ObamaCare updates November 25 , 2013 - Who knew Desperation is a Destination ? Congressional Dems ready to flip the white house and turn on Obama IF the Healthcare.gov website is still a dud come December 1 , 2013 ? Besides isn't the website just a symptom for the worsening condition of the whole of ObamaCare ?

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/25/ofa-be-sure-to-use-your-thanksgiving-family-gathering-to-convince-relatives-to-buy-a-plan-on-the-obamacare-exchange/

( ObamaCare - where desperation is apparently a destination... )

OFA: Be sure to use Thanksgiving dinner to convince relatives to buy a plan on the ObamaCare exchange

POSTED AT 6:11 PM ON NOVEMBER 25, 2013 BY ALLAHPUNDIT

  

Via Jonah Goldberg. Believe it or not, these soulless robots have prepared an actual talking-points memo for the occasion replete with tips on how to plan your “talk.” My favorite: “Integrate the talk into family time.” Good advice — and for my money, the more dramatic the integration, the better. When your cousin pulls out baby pictures of her newborn and tries to pass them around, grab her arm gently but firmly and say, “Hey — isn’t there something more important we should be discussing?”

Don’t be fazed by the stunned silence that follows. That’s your opening to grab your iPad and start the Powerpoint on enrollment that you’ve prepared.

I like the idea that you, by dint of having donated to Obama and happily swallowed endless lies about keeping your plan and your provider network, are necessarily the “voice of reason” at the dinner table this year. In the unlikely event that you find yourself seated across from one of these benighted schmucks, you can play it three ways: One: Deflect. Change the subject. Bring up “The Walking Dead” or how boring the NFL is this year or whether maybe Orwell had a point about statism’s insidious power to dehumanize people by reducing them to cogs in a government propaganda machine. Two: Engage. Ace has prepared a helpful talking-points memo of his own in case you find yourself at a loss upon being pitched on O-Care by the same arrogant little sh*t who called you ignorant for doubting that the program would work at Thanksgiving dinners past. (If Ezra Klein has any conservative relatives, he or she is about to have the best Thanksgiving ever.) Three: If there are people at the table considering buying a plan on the exchange, wait patiently until they’re done cursing Obama for having forced their insurer to cancel their old coverage and then prepare them for how to shop on the exchange. For starters, don’t believe the prices quoted on Healthcare.gov:

The troubled federal website allows visitors to anonymously surf the site for exchange plans sold in their areas and provides them with estimated prices for each health plan. (Just click on the “See Plans Now” button on the homepage and follow instructions.) But here’s the problem: The monthly premium estimates provided on the website do not consider a person’s specific age, household size or tobacco use — all critical factors when estimating premiums…

For our family of four, HealthCare.gov offers six Silver plans: four Independence Blue Cross plans and two Aetna plans. (We considered only the Silver plans to keep it simple.) The HealthCare.gov estimates ranged from $708.84 per month to $982 per month.

Now, HealthCare.gov doesn’t ask for ages or even an age range when providing plan information and premium estimates for family coverage. All it wants to know is the visitor’s home state and county.

ValuePenguin.com asks for a little more information. Besides county and state, window shoppers have to provide household size, as well as ages and tobacco use for all family members. That website’s estimates were higher — much higher. A whopping 69 percent higher for each exchange plan. The premium range: $1,201.44 to $1,666 per month. (And, remember, that’s for a family of nonsmokers.)

They might be eligible for a subsidy, but then again they might not. And their subsidy might be illegal depending upon where they buy the plan: If they get it from Healthcare.gov or directly from an insurer, the rug could be pulled out from under them next year. Buying one of the cheaper “bronze” plans on the exchanges will help cut their cost, but they need to be careful and read the fine print. The bronze plans are the ones with the highest deductibles and the smallest provider networks. They might be better off with silver or even gold, if they can afford it. At around this point, someone at the table’s going to pipe up and say, “But why are they so expensive?” That’s when the real fun begins.

Actually, I think that last bit explains why OFA is doing this, as creepy as it seems. They know ObamaCare’s going to come up at a lot of dinner tables this year and they know that most of what’s said won’t be happy. The talking-points memo isn’t meant to be followed to the letter — I hope — it’s just a way of nudging liberals to encourage people to reserve judgment when the subject does come up. In fact, given that young adults are (a) O-Care’s target consumers and (b) the demographic that’s probably most likely to click on a link from OFA, the whole “talking-points memo” is really just a way to encourage the people reading it to sign up themselves. There’s a lot of “young healthies” out there to be gouged before this boat will float.

