As the Obama Administration has granted 15 additional days for enrollment in the Affordable Care Act, it should be no surprise GOP derangement is over the top.
I introduce AFP’s Jennifer Stefano. Warning! After viewing first three quarters of the segment you will know two things. You will know why it is important to fight Koch takeover of our society and, more important, you will see why the old Springer show fell out of vogue with millions. Actually, you will know a third item. You will have witnessed the level of communication and the type of video segment that will go viral on conservative social media and websites. In fact, you might even think of a Bill O’Reilly finger-pointing yelling segment from Fox News.
 |
| http://acasignups.net/graph
Since you may not have visited the Gaba link above, I am posting a segment of the screed that addresses Stefano seven million cancellations.
|
Well, I forgot about one more thing: Not all of those 4.8 million “cancelled” policies were actually cancelled.
Another commentor, danslabyrinth, reminded me that thanks to President Obama and HHS announcing their “grandfathering” policy which extended the deadline for existing non-compliant plans by a year (and, more recently, by another two years, to as far out as the end of 2016), this 4.8 million figure has already been vastly reduced. By how much?
Well, according to this article about the additional 2-year extension, 1.5 million people never had their policies cancelled after all (or at least, they had them reinstated after originally being cancelled, anyway):
It’s not clear how many people will actually be affected by the most closely watched provision of the new regulations, the two-year extension on policies that were previously subject to cancellation. The administration cites a congressional estimate of 1.5 million, counting individual plans and small business policies.
About half the states have allowed insurance companies to extend canceled policies for a year under the original White House reprieve. The policies usually provided less financial protection and narrower benefits than the coverage required under the law. Nonetheless, the skimpier insurance was acceptable to many consumers because it generally cost less.
“It’s not likely to affect a large number of people but it certainly avoids difficult anecdotes about people having their policies canceled,” said Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, an expert on insurance markets. “I think it’s a small and dwindling number of people who are affected.”
Now, that 1.5 million figure isn’t given as solid…but then again, neither is the 5 million figure (I’ve heard the number claimed being as low as 4.7 million or as high as 6 million, but the 6M sources are, to put it mildly, a bit shakey to say the least).
UPDATE: Thanks to Tim Dickinson for pointing me towards the source of the “1.5 Million UNcancelled Policies” estimate…which is actually the same updated CBO report which lowered the exchange QHP estimate from 7M to 6M:
In November 2013, the Administration announced that state insurance commissioners could give health insurers the option of allowing individuals and small businesses to re-enroll in coverage that did not comply with certain market and benefit rules, such as the prohibition against adjusting premiums based on health status, that were scheduled to take effect in January 2014. CBO and JCT estimate that, as a result, roughly 11⁄2 million people in the individual and small-group markets will renew policies in 2014 that are not compliant with those rules. In addition, because subscribers may renew such coverage between January and October of 2014, CBO and JCT estimate that half a million people will continue to be enrolled in noncompliant policies in 2015.
So, here’s what I’m willing to do: Since 5M is the most-cited figure, I’m willing to use that. And since 1.5 million appears to be the maximum number that have taken the administration up on their extension offer, I’m even willing to knock a couple hundred thousand off of that in the interests of being, shall we say, “conservative”.This means that we can subtract 1.3 million from 5 million, leaving 3.7 million people who genuinely had to replace their existing non-compliant health insurance policy with a fully-compliant one…via either the ACA Exchanges or off-exchange, directly through the insurance companies.
And as I explained yesterday, until I know how many of those 3.7 million replaced their policy off-exchange instead of on the exchanges, I have no way of knowing how many to “subtract” from the graph and therefore can’t do so.
The AFP executive spent the last two minutes of her on-camera appearance deflecting from a potentially intelligent point-counter-point with a typical Fox News-like performance. Stefano successfully deployed the very technique used by Mitt Romney to disarm a scantily prepared and (appearing) reticent Barack Obama during their first debate. Romney deployed the Gish Gallop debate technique via overwhelming Obama with machine gun-like issues and comments laced with either half-truths or outright lies. I suggest based on reading in preparation for this piece, Stefano also threw veracity on the floor of the host studio.
|
She spoke repeatedly of how Hayes, “did not know her,” while reminding of many of the Springer Show segments. Yet, the one thing she left for all to see and hear. Other than the Fox News Network, we now know her and we know she is very much not fit for prime-time appearances on national television.
The Pardu's Scroll 