Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Obama Admin....that clueless or that dishonest?

In a story out this AM we are warned claim cost are expected to increase 80% in Ohio for those with individual policies. In basic math that would correspond to an 80% increase in premiums.


The disparities are striking. By 2017, the estimated increase would be 62 percent for California, about 80 percent for Ohio,"

As if 80% increase in claim cost wasn't bad enough when the Obama admin tried to spin and respond to it, then it really started to get bad:

"The administration questions the design of the study, saying it focused only on one piece of the puzzle and ignored cost relief strategies in the law such as tax credits to help people afford premiums and special payments to insurers who attract an outsize share of the sick. The study also doesn't take into account the potential price-cutting effect of competition in new state insurance markets that will go live on Oct. 1, administration officials said."

First, giving someone a tax credit doesn't mean you spent less; an 80% increase in claim cost is still 80% more being spent, a problem regardless who is paying for it.

OK, so he helped people afford their premiums, when does he start helping the tax payor afford the government's share? $16+ trillion in debt plus 1 trillion deficits, where are our relief strategies?

Then with a closing only a bureaucrat/politician could muster, "price-cutting effect of competition," what the heck is that? Under Obamacare, individuals are spending tax-payor money and get to complete a 22 page application with a 60+ page instruction manual. Currently they make one phone call to a broker, maybe complete a 3-6 page app and the broker does all the work for them. The market just got infinitely more difficult and when the final buying decision is made they are spending someone else's money and they expect spending to go down?

"Having said that," Foster added, "actuaries tend to be financially conservative, so the various assumptions might be more inclined to consider what might go wrong than to anticipate that everything will work beautifully."

Really? When has a Medicare spending projection ever been overly conservative? When government has a 48 year track record of complete failure when it comes to running healthcare plans I think it is more than fair to say they have not been conservative enough.


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