Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Stories Causing Atlas to Shrug, Dec. 1 | Woeful Enrollment Numbers, Fake Enrollees & Sky-High Deductibles

But At Least They are Watching Our Dollars: Obamacare Exchanges Fail to Catch 17 of 18 Fake Enrollees, GAO Audit
  • Gov. auditors signed up 17 out of 18 fake ObamaCare enrollees for coverage through federal and state exchanges, a report released in October. 
  • The GAO sent 10 auditors with fictitious enrollment information to the federal healthcare.gov site as well as two state-run ObamaCare exchanges, to sign up. 
  • While eight didn't make it through the initial identity-checking process, all 10 eventually obtained coverage, even though four obviously had made up Social Security numbers that started with "000." 
  • They all were able to keep their coverage despite filing fake follow-up documentation.
  • In addition, the GAO tried to sign up 8 more up for Medicaid coverage. 3 made it through the process, and 4 ended up getting taxpayer subsidized private coverage instead. 

Obamacare's Woeful Enrollment and Rising Loss Ratios will Force a Rewrite to Survive.


Patients Now Avoiding Care Because of the High Deductibles and Meager Doc Lists Made Popular by Obamacare. A new survey of emergency room physicians suggests that many who have insurance are still avoiding care because of their insurance plan's high out-of-pocket costs.
  • The poll of 1,433 ER doctors by the American Academy of Emergency Physicians found that 70% of ER doctors reported treating patients who have health insurance but have forgone necessary medical care due to cost. 
  • The study also revealed a troubling pattern in which patients end up in the ER because they can't find non-emergency doctors to treat them. 
  • According to the poll, 80 percent of ER doctors report treating patients who said they were having trouble finding relevant specialists included in their health plan. 
  • Similarly, 73 percent report seeing increased numbers of Medicaid patients in the ER because insurers weren't providing enough primary care physicians or specialists. 

Fun facts on healthcare and retirement: