Almost 80M With Employer Health Care Plans Could Have Coverage Canceled, Experts Predict

Almost 80 million people with employer health plans could find their coverage canceled because they are not compliant with ObamaCare, several experts predicted.

Their losses would be in addition to the millions who found their individual coverage cancelled for the same reason.

Stan Veuger of the American Enterprise Institute said that in addition to the individual cancellations, "at least half the people on employer plans would by 2014 start losing plans as well." There are approximately 157 million employer health care policy holders.

Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute added, "the administration estimated that approximately 78 million Americans with employer sponsored insurance would lose their existing coverage due to the Affordable Care Act."

Last week, an analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, showed the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predicted up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year.

Via: Fox News

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The ACA’s Mission Creep - Look to Vermont and Washington, D.C., for early warning signs.

The new health-insurance exchanges were launched on October 1 amid empty promises and a host of delays and snafus. But what if the political architects of Obamacare’s insurance expansion consider this disastrously bad start only the beginning of a grander opportunity?

Let’s assume that the problems of hastily assembled and inadequately tested software will be solved. Then assume further that the recently relabeled “marketplaces” without market prices will eventually work to redistribute tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to several million currently uninsured Americans searching for coverage. What, then, are the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) intended to become after their rocky first year or two?

AN EARLY PREVIEW
The state-administered exchanges in Vermont and the District of Columbia provide an early preview. Each intends to become, within its jurisdiction, the “sole” destination for health-insurance purchases in the individual- and small-group-insurance markets.  

In April 2013, the D.C. city council voted to require any insurance carrier offering individual health-benefits plans on or after January 1, 2014, to offer them solely through the District’s American Health Benefits Exchange. It approved a similar requirement for any plans offered to small groups (50 or fewer employees) not already offering health insurance to their employees as of December 31, 2013. It delayed this requirement for one year for small-group health plans with “ACA-qualified” coverage that is already offered or renewed as of December 31, 2013. The latter insurance could be issued or renewed during calendar year 2014 through non-exchange distribution channels. But beginning January 1, 2015, all small-group health plans must be offered and issued or renewed solely through the District’s exchange. And in 2016, the D.C. government will expand the definition of small-group insurance to businesses with up to 100 employees.

Via: NRO

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Study: Just 3 percent of projected Obamacare enrollees have signed up

Just 3 percent of those expected to eventually sign up for Obamacare’s state-based health markets in a dozen states running their own markets have actually signed up so far, according to an analysis Monday from a health consultancy that predicted the pace will eventually pick up.

Avalere Health said that by the end of next year, the 12 states are expected to have 1.4 million enrollees in their health exchanges. As of Sunday, though, 49,100 had actually signed up.

“I would expect to see these numbers to grow over time. This happens gradually,” Avalere CEO Dan Mendelson said in an interview, citing the slow start to the Medicare drug benefit program during the George W. Bush administration.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that 7 million people would enroll in the health exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act. Some states elected to set up their own exchanges, but most left the job to the federal government, whose website supposed to help enroll potential customers has been plagued by problems since its Oct. 1 launch.

Some states, meanwhile, have reported their own website problems.

Via: Washington Times

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