A Bit of Obamacare Schadenfreude for a Sunny Day

Wow! We're between storms here in Slower Maryland.  The sun is out, the wind is down, the temperatures are over 40, and the snow from early in the week is melting rapidly!

Not much Obamacare Schadenfreude today.  In fact, until I looked around this morning, the schadenfreude cupboard was bare. But some of the usual suspects delivered a few dregs at the last minute:

From James Taranto at the WSJ reviews the multiple unfolding failures of Obamacare: The uninsured aren't buying what the ObamaCare marketplace is selling.

This column has analyzed the disaster of ObamaCare in terms of three phases. Phase 1, the technical failure, was evident as soon as open enrollment began on Oct. 1 and many of the exchange websites proved to have been incompetently designed. Technical problems continue to emerge, including, as noted here last week, the Internal Revenue Service's tardiness in preparing the final instructions for Form 8960, which taxpayers must file if they owe the new ObamaCare "net investment income tax."

Phase 2 is the revelation that ObamaCare's central promise--"if you like your plan, you can keep your plan"--was fraudulent. In an effort to appease defrauded consumers, the Obama administration has announced a series of unlegislated exceptions to the law, which the president himself attempted to explain the other day.
...
The third phase of failure is the slow revelation that the basic economic assumptions behind ObamaCare are wrong. A new survey from McKinsey & Co., conducted in February, found that only 10% of those who lacked insurance pre-ObamaCare had signed up for an exchange plan, and that of those who had signed up, just 27% were previously uninsured.

True, those numbers were up significantly from January's figures, 3% and 11% respectively. Still, they're low enough that the Washington Post sums it up: "The new health insurance marketplaces appear to be making little headway in signing up Americans who lack insurance, the Affordable Care Act's central goal."

The Washington Post, normally a staunch ally of the Administration tells a long story of Dr. who thought he had a good idea for a healthcare provide, but finds himself stymied under Obamacare:

Maryland online exchange problems cloud doctor’s vision for health care

Peter Beilenson dreamed of bright, affordable health-care centers in working-class neighborhoods, staffed with doctors paid a flat salary — rather than per patient — and lifestyle coaches encouraging healthier living.

Tiny waiting rooms would reinforce the message that all patients would be seen quickly. A human would always answer the phone. Specialists could immediately be consulted by videoconference. And there would be free yoga.

Yoga?  Why is it always yoga.  Why not free karate or ju-jitsu?

Unlike traditional insurers, co-ops will be governed by policyholders (most co-ops provide only insurance, not health care; Evergreen is an exception). Many target low- and middle-income families that qualify for government subsidies. The coverage that co-ops offer emphasizes preventive exams and screenings, plus general wellness. The goal is high-quality, inexpensive, easily accessible care.

“Up to now,” said John Morrison, the outgoing president of the National Alliance of State Health Co-ops, “every health insurance company has been interested in making money.”

Well, yes, making money is one of the primary motivators of people.  Money is preserved work, that we can break out later and use to purchase goods and services we could not or would not do ourselves. I wonder what John Morrison's salary was in his position.

Originally, Congress was going to offer the co-ops $10 billion in start-up grants. The funding was later reduced, and so far the government has only awarded $2 billion in low-interest loans. A few months before the sign-up process began, a report by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services found that 11 co-ops had start-up costs that exceeded their funding, which could become especially problematic if enrollment lagged behind expectations.

"Only $2,000,000,000." That pretty much explains where the Post is coming from. Then the rollout happened, which, if you have been following the news or this blog, you know was particularly painful in Maryland.

By late November, with Maryland’s online enrollment process barely working, Evergreen had pulled its television ads and slowed its social-media marketing campaign. There was no point in sending customers to a non-functioning site. Instead, the co-op recruited small businesses, offering attractive rates and hoping to land dozens of members at a time.

“We try to be really nimble,” Beilenson said. “That’s one of the benefits of being small.”

Obsessive about testing and statistics, Beilenson has tried logging into Maryland’s troubled exchange 286 times since its debut. He says he has been able to complete the process only six or seven times.

The state created a toll-free number to help residents; Beilenson has called it at least 87 times. After following seven prompts (two minutes and two seconds, he says), a recorded voice gives a predicted wait time — which has ranged from 29 to 77 minutes. Once, he was told it would take 13 minutes to reach a real person, so he waited — for 41 minutes.

Long story short, the new health exchange is having trouble signing up enough people to make a go of it.

“This is very distressing,” Beilenson said of the limited pricing information available on the exchange. “If it were a true free market with transparency of cost from the very beginning, we would have done much, much better. . . . This was grossly unfair.”

You really thought a plan patched together by legislative staff and interns from boiler plate handed to them from the existing  healthcare companies would be fair?

Finally, even the stalwartly pro-Obamacare Washington Post editorial board has had it with the continuing game of Calvinball that the administration has made of the program: Stop stalling on the Affordable Care Act

THE OBAMA administration this week announced that it is again rewriting some of the Affordable Care Act’s rules, offering yet another extension for noncompliant health-insurance plans. The decision is not justifiable: It’s time to implement this law fully. . .

Yeah, let the people find out what they voted for, good and hard.