Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Those 7M “Sign Ups”

41 Comments

Why yesterday’s champagne-cork popping in the Rose Garden was meaningless propaganda.

[Update a few minutes later]

Want medical insurance? Get in line:

The first thing we thought of when we saw the pictures was the photos we’ve recently seen on Twitter of Venezuelans waiting in bread lines. Waiting in line to purchase necessities is a characteristic not of a prosperous free society but of command economies under repressive regimes. Closer to home, one doubts even the Transportation Security Administration would be so tone-deaf as to advertise long airport lines as an indication it’s doing a great job.

So what in the world could the White House have been thinking? Here’s a guess: They look at the ObamaCare lines and think not of communist subjects queuing up for bread or toilet paper, or Americans for driver’s licenses, but something more like the lines of consumers eager to be the first to get the new iPhone or the latest Harry Potter book. Affluent people often wait in line for things about which they have a particular enthusiasm–or for special experiences, like an amusement park ride, concert or meal at a favorite restaurant.

One obvious difference is that whereas the iPhone and Harry Potter queuers are eager to get the new thing first, the ObamaCare ones are presumably anxious not to miss the deadline (even if it’s not rigorously enforced). ObamaCare lines might have been impressive if they’d begun to form in the last days of September. At the end of open enrollment, the White House boast is akin to the IRS’s citing a “surge” in filing of tax returns two weeks from now as evidence that the income tax system is popular and well designed.

Command economies under repressive regimes seems to be the goal.

41 thoughts on “Those 7M “Sign Ups””

  1. It seems that the three million young people who are now enrolled on their parents’ plans is nothing but a prediction made back in 2012. To this administration, that counts as a hard number, and of course Jim was trumpeting it, as usual.

        1. When did I say that? The plans I’ve had have charged more for the first kid, but not for subsequent ones. I’m told that other plans have premiums that increase when you add additional kids. I’ve never heard of private plans that cover kids at no additional charge.

        2. Actually what Jim said was that the pay-in to the system because kids can stay on the family policy is the same as a stand-alone policy for that kid.

          This is when he was touting the increase in kids signing up but was then faced witht he fact that most of that is because they stayed on their family policy.

          So while you didn’t have it quite right, it still was a classic case of Onsie-Jim shucking and jiving.

          1. Do you think it costs any more to keep a 23 year old recent college grad on their parents plan vs them getting their own plan?

          2. According to the NIH, from 18 to 35 the average male’s medical expenses come to about $95 a month, and a lot of that is probably teeth cleaning. For Obamacare to work, those people were supposed to be forced onto the expensive exchange plans and overcharged like crazy to cover the costs of the sick and elderly. But in a triumph of legislative stupidity, they were exempted via the parental option.

          3. George Turner:

            According to the NIH, from 18 to 35 the average male’s medical expenses come to about $95 a month, and a lot of that is probably teeth cleaning.

            It doesn’t cost that much to get your teeth cleaned. Unless he gets really sick or in an accident, it’s very common for a young healthy man to have no medical expenses for a year. If he’s diligent about his health (and most likely aren’t), he might get an annual checkup and get his teeth cleaned twice a year. All of that will likely total less and $250 a year or about $20 a month.

            For Obamacare to work, those people were supposed to be forced onto the expensive exchange plans and overcharged like crazy to cover the costs of the sick and elderly.

            Not only is this a wealth transfer from the young and healthy to the old and sick, it’s a transfer from men to women. Women as a group use far more health care than men but it’s illegal to charge them higher health insurance premiums. Throw in all that mandated coverage for OB/GYN and birth control that men’s policies must cover but they’ll never use and that’s an additional aspect of the wealth transfer from men to women. Men, and especially young men, are being royally screwed by Obamacare.

          4. dn_guy writes:

            “Do you think it costs any more to keep a 23 year old recent college grad on their parents plan vs them getting their own plan?”

            No I think exactly the opposite. Which is why Jim was wrong.

        3. “but not for subsequent ones.”

          You think those kids are free but they aren’t. Someone pays. Hiding the costs doesn’t make something free.

