Vier Obamacare Schadenfreude

It's a warm, humid, overcast morning here.  It predicted to hit a high in the 80s today.  That's enough to convince a person that global warming summer is on its way.

Obama’s Biggest Lie: The ACA Will Lower Health Care Spending

Not since 1980 has the American economy seen such a rapid expansion of health-care spending. It rose at an annualized rate of 9.9 percent, far outstripping inflation and standing in stark contrast to other components of the BEA report. Exports fell 7.6 percent, and demand for imports declined by 1.4 percent. Consumer consumption rose 3.0 percent, but that came in part from the high rate of health-care spending.

The US had seen a drift downward in health-care spending, but the trend began to reverse as Obamacare first officially launched in October. In the fourth quarter of 2013, health-care spending rose 5.6 percent, far above the 2.6 percent growth rate of the economy, to which it significantly contributed. Without the spending on health care in 2014 Q1, annualized GDP would have dropped to a recessionary -1.0 percent, according to economist Ian Shepherdson.

It didn't take long for supporters of the Affordable Care Act to change their tune on the benefits of increased health-care spending. Think Progress’ Igor Volsky wrote, “All of this was fully expected,” and that the spending just reflected the fact that more Americans “are finally getting insurance and are using their care.”

Fortunately for politicians, and democrats in particular, the American public has a short attention span. Just wait until it starts to have more effects on the employer based markets.

Remember one of the big selling points of Obamacare was that it was supposed to decrease the use of Emergency Centers as the primary health care providers for large numbers of people?  That doesn't seem to be working either: Hospital CEO: Obamacare Has Not Reduced ER Visits

CEO of Tenet Healthcare Trevor Fetter told CNBC’s Squawk Box Obamacare has not reduced emergency room visits Tuesday morning. Panelist Steve Liesman asked Fetter about the controversial claim that Obamacare would reduce emergency room visits and if he as CEO as seen any effect from the law.

Fetter said emergency room visits are up, following the pre-Obamacare trend. The CEO also acknowledged the ER visit growth rate has failed to slow. Fetter attributed the trend to advances in ER efficiency and technology.

A Journal of Science study last January found the expansion of Medicaid actually increased the use of the emergency room among low income households by 40 percent. According to the New York Times, the study’s pattern held true across demographics and types of ER visits, including those that could be treated by a primary care physician.

President Obama repeatedly insisted his healthcare law would lessen the burden on emergency rooms across the country, both prior and since its passage.

Website still not fully working



Health Insurance Official Testifies Before Congress: Many Of Obamacare’s “Eight Million Enrollees” Are Actually Duplicates…

“Duplicate enrollments: Because of the challenges that surfaced with the launch of the Exchanges in October 2013, some consumers were advised to create a new account and enroll again. As a result, insurers have many duplicate enrollments in their system for which they never received any payment. In cases where an insurer has a new enrollment for a consumer who previously enrolled, they are not expecting that original policy to be effectuated – even though that data is still reported.”

In other words, due to website glitches, some individuals may have enrolled multiple times. In these cases, the government may count all of these enrollments toward the total enrollment number. The insurer, knowing that the individual enrolled multiple times, will count that individual as having paid.

For example, if there are three people with one enrollment each and one person with two enrollments, the government will report this as five total enrollments. If the first three people paid for each of their policies and the fourth person paid for one policy, the insurer will report 100 percent payment. In this way, the government numbers may be further overstating enrollments.

It's easy to see how it happens, but the important thing is how the data is counted.  This way gives the administration the best of both worlds; the ability to claim the maximum possible number of enrollments, without discounting it for the number of people double enrolled, and still keep the percentage of people who successfully enrolled as high as possible.  I'm not sure it's even deliberately deceptive, but it should be kept in mind when the "8 million" number is trotted out.