Official ObamaCare enrollment data got a thorough dental cleaning on Thursday. Apparently, no one had flossed the data in some time, because a chunk of nearly 400,000 stowaways came flying out and slimed the Obama administrations credibility. Yuck! Republican House investigators discovered, and Bloomberg News reported, that the latest numbers on people with health coverage via ObamaCares federal- and state-operated exchanges were inflated by the addition of 380,000 people who had signed up for dental plans. The Department of Health and Human Services later acknowledged the error, even expressing shock and dismay. Whether the error was the result of carelessness or, rather, a deliberate effort to keep the enrollment number levitating above the 7 million goal set in the fall of 2013, the revelation didnt come as a great surprise to IBD. Weve been reporting that the paid enrollment data reported separately by a number of states cast doubt on the accuracy of HHS data. People enroll for ObamaCare at a public library in San Antonio on Dec. 11, 2013. AP View Enlarged Image Now weve learned the truth — 6.7 million people were paid up as of mid-October, about 16% less than the 8 million sign-ups that the administration celebrated back in the spring. Now, everyone will start to focus on how many people will sign up during the second enrollment period, which just launched. But theres another, more immediate question that is also quite interesting: How many people will bother to pay their premiums in December? Its unclear that this number will ever be reported, but there is good reason to suspect that people will take advantage of ObamaCares rules to skip their final payment of the year without consequence. Under ObamaCares 90-day grace period, insurers must pay all claims for an enrollee for the first month after a payment due date is missed. For policyholders who arent close to meeting their deductible, there is not risk in not paying their December bill and waiting to see if they have a costly medical emergency during the month. The other factor that could lead people to take a free ride during the last month of the year is that many of the low-cost policies on various state exchanges have seen significant price hikes, while other competitors have taken over as the lowest-cost provider. As a result, people shopping for bargains may consider switching plans and leaving their old provider in the lurch for December. Insurers have been worried about this. In a rate filing in Connecticut, for example, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield said that it expected 15% of enrollees to skip out on one months payment. WellPoint (NYSE:WLP)-owned Anthem asked for a 0.38 percentage point premium hike as a result, but the state insurance department rejected the request. If people do skip out on their plans in big numbers next month, premiums will be higher as a result in 2016. Read More At Investors Business Daily: news.investors/politics-andrew-malcolm/112114-727512-obamacare-rules-encourage-people-to-not-pay-premiums.htm#ixzz3K28PQAFR Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter | InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 00:44:58 +0000
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