Health Wonk Review: Mazel Tov to CHII edition

Our good friend Louise Norris, co-proprietor (along with her husband Jay) of the Colorado Health Insurance Insider blog hosts this week's round-up of health care wonkery. And it's extra special because they're celebrating the blog's 10 year anniversary [ed: newbies! 😃].

Is there a future for private insurance exchanges?

The collapse of most Obamacare exchanges has captured the attention of the media in recent months.  This may explain the lack of news about private exchanges.  Private exchanges have not exactly caught fire, but they have not disappeared either.  The failure of Obamacare exchanges may increase calls for a national medical welfare program.  Ironically that same failure increases the future potential for private exchanges.  So even as Obamacare exchanges continue to collapse, work to develop and market private exchanges continues and the future of those private exchanges remains hazy.  Some factors:

Affordable Care Act or the Obamacare is Heading to a Large Number of Dropouts

A survey from Bankrate shows that about 51% of people who enrolled in Obamacare last year using exchanges said that they would not enroll again on 2015. The reason is the prices for health plans are much higher and they can no longer afford it.

Reasons for this could be a lot people have work and they are already receiving health care benefits, old people that are now into Medicare, and many found out that the high deductibles and an average of 6% increase in premiums is just too high. The survey also shows that another reason for people to forego enrolling in 2015 is the bug ridden website.

The 2nd open enrollment season for the Obamacare will start on November 15, 2014, it will run for only 3 months about half the time as before. Officials are testing the site to ensure it can handle the demand. The biggest challenge now is getting people to sign up, which is why Health officials will change their pitch, last time they promoted it using the benefits of insurance. Now they are planning to focus more on the financial assistance available to consumers and the penalty for not having coverage. Those without insurance will be fined $325 per person or 2% of income, whichever is larger. This is like the big fat government is bullying and scaring people and force them Obamacare.