Snow Day Obamacare Schadenfreude

The Affordable Care Act faces multiple challenges in 2014

... The law’s biggest test will arise late in 2014: the second-year price of insurance on the exchanges.

The ultimate enrollment numbers this year will directly impact the price of insurance on the exchanges next year. If millions of people with a diverse range of health needs sign up, creating a broad pool for the insurance companies, prices could stay stable...If the pool of people who bought insurance plans is too small or too sick, insurance companies could respond in two ways. They could hike the prices of the plans next year in order to compensate, or they could determine that they cannot make a profit through the exchanges and simply pull out, reducing the number of companies competing for business on the exchanges.

The administration is also facing legal challenges to the law, at least one of which could fatally cripple the law should it succeed...The federal government is running exchanges in 36 states. If the lawsuit succeeds, millions of people would not receive financial help to buy insurance. The subsidies provide a strong inducement for people to buy on the exchanges, so if the subsidies are ruled illegal, many people might not be able to afford insurance any more. This would cause the number of people buying insurance through the exchanges to drop and institute a “death spiral” from which the program might not recover.

But, but, bend the cost curve, cheaper insurance, right?  Not so fast...

Survey of Businesses in New York Show Not a Single One Now Has Lower ObamaCare Costs

Another Obama victory, as ABC News might say. Funny, but nobody is celebrating.

New York’s small-business owners, seniors and doctors are among the big losers as President Obama’s prescription for health-insurance reform takes effect.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses, an organization that represents nearly 11,000 entrepreneurs across the state, says it has yet to find a single member whose health-care costs are going down under the ObamaCare program, whose plans took effect New Year’s Day.

Meanwhile, an “overwhelming majority” of businesses canvassed by the group has reported increases in their insurance premiums, said Mike Durant, the NFIB’s New York director.

At least in New York you can be reasonably sure the majority of them voted for it.

One of the arguments you often hear liberals make regarding Obamacare is that by insuring more of the poor, less people will crowd the Emergency Centers with their sniffles and bruises.  Turns out, it doesn't work that way either, at least in Oregon:

A new study of Medicaid beneficiaries in Oregon makes a strong version of this case. The study, published today in the journal Science, finds that adult Medicaid beneficiaries rely on emergency rooms about 40 percent more than similar uninsured adults.

"When you cover the uninsured, emergency room use goes up by a large magnitude," said Amy Finkelstein, a health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who served as a lead investigator on the study, in an MIT press statement accompanying the study.

There were no exceptions to the trend. "In no case were we able to find any subpopulations, or type of conditions, for which Medicaid caused a significant decrease in emergency department use," said Finkelstein.

Maybe that's because many fewer doctors accept Medicaid, so they cannot find regular doctors to go to, and because once you give people an entitlement they feel entitled to it.

It turns out Obamacare lacks another feature that most health insurance  features, the ability to add a baby to the policy, if one happens to come inconveniently in the middle of the year (babies are so thoughtless):

There's another quirk in the Obama administration's new health insurance system: It lacks a way for consumers to quickly and easily update their coverage for the birth of a baby and other common life changes.

With regular private insurance, parents just notify the health plan. Insurers will still cover new babies, the administration says, but parents will also have to contact the government at some point later on.

Right now the HealthCare.gov website can't handle such updates.

It's a reminder that the new coverage for many uninsured Americans comes with a third party in the mix: the feds. And the system's wiring for some vital federal functions isn't yet fully connected.

It's not just having a new baby that could create bureaucratic hassles, but other life changes affecting a consumer's taxpayer-subsidized premiums. The list includes marriage and divorce, a death in the family, a new job or a change in income, even moving to a different community.

But it did cover HIV as a pre-existing condition from the very first day, which gives you some idead where the priorities of its authors lay.

And from the Other McCain, new ads targeting Senate Democrats over their Obamacare votes:
New Ads Target Senators: ‘It’s Time to Be Honest: ObamaCare Doesn’t Work’

Three vulnerable incumbent Democrat senators are the targets of a new advertising campaign by Americans for Prosperity (AFP) that takes aim at the unpopular ObamaCare program. “It’s the ‘Lie of the Year,’ and Senator Shaheen kept telling it,” says the AFP ad targeting New Hampshire Sen. Jane Shaheen. “The truth is, thousands have already had their insurance canceled. Families are paying more for expensive health plans and facing hour-long drives just to see a doctor. . . . Tell Senator Shaheen: It’s time to be honest. ObamaCare doesn’t work.”

Similar ads are airing against Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) and Sen. Kay Hagen (D-North Carolina) in a three-week campaign.

They voted for it, make 'em eat it.