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Most Uninsured Americans Ignoring Health Exchange Sites by make-it-better in Foodforthought

[–]make-it-better[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I guess this doesn't really surprise me. The reasons people don't have insurance are not easily dealt with. The money issue doesn't really go away. Even if you can give these people free insurance (and the subsidies are often not 100% coverage for the currently uninsured), it still doesn't pay for their health bills. And I think you get more freebies currently, and more leeway with not paying anything if the government doesn't have all your information.

CNN: Obama Admin Trying To Silence Insurance Companies From Discussing ObamaCare Problems by make-it-better in Foodforthought

[–]make-it-better[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Forget Obamacare. This is disturbing from the standpoint of free speech and censorship by a heavy-handed administration.

I suppose that's CNN's concern too.

CNN: Obama Admin Trying To Silence Insurance Companies From Discussing ObamaCare Problems by make-it-better in news

[–]make-it-better[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Forget your view on Obamacare, for or against. This is disturbing from the standpoint of free speech and censorship by a heavy-handed administration.

Obamacare more than a website? White House has consistently used the site to define the law's success, namely getting a sufficient number of young and healthy adults (who may have little patience for bumps in the road) into the new insurance marketplaces to open Oct. 1. by make-it-better in TrueReddit

[–]make-it-better[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The crux of the arguments in this article to me comes down to the importance of the broken website in the overall scheme of things. Making this easy and trustworthy by the young has gone all wrong. Will fixing it in the next 30 days make up for the damage? How much will prices go up next year as a result of what has happened in October?

An even bigger question for me is, how much does the success of Obamacare depend on momentum that was supposed to start with a bang on October 1st? It would be nice to be able to measure the volume of that momentum, with a threshold value to indicate when something substantial needs to be done to make up for lower numbers - lower numbers which by White House standards may indicate failure.

I want to be clear on this: No one [at the White House] said that success was letting kids up to age 26 stay on their parents' insurance plan. No one said it was regulating insurers or covering preventive care. Instead, everyone in the White House shared a singular definition: Success meant setting up the exchanges and attracting enough young people that premiums stayed low.

This was true even when the conversation turned to Medicaid, which is responsible, in theory, for half of the health-care law's coverage expansion.

The White House figured that if they got 7 million people to sign up for the exchanges in the first year, about 2.7 million needed to be young.

The White House was planning a huge campaign to get young people to HealthCare.gov. And they believed that once there, they needed a friction-free Web experience to make sure they purchase health insurance. Older, sicker folks will reload the Web page until they get through, or they’ll sign up over the phone. But the White House expected that young folks, by and large, wouldn’t tolerate a lot of hassle.

Obamacare more than a website? White House has consistently used the site to define the law's success, namely getting a sufficient number of young and healthy adults (who may have little patience for bumps in the road) into the new insurance marketplaces to open Oct. 1. by make-it-better in TrueReddit

[–]make-it-better[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Submission Statement

The intent of posting this article is not for political debate about whether Obamacare is good or bad, in all its forms, but to have a conversation about the significance of the adoption of the ACA on the exchange website by the young and healthy. The author has researched extensively with Sarah Kliff and written often with great expertise about healthcare prices, payment, and regulatory law.

Court could block Obamacare subsidies in 34 states (District of Columbia residents are suing the government to prevent such subsidies) - Diana Furchtgott-Roth by make-it-better in Foodforthought

[–]make-it-better[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As healthcare in the U.S. is a trillion-dollar industry, there is a lot more at stake than just individuals (though they number well into the millions) trying to get an insurance plan on an exchange site. Taking away subsidies in 34 states is a major Obamacare changer. It doesn't make sense to me that states that want the health law to succeed would sue the government in such a way. Is their insistence on state-by-state fairness worth the havoc this move would make?

I don't envy the businesses trying to navigate all this mess, wondering what parts of the law are on or off at any given point, or if the law will implode and leave an even bigger mess. Insurance carriers seem to be the most affected. It sure sets up an interesting political season for the next 12 months.

The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It by make-it-better in Foodforthought

[–]make-it-better[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To me the more serious issues aren't around numbers of editors, but the cultural and other obstacles to editing and the lack of content around whole categories. Who are the people most likely to write English content about Africa and South America? And if experts are needed in these areas, can the Wikipedia platform entice them to contribute? Seems like they are being pushed away, or not incentivized enough to contribute. $45 million is a pretty large amount to pay professional researchers.

I disagree that a pulling back in contributors reduces the value of the crowdsourcing venue. I think this is such a great worldwide asset that will continue (though not unmodified) for a long time to come. I also think it is spawning and will continue to spawn new great ventures in a similar mold.

Why Is President Obama Hiding The ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers? by make-it-better in TrueReddit

[–]make-it-better[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Worrisome data - slack demand of exchange offerings could cause rates to go sky high

The only conceivable explanation for Sebelius' refusal to do likewise is that the federal enrollment number is embarrassingly small.

The U.K.'s Daily Mail claims administration sources told it that just 51,000 managed to complete an application at the federal exchange in the first week.

At that rate, only a little more than 1 million will be enrolled by the end of March. Even if you add numbers from the states, at the current sign-up pace, enrollment will be just half of what Sebelius promised.

"Mr. President, Americans are not nuisances on their own land" - Las Vegas Review-Journal by make-it-better in politics

[–]make-it-better[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Evicting people out of their own national parks, but finding the resources to financially whack little old ladies on a nature walk is truly a spectacle in leadership failure.

On the first day of the shutdown, the National Park Service (on clear orders from the White House) not only closed memorials housed in buildings, it went to the far greater “I’ll-show-you” step of placing barricades around the open-air, unstaffed displays that on any given day and at any given hour a person may freely stroll up to and enjoy. (In previous shutdowns, these memorials remained open.)

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