Nick Gillespie
Reason Magazine
4/4/2013
Over at Investor’s Business, the always-interesting John Merline sends word of a troubling development when it comes to Obamacare: The very people it was supposed to help the most – the uninsured – don’t seem to want the damned thing.
After looking at a series of slides posted by Health and Human Services (HHS) that lay out the department’s marketing plan to reel in new customers, IBD’s editorial board notes,
It turns out that the Democrats and the Obama administration apparently didn’t bother to investigate who these uninsured people actually are before they forced through a $1.8 trillion plan to help them.
What they’ve learned since is that more than half of the 48 million who the government says are uninsured aren’t interested in health insurance, which is why they don’t bother to buy it in the first place….
The biggest market segment identified by HHS, in fact, is what it describes as “healthy and young,” who make up 48% of the uninsured population.
They have “a low motivation to enroll” because they are in “excellent to very good health” and so “take health for granted.”…
Then there are the “passive and unengaged,” which make up 15% of the uninsured and also have a “low motivation to enroll” because they “live for today.” They also cite cost as a key factor.
The problem, of course, is that ObamaCare will make insurance vastly more expensive for many of those who fall into these groups by larding on new benefit mandates and placing limits on premium-lowering deductions and co-pays. It will also introduce insurance market rules that force the young and healthy to subsidize premiums for those older and sicker…
The article, with video, continues at Reason.com
Related: The Best Way To Repeal Obamacare Is to Implement It
Also, Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester.
“The Obama Administration is continuing its war on seniors. Rather than negotiating responsible budget cuts, Obama has decided to make examples of nation’s most vulnerable – seniors with cancer.”
Update: Sequester (GOP) Blamed for Medicare Woes, Not Obamacare Cutting $714 Billion Out of the Program
RUSH: Okay, folks, this is classic. It is classic. If you haven’t heard this, it is in the Washington Post, and the lead of the story is: “Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester.” Oh, yeah. Yeah. Don’t you see, it’s the sequester. And that means it’s the Republicans. The Republicans are the reason Medicare patients are being refused cancer treatment. Oh, yeah. It’s not Obamacare. Of course not. It’s not the fact that, what, Medicare was cut $714 billion in Obamacare. But it’s the sequester. See, folks, it’s not Obamacare. You cancer patients are being turned away from treatment because of the sequester, because of the Republicans.
So the way this works is Obama can cut $700 billion out of Medicare, that doesn’t hurt a thing. That doesn’t cause anything, certainly nothing bad. But the sequester, which does not touch Medicare, is now causing doctors to start turning away cancer patients…
…RUSH: Well, the point of the story is that the doctors are turning cancer patients away and not giving them drugs, not treating them, because of the sequester.
CALLER [Dale, an oncologist]: Some may. As it happens the organization that I’m familiar with is not, as far as I know, doing that. But here’s the deal. Medical oncologists in community practice in many parts of the country have had to close their offices because they can’t do business giving away more than they’re taking in.
RUSH: Well, but that happened before the sequester. That’s just part of Obamacare.
CALLER: Yeah…
…RUSH: Okay, but I just want one point of clarification. I’m not trying to set you up. Look, if I’m wrong in the premise of the question, feel free to say so. But I’m looking at this, and it seems to me that the secretary of Health and Human Services could have chosen to get whatever money or not spend whatever money somewhere else. She did not have to cut your overhead.
CALLER: Wouldn’t have made as good a press, though, would it?
RUSH: All right, well, then you’re answering my question. So it was done purposely to generate a story like this.
CALLER: Absolutely…
Read the whole thing.
Update 2: From The Kitchen Cabinet. Because you must laugh sometimes, or else go mad:
Also, Obamacare begins to unravel
As the provisions of Obamacare gradually come to the surface in the first phase of its implementation in 2013, the blowback from citizens, elected representatives, and the healthcare industry has already begun. Obamacare is becoming unraveled…
…Sequester cuts in funding mean that seniors are forced to receive treatment in hospitals rather than clinics. They can still get care. But hidden within the brouhaha is the fact that under Obamacare many seniors would be denied treatment entirely, based on whether or not they pass the eligibility test, meaning that if it is determined by the powers that be that they are too old and too sick to justify the costs of their treatment, then they are fresh out of luck…
Poll: Sequester fall-out is not going the way Democrats had wished at Hot Air.
