A Thaw In Obamacare Schadenfreude?

It's 38 degrees F here, and what's left of our snow from two days ago is melting fast.  I just hope it does away today and leaves the streets dry so that we're not left with black ice when the big chill gets here.  But the big chill that is Obamacare continues to cool the country.

Glen Kessler, the Washington Post "Fact Checker Spinner" gives the Obama administration two friendly Pinocchios for their walk back of the notion that their original target for sign-ups was 7 million people by March: (currently insurance signups are around 2 million, with substantially more having actually lost their insurance).

Source

The White House this week crowed about the fact that, as of the end of the year, 2.1 million Americans have signed up for insurance either through the federal health-care exchange or state-run exchanges. The message was that the Affordable Care Act Web site, which had a troubled launch, was turning a corner.

At the same time, the administration has backed away from the idea that it suggested it had a “target” of 7 million enrollees when the enrollment period for 2014 ends in March. As Schiliro put it, “that was never our target number.”

And what did Sebelius say before that?

Here’s Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius speaking to reporters last June: “We’re hopeful that 7 million is a realistic target.”

And here she is on Sept. 30, in an interview with NBC News: “I think success looks like at least 7 million people having signed up by the end of March 2014.”

Seems pretty clear cut.  About his rating scale:

Two Pinocchios: Significant omissions and/or exaggerations. Some factual error may be involved but not necessarily. A politician can create a false, misleading impression by playing with words and using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people.

No omission here.  Sebelius plainly said 7 million was a target in the period before the roll out, and the White House plainly said 7 million was not the target after the roll out had bombed, no playing with words or legalistic language involved.  I give Glen Kessler four Pinocchios for this attempt to gray-wash the whoppers in the Administration's claim that 7 million was never the target.

Perhaps he forgot one of his own categories, the upside down Pinocchio for: "A statement that represents a clear but unacknowledged “flip-flop” from a previously-held position."

Maryland's Mayor Governor  O'Malley is pushing special legislation to encourage more sign ups:

Maryland lawmakers are expected to pass legislation as soon as next week to assist the hundreds of people — or, possibly, thousands — who tried to sign up for health insurance through the state’s new exchange program, encountered problems and were left uncovered when the new year began.

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (D) said Friday that they plan to introduce emergency legislation that would expand enrollment in the Maryland Health Insurance Plan, a separate state-run program that normally covers high-risk individuals. Those enrolled would have to pay a premium, which is determined by income but is often slightly higher than market rates, and would probably be allowed to stay on the plan for only a few months.
. . .
At the same time, the governor said enrollment in Medicaid has exceeded expectations. The state has already signed up 130,000 new Medicaid-eligible enrollees, including more than 41,000 who signed up through the Web site. The original estimate was 110,000 for the first month.

But the disclosure that just 18,000 had signed up for private plans drew criticism from Republicans and one prominent state Democrat, who has called for Maryland to abandon its troubled Web site in favor of the federal HealthCare.gov site.

The Washington Post helpfully notes the hundreds of thousands of people who tried to apply for Obamacare through the various websites have been unable: HealthCare.gov defects leave many Americans eligible for Medicaid, CHIP without coverage

More than 100,000 Americans who applied for insurance through HealthCare.gov and were told they are eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) remain unenrolled because of lingering software defects in the federal online marketplace, according to federal and state health officials.

To try to provide coverage to these people before they seek medical care, the Obama administration has launched a barrage of phone calls in recent days in 21 states, advising those who applied that the quickest route into the programs is to start over at their state’s Medicaid agency.

But even with 100,000 shut out by the website issue (assuming it's true, and it's probably much worse, the gap between the 2 million signed up now (many of whom haven't yet paid) and the 7 million hoped for by March is giant.  But then, it hasn't been adjusted for the millions that the Administration has exempted by fiat:

The Perverse Exemption:  Political palliatives won't cure ObamaCare's ills.

...The Washington Post's Ezra Klein--who for the past few months has oscillated wildly between cheerleading for ObamaCare and honest criticism of its implementation--responded to the announcement with some of the latter. "The administration agreed with a group of senators. . . who argued that having your insurance plan canceled counted as 'an unexpected natural or human-caused event,' " Klein noted, adding pointedly: "For these people, in other words, Obamacare itself is the hardship." He added:

This puts the administration on some very difficult-to-defend ground. Normally, the individual mandate applies to anyone who can purchase qualifying insurance for less than 8 percent of their income. Either that threshold is right or it's wrong. But it's hard to argue that it's right for the currently uninsured but wrong for people whose plans were canceled. . . .
Republicans will immediately begin calling for the uninsured to get this same exemption. What will the Obama administration say in response? Why are people who plans [sic] were canceled more deserving of help than people who couldn't afford a plan in the first place?

That's an excellent point, but it falls short of capturing the perversity of the Sebelius decree. To understand why, begin with the observation that the distinction between being and not being able to "afford a plan" is a fuzzy one. Some lack insurance because they are so poor that they could not possibly pay the premiums, but it makes more sense to consider the decision to carry insurance or not as the product of each person's subjective evaluation of costs, benefits and risks. A person who forgoes insurance does so because, in his circumstances, he does not think it worth the money...

The Little Sisters of the Poor, the group of nuns that the Administration is going to the wall court to force to pay for contraception for it's workers, has been offered a way out by Scott Ott of Scrappleface:

“The nuns have sought refuge in a higher power,” according to an unnamed lawyer working on the case. “By incorporating as the International Sisterhood of Mercy Workers (Local 316), they hope to join the dozens of other organized labor groups that the Obama administration has shielded from the devastating impact of ObamaCare.”

But, let's focus on the future:

TARP Was Bad, but the Looming Obamacare Bailout for Corrupt Insurance Companies Could Be Worse

At this point, you may be wondering why there’s bailout language buried in the Obamacare legislation.

The simple answer is that politicians always love to accumulate power, and the insurance industry probably lobbied very hard to get this back-door access to our money.

But maybe the White House knew that Obamacare would be unstable and they needed a bailout option to keep the system from totally unraveling. Particularly when it seems that the Obama Administration is arbitrarily changing the system every other day.

First, it postponed the employer mandate. Then it exempted from the individual mandate people whose policies were canceled (by Obamacare). And for those who did join the exchanges, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebeliusis “strongly encouraging” insurers — during the “transition” — to cover doctors and drugs not included in their clients’ plans. The insurers were stunned. Told to give free coverage. Deprived of their best customers. Forced to offer stripped-down “catastrophic” plans to people age 30 and over (contrary to the law). These dictates, complained an insurance industry spokesman, could“destabilize” the insurance market.

So what does all this mean? It’s not good news for Big Insurance.

Shrinking revenues and rising costs could bring on the “death spiral” — an unbalanced patient pool forcing huge premium increases (to restore revenue) that would further unbalance the patient pool as the young and healthy drop out. End result? Insolvency — before which the insurance companies will pull out of Obamacare. Solution? A huge government bailout. It’s Obamacare’s escape hatch. And — surprise, surprise — it’s already baked into the law.

 Like Krauthammer said; kill the insurance company bail out, kill Obamacare.