Election Day Special

[Originally published March 3, 2009, re-posted today in honor of this "very special" election]

The Americans With No Abilities Act
Washington , DC - (Dateline March 3, 2009) President Barack Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress are considering sweeping legislation that will provide new benefits for many Americans. The Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition.

"Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society," said California Senator Barbara Boxer - Democrat. "We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability (POI) to be ridiculed and passed over. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they have some idea of what they are doing."

In a Capitol Hill press conference, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi – Democrat, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – Democrat - pointed to the success of the U.S. Postal Service, which has a long-standing policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance. Approximately 74 percent of postal employees lack any job skills, making this agency the single largest U.S. employer of Persons of Inability.

Private-sector industries with good records of non-discrimination against the Inept include retail sales (72%), the airline industry (68%), and home improvement warehouse stores (65%). At the state government level, the Department of Motor Vehicles also has an excellent record of hiring Persons of Inability (63%).

Under AWNAA, more than 25 million mid-level positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance.

Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given so as to guarantee upward mobility for even the most unremarkable employees.. The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations that promote a significant number of Persons of Inability into middle-management positions, and gives a tax credit to small and medium-sized businesses that agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires.

Finally, the AWNAA contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the non-abled, banning, for example, discriminatory interview questions such as, "Do you have any skills or experience that relate to this job?"

"As a Non-abled person, I can't be expected to keep up with people who have something going for them,"said Mary Lou Gertz, who lost her position as a lug-nut twister at the GM plant in Flint , Michigan , due to her inability to remember rightey tightey, lefty loosey."This new law should be real good for people like me," Gertz added. With the passage of this bill, Gertz and millions of other untalented citizens will finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Said Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat-IL), "As a Senator with no abilities, I believe the same privileges that elected officials enjoy ought to be extended to every American with no abilities. It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her inadequacy, with some sort of space to take up in this great nation and a good salary for doing so."

Life to the Max, Opportunity Missed

We've blogged on Pension Maximization before (most recently here); briefly, it's using life insurance to cover the shortfall if one chooses the "no period certain" option at pension decision time.

In that case, the gentleman in question was able to retroactively resolve a potentially disastrous situation.

Today, I learned of a situation with a much sadder ending:

Susie, my longtime client, asked if I would help her recently widowed mother with her health insurance. Even though I've sent the bulk of my clients to Cornerstone for assistance, Susie and I determined that this case needed a more personal, hands-on touch, and so I met with them this morning. As I expected, Nancy (her mom) is every bit as lovely and bright as her daughter, and we started discussing her needs. What I had not known prior to this morning was that Nancy's husband (Susie's dad) had passed away, unexpectedly, in July.

This caused Nancy some major collateral damage: when Joe had retired 18 months before, he'd chosen the pension option with the greatest monthly payout, which stopped when he did. To further compound the problem, this also meant that she was no longer eligible to keep the health insurance. And adding insult to injury, while Joe had told her that he had $200,000 in life insurance, the policy was actually only $25,000, a good chunk of which went to pay for his funeral.

The good news (for certain values of "good") is that she qualifies for a pretty substantial health insurance subsidy next year. The bad news is that she never replaced her health insurance, which ended in early August. Now it's too late (she missed the window for a special open enrollment opportunity). She likely qualifies, however, for a hardship exemption from the ObamaTax.

Still, had she and Joe sat down with a professional agent (*cough*) when they were getting ready to pull the retirement trigger, perhaps she could have avoided this unfortunate situation.

Food for thought.

SHOP Sweat

How desperate are the rocket surgeons in DC to make something - anything, really - of the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP)? This desparate (via email from CMS):

"Do you know that from November 15 through December 15, small businesses can enroll in SHOP Marketplace coverage without meeting a Minimum Participation Rate (MPR) requirement? Think about your new and existing clients who may not otherwise be able to meet the minimum participation requirement."

Now why is this a big deal?

Well, let's just say that the response to the program has been underwhelming:

"After nearly two years in operation and millions of dollars spent in development ... about 85,000 people, from 11,000 small businesses, have coverage through the [SHOP]."

So now we know why the gummint would (illegally, natch) lift its own requirements. But then one is faced with the dilemma of Chesterton's Fence:

Carriers require certain participation levels because of "adverse selection;" that is, if only those with health problems sign up, then the carrier is going to be losing money very quickly since there's no corresponding offest from healthy employees.

But then, understanding basic insurance principles was never a strong suit of O'care proponents in the first place.

"In the end, there can be only one"

In email from our friends at Cornerstone:

"In 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will automatically re-enroll individuals of discontinued “on exchange” plans into similar plans offered by other carriers still selling in the marketplace."

To be sure, with so many carriers ditching the marketplace for the 2017 plan year (and, perhaps, beyond), such a streamlined process makes a certain amount of sense. And as we're also seeing, Blue Cross seems to be the one carrier still left standing in state after state.

Still, doesn't it seem a bit...presumptuous for a government entity to so brazenly (and without much fanfare, really) automagically assume that citizens prefer that the choice be taken from them?

Or, as FoIB Allison B so wryly observes, "Anthem gets everybody."

Indeed.

Obamacare Gaming Edition

Obamacare is almost 3 years old and an even bigger mess than ever. The billion dollar website still crashes and is not fully functional. Navigators and "enrollment assistants" are nothing more than phone jockey's trained (in a manner of speaking) on how to key in questions and read answers off a computer monitor.

Most have no clue about the difference in a PPO, POS or HMO plan. Of course with most of the PPO/POS plans going away that will make their job easier.

Drug formularies are another story.

But this is to be expected when health insurance agents with years of experience are forced out of the market only to be replaced by former minimum wage workers who have gone through 2 weeks of training and are now earning a "livable wage" of $17 per hour.

Savvy consumers who are not subsidized and are now facing monthly insurance premiums higher than mortgage payments and STILL required to shoulder tens of thousands in out of pocket expenses before the carrier pays a single dime are saying ENOUGH!

Consider the case of Will Denecke.

Will Denecke, a self-employed urban planning consultant in Portland, Ore., said he planned to skip buying health insurance for 2017 because the premium had shot up to $930 a month. Instead, the 63-year-old man said if he developed a medical issue sometime during the year, he would go to the Affordable Care Act marketplace and buy a plan outside the open-enrollment window, which he's aware he's not supposed to do. 

He said the ACA rules sharply limiting such midyear enrollment are easy to get around. Last time he simply claimed a change of income. “I've done it before, and my broker helped me - Modern Healthcare 

Obamacare is three years old and DC still hasn't closed all the loopholes. Agents, the few that have not left the business, are sticking it to the government and carriers every day.

Too bad Obama and company pissed off some of the most talented people this industry has ever known.

#ObamacareFail

If you like your doctor...

Remember this:



Ah, good times, good times.

Reason I ask is this:

"The number of physicians who say they’re accepting health insurance plans offered on Obamacare’s federal and state marketplaces has plummeted nearly 20 percentage points"

Now, we've blogged on this for a long, long time, but as we head into Open Enrollment v4.0, it's not enough to make sure your plan is affordable, but that it's actually useable. That is, all those "freebies" (colonoscopies, mammograms, routine physicals)? Well, they're not going to be free if your doc doesn't take your plan. And good luck finding a new provider:

"[O]nly about 57 percent of doctors said they'll be taking new patients insured by the plans next year"

That's less than two-thirds, and may be even worse in some areas.

#ObamaCareWinning

[Hat Tip: HotAir]

Game 7 Health Wonk Review is up

Brad Wright hosts this week's World Series (and election) themed collection of the best health care wonkery on the 'net.

And, like the Cubs this year, a winner indeed.