Political Analyst Tony Quinn: "Obamacare: A Fiasco by the Numbers"

 

In a November 15th article on foxandhoundsdaily.com, political analyst Tony Quinn gave his viewpoint on the first efforts to implement Obamacare in California: "Three months ago, California had six million people with no health insurance; now thanks to Obamacare’s forced cancellations in the individual market, that number has risen to well over seven million (Associated Press says 7,471,000). Yet despite this, the first six weeks of sign-ups on the state’s insurance exchange are pretty paltry – only 59,000 enrolled in new policies out of the 7.4 million uninsured Californians. This amounts to less than one percent of the uninsured."

Quinn continues that if sign-ups remain at this pace, "...only 360,000 Californians will have signed up by the end of the enrollment period March 31, 2014. And even if that number is doubled, it comes nowhere close to the 1.1 million California individual health care policyholders who have been told their health care is being cancelled as of December 31, 2013."

Quinn is of the opinion that President Obama and congressional Democrats are now in "full retreat before the outraged hoards who have lost coverage and have let the Democrats know how mad there are." As a result, the President wants people to be able to keep their current plans for at least another year.

But, according to Quinn, this is a problem for Covered California, the health insurance marketplace in California created by the state's implementation of the American Health Benefit Exchange provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). He states that Covered California’s market plan depends on the 1.1 million who lost their plans signing up for the new plans in the exchange. Dave Jones, California’s Insurance Commissioner, who is up for reelection in 2014, wants current insurance plans extended, but to do so "plays havoc with the Covered California insurance market," says Quinn.

Quinn adds, "The next shoe to drop will be small businesses, where millions are about to learn they cannot keep their existing plans because they do not meet the minimum standards of Obamacare. Surely Obama will have to retreat on that one too, as well as the penalty for not signing up under the individual mandate."

The consequence of continually retreating on the Obamacare health insurance program will further convince Americans "to avoid the exchanges and not to sign up for new plans, many of which look to be more expensive than what they have now," concludes Quinn, adding that "people are just not sufficiently confident in Obamacare to sign up in the numbers that will be necessary to make the exchanges a viable insurance marketplace."