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Obamacare numbers continue to tank

We are still finding out what’s in it: Enrollment numbers in Obamacare for 2017 turn out to be far worse than any prediction, resulting in more insurance companies considering an exit.

[T]he nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted last year that 15 million Americans would enroll in Obamacare plans through the various marketplaces in 2017 (down from an initial expectation of approximately 21 million when the law first passed. The Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services lowered their 2017 expectations to 13.8 million. But the federal exchange totals are hundreds of thousands of consumers off-pace from last year, which was already sufficiently lackluster as to trigger an exodus of several major insurers. …Charles Gaba, a pro-Obamacare tracker of ACA signups, …estimated that to stay on track with the HHS projections, the federal exchange would need to tally roughly 10.6 million enrollees. The actual number was just 9.2 million.

The whole shebang is collapsing, regardless of what the Republicans in Congress do. Read the article, however, because it also provides some interesting analysis of what Congress is considering.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

6 comments

  • Cotour

    Obamacare, Amazon and the mark of the beast:

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2795408/amazon-planning-to-open-robotic-supermarket-staffed-by-just-two-humans-sources-claim/

    I suppose if and when it all coincides we will essentially have the mark of the beast and if and when we come into conflict with the law or the government, say for not paying your taxes or parking tickets or your mandated healthcare we will be forbidden to trade. You will become a non person and without the ability to buy or sell. This year in New York State my accountant informed me your drivers license number must be attached to your return for what must be the same reasons.

    Watch the video its all very easy and has been technologically simplified, to me its very attractive. Technology is the drug.

  • Cotour

    PS: I was forced to buy health insurance at the end of January, a bronze plan with a deductible of $7000.00. The cost? $429.00 per month.

    The company is called Oscar through Ehealth and I have no idea if any hospital or doctor of consequence accepts it.

  • wayne

    Cotour–
    Is that for a single person, or a family?
    –you should check immediately, to determine who exactly takes that Policy.

    My Policy morphed last October. (BC/BS Group Plan through my Professional trade-group.)
    Deductible went up to $3,500 (from $1K), premium went up from $274 to $387, and I lost Dental & Vision in the process
    On the upside, all my pharmaceuticals are now a straight $10 per prescription, but everything I take is old-school generic to begin with, and I get a 90 day supply.

    I would just throw in— my wife died of cancer & she had platinum-plated, gold-filled, insurance through her work, (this was pre-Obama) and they allowed us to pre-pay our $2K deductible & covered everything else 100%.

  • Garry

    Cotour, I echo Wayne’s call to check who takes your insurance. Being self-employed for the 20 years with a family, I’ve shopped for insurance every year, and the process always starts with confirming which doctors take with plans.

    At least in my state, the insurance companies no longer reimburse the brokers, so this year my broker started charging $200 for a consultation, which I gladly paid (it’s much more difficult these days to figure out which insurance is accepted by which doctor/hospital).

    Obamacare has reinforced the lesson that medical insurance is not the same thing as medical treatment, making it more important for all of us to go in with our eyes wide open.

    By the way, as I understand it, the government no longer requires anyone to buy health insurance, Trump signed an executive order on this.

  • Cotour

    Thats for one individual.

    I am hopeful that there will be created an official health savings account that will accrue in value for the holder and a basic health plan for those who are in generally good health and the end to the mandate. Dental and vision? A luxury. A woman who works for me just went through having her eyes examined for new glasses, she is on Medicare, her cost? $800.00 plus dollars.

    We wait and see what transpires but in between I have to have something.

    And platinum and gold plated policies are for municipal, Federal government and mega company employees only now. Again, my condolences on the death of your wife.

  • Cotour

    Garry, thanks for the feed back, I do not believe that Trump specifically has repealed the mandate.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump-executive-order-obamacare.html?_r=0

    This will take a while to reconcile itself to the point where we actually know what we need to know..

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