More Obamacare fuckups

[Warriorbird]

If the campaign to stop them paying more (because you want to pay more for them?) fails even a little bit and a few do that's less that the rest of us have to pay when they get sick and go to the emergency room. I want to pay for as few hipsters as possible.

[Methais]

We can go back and forth all day about how that demographic already isn't buying into Obamacare, and those are the people that Obamacare is banking on enrolling in order to fund the bulk of it, and without them it's going to crumble.

But I think our time would be better spent on laughing at how the Obama White House honestly believes that pajama boy is an effective advertising campaign for its target audience.

[Warriorbird]

It's pretty ridiculous... but they are hipsters. This guy totally looks like one of their people.

[Tgo01]

Apparently WB is unaware that even by Obama's figures one million people have enrolled for private insurance through Obamacare while almost 4 million have qualified for Medicaid. That means going by the figures we have so far there is an 80% chance that he will be paying for every person who signs up through Obamacare.

I'm sure this somehow makes me racist or homophobic though.

[Warriorbird]

The poor job of selling the plan to the public/number of failed websites/current low enrollment are why we have hipster ads, right?

(If you trying to make us pay for more hipsters involves rationalizing some more racism I'll call you on it but I can't see how so far.)

[crb]

Why are people still talking about this after 67 pages. This law is fucked, as it always will be.

Two days ago Obama delayed the individual mandate for anyone with cancelled policies, while also allowing them an exemption to purchase now-illegal catastrophic insurance policies. To do this he used his divine imperial power that of course is one of the enumerated powers of the executive branch. "Don't like a law? Issues a blog post that changes it, no congress needed." ....

But the runaway executive power, and the rampant problem of standing being required to challenge such unconstitutional power grabs in court, is another thread.

This law was doomed to begin with, and people are now seeing why. They had to execute almost perfectly for it to work, but the minute they created a mandate with no teeth it was over. Maybe it would have taken longer to implode if not for everything else, but it would still have imploded.

The law added a bunch of bells and whistles and made them mandatory, the only possible way for that to economically work would be for the young to subsidize the old, the healthy the sick. To achieve this they used the individual mandate. The government would force young and healthy people to buy insurance coverage above and beyond what they need. Only the mandate had no teeth, so they enlist Jay Z and Amy Poehler to try to talk young people into paying above market rates for health insurance. But young people are poor, and chafe at having to subsidize relatively wealthier people in their 50s at the peak of their earning power. But maybe they would have still pulled it off... except then they flushed a few hundred million of our dollars down the toilet on an overpriced website coded by some congressman's 14 year old nephew.

This matters because, all things being equal, who is more likely to persevere through a difficult enrollment process? The healthy person or the sick person?

Initial premiums were also higher than anticipated because all those bells and whistles are not free. This matters because, all things being equal, who is more likely to be willing to pay a large amount for health insurance? The person who is healthy and feels he may not need it, or the sick person who knows he will?

Then you have all those people in the individual market who had insurance cancelled, and then less than a week before christmas and 10 days before new years Obama thinks he can wave his wand and change the law. This matters because, assuming he is successful with his wand waving bullshit, if you're a sick person do you choose a cadillac exchange plan, or go with your cheap old catastrophic plan suddenly made legal again?

Not everyone will follow the obvious choice, but enough will that the exchange plan risk pools will be overburdened with sick people, which will increase exchange plan rates, which will further drive healthy people out of the exchange (because again, mandate has no teeth) which will increase rates, etc. This is called adverse selection, or simply, a death spiral. At this point, without changes in the law, it is going to happen.

Period. And I don't mean "period" as in "If you like your health plan, you can keep it, period." I mean actually "period." Its over, might else well start trying to figure out what comes next.

[Methais]

The poor job of selling the plan to the public/number of failed websites/current low enrollment are why we have hipster ads, right?

It's more because the White House is so out of touch that they think little bitch man-children like pajama boy represent the majority of males in that demographic.

[Warriorbird]

It's more because the White House is so out of touch that they think little bitch man-children like pajama boy represent the majority of males in that demographic.

Are they so far off the mark?

[Methais]

Are they so far off the mark?

Despite how vocal and obnoxious they are, they aren't representative of the majority of males in that age bracket....yet.

It's not much different than with gay people...if you based it on media shenanigans, you'd think gay people made up 75% of the population when in reality they're only like 1-3%.

That second hipster's mustache is pretty epic though. I bet it defines his entire existence.

[Warriorbird]

Despite how vocal and obnoxious they are, they aren't representative of the majority of males in that age bracket....yet.

It's not much different than with gay people...if you based it on media shenanigans, you'd think gay people made up 75% of the population when in reality they're only like 1-3%.

That second hipster's mustache is pretty epic though. I bet it defines his entire existence.

Age bracket? No. People without insurance bracket? I'm not so sure. There were quite a lot of Occupy protestors.