Megan McArdle During Implementation: A rocky roll out proves Obamacare will never work.
Megan McArdle Now: Sure, Obamacare seems to be working now but it won't work in the future.
Compared to last year, Obamacare's 2015 open enrollment is a boring story -- no spectacular IT failures, no politically charged policy cancellations. And as Obamacare wends to the end of its second open-enrollment period, it would seem that we should know more about the shape of the final program. What have we learned so far?No doubt that murkiness will spiral into a death darkness, or whatever doom-and-gloom bullshit she comes up with next.
The answer is "less than you'd think." Here's what we do know so far. There have been about 7.8 million confirmed enrollments or renewals in qualified health plans. Vermont is not going to have single payer. More insurers are entering many markets, but some insurers have already run into trouble. Data on the uninsured is somewhat scarce, but my best guess, based on the Gallup numbers, is that about 4 percent of the population has gotten insured since Obamacare started, or roughly 10 million to 12 million people.
On the other hand, much about the future of the Affordable Care Act remains murky.
You gotta love her writing style. Since much about Obamacare is murky, well SHE can't tell you anything about it! They're might be good things in the murk, or their.... might ..... be..... MONSTERS!
ReplyDeleteOvercharges by Insurance!
Cheating by customers!
Bill Padding bills by Doctors!
Nurses stealing opiate medications and substituting with birth-control pills!
Medical office receptionists being dumb and hanging up on a customer (like I) who swears at them!
Anything can happen when its MURKY!
Isn't it amazing? She hardly even tries.
ReplyDelete"Data on the uninsured is somewhat scarce," in this case "somewhat" meaning "not at all, I'm just to lazy to look it up." She could start with the Census Bureau. They have the uninsured broken down by race, age, gender...
ReplyDeleteKWillow, it was so amusing to see McArdle waver in the past between worship of rich doctors and desire to see government health plans fail.
ReplyDelete"Data on the uninsured is somewhat scarce," meaning "The negative data I want is scarce, and I don't understand "data" anyway, no one can, really, when you think about it. Except no can really "think", can they?
ReplyDeleteI misspelled "too" on Susan's blog. I am suspended from the Megan Ain't Has Good Grammar Club for days.
ReplyDeleteKWillow - it's only the poors going without. Pass the pâté for another round of Giving Not A [courtesy]. Excuse me, but I need to order citrus zesters with gold-plated handles before the Bushes of Palm Beach steal them all up as bonuses for their kitchen staff. BTW, nice to put a pretty, smiling face to the name.
"Isn't it amazing? She hardly even tries."
ReplyDeleteI believe the word is sinecure.
If my maths are correct, each enrollment would be for about 1.5 people (Yes, I'm rounding 7.8 up to 8.0 and taking the top 12.0 number; everything I know about calculations I learned from Megan "80% of pharma profits go to R&D" McArdle.)
ReplyDeleteIf you assume the average family enrollment is 4.5 people (spice plus 2-3 children), then over 80% of the enrollment would have to be single adults (8*1 + 2*4.5 would average 1.7).
Either something is wrong in her numbers, or most of the new enrollees are single.
Sadly, I know which way to bet.