          1. Way to truncate a quote! The whole quote is “The plans I’ve had have charged more for the first kid, but not for subsequent ones.” Nowhere do I say that those subsequent ones are “free” in some global sense, just that my insurer never charged me more for having two kids on a policy than for having one. Sheesh.

          2. I happen to remember what you say from day to day. It is usually contradictory. Things like it doesn’t cost anything to add a child beyond the first but the thing is someone pays.

            Now you are all grammar Nazi about free not being the same as not charged but the other day grammar had no meaning for you. Grammar is always important to you right up until it isn’t.

  2. I’m still leaning towards this whole thing (7 million signups, recent poll numbers) being the biggest April Fool’s joke of all time.

    1. This should be in our kids textbooks as an example of how the big lie works. I can’t believe how far down the rabbit we’ve gone.

    2. We’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. If you ever wondered how the big lie works we’re living through the examples.

  3. Sure, right now the vast majority of the uninsured are still uninsured but in the future, the tax for not having insurance will be rather steep. Yes, the IRS is limited in their ability to enforce this Obamacare tax but they don’t forget. People who end up owing the IRS taxes for not having health insurance and who don’t pay up right away will have that balance hanging over them if they ever get a better job that would require them to pay taxes. And we know how sensitive the IRS is, so these people are prime candidates for audits.

    Obama is so fail that even a law requiring everyone to get insurance only insures 1/4 of the uninsured while also getting a similar number people kicked off their old insurance.

    “Want medical insurance?”

    Should read, “Want medical care?” Because that is where the price controls are going to cause lines, shortages, and growth in unofficial markets. Everyone will have insurance but it will mean less and less as politicians start whimsically dictating changes to the system.

  4. I’m confused about Il Dufe’s triumphalism on this anyway. Wasn’t the sign-up compulsory for people without insurance? If so, why is it some kind of triumph that people submitted to the Mailed Fist? It is well known you can get more with a gun and a kind word than you can with just a kind word.

    1. If so, why is it some kind of triumph that people submitted to the Mailed Fist?

      It’s his mailed fist.

  6. Closer to home, one doubts even the Transportation Security Administration would be so tone-deaf as to advertise long airport lines as an indication it’s doing a great job.

    Why not? Apple fanatics seem to love the fact that people have to endure long lines to purchase Apple products as a mark of desirability. To me its just a mark of a poorly designed logistical chain.

    1. Do you see those long lines to buy Samsung products? No. Does Samsung sell less smartphones than Apple? No.

      QED

      The difference is Samsung bothers to properly stock up the logistic chain before a launch.

    1. The Blue Cross people say that 80-85% of their signups have paid. Many of them haven’t gotten a bill yet, so it will be a while before we know. I signed up on November 12, didn’t get my January bill until mid-January, and then didn’t get a bill for February, March and April until the end of March. Some insurers are having trouble dealing with the influx of new customers, and are still playing catch-up.

      1. And some people have paid premiums but don’t have insurance yet and other people have been double charged and still not have been insurance. Those problems may only take months to sort out and put a squeeze on the little guy but the good thing is that this will get repeated every year from October to December when people are forced to get new plans.

  8. Jim, I have a question for you:
    With however many millions of people you want to say are now signed up for more-better health insurance and Medicaid due to the PPACA (I won’t dispute the numbers you use, this time), what percentage decrease can I bank-on for my 2015 health insurance premiums and state and local taxes, due to reduced Emergency Room usage in 2014?

    One of the selling points for the PPACA was reduced Emergency Room use by the uninsured and the indigent, meaning reduced hospital costs, health insurance premiums, and state/local taxes for people like me (taxpayer, property owner, and group health insurance member). Right? So, what percentage will I save next year, now that you have the nationwide signup numbers to work with?

    Thank you!

    1. I have a feeling that people who are forced to buy health insurance wont be the most proactive in finding a doctor in their network and will just go to the emergency room anyway because its free just like their insurance.

