Fox Butterfield on the ObamaTax

The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto has a regular feature wherein he uses the "Fox Butterfield Effect" to demonstrate the mind-boggling density of folks who consistently confuse cause with effect ("the prisons are full, despite a decreasing crime rate").

Here's a mild example directly related to the train-wreck:

"Employer spending on benefits rose at the slowest pace on record in the first quarter, as companies began bracing for higher health costs with next year's launch of [the ObamaTax]."

The folks at IBD do get it right when they note that many "modest-wage" employers will be among the hardest hit. Of course, it's their employees who will be the worse for wear, since they'll be forced to buy insurance (often unsubsidized) at rates that are far higher than even today.

And it's getting worse:

"Total benefits in service occupations shrank 0.3% in Q1, the first decline in data going back to 2002."

Ooops.

Obamacare Chaos

Sen. Baucus, whose fingerprints are all over Obamacare, called the law a "train wreck". Comes now David Brooks that refers to the coming train wreck as chaos (not to be confused with KAOS)

Implementation got off to a bad start because the Obama administration didn’t want to release unpopular rules before the election. Regulators have been working hard but are clearly overwhelmed, trying to write rules that influence the entire health care sector — an economic unit roughly the size of France.

New York Times

Sure sounds like someone was politicizing a very unpopular law for the purpose of trying to get re-elected.

Insurance companies are trying to put out new products, but they don’t know what federal parameters they have to meet. Small businesses are angry because the provisions that benefited them have been put on the back burner. Health care systems are highly frustrated. They can’t plan without a road map. Senator Max Baucus, one of the authors of the law, says he sees a “huge train wreck” coming.

There's that train wreck term again. I see a pattern.

I’d say there is a minority, including some supporters of the law, who think the whole situation is a complete disaster. They predict Obamacare will collapse and do serious damage to the underlying health system.

No sheet!

The law’s biggest defenders will then become insurance companies and health care corporations. Having spent billions of dollars adapting to the new system, they are not going to want to see it repealed or replaced.

Really?

Then why are so many carriers OPTING OUT of the health insurance exchanges?

Nearly everybody not in the employ of the administration agrees this law does not solve the cost problem, and many of the recent regulatory decisions will send costs higher. A study in California found that premiums could increase by an average of 20 percent for people not covered by federal subsidies. A study by the Society of Actuaries found that by 2017 costs could rise by 32 percent for insurers covering people in the individual exchanges, and as high as 80 percent in states like Ohio.

Those figures are overly conservative.

Cue the music.

Health Insurance Redlining?

Something about Bob's post this morning (regarding the "new and improved" ObamaTax applications) has been bugging me.

To wit:

"HHS  today released new applications for individuals and adults looking to get health insurance ... also ask for contact information and race-ethnicity."

Back in the day (actually, before my time), insurance applications routinely asked for one's race, and it played a part in the underwriting process. By the time I entered "the biz" (in the early '80's) the practice was long-since abandoned.

But it was unclear to me whether this was by law or custom, and I did some searching to find out. I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for (an Ohio law prohibiting the practice), so I called the Department of Insurance. The nice gentleman there told me that this was a federal, not state, law. So off I went in search of that elusive federal law that specifically prohibits asking about race on an insurance application.

Still no joy.

Here's the challenge: there is a clear distinction between asking a question and using the information. For example, applications routinely ask for email addresses. But those are not (to the best of my knowledge) actually used in the underwriting process. So the fact that race may not be used in underwriting is not the same as saying one can't be asked about it.

The point of this exercise is probably apparent by now: if the law specifically prohibits asking about race on an insurance application, then why is Ms Shecantbeserious deliberately breaking it, and why isn't this being called out in the elite media?

Vote buying

I was doing some research on SCHIP for a client and wanted to take a look at the application. I have seen this before but it really jumped out the lengths our government goes to get those receiving welfare or other benefits to vote.

http://www.odjfs.state.oh.us/forms/findform.asp?formnum=07216

An application for Medicaid/SCHIP is bundled with voter registration. One always goes with the other.

I took a look at my tax forms, the forms I use to pay thousands to the government to fund programs like SCHIP, no voter registration.

Licenses I am required to pay for and obtain, no voter registration.

Countless regulations I am forced to comply with, none of them come with voter registration.

Cost of Living: DI & LTCi

Sorry for the geek overload in the title, but we have some important info to share regarding your financial health. May is National Disability Insurance Awareness Month (DIAM), and to "celebrate" the occasion, the Council for Disability Awareness has rolled out some helpful new tools to help you calculate your EIQ (Earnable Income Quotient).

It's pretty simple, really: you put in your age and income, when you want to retire, and the web-based calculator delivers the (good? bad?) news. It even has a helpful link to stats on how likely it is that an illness or injury could derail those plans.

Assuming you make it to retirement (Mazel Tov!), all those hard-earned dollars could still be at risk. Our friends at the Long Term Care insurance agency (no, really) sent along new research from Genworth's latest "Cost of Care" survey, and the news is decidedly downbeat.

For example:

■ Homemaker Services (Licensed): National median rate is $18/hour (up 1.39% from last year

■ Assisted Living Facility (One Bedroom – Single Occupancy): National median rate is $3,450/month (up over 4.5% from last year)

■ Nursing Home (Semi-Private Room): National median rate now at $207/day (up 3.3% from last year)

Ouch. Long Term Care insurance can help soften the blow, but only if it's in place.

So what are you waiting for?

About That Updated Application...

Bob's post yesterday got me excited. Finally the government is going to simplify things and make my life easier to sign up for health insurance. So I anxiously waited for the document to be released this morning and as soon as it hit I saw this story on Yahoo. According to the story there are only 12 pages for the family to complete. Wahoo!!!

The original was 26 pages and included pages for six family members to enroll. With five in my family I was looking at having to complete 22 to 24 pages. I had to see it to believe it so I pulled it off the CCIIO website.

It was a 12 page application...that allowed for TWO people to enroll. What about my three kids? How do I add them to the application? Reading into the detail a little further on the bottom of page two was the kicker. It says:

"If you have more than 2 people in your family, you'll need to make a copy of the pages and attach them."

Let's recap. The original 26 page application was designed to enroll six family members. It is now extinct and has been replaced by a new and simplified 12 page application for two people. For me to add all three children (each additional family member requires two pages) increases the new simplified app to 18 pages.

Saving 8 pieces of paper might excite Al Gore, but for most people it's still going to be a long process.

Cavalcade of Risk #182: West (Tx) edition

Jeff Root hosts this week's collection of risk-related posts, and dedicates it to the victims of the horrific explosion in West, Texas. Pretty sobering, but a great way to focus on risk.