President Obama drew immediate criticism after announcing that health plans which were supposed to be cancelled this year can now be renewed for another two years. But, now, health insurers “participating in ObamaCare are a very worried group right now,” according to health insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski.
Laszewski, who has inside relationships with insurance industry executives, has become an oft-cited authority following the disastrous rollout of the health care law, and now he says insurers who agreed to take part in the law are concerned the number of ObamaCare signups are not only far too short, but the risk pool is far too old and unhealthy to sustain the law without a bailout.
“The fundamental problem here is that the administration is just not signing up enough people to make anyone confident this program is sustainable,” Mr. Laszewski said.
Though the Health and Human Services Department has claimed 4 million have signed up for health care plans through one of the program’s new marketplaces, which has been widely debunked as misleading, the number drops even further to around 3 million when factoring individuals who haven’t even paid their first month’s (or subsequent) premiums are included.
According to insurers, as previously reported by PeoplesPunditDaily.com, roughly 20 percent have never paid the first month’s premiums, and an additional 2 to 5 percent haven’t paid the second month’s premium, Laszewski wrote, citing insurers.
That isn’t enough to create a sustainable risk pool with a critical mass of young and healthy enrollees needed to offset the cost of covering older and sicker individuals who are now guaranteed coverage. Insurers are legally protected, in theory, by a provision in the law that provides a taxpayer-funded bailout if the insurance death spiral kicks in. While Americans will be stuck footing the bill, which will amount to trillions over a decade, insurers would still have to increase insurance premiums, placing an even greater burden on the American people.
In fact, a recent study found that only 1 in 10 uninsured Americans, the target demographic used by Democrats to justify a government takeover of health care, have signed up for ObamaCare even though they are fully eligible. The number one reason cited was cost. Ironic, considering the not-so appropriate name “Affordable” Care Act.
Meanwhile, according to a Fox Poll that asked voters to pick from a range of emotions that describe how they feel about the law, 49 percent say they are pessimistic, 45 percent say scared and 43 percent say they are angry.
