Unanticipated Effects of Obamacare, Part 8

Two items:

1. It is now being reported that some insurers have stopped issuing certain kinds of policies covering children.

Why is this happening?  Since families are assured they can get insurance for kids, even with pre-existing conditions, the concern is that they will wait to cover kids until they experience problems.  Insurers understandably want to minimize their exposure to this kind of market.

Of course, the agenda of Democratic elected officials has been to get as many kids as possible on government-sponsored insurance for a long time-- especially Medicaid and SCHIPs (NC Healthchoice here in North Carolina).  Huge numbers of kids are therefore on these programs.  So this new move by private insurers affects a limited portion of the market. 

It will be more difficult, however, to purchase individual policies for minors.

2. A key part of the touted compromise that resulted in passage of Obamacare was the absence of a "public option"-- i.e., an insurance program that would be run by the federal government for the uninsured.  There is now talk of new legislation to add a "public option".  It is clear, however, that Obamacare has a de facto public option because it expands powers to the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to establish national health care plans:

Obamacare "adds sweeping new OPM powers to negotiate medical-loss ratios, minimum benefits, premiums, profit margins, and 'such other terms and conditions as are in the interests of enrollees in such plans'"...

If the OPM alternative remains in law the advocates of the public option have already achieved their goal. 

Comments

[Dr. Mary Johnson]

But Joe . . . sputter . . . blink . . . drool . . . I just don't understand!!!

It . . . was all . . . for the children!

[Joe Guarino]

Mary, it appears that actions and ideas inevitably lead to consequences.

[Bubba]

Stay tuned, folks. There's more stuff like that coming down the road from as aresult of this disaster known as health care "reform".

[Joe Guarino]

I agree, Bubba. I think we are only seeing the beginning. A bill this lengthy-- after having been passed into law and also after having gone through the rule-making process-- is bound to reveal all kinds of surprises.