This really shouldn't be considered profound or prescient, but the entire concept of of "free market competition" only works as intended if the customers actually shop around and compare their options. If people just ignore changes in the offerings available and stick with what they have regardless of the new options available, the "competition = better value" mantra collapses.
That's why I've been stressing the importance of shopping around on the ACA exchanges (or even off-exchange) so much this year. As I noted back in October:
Note: When reading any headline about Rhode Island, always keep in mind that with a total statewide population of just over 1 million, any ACA numbers reported will generally be pretty tiny.
A few days ago, I noted in my entry about Rhode Island's #OE3 Week One enrollments that they had seemingly managed to chalk up a whopping 30,000 people in the first week, nearly as many as their total #OE2 enrollment for 2015. The obvious reason for this, however, is that unlike every other state which is holding off until mid-December to automatically renew current enrollees, Rhode Island has decided to "front-load" the process by doing so up front. In practice, this doesn't really change anything because those current enrollees can still go into their account before 12/23 and switch to a different plan if they wish...or to cancel the renewal altogether if they choose to drop out of any exchange plans next year.
As a result, the 30,680 QHP figure in RI is extremely skewed and can't be used to estimate/project any other state data. It also means, as I said at the time:
In 1994, there was an episode of the acclaimed sci-fi TV series "Babylon 5" titled "Believers". Here's the basic plot synopsis:
Dr. Franklin faces an ethical dilemma when the parents of a dying child refuse to let him operate for religious reasons. Their son is suffering from a chronic respiratory ailment and will die soon. It can be cured with surgery; however their religion prohibits surgery (believing that cutting into a body will release the spirit, reducing the body to something worse than death—it is something only to be done to food animals). Franklin's associate Dr. Hernandez attacks their beliefs, but Franklin reprimands her, telling her that they have to work with the parents, not against them.
Ever since Texas passed HB2 in 2013, the omnibus abortion law at the heart of a pivotal case the Supreme Court will review early next year, more than half of the state's 41 abortion clinics have been forced to close. As these closures have mounted, advocates in the state have worried that the decline in abortion access could lead to a rise in the number of women trying to terminate pregnancies by themselves.
But for many consumers, the sticker shock is coming not on the front end, when they purchase the plans, but on the back end when they get sick: sky-high deductibles that are leaving some newly insured feeling nearly as vulnerable as they were before they had coverage.
“The deductible, $3,000 a year, makes it impossible to actually go to the doctor,” said David R. Reines, 60, of Jefferson Township, N.J., a former hardware salesman with chronic knee pain. “We have insurance, but can’t afford to use it.”
DENVER — Between Nov.1 and Nov. 15, more than 21,000 Coloradans enrolled in health coverage for 2016, either in private health insurance purchased through the state health insurance Marketplace or in Medicaid, or Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+), according to new data released today by Connect for Health Colorado® and the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.
“We are very pleased with the number of initial sign-ups during the first two weeks of Open Enrollment,” said Connect for Health Colorado® CEO Kevin Patterson. “But I want to urge everyone to not put off their 2016 health insurance coverage. New customers and renewing customers have a number of choices to consider. I encourage all of our customers to review their options and complete their enrollment before the last-minute rush.”
I know nothing about the military, but I'll say this: For all the screaming and hollering by the Republican presidential candidates over everything that President Obama is supposedly doing wrong when it comes to battling ISIS (or ISIL, or Daesh, or whatever the hell their name is this week), according to this story out of the L.A. Times, it sounds an awful lot like every one of their plans pretty much consist of slight modifications to what the Obama administration is already doing:
From the intensity of their rhetoric, the candidates seeking to replace President Obama might sound like they have policies for combating the Islamic State militants that are dramatically different from his. So far, they don't.
At a news conference Monday, Obama made clear that in the aftermath of the Paris attacks that Islamic State claimed to mastermind, he intends to stick with his plans.
Nov. 15--As a licensed health insurance agent, Sam Ross was used to seeing changes slipped into customers' plans during open enrollment season.
But he was surprised this month when he opened a letter from Highmark. The 60-year-old Southmont man discovered that his current plan, the Highmark Shared Cost Blue PPO 1000, which was eligible for premium tax credits on the Health Insurance Marketplace, was being discontinued -- and that he automatically would be enrolled in another plan not on the marketplace if he didn't take action before Dec. 15.
A Highmark representative said the company mailed letters to some customers -- though he wouldn't say how many or provide a list of plans being discontinued.
The company is "mapping" some customers on plans that are being discontinued into new plans, he said.
Factoring in the tax credit, the new plan would have cost Ross $481.02 more a month. It didn't come close to offering similar coverage, Ross said.
Before the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies could use medical underwriting, along with the threat of rescission, to tell whether a new policy applicant was being truthful or not about their smoking status. Under the ACA, of course, it's illegal for insurance companies to ask any questions about your medical history or pre-existing conditions which you might have...with a few exceptions, the main ones being a) whether anyone on the policy is pregnant and b) whether anyone on the policy is a smoker (hopefully not the same people!).
