A glitch in Obamacare marketplace no one noticed

[PoliticAverse]

Nearly six months after the disastrous launch of Healthcare.gov, with the website running smoothly and more than five million people signed up as open enrollment heads to a close, a new glitch has come to light: Incorrect poverty-level guidelines are automatically telling what could be tens of thousands of eligible people they do not qualify for subsidized insurance.

The error in the federal marketplace primarily affects households with incomes just above the poverty line in states like Pennsylvania that have not expanded Medicaid. The mistake raises the price of their insurance by thousands of dollars, making insurance so unaffordable many may just give up and go without.

The error, which The Inquirer discovered while running scores of income scenarios through Healthcare.gov, again raises questions about the site's accuracy that made daily headlines in early winter and that have cost President Obama considerable political capital.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/health/healthcare-exchange/20140321_A_glitch_in_Obamacare_Marketplace_that_no_one_noticed.html

[postulater]

1. I know someone that happened to.

With three months left before Medicare eligibility, she was kicked off Wisconsin BadgerCare because of Walker's screwing up.

The website said she was not eligible for ACA plans because she had BadgerCare. They were not able to coordinate between the federal and the state agencies.

I encouraged her to be persistent and she found someone who sorted it out. A private plan that she was going to take was $170 a month, but through healthcare.gov she pays $17 per month after the tax subsidy.

[AZ Mike]

2. Wasn't there a problem identified just a week or so ago that mentioned....

....the poor were opting out of Obamacare?

I guess this means they weren't "opting out" by way of some flip decision, but rather an erroneous economic assessment.

I wonder what level the 5+ million enrollees would be at if this glitch never affected the system. Would we ALREADY be over the 7 million mark?

[progree]

5. It's only an issue for people above the 2013 poverty level and below the 2014 poverty level -- 70 K

(and in the non-Medicaid expansion states)

Per the article, in short they were supposed to use the the 2013 poverty guidelines for this enrollment period (including those shopping / enrolling in Jan 1 - March 31, 2014). Instead the window-shopping subsidy estimator erroneously used the 2014 poverty guidelines...

Haile did some back-of-the-envelope calculations using data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey to estimate how many people might be seriously affected. He concluded about 70,000 uninsured with household incomes in the sliver that separates the 2013 and 2014 poverty levels live in states that have not expanded Medicaid, and so might have gotten the incorrect response. That includes 5,000 Pennsylvanians.

And not all in that population sliver shopped for insurance.

Oh, they did mention that if someone didn't use the window shopping tool -- or ignored its warning about being ineligible for the subsidy -- and went ahead and "clicked through to view the plans, another tool would correctly indicate they may qualify for a tax credit of $760 a month"

I can easily see some people just up-ping or down-ing their estimated income a bit too (it IS an estimate after all) to qualify. Admittedly that person would have to be savvy enough about the subsidy to try out different incomes - probably not the majority of the near-poverty level people.

Although I can point to a DU post where someone bragged about changing their estimated income to qualify for the subsidy.

And of course it's ultimately his 2014 tax return that determines his subsidy, so he's got to make his "actual" income come out right somehow (the income reported on his 2014 taxes). But even if he doesn't, then yes, he has to pay back the subsidy, ouch. But I doubt that he is going to face an extra penalty or jail time because he was off by $1,000 or so in over-estimating his 2014 income back in December 2013 or February 2014 or whenever he applied.

==================================================

Healthcare.gov is not the only website to make this mistake. The calculator at Independence Blue Cross' site also used the wrong guidelines until a reporter asked about them this week.

And HealthSherpa.com, a popular site that offers detailed information akin to the government site, discovered it was using the wrong year last week, a cofounder said.

The Kaiser Family Foundation's calculator has been correct all along.

Interesting. I am amazed that this error has not come to light until now. I suspect a number of people saw it and reported it, but were ignored.

[ellenfl]

3. i can't shake the suspicion that the i.t. people want the aca to fail. is it just me? eom

[wandy]

4. I know how the man would explain this. In memory.............

Bartcop's second law.

"Any time a person or entity makes a 'mistake' that puts extra money in their pocket,
expect them to make that 'mistake' again and again and again."

The error in the federal marketplace primarily affects households with incomes just above the poverty line in states like Pennsylvania that have not expanded Medicaid.

Just the price of freedumb in a GOP controlled state.