There … sure is a lot of this stuff floating around on lefty sites right now, though. Exit quotation:

Christopher Hayes        ✔ @chrislhayes

Follow

Devoting our whole show on Wednesday to how to talk about politics, news with conservative family members. Should be fun!

3:07 PM - 25 Nov 2013

Update: Via Mark and Mollie Hemingway, “The 5 Most Insane Obamacare Talking Points You Can Expect To Hear From Your Crazy Uncle This Week.”

Here’s a sample response you might use. “That would be great. Except that I’m going to be washing dishes and cleaning up for a bit. How about you go into the guest room and use the computer in there to sign me up. As soon as you’re done, you can have some pie.”

The key is to get them to make a commitment not to come out until they’ve finished signing you up. Remember their conversation tip — Ask them to make a plan, and commit to it. Ask them to commit to finishing the sign-up before they come out of the room.

Since nobody can actually sign up for Obamacare, they’ll be busily trying to operate the web site for the duration of your visit.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/25/democrats-set-to-turn-on-obama-if-healthcare-gov-isnt-ready-next-week/

Democrats set to turn on Obama if Healthcare.gov isn’t ready next week

POSTED AT 3:41 PM ON NOVEMBER 25, 2013 BY ALLAHPUNDIT

 

Pure, sweet, schadenfreudean goodness from Politico. See now why I think there’s a chance that those new Iran sanctions pass with veto-proof majorities?

Turns out, after three years and a half years of development plus two months of frantic triage to Healthcare.gov, Democrats are finally ready to hold the White House accountable for its giant O-Care fark-up. A little.

“The president and his team have repeatedly assured us that the system will be working by Dec. 1. That’s when I start looking at what we have to do in our oversight function to hold the administration accountable for making it work.” Rep. Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat who is running for an open Senate seat said Thursday, adding that he’s contemplating whether to ask the president to fire members of his staff. “I’m thinking about those options. But my biggest concern is fixing the system and making it work.”…

[A] big-city lawmaker predicted oversight hearings are “going to be ugly” come next month. “The more we find out about this implementation of the ACA, the worse it looks. The Congress did our job. We passed the ACA. It’s up to the administration to implement the law.”…

“At this point, I don’t think there is anyone that would express any confidence in the administration’s ability to right the ship,” said [a House Democratic] source, adding that members seem to be “bracing for another tidal wave when Dec. 1 comes and goes and we are still dealing with a dysfunctional website, or ‘broken computer’ as the old-timers have been calling it.”…

One Democratic House member, asked by text message whether he was worried that there didn’t seem to be a Plan B at the White House, wrote back, “Yes!!!”

What does it mean for Democrats to turn on O, apart from some angry grandstanding at the next round of congressional hearings on ObamaCare? Well, there may or may not be floor votes to extend the enrollment period or delay the mandate, depending upon how loyal Reid is feeling to Obama these days. Another piece at Politico notes a schism between congressional Democratic leaders who feel they need to protect O on the one hand and Democratic strategists and backbenchers who need to protect the party (read: themselves) next November on the other. Al Franken’s job approval stands at 51/42 and he’s running next year in a famously blue state, and even he’s erring on the side of delay. No one is safe, at least for now.

If Reid sides with rank and file and those floor votes on delay happen, that’ll raise a new dilemma for the White House. Does O sign the bill(s), knowing that giving people more time to enroll next year could make the adverse selection problem for insurers worse, or does he veto it/them on grounds that it’s too early to know if an enrollment extension is necessary and that we should avoid one if possible? As with Iran sanctions, I don’t know if a veto-proof majority is out of the question. In fact, precisely because a veto override would be a dramatic way to distance congressional Dems from Obama, some Democratic fencesitters may end up tilting in favor of the bills. Even if it’s bad policy for O-Care fans, it’s good optics for the panicky Democrats who passed it.

