Affordability act not going well: Fallout Over Dropped Coverage, “Sticker Shock” Due To ACA Continues. This morning’s print and online coverage regarding the implementation of the Affordable Care Act focuses more on the controversy over those Americans who are losing their health insurance plans due to ACA rules than on the problems associated with healthcare.gov. The Washington Post Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (11/4, Cha, Sun), in a front-page article, reports that “Americans who face higher insurance costs under” the Affordable Care Act “are angrily complaining about ‘sticker shock,’” and “threatening to become a new political force.” According to the Post, the cohort that is losing existing coverage and/or paying more for health insurance as a result of the ACA is partly compromised of “middle-income small-business owners...and other self-employed workers.” The Post spotlights Americans whose premiums will rise sharply after their current coverage ends, whose deductibles will increase by thousands of dollars and who will no longer be able to see their family doctors. USA Today Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (11/4, A1, ODonnell) reports that “thousands of small businesses around the U.S. are racing to renew their health insurance policies [by] Dec. 1 to beat large premium increases” that “will hit them Jan. 1 when the Affordable Care Act takes full effect,” and “some health insurance brokers also say 2014 may be the last year many of the companies even offer health insurance.” According to USA Today, “insurance companies warned brokers and businesses that rates could rise dramatically because of the ACA,” and “some agents say they are seeing increases of 30% to even 100% in premiums.” According to the Los Angeles Times Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (11/4, Hennessey), the President is “facing...questions about whether he oversold how the Affordable Care Act would affect families.” The Times says that “most significantly,” the President “repeatedly promised that Americans could keep their current insurance plans,” but “hundreds of thousands of people have received notices that their plans will be canceled or changed due to new minimum standards required under the law.” Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, in an analysis for the AP Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (11/3, Alonso-Zaldivar) titled, “Obama’s Health Law Finally Gets Real For America,” says that “some consumers being notified their existing plans are going away.” Alonso-Zaldivar goes on to write that the up to 15 million Americans who could lose their health insurance as a result of the ACA “won’t have to go uninsured, and some could save a lot if they qualify for the law’s tax credits.” Alonso-Zaldivar also says the ACA’s “expanded version” of Medicaid “seems to be doing fairly well.” Alonso-Zaldivar concludes that while “Americans are still divided...with negative views” of the ACA “outweighing positives,” the public still “lean[s] against repealing it.” Another piece from the AP Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (11/4, Kennedy) considers “sticker shock,” noting that despite subsidies for lower-income Americans, “many in the middle class may get rude awakenings when they access the websites and realize they’ll have to pay significantly more.” Politico Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (11/4, Kopan) reported that in an appearance on NBC’s Meet The Press, David Axelrod “had no allies...when he was asked repeatedly by a roundtable of journalists and pundits why the president told Americans if they liked their health care plan, they could keep it.” Axelrod suggested that reports about millions of Americans losing the health insurance they currently have are overblown, calling those people a “small cohort of people who got bad health care policies,” who “will have to transition to other policies.” The Daily Caller Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (11/4, Stafford) noted that the Wall Street Journal Share to FacebookShare to Twitter reported this weekend “that as far back as 2009, White House officials debated whether or not they could keep their promise to individually insured Americans.” However, Reuters Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (11/4, Lambert) notes that on Sunday, Pfeiffer maintained that he could not “recall this debate the Wall Street Journal talks about in any way, shape or form.” And in state-specific news, the Buffalo (NY) News Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (11/3, Zremski) reported on the 137,000 or more people in eight counties in the Buffalo region who have or will get “a notice that President Obama said they would never get: a notice that their health insurance is being discontinued, and that they’ll have to shop for another plan.”
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 19:33:58 +0000
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