Obamacare ‘horror’ story turns out to be Obamacare success story

[Playinghardball]

As we try to judge the short-term winners and losers from the Affordable Care Act, you can’t deny that it’s terrible to find out that your insurance plan has been cancelled. It happened all the time before Obamacare when it was a much worse fate, as there was a chance that no insurance might cover you again because of a pre-existing condition.

Still getting that cancellation letter can be disturbing. But what should be more even disturbing is discovering the insurance you were paying for is junk.

This week Diane Barrette was briefly the poster woman for the estimated 3% of America in the private insurance market who will lose their insurance and pay more to get coverage that meets the new minimum standards laid out by the ACA.

It turns out that she was paying $56 a month for a plan that covered — according to Yiddish experts — bubkis.

“She’s paying $650 a year to be uninsured,” Karen Pollitz, an insurance expert at the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, told Consumer Reports. “I have to assume that she never really had to make much of a claim under this policy. She would have lost the house she’s sitting in if something serious had happened. I don’t know if she knows that.”

Still CBS News and Fox News presented her as canary in the Obamacare coal mine, suggesting her fate was indicative of the horrors waiting for millions. But even Fox’s Greta Van Susteren sussed out that Barrette’s story was bunk, Mediaite‘s Tommy Christopher — who has been doing a heroic job of debunking Obamacare “horror” stories — points out. After her appearance on Van Susteren’s show, Barrette’s further Fox News’ appearances were cancelled.

More here: http://www.eclectablog.com/2013/11/obamacare-horror-story-turns-out-to-be-obamacare-success-story.html

[JanT]

1. this will happen more and more

as the ACTUAL plans that people had are proven to be throwing money into the wind. I know it is really easy to blame ACA for these. But as each "claim" of injustice is fully researched, i am sure this same scenario will play out.

[BlueStreak]

2. I repeat -- The difference between pre=ACA and ACA policies is

With ACA policies, the consumer gets a clear, precise, certain number for maximum out-of-pocket expenses no matter what happens to them.

In the pre-ACA world, it was the INSURANCE COMPANIES that were able to cap THEIR out-of-pocket costs, although you had to be a true insurance expert to dig that deeply into the fine print.

How could we even begin to try to compare those things? It is like comparing bugles and flashlights. The ACA policies protect the consumer. The pre-ACA policies do not in the vast majority of cases where the individual has to purchase the policy.

Obviously the insurance companies don't like open-ended risks. They much prefer automobile liability where they can stop at the state maximums. However, in most states, there are caps on the liability that an insurer is at risk for. There are no such caps on how much it can cost to care for a sick person. So we require the insurance companies to accept the full risk, and we allow them to price their policies as they see fit. In some cases, the price for actual, real coverage is more than the cost for a worthless junk policy. Surprise, surprise !!

The only surprise is that in many markets people are finding they can actually get excellent coverage on the exchanges at affordable prices. But I guess that doesn't make such a compelling news story. Maybe if they threw some cute kittens into the coverage, it would work.