Barometer of Failure: `Competition`

No Free Market Here

Obama shouldn’t want his “son” to play football because he may die under Obama-Care!

  • In the vast majority of states, the number of insurers competing in the state’s exchange is actually less than the number of carriers that previously sold individual market policies in the state.
  • At the local level, in over half of the 3,135 counties in the U.S., consumers will face an exchange market that is either a duopoly or monopoly. In 78 percent of U.S. counties, exchange enrollees will have a choice of coverage from three or fewer carriers.
  • The exchange market in over 94 percent of U.S. counties will feature competition among five or fewer companies. In Alabama, about 96 percent of that state’s counties will have only one insurer offering coverage in the exchange.

(Heritage)

(NYTs) …Of the roughly 2,500 counties served by the federal exchanges, more than half, or 58 percent, have plans offered by just one or two insurance carriers, according to an analysis by The Times of county-level data provided by the Department of Health and Human Services. In about 530 counties, only a single insurer is participating….

(HotAir) Last year, Politifact called “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” the Lie of the Year for 2013, after having defended Barack Obama’s promise for two years. Perhaps in 2014, they might consider the second part of Obama’s promise a candidate in 2014. The second part, where Obama promised that “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” is proving just as false….

(The Blaze)

  • Ken Davert has spina bifida. Melissa “Missy” Davert and their two children have a condition that makes their bones fragile and susceptible to breaking. 
  • When the Davert family was told their insurance for their children would be cancelled, they turned to Obamacare and were denied. 
  • Now, with a fixed income, the family is worried about being able to afford the out-of-pocket maximum for the private insurance their children need.
  • “… we’ve overcome many obstacles in life. And now it’s a shame that one of the obstacles we have to overcome is our own government to pay for health care,” Ken Davert said.

Every member in the Davert family has a medical condition requiring special care. But after losing their preferred insurance upon the enactment of the Affordable Care Act and being denied federal coverage, the Michigan family is now worried about high costs associated with their new private plan.

According to The Bay City Times, Ken Davert has cerebral palsy and his wife, Missy, and their 15-year-old fraternal twins all have a condition called osteogensis imperfecta, which makes their bones very fragile….

(Gateway Pundit)

….“The Health Insurance Marketplaces provides new options for healthcare coverage that we believe our part-time members may prefer,” she wrote. “In fact, by offering them insurance, we could actually disqualify many of them from being eligible for newly available subsidies that could reduce their overall health insurance expense.”

Kozlak added that at present, fewer than 10 percent of part-time employees that are eligible have actually enrolled in the company’s healthcare plan.

“Our decision to discontinue this benefit comes after careful consideration of the impact to our stores’ part-time team members and to Target, the new options available for our part-time team, and the historically low number of team members who elected to enroll in the part-time plan,” Kozlak continued…..

The Target release talked about more choice? Please! This just isn’t true. In only a few states the choices remain about even (just more expensive on average now through the “ACA,” but many people went from 12-to-20 choices to 2, or even one! It does not increase competition, government mandates decrease competition. The exact opposite.

The two who lost their health insurance in my shop, one could afford the higher rates, the other…. who was a responsible guy who got himself covered, was penalized, and now cannot afford the new premiums. Even with a credit.

I love George Gilders comment sooo much, and it is applicable here:

“A fundamental principle of information theory is that you can’t guarantee outcomes… in order for an experiment to yield knowledge, it has to be able to fail. If you have guaranteed experiments, you have zero knowledge”

No growth in what actually works… just tighter-and-tighter controls on what businesses and providers can provide. Making it more costly to do business and provide care.