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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (237899)	11/15/2013 11:52:38 AM
From: neolib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542132

Maybe if the website gets up and working enough people will sign up that we can get a statistical handle on how to adjust an tweak the Act to make it work. That is the next can of worms, which people should be trying to estimate how it will go. A very significant feature of the ACA is that it makes going without insurance less risky than it used to be. Further, and along the same line, it encourages going with a cheaper plan, because you can switch to a better plan once a year, again, without the pre-existing issue. People have not thought through what this means, and I've seen no commentary (from all those smart pundits who should think of such but don't seem to be able to). This is not a trivial change. Under the existing system if I have a high deductible policy (thus saving on my annual premium all these years) and can still be screwed for the remainder of my career if I develop a chronic illness which requires substantial yearly $. Now, every Oct 31 - Dec 7 (??) I can switch to a plan which lowers my deductible for subsequent years without any penalty. If I later recover, then again during that annual window I can switch back to the cheaper plan. NOBODY that I have seen has bothered to comment on this issue. Eventually people will, and strategies to game the system will develop. That will lead insurers to keep jacking prices. There is no cost containment in the ACA, so the real problems won't start until Oct/Nov 2014 and yearly thereafter. The dumb bunnies running this show certainly aren't thinking ahead, they couldn't even be bothered to test their website.