ACA Signups: KA-POW!! Medicaid Overhaul Posted, CA Updated, Grand Total approaches 12M!

[ProSense]

ACA Signups: KA-POW!! Medicaid Overhaul Posted, CA Updated, Grand Total approaches 12M!

by Brainwrap

<...>

...in the most eagerly-awaited enrollment update we've had in weeks, California has finally let the dust settle on their Christmas-week craziness and have released new, comprehensive enrollment data for both Private QHPs as well as Medicaid/CHIP, and the numbers are impressive indeed: After closing out 2013 with just over a half a million private enrollments (about 1,300 more trickled in in the final 3 days of the year), the first half of January has proven that, while the completely expected post-December drop-off did happen, enrollments are still proceeding at a very healthy pace, as over 125,000 more people enrolled in the first 15 days of the month, more than a 25% increase since New Year's Eve. Broken out, that comes to over 8,300 per day for California alone.

It's also worth noting that with this update, the total Private QHP enrollment figure has now broken the 2.5 million mark.

Meanwhile, Medicaid enrollments have also continued to show a similar 25% gain, up from around 460,000 (or 472,000...see today's Medicaid Spreadsheet update) up to 584,000.

Adding these numbers to the Medicaid/CHIP spreadsheet overhaul noted earlier today, the grand total of all health plan enrollments (Exchange QHPs, Direct QHPs, Exchange Medicaid/CHIP, Direct Medicaid/CHIP and Sub26ers) now totals a whopping 11.9 Million people in all.

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/21/1271459/-ACA-Signups-KA-POW-Medicaid-Overhaul-Posted-CA-Updated-Grand-Total-approaches-12M

Medicaid Expansion Has Already Cut The Number Of Uninsured West Virginians By A Third
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024366112

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t

[Egnever]

2. That is a big number

Wish we could get data on how these folks feel about finally being able to have insurance. My guess is the republicans are shitting thier pants looking at this number.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. Huge! And trust me, it'll be picked apart by any & everyone with an axe to grind.

[sheshe2]

4. K&R!

[napkinz]

5. Keep spreading the news ...

ACA Signup Success Stories

1. https://www.facebook.com/acasuccessstories

2. https://www.facebook.com/acasignupsuccessstories

3. https://www.facebook.com/ilikeobamacare

4. https://twitter.com/ACASuccessStory

5. http://acasignups.net

[ProSense]

6. Republicans Seek To Sabotage Obamacare With Higher Premiums

Republicans Seek To Sabotage Obamacare With Higher Premiums

Conservative wonks and Republican lawmakers are coalescing around a new strategy to sabotage Obamacare by repealing a temporary piece of the law designed to hold down premiums in the event of major market disruptions.

The provision -- called "risk corridors," but dubbed the "Obamacare bailout" by the law's opponents -- seeks to stabilize costs by creating a pot of money that takes in funds from insurers who enroll healthier customers and uses it to pay out insurers who enroll sicker customers. It's a safety valve that sunsets after 2016. The repeal push is clever messaging in a sense because it lets conservatives snatch the mantle of populism from liberals against wealthy insurance companies. But it comes with its share of dangers, too.

Last November, as TPM reported, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced legislation to repeal this provision. Since then it has picked up 13 Republican co-sponsors, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and two companion bills in the House, which are supported by numerous Republicans. The idea has been championed by conservative lobbying groups like the Club For Growth and Heritage Action, and pushed by writers including Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post, Ramesh Punnuru in Bloomberg View and Deroy Murdock in National Review.

The conservatives are open about the end goal: collapse Obamacare by causing higher premiums on the law's marketplaces for the newly insured, which progressive experts who support Obamacare agree would occur.

- more -

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obamacare-bailout-risk-corridors-conservatives-sabotage

[napkinz]

7. Another Obamacare Success Story That The Republicans Don’t Want You To Hear About

Rika Christensen
January 21, 2014

A small business owner in Ohio is getting significant benefits through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Sean Recchi was diagnosed with cancer in 2012, forcing his family to go deep into debt to pay for his treatments after finding out their insurance was worthless. Last fall, Sean’s wife, Stephanie, told Steven Brill of Time that she didn’t think Obamacare would help them. She’d heard a lot of misinformation in the press, and from politicians. She wanted no part of it.

But something really happened changed her mind, and the Recchis lives. They went to buy insurance through an agent, who went through the plans listed on Ohio’s Obamacare exchange. They looked at a plan that would have cost $566 after their subsidy, because it was based on a projected income of $90,000. However, insurance rates and subsidies are based on reported annual income, not projected income. The Recchis’ reported income for 2013 was only $40,00 for their family of four. Because of that, they actually qualified for Medicaid under Ohio’s expansion.

However, even if they had to buy insurance, their premium would have been $17 a month until their income went up.

---

They are terrified of any success stories that have to do with Obamacare.

In their quest to get rid of Obamacare, Republicans are ignoring success stories entirely. Some people are getting insurance for less than $20 a month (one woman with Type II diabetes now has insurance for $1.11 per month). Others who couldn’t afford insurance at all, but made too much to qualify for Medicaid, can now get coverage through their states’ Medicaid programs. Still others who couldn’t get coverage because of preexisting conditions now have insurance.

Disney World gave full-time status to over 400 part-time employees so they could qualify for insurance through Obamacare. And the truth of the matter is that the number of workers whose hours have been cut is slight, and may be due to any number of factors. Republicans like to say that’s definitely due to Obamacare. They want to scare people into thinking that it’s bad for the country and the economy. The employer mandate doesn’t go into effect until next year. So it’s really difficult to say one way or the other with any real certainty right now.

read more: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/01/21/ohio-family-finds-significant-benefits-obamacare/

[napkinz]

8. Obamacare: It's working ...

https://www.facebook.com/Republicansareidiots1

[Le Taz Hot]

9. Yeah,

I'm real excited to pay premiums I can't afford for insurance I'll never be able to use. Pardon me for not jumping up and down with glee.

[napkinz]

10. kick

nt