Speaking of the website and Democratic schadenfreude, carve out three minutes for this NYT piece from Saturday about the special blend of arrogance and incompetence that led HHS to think it could manage a project as sophisticated as the Healthcare.gov build. Here’s what House Democrats will be ostentatiously pounding the table over at the next hearings:

CGI and other contractors complained of endlessly shifting requirements and a government decision-making process so cumbersome that it took weeks to resolve elementary questions, such as determining whether users should be required to provide Social Security numbers. Some CGI software engineers ultimately walked out, saying it was impossible to produce good work under such conditions…

Another sore point was the Medicare agency’s decision to use database software, from a company called MarkLogic, that managed the data differently from systems by companies like IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. CGI officials argued that it would slow work because it was too unfamiliar. Government officials disagreed, and its configuration remains a serious problem…

[HHS technology officer Henry] Chao had to consult with senior department officials and the White House, and was unable to make many decisions on his own. “Nothing was decided without a conversation there,” said one agency official involved in the project, referring to the constant White House demands for oversight. On behalf of Mr. Chao, the Medicare agency declined to comment…

A pattern of ever-shifting requirements persisted throughout the project, including the administration’s decision late last year to try to redesign the site’s appearance and content to make it more informative to consumers, according to many specialists involved. The administration also decided to reconfigure it as a national site, instead of one where each state had its own front page, after many states decided not to open their own exchanges.

Things were so far behind in late summer, per the Times, that HHS had no choice but to drop nearly 30 features that had wanted for the site — including a system to transmit subsidies for individual consumers’ policies to insurers. A predecessor at HHS warned Chao this summer that you can’t build a system like this overnight, to which Chao allegedly replied, “I know. But I cannot talk them out of it.” Anyone out there still think President Bambi was a blissfully ignorant little fawn about all this?

Repairs are being made, though. Even inveterate website critic Bob Laszewski reports that there have been improvements to the crucially important back end of the site, which routes information on applicants between insurers and the federal data hub. Roughly five percent of the information that’s being received by the industry, though, is still garbled or incomplete. If that rate isn’t reduced, the White House’s target of seven million enrollments by next April would mean … 350,000 botched applications that would need to be corrected. Somehow.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/25/uh-oh-many-younger-consumers-wont-get-subsidies-in-obamacare-exchanges/

Uh oh: Many younger consumers won’t get subsidies in ObamaCare exchanges

POSTED AT 1:11 PM ON NOVEMBER 25, 2013 BY ED MORRISSEY

 

If CNN’s analysis is correct, then the website is the least of the White House’s worries on ObamaCare.  The administration, specifically Kathleen Sebelius, insisted that anyone earning less than 400% of poverty level would qualify for subsidies on the exchanges, but that may not actually be true.  Thanks to a complicated formula for subsidies, the system will exclude many lower-income younger consumers from subsidies … the very people the ObamaCare program needs to sign up to keep the system from collapsing (via NewsAlert):

But a CNN analysis shows that in the largest city in nearly every state, many low-income younger Americans won’t get any subsidy at all. Administration officials said the reason so many Americans won’t receive a subsidy is that the cost of insurance is lower than the government initially expected. Subsidies are calculated using a complicated formula based on the cost of insurance premiums, which can vary drastically from state to state, and even county to county.

That doesn’t change the fact that in Chicago, a 27-year old will receive no subsidy to help offset premiums of more than $165 a month if he makes more than $27,400 a year.

In Portland, Oregon, subsidies for individuals making just $28,725 a year phase out for those younger than 35 years old.

CNN compares this to testimony from Sebelius in April, in which she told Congress that anyone under the 400%  of poverty level line would qualify for federal subsidies in the exchanges:

Back in April, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a congressional subcommittee that any individual making under that $45,960 threshold — or four times the poverty level of $11,490 for an individual — would qualify for “an upfront tax subsidy.”

“Somebody who’s making $25,500 would definitely qualify for a subsidy if he or she is purchasing coverage in the individual market,” Sebelius added.

Despite the secretary’s assurance, a 25-year-old living in Nashville, Tennessee, making $25,500 will not qualify for a subsidy, for example.

The trigger on this is the premium price for a qualifying “bronze” plan in the exchange for the consumer.  If the premium does not go over a certain percentage of income, then the formula produces a zero for the calculated subsidy.  The problem for these consumers is that the baseline plans still cost more than their previous options, and have large deductibles to boot.  That sets the incentives for younger consumers to bail out of the system, paying the fine and only signing up for insurance after a catastrophic event, which they cannot be denied under the new law.

If the subsidies don’t show up, neither will these consumers. They’d be better off paying retail, which thanks to the enormous deductibles in these comprehensive plans they’d have to do anyway, rather than premiums and retail for provider services. And this is yet another point on which the administration has been less than honest with the very people who backed them through two successive presidential elections.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/25/chicago-tribune-man-the-number-of-obamacare-losers-really-seems-to-be-piling-up-doesnt-it/

Chicago Tribune: Man, the number of ObamaCare losers really seems to be piling up, doesn’t it?

