A new study finds that uninsured Americans are not signing up for ObamaCare, which is a trend that is consistent since the law’s launch in Nov., 2013.
PeoplesPunditDaily.com first reported in Nov. of 2013 on early studies that found uninsured Americans aren’t interested in ObamaCare. Though covering these individuals was the entire justification for the law in the first place, proponents of the government takeover still have no progress to speak of.
Only 1 in 10 uninsured Americans who qualify for private plans through the new health insurance marketplaces actually enrolled as of last month, according to a survey by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
The McKinsey survey found just 27 percent of people who have selected a plan on the exchanges said they previously had been without health insurance, up from 11 percent a month earlier.
The Obama administration, and the president himself, has oft-claimed 4 million people have signed up for private coverage through the insurance exchanges, although that claim has widely been debunked, since it is not known how many of them were previously uninsured Americans.
The administration has also claimed 9 million people are eligible for Medicaid, again, a number that has received four Pinnochios from Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post because it includes renewals. Independent experts estimate that the Medicaid eligible number is far lower, topping of at 3.5 million maximum.
According to McKinsey, the most common reason for not signing up for insurance cited by both previously insured and previously uninsured survey respondents was that it wasn’t “affordable” coverage, at all, despite naming the law the “Affordable Care Act” in a Stalinesque looseness with the truth. Ironically, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi refused to call ObamaCare anything other than the so-called Affordable Care Act, even getting nasty with a reporter at a press conference who referred to it as ObamaCare.
While Democrats are touting the narrative that Republicans and ad campaigns are responsible for a “perception” that plans are unaffordable, the current PPD average of ObamaCare approval polls shows just 38 percent support the law, while a whopping 54 disapprove. When asked about their feelings on ObamaCare in a new Fox Poll, 49 percent say pessimistic, 45 percent say scared and 43 percent say angry.
A second survey, which was conducted by the Urban Institute, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, found that Americans with lower incomes and those who are uninsured are less likely to even know about the ObamaCare marketplaces. This has been a steady challenge for the proponents of the law, who naively believed that — younger people particularly — would run out to purchase coverage that they could not afford.
The study, based on data collected in December, found just about 23 percent of uninsured Americans respondeds, 27 percent of adults in low-income families, and nearly 23 percent of those ages 18 to 34 still had not even heard about the marketplaces.
Gary Cohen, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services official who oversaw the insurance marketplaces after it became clear the rollout would be a failure, told an insurance industry conference on Thursday that the administration doesn’t know how many uninsured Americans are actually signing up. Cohen will be leaving the project shortly, prompting critics to doubt the competence of a group that needed him so much to begin with
“That’s not a data point that we are really collecting in any sort of systematic way,” Cohen told attendees when asked how many of the enrollees were previously uninsured.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives Wednesday again voted on a one-year delay in the penalty for individuals would have to pay for not signing up for health insurance. The vote was the 50th time Republicans have forced a vote to repeal, gut or change ObamaCare, which is increasingly seeming unjustifiable since it doesn’t even achieve coverage for uninsured Americans.
The vote tally was 250-160, with 27 Democratic lawmakers — many of whom are facing tough reelection battles — joining Republicans on legislation to postpone the individual mandate under the law. The proposal, however, stands zero chance of even being voted on in the Democratic-led Senate and the White House said Obama will veto the measure. Apparently, President Obama, who is the only one without the Constitutional authority to change the law, is the only one who is allowed to make changes, even sweeping changes like delaying the inevitable policy cancellations until after both the 2014 and 2016 elections.
The 4-year-old law requires U.S. citizens and legal residents to have qualifying health care coverage or face a tax penalty based on household income. The penalty would be phased in at 1 percent of taxable income this year, 2 percent in 2015 and 2.5 percent in 2016. The Wall Street Journal reported that — according to the Tax Policy Center — the penalty for not buying insurance could be a lot higher than the $95 fine Americans usually hear about.
