ObamaCare is finished: FedGov ends Pre-Existing Coverage Privision

FedGov has ceased accepting any new applicants into ObamaCare's Pre-Existing Coverage program.

ObamaCare's pre-existing coverage web site pcip.gov is entirely dead, it's gone, they took it down.

It gets worse: States were mandated by FedGov back in March to end their own individual high-risk programs and transfer everything over to FedGov's ObamaCare rosters. The drop-dead date for the transfers is July 1st. Today is June 16th.

And, according to the current law, once a subscriber is dropped from the rolls they can not be re-enrolled.

Therefore, ObamaCare is even actually taking coverage away from people who currently have it.

In the State of California, that amounts to some 380,000 people in the high-risk pool.

ObamaCare is doing exactly the opposite of what it was intended to do.

And the program hasn't even started yet! And it's already dying and half dead!

I don't suppose that'll teach the Democrats to read the darn bill next time before they sign it?

http://www.pcip.ca.gov/Home/default.aspx

 

Does this have anything to do with the republicon brats not wanting to pass a budget for the program because they can't give the rich people more tax breaks?

 

What do you mean "Republicans"?

Obama has twice submitted a budget, in the Senate they were struck down 97 to nothing, than 99 to nothing.

If all of those were Republicans, I don't there'd be an issue about passing a budget.

 

Not only is obamascare dead in the water, but it will have a sufficient amount of time to take affect in January of 2014 so that people will be even more weary, more frustrated, and more upset at how much it will be costing them that come November of that same year, I'm predicting it will be another Tea Party landslide in congress and in the senate for the Republicans--which in turn will pave the way for a Republican president in 2016.

 

It can't pay for itself with the billions it already has, time to repeal it all. A better law would be "insurance companies have no right to inquire about pre existing conditions and must pay for all services within coverage limits" then let them compete for the best price.

 

That is the law. Policies operating under it go on sale in October, meaning anyone with a pre-existing condition will soon be shopping for coverage of their choice in the same marketplace as everyone else, without fear of being turned away or charged more.

That's why the temporary Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans are sunsetting this year, as scheduled.

 

That isn't the law at all, there are few thousand more pages. Ages are pooled, regressive against younger less paid workers, vast systems of government expansion, new compliance burdens with each tax returns. All business with over 50 employees etc...etc... Also an insurance mandate and extra paperwork (inefficiency) for everyone, and of course death panels that decide what medical coverage is allowed, who can get what organs, and who must die because their needs conflict with government medical policy

 

A few hundred more pages, sure. It also does things like reforming Medicare, improving the actual delivery of health care, building up the nation's health care workforce, investing in the nation's prevention and public health infrastructure, etc.

But you're talking here about the insurance reforms in the law. And they do stop insurers from inquiring about pre-existing conditions (again, for plans that go on sale starting this October). They do aim to make insurers compete head-to-head on price and quality. Which, in the run up to open enrollment this fall, we're starting to see insurers do.

 

10,000s - are you counting the regulations, the regulations in place to hire and protect from firing the administrators, etc... etc... This is a huge operation, because it sets broad ideas that must of course be filled out later, like any liberal policy that seeks to control a highly complex industry.

How does it do that? I get those are the goals, how does it do it though? Because that is where it falls down of course. I can say "All my plan ddoes it cut costs, save lives, and makes it fair for everyone to participate" but that doesn't make it so.

 

Always on the Obamacare beat. Always. A suspicious mind might draw the wrong conclusion.

Maybe time for a new sock.

.

 

Bull(*)(*)(*)(*).

You're not keeping up.

The government's PCIP web site was actually taken down. It only came up again around 4am this morning.

Check any State's PCIP web site. Like, for instance, California, which I linked you to.

People today, with pre-existing conditions today, can not get insurance. Anywhere. Period.

This a government screw-up on a monumental astronomical scale. This will affect hundreds of thousands of people with pre-existing conditions.

The stinking scumbags in Washington DC lied to us yet again.

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Horse(*)(*)(*)(*)! You're seeing exactly the opposite. What do you think PCIP is? It's exactly the same program that's supposed to "go into effect" in October. Only, now it's dead in the water. 'Cause the money isn't there.

It's all for one very simple reason, which is the fools in DC can't count and they can't manage our money.

 

Care delivery tends to be shaped by the incentives inherent in the way providers are compensated for their services. If we want to continue getting inefficient, uncoordinated delivery, unnecessary volume, and inconsistent quality, we can just keep doing what we've been doing.

The approach under the ACA is, unsurprisingly, to change that, in large part by transitioning toward payments that reward value (i.e. better care at the same or even lower cost) instead of just volume. These changes--and there are lots of them in the law--have already started in many cases. And providers are starting to react--they're getting better.

