Coming next in ObamaCare: Insurance rationing?

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Ed Morrissey:

For Minnesotans, coming next is meant literally. In order to keep insurers from fleeing the Mnsure ObamaCare exchange, Commerce Commissioner Mark Rothman and Governor Mark Dayton had to agree to massive rate increases across the board, which have garnered most of the headlines and discussion in this state and around the nation. Another less-discussed concession, though, might have even worse portents for the unaffordable Affordable Care Act. Rothman and Dayton have allowed insurers to cap enrollments in order to limit their losses — an act of rationing that may set precedent for negotiations in other states.

David Montgomery reported it two weeks ago for the Pioneer Press:

Most of the health plans remaining in the individual insurance market will stop accepting new customers after they reach a certain number of enrollees.

Medica’s two plans will stop enrollment at 50,000 combined customers, HealthPartners and Group Health at a combined 72,000 enrollees and UCare at 30,000. Only BluePlus will have no cap.

This will put a big bite in Minnesota consumers’ ability to choose a plan that fits their needs. At the moment, 250,000 Minnesotans buy insurance on the individual market, some of whom qualify for state-run coverage based on income levels. The vast majority of these consumers, however, have to buy their own plan, many of them without recourse to subsidies. Rothman and Dayton have both acknowledged that Mnsure is pounding the middle class:

Even as state officials touted the savings available on MNsure, though, they warned about the big costs faced by the many Minnesotans who don’t qualify for subsidies because their incomes are too high — but not high enough to pay their insurance costs.

“These are middle-class Minnesotans,” Rothman said. “They are getting squeezed, crushed, by these health insurance costs.”

Now the question becomes whether they can purchase insurance at all. The caps, added together, come to 152,000 openings for enrollment. Those who can’t find a slot with Medica, Health Partners, or UCare will have no choice but to opt for Blue Plus, even if the rates are too high and the coverage doesn’t fit their needs.

Plus, as the Star Tribune pointed out on Wednesday, they will no longer have the luxury of doing research to see what actually fits their needs and budgets. The first-come, first-served aspect of the enrollment caps means that this becomes a game of musical chairs:

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Another thing I read about ObamaCare was that, if you have it, then don’t pick a new plan after the rates go up or your insurer drops out, the Obama Administration has people who will assign you your new plan……whether you like it or not.
I wonder if they garnish paychecks, too?

The deductible on my daughter’s insurance? $11,000. So basically she has no insurance, yet pays for it.

Who voted for those who voted for Obama Care? Wasn’t it all of the liberals from blue states? Now, in which states is Obama Care failing? Seems like everything liberals touch causes unintended consequences!

The unaffordable care act was the ultimate deception on the American People. It is not health insurance, it is redistribution of wealth. With community rating and guaranteed issue, the plan was never going to work similar to the established insurance programs. Yet mrs clinton said in the debate that going back to what it was before the unaffordable act was unacceptable and would not work.

But, I am supposed to worry about trump being a potty mouth and the first bitch tells me of her shock at the comments. All this while she and the boner in chief heaped praise on teddy kennedy, who killed a young woman in 1970……

Bloomberg reports that at least 1.4 million individuals currently enrolled in the ObamaCare marketplace will lose their coverage in 2017 as big insurance companies are pulling out the exchanges due to massive revenue losses. Over 10% of the current number of individuals enrolled in ObamaCare nationwide will lose their coverage plan, forcing them to search for new plans in an ever shrinking and more costly market. The government mandated product people are forced to buy will only become more expensive with a diminishing value. The S&P forecasts that next year ObamaCare enrollment will “stall or even decline.” In other words, it would appear that ObamaCare is untenable with a collapse imminent. Who saw that coming?

When ObamaCare was first rolled out, Health and Human Services predicted that 26 million people would be enrolled in the ObamaCare exchanges by 2017. In 2015 the number of predicted 22 million enrollees for 2016 was reduced 40% to 13 million, and it has since shrunk to 11.1 million. The reason so many are leaving the ObamaCare exchange is because the “Affordable” Care Act has made insurance unaffordable. The whole premise for the need to pass ObamaCare was one of growing health care costs (though in reality it was always about government control). ObamaCare has proven to do exactly the opposite of what Democrats promised it would do. Socialism is never a cost effective or economically industrious system. It kills competition and innovation in favor of an “equality” standard that proves only to drag down those who produce rather than raise those who, often through lack of effort, don’t. ObamaCare has managed to drag everyone down.

https://patriotpost.us/posts/45381

@Randy:
asshole sherod brown after he took a short ride on airforce one with the terrorist

Called it

Sarah Palin was vilified for exposing the IPAB as “death panels”. She was right then and is right today. When a socialized healthcare program reaches its zenith, rationed care becomes an absolute. To think otherwise is to be living in a dream world…..

ok way off topic and something the rightwing news site are poking fun at but should be celebrating and cheering.
Obama wants to harden the grid against CME and EMP. There is a cost but had not a democrat bitch stopped the bill years ago it would have been cheaper. This is part of the GOP platform but no POL that I have heard is talking about it.
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/10/17/barack-obama-stands-ready-defend-solar-flares/
Obamacare sucks with 8 lips, should be dismantled.