With Republicans still maintaining that Obamacare is doomed to fail, Forbes magazine reports that enrollment may actually hit 7 million before the day ends.
While not saying that enrollment will definitely reach that mark before the deadline, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which is the agency that oversees the roll out, seem pretty optimistic. They said on Sunday that with brisk traffic on the website and call center, along with the surge in applications in the past few weeks, the projection seems promising.
In an update issued Sunday afternoon, the agency said that the website had been holding up well to the heavy traffic, handling 8.7 million visits in the last week.
“The site continues to perform well under the largest sustained period of volume to date with average response times less than 400 milliseconds and an error rate of 0.5%,” the report said.
In spite of the rocky beginnings for the website, which proved to be far from ready when it was launched on October 1st of last year, it now appears that the original projection of 7 million sign ups may be reached. A recent report by the CBO found that there is already a sufficient number of enrollees to make the system an actuarial viability.
I suppose it would have been fitting if the Obama Administration had scheduled April Fool’s Day as the last day to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. We’ve certainly been treated to a smorgasbord of ineptitude, shifting deadlines, executive pronouncements that let certain economic sectors off the hook, and some rude, disrespectful, sometimes hateful objections from the right-wing about the entire business.
That’s why March 31 is so important. It represents the end of the first, and possibly most vital, stage of the implementation of the act. Millions of people have signed up for heath insurance. Millions of others are now covered by Medicaid. The federal and state websites are still balky, but they work. The end of the beginning is upon us. It can only get better from here. And the best part is that the law is working.
Republicans have dropped their demand that the law be scrapped, which six months ago looked like a possibility as they shut down the government and Healthcare.gov showed exactly what can go wrong when the government attempts to shortchange the software cycle. Now the arguments are that the law needs to be fixed, although GOP candidates are running against it to the exclusion of everything else, except perhaps voter ID laws that will guarantee a Republican majority in the House for the foreseeable future. Even Democrats in tossup races in Louisiana and North Carolina are talking about fixing the law so it doesn’t ensnare the middle class and endanger employer-provided health insurance.
The problem is that, over time, that’s exactly what the law will accomplish. We are moving into uncharted waters, where the employer mandate will shift and companies will start to drop health insurance from their benefit plans. How this will work is the key. Will companies give employees a voucher with a dollar amount attached to it to buy insurance? Will they raise wages so people can pay for their own policies? Will insurance companies bring down the cost of policies so they can remain viable? Will we eventually get a public option that takes private insurance out of the economy? These are the questions that will define how successfully the ACA reforms the health care industry. Follow the money. That’s always been the gold standard of social change.
My sense is that employer-sponsored health insurance will be gone from most industries within 7-10 years, and the fallout won’t be as bad as some have predicted. Companies have a vital interest in the health of their workers and insurance companies won’t want to price people out of plans. Without the major expense of providing health insurance, companies will be able to pay workers more, though not too much more. The minimum wage will be less of a burden as it rises. Workers will need to make healthier choices and get checked more often before health issues become major concerns. The GOP calls this personal responsibility, and they accuse the Democrats of coddling the country with social programs. The ACA will do more for people taking control of their health than anything we’ve done in the United States. Remembers, the ACA is based on Republican ideas. That’s why the law is both a curse and a blessing.
All of that is in the future. For now, President Obama’s approval numbers are in the tank. History will remember him far more positively.
Mark D. Bearden wrote this letter on the White House website.
I am a staunch Republican, a self-proclaimed Fox News addict, and I didn’t vote for the President. And I’m here to tell you that Obamacare works. I’m living proof.
I’m a chemotherapy patient, and was previously paying $428 a month for my health coverage. I was not thrilled when it was cancelled.
Then I submitted an application at HealthCare.gov. I looked at my options. And I signed up for a plan for $62 a month.
It’s the best health care I have ever had.
So right now, here’s what I want to tell anyone who still needs health insurance, or knows someone who does:
Sign up. Follow the instructions on the website. Apply, and look at your options. You still have time, and take it from me: This is something you want to do.
I wrote a letter to President Obama this past February to tell him about my experience with the Health Insurance Marketplace. I hoped he’d read it, and he did.
I may not be a supporter of the President. But now, I get mad when I see Obamacare dragged through the mud on television.
And even though I regularly tune in to conservative pundits, I’d like to tell them they’re getting it wrong. Obamacare works.
So one more time: If you still need health insurance, you have just three days to get it. Do what I did. Go to HealthCare.gov, submit an application, and pick a plan that works for you.
