By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--November 12, 2013
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Doug Ulrich, a 59-year-old in Roanoke, Ill., said it took him half a dozen tries just to create a profile on HealthCare.gov. Late last month, he finally was able to review premiums for some plans. Mr. Ulrich, who runs his own financial-planning firm, said he wanted to sign up by Dec. 15 but is hesitating because he also wants to review small-business plans. That part of the site isn't yet working. "I've got a month to make a decision, and I don't even have the information available to me," Mr. Ulrich said. The tight timeline has insurers worried. Already, insurers have said their incoming enrollees from the federal exchange are significantly older than anticipated. Because the law bars insurers from charging unhealthy customers higher rates, insurers must attract young, healthy customers to offset the costs of people who use more medical services. "It's important not to look simply at the number of people who enroll, but also the mix of people who are purchasing coverage," said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry group. "At the end of the day, what matters most is what does the enrollment picture look like over the entire six-month enrollment period" ending in March, he said.Expect the administration to spin the low early numbers as solely tied to the web site problems. That gives them the chance to blame the tech people while side-stepping the problems with the economic model of ObamaCare overall, particularly the sticker shock consumers are experiencing when they see they'll end up paying much higher premiums for insurance that is "better" only in the sense that it covers things like maternity care and mental health services that many will never want, need or use. The insurers are right to be worried. The law has forced them to cover people who are already sick, without charging them any more than young, healthy people, while at the same time the law has provided multiple incentives for the young and healthy to run as far from ObamaCare as they can. The web site will get fixed eventually. The fundamental flaws in the economic model are unfixable, which is why this train wreck just keeps rolling down the tracks, with no way to put on the brakes aside from the one thing that would really solve the problem - repeal.
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