Oct 1st Deadline: The Feds Aren’t Ready
Less than two weeks before the launch of insurance marketplaces created by the federal health overhaul, the government’s software can’t reliably determine how much people need to pay for coverage, according to insurance executives and people familiar with the program.
Government officials and insurers were scrambling to iron out the pricing quirks quickly, according to the people, to avoid alienating the initial wave of consumers.
A failure by consumers to sign up online in the hotly anticipated early days of the “exchanges” is worrisome to insurers, which are counting on enrollees for growth, and to the Obama administration, which made the exchanges a centerpiece of its sweeping health-care legislation.
If not resolved by the Oct. 1 launch date, the problems could affect consumers in 36 states where the federal government is running all or part of the exchanges. About 32 million uninsured people live in those states, but only a fraction of them are expected to sign up in the next year. (WSJ)
“A failure by consumers to sign up online in the hotly anticipated early days of the “exchanges” is worrisome to insurers, which are counting on enrollees for growth”
What if this doesn’t happen? Will the government bail out insurers or let them fail?
They’ll probably let them fail. Single payer, here we come!
That’s what they wanted all along anyway…
Or prop them up to still appear the hero
We knew they wouldn’t be ready, this thing will be a disaster.
This was definitely to be expected. This type of task is not something government officials are supposed to be good at. That’s the role for business men and women.
The picture is certainly an “alarming” clock…
How embarrassing. I’ll bet the Soviets never had central planning problems like this.
When you plan everything, you probably get good at it. Don’t worry, we’ll get there.
So, we have Medicaid expansion for the poorest and subsidized health insurance for the next poorest. More and more people are being sucked into one of these two categories because of government mandates, but we’re supposed to think that this is making us more equal? This is certainly creating a more stratified society. At the top you’ll have the “richer” who will be getting HSA style care and at the bottom you’ll have the “poorer” getting sub-standard government care.
The government isn’t ready for a deadline that they set themselves? Shocking!
I wonder how much of this is a result of GOP blocking in the state legislatures. If they hadn’t placed so much of a burden on the federal government and done what they should have done, then I doubt these problems would be as big.