900,000 — Not 500,000 — Californians to Lose Health Insurance

My wife, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders, caused quite a stirover the weekend when she discovered that 500,000 Californians would lose their health insurance under Obamacare. That means often paying more to buy a new policy, on the exchange.

It’s actually worse than she first thought. At an editorial-board meeting yesterday, she questioned the head of Covered California about the matter. He admitted the actual number is between 800,00 and 900,000.

And that got me to thinking about Ross Douthat’s recent blog about Obamacare that I found disturbing because he seemingly accepts the premise that the Technocracy should choose winners and losers:

But not every form of “asking some people to pay more” is created equal. A cap on the tax break for employer-provided health insurance, for instance — which is central to most right-of-center health care proposals, and is taking effect in a more limited way in the form of Obamacare’s so-called “Cadillac tax” on expensive insurance plans — basically asks people who have been getting a very good deal from current health care policy (the well-off and upper middle class, and some union members with generous benefit packages) to live with a somewhat smaller subsidy and somewhat less generous employer coverage going forward. . . .
This policy change isn’t cost free, and it would still violate President Obama’s unwise “if you like your plan, you can keep it” pledge. But it promises to level the health-insurance playing field somewhat while asking the most from those Americans who have benefited from its existing tilt. But “rate shock” seems different, because premium increases in the individual market creates a set of Obamacare losers within a group of people who weren’t obviously winners to begin with.

Via: NRO
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500,000 Californians Lose Health Policies

My wife, the syndicated San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders, has learned that at least 500,000 Californians may lose their health insurance next year — and that’s a conservative estimate. From her Token Conservativeblog:

According to this link as of December 2012, there were 491,977 covered lives in individual health care plans regulated by the state Department Insurance that are not grandfathered under the Affordable Care Act. (If they bought a plan after March 2010, their coverage is not grandfathered.) This is a 2012 number, but if the number of people with private coverage hasn’t changed much in the last ten months, that’s half a million Californians who will lose their coverage.

Those canceled policies will have to be replaced with Obamacare-approved insurance:

California Association of Health Plans president Pat Johnston told me that by law providers must cancel non-grandfathered individual policies. (It is my understanding some folks will lose their coverage at year’s end, others might be able to extend into 2014 through the end of a covered year.) This probably means premiums hikes for people who “not only were they healthy, they also probably were very savvy shoppers.” This is a small corner of the insurance market; others may well save money under the Affordable Care Act. But for the people kicked off their individual California plans, Johnston said, it may well be that ”if you’re outside that subsidy range, you’re on your own.”

So much for, “If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.” The train wreck continues.

Via: NRO

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