Sunday Go to Meetin' Obamacare Schadenfreude

Hawaii’s $205 Million Obamacare Exchange Implodes

Despite over $205 million in federal taxpayer funding, Hawaii’s Obamacare exchange website will soon shut down. Since its implementation, the exchange has somehow failed to become financially viable because of lower than expected Obamacare enrollment figures. With the state legislature rejecting a $28 million bailout, the website will now be unable to operate past this year.

According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser the Hawaii Health Connector will stop taking new enrollees on Friday and plans to begin migrating to the federally run Healthcare.gov. Outreach services will end by May 31, all technology will be transferred to the state by September 30, and its workforce will be eliminated by February 28.

While the exchange has struggled since its creation, it is not for lack of funding. Since 2011 Hawaii has received a total of $205,342,270 in federal grant money from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In total, HHS provided nearly $4.5 billion to Hawaii and other state exchanges, with little federal oversight and virtually no strings attached.
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Hawaii now joins Oregon, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont, New Mexico, and Nevada as cautionary tales in government central planning. With so many failed state exchanges, questions need to be asked about the haphazard allocation of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds and the complete lack of oversight.

Remember, that the plan as written expected virtually all the states to have their own exchange; more opportunities for failure, as the liberals foisted their goals off on the states to implement.

Politically Connected Obamacare Website Company Suddenly Quits

QSSI, the politically-connected information technology firm that rescued the problem-plagued HealthCare.gov website unexpectedly announced Thursday that it is stepping down as prime manager.

The surprise departure of QSSI, the Columbia, Md.-based subsidiary of the IT health firm Optum and the health insurance giant United Healthcare Group, will raise new doubts about the future viability of the website for President Obama’s signature program, Obamacare.

Rats leaving the sinking ship?

Is Obamacare Working? Quarter Of Americans Who Bought Health Insurance On Exchanges Couldn't Afford Medical Care

More than a quarter of adults who bought health insurance on exchanges created under Obamacare skipped important doctor visits and medical tests because they could not afford to pay, a studypublished Thursday by Families USA found. Among low- and middle-income adults, the proportion of people who avoided care was even higher, at nearly one-third.

More than 14 million people in the United States gained health insurance through Obamacare, landmark legislation officially known as the Affordable Care Act that was passed in 2010. Nearly 12 million people signed up for health coverage plans on exchanges created under Obamacare, according to the website ACAsignups.net.

But more than half of the adults who bought such plans had deductibles of $1,500 or more, Families USA, a Washington nonprofit organization focused on health care, found. A deductible is the cumulative amount a person has to spend on health care before his or her insurance company starts to pay. Despite receiving tax credits to help offset the cost of coverage, these deductibles were prohibitively expensive.

Funny how that works; poor people were forced to buy high deductible insurance, and in so doing, used so much money they weren't able to afford to use it.

Top House Republican unveils Obamacare replacement

The Price plan would start by fully repealing the text of Obamacare.

To assist individuals with the purchase of insurance in the absence of Obamacare's subsidies, it would provide refundable tax credits. In a change from Price's previous proposal, which adjusted the value of the credits based on the income level of the recipient, the new Price plan would adjust the value of the credits based on age. The credits would range from $1,200 for those between 18 to 35 and $3,000 for those over 50 – with an additional $900 credit per child up to age 18.

It would also provide individuals with a one-time $1,000 tax credit to put in a health savings account, from which individuals could pay for routine medical expenses that aren't covered by their insurance. The legislation would increase the contribution limits of HSAs to match limits on Individual Retirement Accounts.

Remember, the next time some democrat demands to know what you intend to do about it.