Anyone who now has private insurance that is forced onto the insurance exchanges is going to be unhappy. Based on what has happened so far, it appears that the negative consequences of the forced migration is being felt largely by the Democratic base. This unintended consequence of Obamacare may prove to be the 'wild card' that swings the Bi and Presidential elections. It's possible that the liberal's ultimate objective of achieving a single payer system, might well prove to be their undoing. That would be a very interesting unintended consequence.
Good morning Fred,
ReplyDeletemy last comment went missing, think I must have shut down to fast.
I love the funny Obama care post, at least we can still laugh at it for now.
I watched the " Schiff is right" part 2 at Zero hedge this morning, also funny.
Syria, Fukushima, Chicago, Kenya are not so funny but I read those posts too.
Keep up the good work.
Yeah , one must keep the sense of humor in these " interesting " times ! the Schiff video is funny - everyone was so dismissive - and then when the no taper decision came out " Who knew ? "
ReplyDeleteLooming martial law in big US cities , Clusterfark Japan , Kenya situation and Syria are signs of out troubled times !