Oh the hand wringing! The numbers are out and not nearly enough people have enrolled in the new health plans! What are we going to do! If you hear the news shows as they go on and on; you'd think the ACA is a total failure. Nevermind that 40 or so of the provisions are already in effect and are liked and are successful. Oh, no, they can't report it's too soon to declare the Health Insurance Market Place is a success or failure. That would be too accurate, too boring. No one intent upon instant gratification is willing to wait. The news media is more worried about creating buzz than anything else.
Look at it through the eyes of the enrollee. Who pays a bill 8 weeks before it's due? Anyone? I don't because, that's just dumb. The only way I'll pay a invoice that far in advance is to get a significant discount. Who buys a product or service before they need it? It could happen, but in the case of the indestructible, young healthies buying health insurance? They aren't signing up before February or March 2014. They'll get in just under the deadline and you can thank their Moms and Dads for that.
I keep coming back to the fact that the hand wringing is led by people who have no intention of getting their health insurance via the Market Place or they are politically motivated to see the ACA fail. We need disclosure. Before a reporter, pundit, congressional member or anyone gives their opinion on the state of the ACA enrollments; We need to know how they purchase their health care insurance. If they are on the exchange, then they need to disclose where they are in the process. If they get it through their employer, their spouse's employer, Medicare or the FEHB; then they need to shut their front door.
Every Congressional Member needs to state their enrollment status. If they say they haven't attempted to enroll, the follow up should be, "Shouldn't you be leading the way on the Market Place?", "Is this your way of making a political statement?", or "Are you on Medicare?" Thirty-eight Senators like Diane Feinstein qualify for Medicare Likewise, House Members like Nancy Pelosi and John Lewis also qualify for Medicare. Medicare qualifying Congressional Members won't be buying through the exchanges, but they should answer inquiries concerning their staff members. This simple line of inquiry is beyond the ken of the average reporter or news anchor.
I'm sure the rhetoric would fall along party lines, but that's my point. Democratic law makers should be leading the way and getting on Healthcare.gov and the Republicans should be shown to be the bitchy cranks that they are. No, we aren't getting anything that responsible; we're getting concern trolling. A focus on trying to preserve people's rights to buy overpriced, substandard insurance policies. A focus on an improving web site. A lack of focus, a pass given to red state governors and assemblies that would rather their people get no care, suffer and possibly die than accept Medicaid Expansion. The concerns sound sincere, but really, I see through them. So should you.
Five weeks is not long enough to make any assessment at all. You could make some observations that the web site has defended against 16 cyberattacks and one failed DDOS attack. You could point out the state run exchanges are doing better than the federal site and you wouldn't be remiss to point out that some red states are doing their best to sabotage the law at the expense of the uninsured for simple Tea Party appeasement purposes. The website is getting better every day. I wrote before I have no intention of enrolling for another 2 weeks. I have reason to believe that a lot of people on the Exchange aren't intending to sign up for another few weeks mostly because we could see no advantage of paying an invoice 8 weeks before it's due. Another consideration is that with as many choices as some of us have; we're still deciding.
It is irritating when you have to sit through talking head after talking head spouting feigned concerns about people they don't know. Since October 1st, just about every news program on every station has a segment on the ACA delivered by news reporters obtuse to the nuances of health insurance and no interest in exposing the underbelly of normal insurance company business practices. News reporters learn just enough about the ACA's issue du jour to get through their segment. There's no depth of understanding. No recognition of corporate insurance wiles and absolutely no tolerance for delayed gratification. Worst of all, no one is asking if the Public Option is looking better in hindsight. Why isn't the Public Option offered up as a "fix"? Why aren't more pundits saying it is nonsensical to expect people to sign up and pay for an insurance policy 8-10 weeks before the effective date?
I noticed Jonathan Gruber was making the rounds earlier this week. None of his interviewers appreciated his message (pdf) that we don't have enough information to make an assessment on the ACA rollout. He's been here. He's been there. He's done this before. We have to wait and see, but no news organization will accept this answer. They have 24/7 news cycles to fill and anxiety gets more viewers than "It's too soon to say if this is working or not". They need outrage. They need high anxiety. They need to see someone's hair on fire. They don't want to hear a Jonathan Gruber saying, "Yep, this is about what I expected".
Patience is a curse word these days, but it is what we need to do. We must wait until the end of January 2014 to get a good trend. If we get through the end of February and we're still talking about a broken web site and seriously anemic enrollment numbers; then we can talk about tweaking the ACA. Until then, stay the course.
6:12 PM PT: Thanks for the rec list.
As promised, please note jsfox's observation in the comment thread: More people have signed up for ACA in the first month in every state except two than signed up for MassHealth in it's first month. FYI 123 people signed up for MassHealth its first month. That's encouraging.
7:34 PM PT: Thank you for a lively comment thread. I should note that this diary is not about nyceve. I admire her work and say so in the comment thread. The concern trolls are more the ilk of Joe Scarborough, Michele Bachmann, and John Boehner. It pains me to see people like Diane Feinstein start to edge away from supporting the ACA. We have the ACA. I'm counting my bird in my hand.