      2. Obamacare isn’t free, there are co-pays and % matching.

        going to the ER is expensive care. I suspect a lot more people will go to the urgent cares,
        fewer will go to the ER

    2. I don’t know. It’s looking like there will be 5-10% fewer uninsured, but I’d be surprised if ER usage is evenly distributed across the uninsured, so the reduction in ER usage by the uninsured could be more or less than that 5-10%.

      1. 5-10% less uninsured? Wasn’t the goal 100% coverage? Obama and the Democrats had to take over an entire industry and micromanage every doctor patient interaction just so there would be 5-10% less uninsured? What a stinkburger.

  9. Our beloved Jim loves to spout statistics when they seem to support his position.

    Only trouble is, the statistics are bogus.

    One example of this is where Jim likes to express that the number of young people getting “insured” has increased since Obama-cide was enacted.

    The first fallacy to his claim is that he includes those on Medicaid as “insured”. And of course they are not insured. Not only that, they aren’t paying into the system and on top of that, Medicaid has nothing to do with Obama-cide – being, as it is, a welfare program unto itself.

    The second (bust assuredly not the last) fallacy is the 3.1 million that Obama claimed, just yesterday, “…..have gained insurance under this law by staying on their family’s plan.”

    Well turns out that number is fantasy as well. HSS likes to toss in that Medicaid cohort as well even though – hmmm I wonder where Jim got that talking point.

    But even worse, if you analyze the numbers you find that:

    “The number of insured 19-25-year-olds had declined by the third quarter of 2012. Private coverage had dropped by 2.1 percent. Multiply that against the roughly 30 million 19-25-year-olds in the U.S. in 2012, and the number of young people on their parents’ policies declined by about 600,000 to 2.2 million. ”

    Shoddy analysis assumptions are part and parcel of the Obama administration’s technique.

    See a better analysis here:

    http://spectator.org/articles/58600/slacking-figure

  10. Obamabot triumphalism on this issue is like dn-guy saying, “Hey, I just went around pointing a gun at women and telling them I want a blow-job! And goldurn if they all didn’t give me a blow job! Women must really like me!”

    (Not that I think dn-guy is actually a rapist. It’s just that dn-guy would be stupid enough to make the above argument. Most “liberals” don’t want to rape anything other than your wallet and the Constitution.)

    1. “Most “liberals” don’t want to rape anything other than your wallet and the Constitution.)”

      And their fellow OWS protesters.

      1. “’Most “liberals” don’t want to rape anything other than your wallet and the Constitution.)”

        And their fellow OWS protesters.”

        Jim, is that true?

    2. Obamabot triumphalism on this issue is like

      And yet many on the right were sure that few would sign up. Just two weeks ago Rand posted a thread claiming that “The individual mandate … seems to be pretty pointless.” In November Victor David Hanson claimed that within 90 days Obama would have to abandon most of Obamacare. In February the Weekly Standard wrote that “It is clear by now that the administration will not reach the original CBO estimate of 7 million enrollees by the deadline at the end of March.”

      What you’re seeing now isn’t triumphalism, it’s merely the refutation of months of baseless doom-crying.

      1. Whatever, BJ. Pretty much whenever people submit to the power of the State, statists will feel triumphant.

      2. It is a real success to force people to do something or pay a tax. It’s illegal not to have insurance and yet Obama still couldn’t get the uninsured to buy insurance. /gold clap

  11. For people unsatisfied by the RAND survey results, there’s a new study from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation:

    Data released today show 5.4 million U.S. adults gained health insurance since September 2013—the first available estimate of how many uninsured people acquired coverage since enrollment in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces began.

    While the survey represents the first look at the number of enrollees, experts say the numbers underestimate the total number of uninsured Americans who gained coverage. Because 80 percent of the survey was completed by March 6, the findings do not reflect the enrollment surge in late March.

    That seems roughly consistent with RAND’s figure of 9.5 million newly insured (including 2-3m who got on parents’ policies before the exchanges opened).

    1. the GOP should shut down the government until obamacare is destroyed.

      that will show those millions of voters how wrong they are.

      1. Obama should shut down the government rather than delay the individual mandate a year and then delay it anyway with a pen and phone rather than the legislation that was offered.

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