<p>busdriver – no, the bad pilot was a one-and-done date. My dad drove a bus and would have been horrified at this guy and flunked him on his check ride. </p>
<p>Colorado’s ACA state exchange is on schedule to be self-supporting, unlike what’s being reported for California.</p>
<p>“You act like this oversight just comes out of the air. OMG, Orwellian! But companies have been following IRS and other govt procedures all along, certifying that their submissions are accurate.( I don’t know if it’s TOS to list them.) And all that has always been subject to review. And some scoundrels do get sued. And some good folks get tagged and have to explain. You ever been audited? The IRS second-guesses all sorts of things, makes you prove out”</p>
<p>Hey go ahead and use the word whack all you like lookingforward, I use it all the time…as in, there’s always someone in my family (usually my sister) that I’m telling I want to whack. Sometimes I want to whack my husband, or my kids, but they deserve it. Bless their hearts.</p>
<p>I thought this law was already written, not proposed (somebody correct me if I’m wrong), but it is just coming to light now. I guess we should wait till it comes out as true or just exaggeration. But if it’s true, that is Orwellian. A government telling a company for what reasons they are allowed to downsize. A government specifying you can’t downsize to decrease your taxes or protect your profits. Is anyone going to agree with that? But yes, we probably shouldn’t argue until we know it’s accurate and a current law.</p>
<p>I do like this…</p>
<p><a href=“U.S. Uninsured Rate Drops so Far in First Quarter of 2014”>http://www.gallup.com/poll/167393/uninsured-rate-drops-far-first-quarter-2014.aspx</a></p>
<p>" The percentage of uninsured Americans fell to 16.0% so far in the first quarter of 2014 from 17.1% in the fourth quarter of 2013."</p>
<p>"The percentage of uninsured 26- to 34-year-olds, which has been dropping since the third quarter of 2013, is now 25.7%. Americans in this age group have had the highest uninsured rate since 2011. The uninsured rate among 26- to 34-year-olds has been declining faster than it has among any other age group.</p>
<p>The uninsured rate among 18- to 25-year-olds declined slightly so far in 2014 to 23.3%. The uninsured rate for this age group has generally been steady since December 2010, after the Affordable Care Act provision allowing young adults under age 26 to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans took effect. Prior to that provision’s implementation, 18- to 25-year-olds were the most likely to lack health insurance among all age groups."</p>
<p>The government isn’t telling any business it can’t downside. The government is telling businesses they shouldn’t cheat on their taxes. There is a now an added tax on companies with more than 100 employees if they choose not to provide insurance to their employees. In the event that a company downsizes during the year, IRS has a form that the company can use to certify that they are not doing that to avoid the tax. If the company doesn’t want to complete the form, they can pay the tax. </p>
<p>And of course it signed under penalty of perjury – just as the tax forms are, and just as my statement of estimated income to receive a subsidy was. If people lie on their tax forms they can be prosecuted for fraud, but the government has the burden of proof of showing fraud. </p>
<p>Calmom, companies and individuals do a zillion things to avoid taxes. There are professions built around this practice. Respectfully, that doesn’t make a lick of sense. </p>
<p>Flossy, many young people have health histories that would have been considered pre-existing conditions and either precluded insurance or substantially increased premium costs in the past. That’s not a rarity – a childhood history of asthma or a heart murmur could have been grounds for rejection or a doubling of premium costs. </p>
<p>Also, young women ought to have maternity coverage, and that was always a substantial added costs. It wasn’t possible to buy insurance that covered maternity after becoming pregnant – so whether the woman planned to get pregnant or not the coverage is needed. </p>
<p>And no, insurance wasn’t always available cheap for youngsters either. My daughter graduated from college in 2010, and did not know until the day that she graduated that she had a job to go to with insurance. So I tried to shop for a policy for her – the premiums were around $650 a month. She was 22 years old, looking to buy a policy in New York. There was a program that could have helped her buy insurance for around $350 a month if her income was low enough – but of course that was something of a catch-22 given that it would have been hard to come up with rent and buy food if her income fell into the qualifying range. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnbc.com/id/101411783”>http://www.cnbc.com/id/101411783</a></p>
<p>Good numbers…</p>
<p>"Nearly 3.3 million people have enrolled in Obamacare insurance plans as of Feb. 1, officials said Wednesday.</p>
<p>And the percentage of enrollees who were between the ages of 18 and 34 grew by 3 percentage points in the month of January over the prior three months, officials pointed out, underscoring the importance of that demographic group to Obamacare insurance plans.</p>
<p>“These encouraging trends show that more Americans are enrolling every day and finding quality, affordable coverage in the marketplace,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius."</p>
<p><a href=“Archive-It - News Releases”>http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2014pres/02/20140212a.html</a></p>
<p>“Key findings from today’s report include:
Nearly 3.3 million (3,299,500) people selected Marketplace plans from Oct. 1, 2013, through Feb. 1, 2014, including 1.4 million in the State Based Marketplaces and 1.9 million in the Federally-facilitated Marketplace.
