THE OBAMACARE DEADLINE FEEDING FRENZY

DATELINE: Frenzyville, Apr 1 –  The Obamacare signup deadline came and went on Monday. It was pretty much unusual business as usual on the website – long periods of unavailability and notices of delays for those surfing the site. I use the word “surfing” because no one knows what site visitors are actually up to. Are they just looking around, trying out the sign up process with no intention of finishing, trying to finish without paying, trying to pay. Who knows? According to HHS, no one, which pretty much describes the management team in that Department.

D Day triggered a huge media feeding frenzy over the past few days, some pro Obamacare and others con. Most of it was pure comedy. The first skit began on March 5 when the House passed the 50th bill aimed at either repealing or modifying Obamacare. Like the first 49, this one died in the Senate. President Obama mocked the effort even before the bill passed. He and others labeled it an attempt to undermine the Avoidable Care Act.

The bill would have suspended the penalty for those who failed to meet the March 31 sign up deadline. Three weeks later, the Obama Administration did just that, this time without the President’s mockery. The glaring hypocrisy was not mentioned in the White House press release. Very funny.

Even funnier is the fact that the Republican-controlled House has bothered to pass fifty bills targeting Obamacare. It shows how devoid of reality the GOP is. Four years after the legislation passed, they foolishly dally with futility but can’t manage something solid like settling on a replacement plan. Twenty of them are floating around in various parts of out-of-touch land.

On Monday morning, Lindsay Graham was beating the repeal Obamacare drum on Fox News. Lindsay is more nauseating than humorous. Unfortunately, most of his kind are also stuck on repeal first and replace second. This will put them in second replace in November. And they won’t get it then, either.

Then there was the guy on a Sunday talk show who claimed that Obamacare is the biggest bipartisan bill ever passed. This even though it garnered not one GOP vote and is the most notorious crammed-down legislation in the history of the known Universe. The guy’s reasoning – RomneyCare in Massachusetts was a bipartisan product, which, by that fact alone, makes Obamacare bipartisan as well. This dude has to believe that people within the sound of his TV voice are just plain stupid. A real knee-slapper.

Another joke is the increasing cost of healthcare under Obamacare. Supporters just shrug a “so what” and point out that healthcare costs always rise. Except that our President promiseda $2,500 per year per family savings under his signature legislation. People believed it, I guess, because of the cost reduction that usually accompanies economies of scale. Guess what, it didn’t in this case.

Where are the cost savings? In the make-believe Utopian world created by political promises. We can’t stop laughing at that one.

Then there’s the double mystery of how many people have enrolled (including paid) in Obamacare and how many of those previously lacked coverage.

The L.A. Times claimed on Monday that Obamacare has “spurred the largest expansion in health coverage in America in half a century.” The newspaper further hyped, “As the law’s initial enrollment period closes, at least 9.5 million previously uninsured people have gained coverage.” The wording is meant to imply that all of those people signed up for Obamacare. But, the naughty writers at the Times are just trying to fool us.

If you bother to dig deeper in the article – most people stop at the headlines – reality begins to surface. The article alleges that 3 million of those who have signed up for Obamacare are PUPs (previously uninsured people). Even the Times doesn’t claim that 3 = 9.5. So, it also asserts that 4.5 million more PUPs have signed up for Medicaid, which, of course, exists independently of Obamacare. Lastly, according to the newspaper, millions of PUPs signed up for insurance directly with insurance companies.

The most amusing thing about the Times numbers is that they come, not from the government, but from interviews and surveys, which can’t be verified. As far as anyone knows, they’re just made up. Now that’s the kind of reporting we can believe in. Hilarious.

What are the real Obamacare paid enrollment numbers and what percentage are PUPs? The White House claims that it doesn’t know and refers us to the insurance companies. The insurances companies respond that HHS has to know– it’s the government’s website.

The take away from that little back and forth, besides a sore neck, is crystal clear. The numbers are not good enough to talk about or we’d be hearing all about them over and over again.

Thanks goodness for feeding frenzies. They make us laugh ourselves silly.