I don't know what the price fixing you're talking about refers to, but the regulatory scheme is there to make sure that insurance markets actually function like markets. It's worth remembering how these markets "work" now:

"One of the great challenges in buying health insurance has been a highly fragmented market. Individuals and group purchasers lack a reliable means for seeing their choices in one place and in a manner that allows them to compare what the plans cover, which providers are in various plans’ practice networks, how cost-sharing might differ, and how numerous competing plans might compare on key measures of quality performance. Nor has there been an active, consumer-oriented system for assuring that insurance plans that are offered in the individual and small group markets provide comparable coverage, cover the benefits that are considered essential to any health insurance plan, have accessible provider networks, and are accountable for specific measures of health care quality."​

This is what's about to change. People will be able to make side-by-side, applies-to-apples comparisons of plan offerings, and insurers will have to compete on the cost and quality of their plan offerings in a transparent marketplace. And everyone gets to shop, insurers don't get to cut people out based on their medical history.

I don't know what that bit about "allowing no market pressures" is, as that's the point of creating new marketplaces that allow shoppers to make informed choices between competing plans and to send meaningful signals to sellers through those selections.

Plans in these marketplaces will differ in any number of ways--most obviously on price and quality. But they'll also differ in benefit design, generosity (across the metal tiers), provider networks, and yes even covered benefits (though all have to offer at least the baseline package of essential health benefits). As for established companies, in California's marketplace 4 of the 13 insurers that will be selling next year are entirely new entrants to its market.

The 100,000+ people getting coverage through the PCIPs will continue to be insured through them until the end of the year, when the pools sunset by law.

For those who aren't already covered by them: no kidding they can't get insurance. That's exactly the problem the ACA is about to rectify. And, again, that solution is represented by the new marketplaces that open in October, in which these people will finally be able to shop for insurance like anyone else.

The PCIPs are high-risk pools--they're exactly the opposite of what's happening in October and, in fact, the opposite of the ACA's approach to getting people with pre-existing conditions access to insurance over the long-term. And with good reason: high-risk pools aren't all that effective.

Which is why the new marketplaces are about to launch. There won't be any need for high-risk pools anymore, nor any danger of these people being turned away because of their medical histories. The days of them being underwritten out of the market will be over for good in a few months.

 

If I concede your point, will you concede that it isn't flushed out yet and we have a few thousand pages to go

 

Because medicine is already goverment regulated, go on....

How do you get more care with lower payments. Be
Specific please.

It sets up profit margins and expands the medicate price fixing scheme

The regatikns protect them from competition and limit advertising and forces people
To by their product. It works nothing like a free market at all. Way off.

Competition is good , but the market is
Largely consolidated Becausw of regs i don't buy.

Got run now. But the price where it is too high for people
To buy and stay uninsured is a market pressure
Too that drives cost down - discount sellers of insurance etc.., will get back to you in a few hours. To drunk (happy father day everyone) to deal with iPhone right now.

 

The point was that the majority of the law isn't dedicated to insurance regulation (though that's gotten the bulk of the press for obvious reasons), it's much broader than that.

The point isn't to get more care, it's to get higher-value care. Which, in many cases, means less because so much of what we get now is useless, redundant, or preventable with the right incentives and effort.

For instance, see an example of a pioneering payment reform effort in the private sector. Study: Mass. Global Payment Approach Lowers Costs, Improves Care

As they hinted, this is similar to some of what's happening under the ACA. This was also noticed back when Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA was describing the implications of the Year One results of the Alternative Quality Contract (AQC):

Another example from the private sector: ACO Saved CalPERS a Total of $37M Over Two Years, Report Finds

The ACA has now inspired hundreds of these payment arrangements around the country and the number is still growing. Obamacare Shows Hospital Savings as Patients Make Gains

Similarly, another variety of reform with the potential to reign in costs while improving quality (an experiment with this payment arrangement in Medicare in the '90s saved 10% on heart bypasses while improving mortality rates) was launched almost two years ago:

And at the end of last year, CMS announced that they're about to take the next step in improving hospital payments under the ACA. Tying Medicare Payment to Quality

There's more in that bag of reforms, around improving primary care, around improving care in hospitals, around improving coordination and services for the highest cost beneficiaries. But this should give a rough idea of what the point of these changes is and what the potential is.

 

What policy does what you say and how? Be specific please. These are goals not logical paths to achieve them. Thanks in advance for dealing with a million typos. I just re read it and thought , lotto hard to go back and fix, he will get it"

 

You did not actually read your own article. I suggest you read it and stop making things up.

"To continue receiving health coverage after June 30, subscribers must activate a new PCIP benefit plan through the federally-run PCIP program before July 1".

"The California PCIP program was to last until December 31, 2013, when the national health reform begins. After that date, there is no need for high risk pools, because federal rules do not allow insurers to reject persons with pre-existing conditions or charge them higher rates than those without such conditions. However, to ensure that California’s PCIP subscribers continue to receive benefits until that time, those subscribers are being transitioned to the federally-run PCIP on July 1, 2013". (http://www.pcip.ca.gov/Home/default.aspx)

 

Hmmmm. Seems to be find today.

https://www.pcip.gov/

 

You might as well be speaking gibberish to the "average" person. All this bureaucracy is going to enrage them. Yet another central planning boondoggle given to us by leftist "academics" and politicians. When will they stop foisting these braindead schemes on everyone?

 

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This was a temporary program to fill the gap until the regulation that all insurers cover people with pre-existing condition. It was basically a High Risk pool and like all state sponsored high risk pools, was too expensive to maintain. This program was slated to end in 2014 when all of the provisions of Obamacare take effect.