Quote of the Day:
ObamaCare’s image of invincibility is increasingly being exposed as a political illusion, at least for those with permission to be honest about the evidence.
–Wall Street Journal editorial
The second sentence of the editorial is also worth quoting:
Witness the heretofore unknown phenomenon of a “free” entitlement that its beneficiaries can’t afford or don’t want.
As Patrice has been reporting, enrollment projections have fallen by half (here) but it will still be an uphill battle to meet those projections (here) with several state exchanges are recently collapsing (here).
In a way, the impending collapse of ObamaCare shows the wisdom of the American political system that made dramatic change difficult, but the Democrats, knowing that they had a rare trifecta (the White House and both houses of Congress), decided to use exotic parliamentary maneuvers to get something that they wanted (universal health care), even if they could not get a vote from the other party and the country was largely not persuaded about their legislation. The result was the epic ObamaCare mess.
ObamaCare depended on young and healthy people signing up to pay for older, sicker people. This hasn't happened. The failure to get this demographic to sign on is already "cascading through the insurance markets." and researchers at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Urban Institute have done a study on medical loss ratios, MLRs, that indicate a bleak future for ObamaCare:
MLRs measure the share of premium revenue that flows to reimbursing medical claims. ObamaCare sets an MLR floor of 80% for patient care, with one-fifth left over for overhead like administration and profits, and the pre-ObamaCare 2010-13 historical trend for the individual market ranged from 79% to 86%.
The researchers found that in 2014—the first full year of claims experience in ObamaCare—average MLRs across all health plans sold on 16 state exchanges roamed from 90% to 99%. Average MLRs in 11 states climbed to 100% or more, reaching as high as 121% in Massachusetts. A business can’t stay solvent for long spending $1.21 for every $1 that comes in.
This isn't the way the technocrats sold the system:
ObamaCare liberals pose as what-works-and-what-doesn’t technocrats. So perhaps they’d care to explain what it says about their creation that so many rational adults are willing to pay a fine of $695 or 2.5% of their earnings, whichever is higher, for the privilege of not buying an ObamaCare-compliant health plan.
ObamaCare's inevitability is shattered:
ObamaCare will almost inevitably be reopened in 2017, whoever wins the election. The good news is the emerging consensus among Republican candidates about a credible, pragmatic and optimistic alternative.
The editorial has praise for Jeb Bush's health care proposals, which were released two weeks ago. The editorial also says that health care reform should be an issue in the 2016 presidential campaign, which so far it has not. With ObamaCare in terminal decline, it matters very much who gets to pick up the pieces and what they plan to do. So far this has been a silent issue in the presidential debates.