ObamaCare

 

ObamaCare health insurance exchanges are “a mess”

 

By Dave Andrusko
It only made sense. By all accounts while it is almost impossible to navigate the HealthCare.gov web site, that is child’s play compared to getting on the web site to enroll on ObamaCare’s health care insurance exchange in the first place.
And that is why the most important story—if not the lead story—is about the incredible 88% drop in visitors between October 1 and October 13! While that is stunning enough, in the first week less than half of 1% of the visitors successfully enrolled, according to the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin. And, contrary to the Obama administration’s insistence, it was/is not a function of demand.
The figures come from an assessment conducted by the research firm Millward Brown Digital and released by Kantar US Insights. Eilperin writes

“Based on a sample of two million users — or 1 percent of all online users in the U.S. — which Millward Brown Digital has permission to track, it suggests that the rush of traffic administration officials cited as the cause of the site’s problems trailed off within a matter of days.”

(Needless to say, Obama administration officials challenged the report.)
Eilperin concludes

“At the moment, Americans’ interest in logging on has dropped sharply from the time of the launch. In an interview, [Millward Brown Digital Vice President Matthew] Pace compared the initial number of users to the kind of traffic Target.com experiences, noting that about 0.9 percent of all online users logged onto HealthCare.gov during the first week. As of Oct. 13 that reach had declined to 0.1 percent, he said. Last week, he estimated, the site attracted 4.1 million visitors, or less than half of what it garnered during its first week.”

The Chicago Tribune, Obama’s hometown newspaper, lit into the Obamacare exchange in a blistering editorial. Read “Why Obamacare is a mess” in its entirety, but if you don’t have time, here is a quick summary of the critique (beyond the obvious fact that it’s nearly beyond human capacity to get on, let alone enroll):

#1. “Sticker shock”: people are finding out that it will cost them two and three times as much for the same coverage, if not lesser coverage!

#2. In Illinois (and elsewhere) while insurance premiums were supposed to be lower, “the Tribune reported Sunday that 21 of the 22 lowest-priced plans offered for Cook County residents have whopping annual deductibles of more than $4,000 for an individual and $8,000 for family coverage. That’s much more than many families can afford to pay.”

#3. Broken promises: “There are more problems. People who have individual insurance coverage are finding that Obama’s oft-repeated promise — ‘if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan’ — is just not true.” And finally (coming back to the sheer incompetency)

#4. “The Department of Health and Human Services under chief Obamacare cheerleader Kathleen Sebelius has had three years to develop this system. It has busted deadline after deadline, all the while promising that the system would be ready on Oct. 1. It has overpromised and underdelivered. The excuse? Demand was unexpectedly high, crashing servers. Unexpected? Americans have been bombarded with marketing campaigns and news stories and outreach efforts on behalf of Obamacare. And now Sebelius and Co. are shocked that people are logging in to … buy insurance? Come on, Ms. Sebelius.”

Source: NRLC News