And there are no unicorns involved, either.
I’m sorry that Obamacare supporter Cathy Wagner’s premiums have risen so much. But what did she think would happen, if pre-existing conditions were now required to be covered, and extras like maternity benefits became mandatory?
Wagner herself seems to at least understand a little bit about the way theinsurance business works, because she’s quoted as saying, “The whole plan was to get everyone enrolled so there’s a larger risk pool and our costs go down.” The article doesn’t give Wagner’s age, but since it does say she took early retirement my guess is that she’s somewhere in her 50s. She is correct that the young were expected to enroll and make the premiums for the older relatively lower (and for the younger relatively higher; did she factor that in?). But the increased benefits for all had a good chance of offsetting that gain, even for the older enrollees. Plus, premiums for the first year of operation are based only on estimates rather than actual enrollment—which probably turns out to be fortunate for Wagner, considering the fact that (at least so far), the young are barely enrolling at all and if this continues it could well precipitate a steep rise in future premium levels.
Oops. And yet that last phenomenon, that of the young and healthy giving Obamacare a pass, was always a good bet and in fact was predicted by most of the right. All it took was one look at the toothless penalties to know that only the old and the young and sick were likely to be enticed into this endeavor, not the young and healthy.
And yet Wagner was hardly alone in feeling “so hopeful that this plan was going to move us forward.” Nor is she alone in now saying, “in fact I think it’s moving us backward.” The puzzlement is not why she now thinks the latter, it’s why she ever thought the former.
I have become convinced that a large number of people never understood what Obamacare entailed. Some people just weren’t paying attention, although Wagner does not appear to have been among them. For some who were paying at least some attention, their ignorance may have been in part because the facts weren’t all that easy to come by, between the secrecy and the speed with which the bill was passed, plus the bill’s length and the purposely misleading claptrap put out by the administration and the Democrats and much of the press about it.
But for others, even though they knew the main facts, they did not understand their possible significance for the future, either because they are math-challenged or logic-challenged, or wanted so desperately to believe in Obamacare, or some combination of the three.
I have also become convinced that very few people in America really understand the basic principles of the insurance business. They do not understand the concept of risk. They believe the liberal propaganda thatinsurance companies are just plain mean to charge the sick more for health coverage , for example. They believe that insurance company profits are way out of line with other industries.
They believed Obamacare would stop all that and replace it with a “fairer” system. And they believed in unicorns.
http://neoneocon.com/2013/11/09/obamacare-supporters-shocked-to-discover-tooth-fairy-isnt-real/
I’m sorry that Obamacare supporter Cathy Wagner’s premiums have risen so much. But what did she think would happen, if pre-existing conditions were now required to be covered, and extras like maternity benefits became mandatory?
Wagner herself seems to at least understand a little bit about the way the
Oops. And yet that last phenomenon, that of the young and healthy giving Obamacare a pass, was always a good bet and in fact was predicted by most of the right. All it took was one look at the toothless penalties to know that only the old and the young and sick were likely to be enticed into this endeavor, not the young and healthy.
And yet Wagner was hardly alone in feeling “so hopeful that this plan was going to move us forward.” Nor is she alone in now saying, “in fact I think it’s moving us backward.” The puzzlement is not why she now thinks the latter, it’s why she ever thought the former.
I have become convinced that a large number of people never understood what Obamacare entailed. Some people just weren’t paying attention, although Wagner does not appear to have been among them. For some who were paying at least some attention, their ignorance may have been in part because the facts weren’t all that easy to come by, between the secrecy and the speed with which the bill was passed, plus the bill’s length and the purposely misleading claptrap put out by the administration and the Democrats and much of the press about it.
But for others, even though they knew the main facts, they did not understand their possible significance for the future, either because they are math-challenged or logic-challenged, or wanted so desperately to believe in Obamacare, or some combination of the three.
I have also become convinced that very few people in America really understand the basic principles of the insurance business. They do not understand the concept of risk. They believe the liberal propaganda that
They believed Obamacare would stop all that and replace it with a “fairer” system. And they believed in unicorns.
http://neoneocon.com/2013/11/09/obamacare-supporters-shocked-to-discover-tooth-fairy-isnt-real/
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