POSTED AT 2:51 PM ON NOVEMBER 25, 2013 BY ERIKA JOHNSEN

 

Much love has evidently been lost between the Obama administration and the editors of President Obama’s hometown paper, particularly since the Chicago Tribune came out swinging against the administration’s incompetence in rolling out ObamaCare and its inherent big-government intrusion not too long ago. They’ve been getting a lot more critical of the president’s crowning legislative achievement, and their latest editorial takes issue with the “small” qualifier getting tacked on to so many of the very forced explanations coming from ObamaCare’s advocates and apologists.

‘Yes,’ many of these supporters are now begrudgingly admitting, ‘ObamaCare’s very naturedoes mean that there will be an ever-so-small number of losers who may have to pay just a tiny bit more for a new plan, but it’s OK because the vast, vast majority of people are going to absolutely love their new-and-improved, more comprehensive plans!’  …Except that, as theChicago Trib points out, that losers-list is stubbornly growing longer, with no end in sight:

Abbott Laboratories chief executive Miles White said something last Tuesday that should jolt tens of millions of Americans who watch from a comfortable distance as the giant Obamacare blimp ignites and tumbles to the ground. These Americans are safely ensconced in employer-provided health care coverage — for now.

But there are “clear incentives for companies to drop their health care plans and move people onto the exchanges,” White told analysts at a luncheon, referring to the disastrously cranky and unreliable online insurance marketplaces created under Obamacare. …

If President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders think the outcry against Obamacare is fierce now, watch if millions more Americans get blindsided with the news that they’ll be forced into these dysfunctional government online marketplaces. Some will face higher premiums or higher deductibles…

Tens of millions of people who have coverage through large American companies aren’t losers … yet. The administration granted those businesses a one-year reprieve from the Obamacare mandate to provide coverage or pay penalties. That ends for 2015, and employers are already calculating what to do. Some may cut jobs, or employees’ hours, to avoid offering costly insurance coverage. Other companies may dump everyone into the federal exchanges and pay penalties that are almost certain to be less than what coverage would cost.

Besides the hospitals in for financial turbulence, the millions of individually insured receiving cancellation notices, and the millions insured through smaller employers whose coverage might get dropped that the Tribune also lists on the list of already explicit losers, their gist is that even people so far feeling insulated from the law because of their employer-sponsored insurance plans at larger companies could soon be in for a rude awakening about how the law is going to affect them.

If (let’s face it: not if, when) the list of ObamaCare’s losers eclipses the list of ObamaCare’s so-called “winners,” expect the building Democratic panic to really break loose.

http://dougpowers.com/2013/11/25/its-a-complete-clusterfk-another-obamacare-supporter-caught-in-a-trap-he-helped-set/

‘It’s a complete clusterf**k’: Another Obamacare supporter caught in a trap he helped set

Filed Under Politics | Comments (0)

There’s a schadenfreude-tastic article in the New York Observer written by somebody who was a big Obama supporter who is now “seething at a president I helped elect.”.

This person lost his health plan after Obama kicked in and he was stupid enough not to see through the sham like the rest of us tried to warn him for years. Here’s the best “advice” he could get:

I went to a friend and colleague–let’s call him Peter–for advice. He also had his individual medical policy cancelled because of Obamacare. “I’m stuck on the same question–income,” he told me. Peter does a little writing, a little farming, a little this and that to keep the ship afloat. “I got through to the exchange, and the woman there told me to just estimate what my income would be this year.” In other words: Make it up. If he overestimated, he’d be screwing himself out of a subsidy, Peter said. If he underestimated, he’d be hit with a big fat bill. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t also be accused of fraud. So he called his accountant, who’s also a lawyer.

That only got him so far. At a certain point in the conversation, the accountant/lawyer had to get off the phone. “I have to stop answering your questions,” he told Peter. “I can’t ethically advise you, because honestly I don’t know the right thing to do. Nobody does. There are no answers. Right now it’s a complete clusterfuck.”

And that’s so true. There’s no “ethical” advice in the world that can get people untangled from a law that is unethical to put it mildly. The only solution is to burn the whole thing to the ground. But unless people like this guy now get very vocal in supporting full repeal of this giant disaster of a law, I don’t feel sorry for them in the least.