The Republicans – like a squeaky, noisy wheel begging for attention – continues their ill-fated push for repealing Obamacare and replacing it with nothing. It’s all they have. The repeal call keeps their base salivating for blood, preferably from that guy in the White House.
But that’s their base. The rest of the country is seeing the importance of everyone having healthcare, and the positive effect healthcare has on the rest of the economy. The rest of the country is beginning to appreciate Obamacare.
The new poll finds that in March, 38 percent viewed the law favorably, versus 46 percent who saw it unfavorably. That’s a substantial narrowing from the 34-50 spread during the dark days of January, and a return almost to where opinion was in September (39-43), before the rollout disaster began.
– Support for repeal continues to shrink. Only 18 percent want to repeal the law and not replace it, while all of 11 percent want to repeal and replace it with a GOP alternative — a grand total of 29 percent. Meanwhile, 49 percent want to keep the law and improve it, and another 10 percent want to keep it as is — a total of 59 percent.
Among indys, that keep/improve versus repeal/replace spread is 52-31. Republicans are all alone here, with their spread at 31-58.
That overall keep-versus-repeal spread has improved for the law since February (when it was 56-31), and even more so since December and October, suggesting a clear trend
With less than a week left for people to sign up for health insurance, the Obama administration said Tuesday that it would allow more time for those who had tried to apply but were blocked by technical problems with the federal exchange.
Several states running their own exchanges, including Maryland, Minnesota and Nevada, have taken similar steps in the last two weeks.
Open enrollment was scheduled to end on Monday for all Americans. The White House had previously insisted that the deadline was firm and would not be extended.
Under the move planned by the administration, some people will be given a special enrollment period, beyond the deadline, if they can show they were not able to enroll because of an error by the federal exchange or by the Department of Health and Human Services. Federal officials allowed a special enrollment period, on a case-by-case basis, for some people who were unable to meet the Dec. 24, 2013, enrollment deadline for coverage starting Jan. 1 of this year.
So this is what they have resorted to. Having all their other Obamacare horror stories debunked as partisan hypocrisy, Republicans are now hiring actresses to act in their an – Obamacare ads.
An Americans for Prosperity attack ad directed at Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) over Obamacare purports to feature a voter for Alaska, but the woman is actually an actress who lives in the state of Maryland, according to The New York Times.
In the ad, a woman criticizes Begich, who is up for re-election in 2014, and President Barack Obama for the “promises they made to pass Obamacare.”
“They knew the real truth,” the woman said in the ad. “Some are even losing their jobs. For too many of us costs are going way up. Senator Begich didn’t listen. How can I ever trust him again? It just isn’t fair. Alaska deserves better.”
In fact, the woman speaking is an actress Connie Bowman, who regularly does voiceovers as well as appearances in print ads.
The Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity ad doesn’t explicitly say the woman is an Alaskan, but the Begich campaign slammed the spot for the implication.
“Today’s misleading ad from the Koch brothers is just more evidence that even billions of dollars can’t buy integrity,” Begich spokeswoman Rachel Barinbaum told the Times.
And while they advised people to take the penalty instead of getting health care, you can bet that all the nuts at Fox News have health care.
On Saturday’s episode of Cashin’ In, Fox News host Eric Bolling encouraged young Americans to “take the penalty” they’ll have to pay if they don’t sign up for the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
“With the deadline for signing up for Obamacare just a week away,” Bolling said, “selling it might not be a slam dunk, even for LeBron James.”
Bolling then played a pitch for the ACA featuring James, before cutting to “new goofy videos to push healthcare.” He then complained that the Obama administration is spending “$17 million of our tax dollars, per a month, to get young people to buy into Obamacare.”
His guest, Jonathan Hoenig of Capitalistpig.com, replied that he found the advertising campaign “just so uncouth, not just the fact that we’re spending $20 million a month on it, but that we’re trying to convince young people that statism is good — that self-sacrifice is good.”
“What does the president think of young people?” Hoenig asked. “That they’re knuckleheads, that they don’t know a good deal, that they’re idiots. In fact, almost 90 percent of young people find it’s cheaper not to sign up for Obamacare and take the penalty, and of course, none of it has anything to do with free markets or a free society.”
“Fiscally speaking,” Bolling replied, “young people probably should take the penalty.”
Charles Gaba has “been tracking the most up-to-date enrollment information and offering his own projections on his blog, ACAsignups.net. On the same day that he predicted the 5 million signups milestone, he accurately predicted that California would hit the 1 million mark.”
“His next big prediction: The final sign-up tally will hit 6.22 million.”