Of the almost 3.3 million:
55 percent are female and 45 percent are male;
31 percent are age 34 and under;
25 percent are between the ages of 18 and 34;
62 percent selected a Silver plan, while 19 percent selected a Bronze plan; and
82 percent selected a plan and are eligible to receive Financial Assistance, up from 79 percent during the Oct. 1 through Dec 28, 2013 reporting period.”</p>
<p><a href=“Health Insurance Marketplace: February 2014 Enrollment Report | ASPE”>http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2014/MarketPlaceEnrollment/Feb2014/ib_2014feb_enrollment.pdf</a></p>
<p>Tons of info here including the state breakdown … Page 14.</p>
<p>California has 728,000 sign ups. </p>
<p>dstark, thanks for posting all the numbers. Very informative. </p>
<p>Emilybee, You are welcome. These numbers are up to Feb 1. Ny’s numbers are higher now but as of feb 1…
NY had 211,000 sign ups.
Texas had 207,000 sign ups.
Florida had 296,000 sign ups.</p>
<p>Percentage wise, the increases in Texas and Florida are huge. Maybe… 80 to 90 percent increases in one month. There are plenty of uninsured in those states so it is good to see the increases. A lot more is needed though.</p>
<p>But… we have to watch out, dstark. Signs are that not everyone who signs up pays.</p>
<p>Vermont: 92% of people whose policies were supposed to start in January have paid:
<a href=“http://info.healthconnect.vermont.gov/sites/hcexchange/files/MEAB_VHC_February2014.pdf”>http://info.healthconnect.vermont.gov/sites/hcexchange/files/MEAB_VHC_February2014.pdf</a></p>
<p>Wisconsin: about 50% of the people whose policies were supposed to start in January have paid.
<a href=“http://www.wxow.com/story/24656830/2014/02/06/state-insurance-official-says-only-50-of-obamacare-enrollees-have-paid-premiums”>http://www.wxow.com/story/24656830/2014/02/06/state-insurance-official-says-only-50-of-obamacare-enrollees-have-paid-premiums</a></p>
<p>Will California be more like Wisconsin, or more like Vermont? We don’t know. </p>
<p>This is strange, though, from Wisconsin: “Schwartzer tells 27 News that while some of the state insurance companies participating in the federal marketplace have received premium payments for 65 to 70 percent of those policies, others have seen a payment rate of only about 15 percent.” </p>
<p>Why have some insurance companies gotten mediocre (at best) payment rates of 65%, while others have seen an atrocious payment rate of 15%? I wonder if the 15% company is the bungling incompetents at Anthem who made it difficult for so many people to pay.</p>
<p>I agree CF. That is why I wrote that post this morning questioning the CBO. </p>
<p>Do you have any idea why the CBO is projecting 6 million sign ups and a decrease of 6 million uninsured?</p>
<p>As far as Calif goes… We were told a few weeks ago there was 75 percent that paid. That was when Calif sign ups were 500,000. Now the number is 728,000. We should end up with 1.2 million or more sign ups in Cal. </p>
<p>Dont know why some insurance companies are doing so poorly but one of the stories mentioned that new sign ups that start in March have barely paid yet. Something like 14 percent have paid for March. That number will obviously increase.</p>
<p>My projections are lower than CBOs. Lower than Acasignups.net. </p>
<p>I am considering that a percentage of exchange sign ups were already insured and 75 percent will end up paying. </p>
<p>I hope my projections are too low. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>They’re projecting a decrease of 13 million uninsured in 2014! (page 107 of the report) That includes Medicaid, but it seems really high to me.</p>
<p>Seems high to me too.</p>
<p>One thing to consider: uninsured people will be enrolling in Medicare all year. That is, the 2014 numbers will reflect more and more Medicare signups through the year. But still.</p>
<p>Charles Gaba has to stop counting the unpaid enrollments un Washington. That number has been slowly rising for too long. He shouldnt count all the unpaids in Wisconsin either. </p>
<p>Actually… He should take a 20 percent haircut to his signup numbers. That number will be closer to the actual newly insured.</p>
<p>
I’m thinking that’s the issue – plus the companies reporting low payments may be behind on their own reporting. There were a lot of complaints in California about Anthem in December and January from people who had mailed in checks or attempted to pay by credit card, who had not received any sort of confirmation of payment – their checks hadn’t been cashed and the charges weren’t showing on their credit cards either. That seemed to get ironed out over time, but my impression was that Anthem was running several weeks behind on processing payments it did receive. </p>
<p>I’d also wonder whether some companies are encouraging people to sign up for auto-withdrawal of premiums from their bank accounts, or automatic charges to their credit cards, and some of the “unpaid” are people who have actually made payment arrangements, but payments aren’t yet due. (That would be for the March sign ups). </p>
<p>
Yes, and they have to file proper forms and paperwork with IRS and sometimes other regulatory agencies, and there are also whole professions built around filling out the right forms. </p>
<p>“The government isn’t telling any business it can’t downside. The government is telling businesses they shouldn’t cheat on their taxes.”</p>
<p>Arranging the numbers of employees in your company in a way that you avoid the impact of certain taxes is cheating on your taxes? Whether it is cutting employees hours, the number of employees, whatever your reason is, is absolutely none of the government’s business. How are they going to prove someone’s intent, make them take a lie detector test? Use the NSA to monitor their emails to see if they can find a comment someone sends about Obamacare making them have to downsize? Maybe they took note of all the people who publically declared they were going to have to downsize, and this is a great way to shut people up further. You don’t need to be paranoid to be horrified at the thought.</p>
<p>If this is true, this is invasive. I can’t imagine anyone logically defending it. Unless of course, one had something to do with the writing of the law, and needed to defend it at all cost.</p>