Some of you wouldn’t believe this, but Republicans have been lying to you all along… about everything… especially Obamacare, also called The Affordable Care Act.
Let’s begin with the meme threatening that healthcare reform will lead to a serious decline in full-time employment as employers reduce workforce hours to below 30 per week in the effort to avoid their responsibility to provide health benefits to their employees.
It turns out that there has, in fact, been no such rush to reduce work hours. Indeed, numbers released last week reveal that precisely the opposite is taking place.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of part-time workers in the United States has fallen by 300,000 since March of 2010 when the Affordable Care Act was passed into law. What’s more, in the past year alone—the time period in which the nation was approaching the start date for Obamacare—full-time employment grew by over 2 million while part-time employment declined by 230,000.
And it gets even more interesting.
Despite the cries of anguish over the coming destruction of private sector work opportunities at the hands of Obamacare, it turns out that the only significant ‘cutter’ of work hours turns out to be in the public sector where cops, teachers, prison guards and the like are experiencing cuts in work time as cities, states and universities seek to avoid the obligations of the health reform law.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is it not the very same folks who strenuously oppose Obamacare who are constantly screaming for smaller government? Are these not the same people who have, for as many years as I can recall, been carping about swollen government payrolls?
But the false narrative that has been peddled to make us believe that the private sector can’t wait to lower our hours of employment turns out not to be the only false note being played by anti-Obamacare forces.
For months now, we have been pounded with the story of the millions of Americans who have lost their non-group, individual health insurance policy due to cancellations forced by Obamacare.
Yet, a new study just out by Lisa Clemans-Cope and Nathaniel Anderson of the Urban Institute tells a very different story.
The Obama administration announced Monday that more than 5 million people have signed up for new insurance plans under the health-care law, suggesting new momentum for the program as the deadline to get covered this year approaches.
About 800,000 people selected health plans on the state and federal insurance marketplaces in the beginning of March, officials said in a blog post — almost as many as signed up during the entire month of February. The figure brings the administration closer to Congressional Budget Office projections that 6 million people would enroll by the end of March.
Officials had predicted that the pace of enrollments would pick up this month, because March 31 is the last day to sign up for a marketplace plan and avoid a fine. The health law requires most Americans to have health insurance or incur a penalty of $95 or 1 percent of their income this year, whichever is higher.
The Congressional Budget Office had initially projected that 7 million people would sign up for new health plans by the end of March. Analysts revised that estimate last month, after it became clear that enrollment would be depressed by the technical difficulties on HealthCare.gov and a number of state-based insurance Web sites.
I think I’m just going to assume that the Democrats will lose the Senate in November and prepare myself as I would for any frustrating event I’ve endured over the past few years. That way, if they do eke out a win or tie, then it will be that much sweeter.
There’s been no shortage of discussion about the ramification of a GOP takeover of the Senate, but not much would really change, save for the fact that no judges or executive appointments would be ratified. The Congress would pass some bills that President Obama would veto, and the country would be treated to an intramural fight as the far more conservative House would pass more extreme bills that the less extreme Senate would either ignore or try to temper so that they’re palatable to the larger caucus. In short, how would this term be different from all other terms, save for Obama’s first two years in office?
Which makes former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs’ comment that a Democratic loss would mean that “The party’s over” seem rather quaint. The party’s been over and it doesn’t look like it’s coming back anytime soon. Even if the Republicans take the Senate, they will most likely lose it back to the Democrats in 2016, because the GOP will have to defend a whopping 27 seats and convince the young, the Hispanic and the African-American that they have their best interests at heart. And they’ll have to win the presidency, which at this point doesn’t look like it will ever happen.
The GOP seems to think that young people are in play because they aren’t signing up for health insurance at the rate that the ACA needs in order to function, but recent surveys show that the millennials aren’t attached to either political party, and less so to the Republicans. It is true that many people become more conservative as they gather life experiences such as marriages, children and mortgages, but let’s remember that on social issues, the younger generation is far removed from the right wing scolds who want to decide who gets rights and who doesn’t. And we’ve also seen the effects of less government involvement in, say, North Carolina, that should scare people away from a more libertarian direction.
It hasn’t been a good year for Democrats so far, but nothing that a more robust turnout can’t alter. But the party? Turn out the lights.
With the deadline for Americans to sign up for healthcare fast approaching, celebrities are beginning to step up their effort to get the word out.
This message is from former NBA star Alanzo Mourning, advising the uninsured and those with sub par insurance to get quality coverage under the Affordable Care Act before March 31st, 2014.
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