While the Obama Zombies try to fix the front end, it looks like the back-end of ObamaCare remains a mess. The complete and utter disaster keeps rolling along, destroying everything it touches. This report from CNN is quite good at explaining what this problem really means.
Video from CNN, via RCP.
JIM ACOSTA: And while the administration works to improve the Obamacare Web site on the front end, insurers are worried about problems on the back end. Our Investigative Correspondent Chris Frates is digging into that story. So, Chris, explain that difference between how it’s working on the front end or may work on the front end but not on the back end.
CHRIS FRATES, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, right, Jim. What insurers are worried about is this idea that once the Web site’s working and people can actually go on and sign up, that their personal data won’t get transmitted correctly to insurance companies. Insurance companies need that data to enroll people. And when I talked to officials in the insurance industry, they’re telling me that that information that’s coming across, it’s inaccurate, it’s duplicative and, in some cases, they’re not getting it at all.
ACOSTA: OK, that sounds like a major problem to me. Does that mean that people who thought they were insured when they sign up actually don’t have coverage?
FRATES: Well, that’s the concern. And the insurers need this information. They need good data to make sure that people get enrolled. They need to know where people live. They need to know who their dependents are. And without this information, there’s big trouble brewing. And insurers are worried that the worst case scenario here is somebody goes to the Web site, they click sign up, they think they have insurance but the insurers never got that information so that when they go to the doctor, they’re not actually enrolled in a plan. And it’s a little bit like going to Amazon, hitting the buy button and then not having Amazon send that information to the warehouse and then you never receive your product.
ACOSTA: That’s a big — that’s a big problem to say the least. So, how do insurers know they aren’t getting the information? Have they been testing it out?
FRATES: Well, you know, I asked that same question. How do you prove a negative? How do you know you’re not getting that information? And what insurers tell me is two ways. One, they’re receiving calls from people who think they signed up and are asking, where’s my insurance card? Or I haven’t received my policy number yet and realizing that they, in fact, have no information for that person who is trying to get insurance through them. The other way is that insurance companies are testing the system. They’re sending John Doe records through the system and trying to track if they come out in the back end. And some folks aren’t receiving those records and that’s how they know that they still have a problem here.
ACOSTA: That’s incredible. Now, when you go to the White House with this, how are they responding? Are they saying — are they acknowledging it? Are they saying they’re going to fix it?
FRATES: They are acknowledging it and they’re saying that they are working on this and they want to reiterate that everybody who signs up by December 23rd and pays the premium by December 31st will have coverage. They emphasize that when you get to the end of the process, you’ll see a big orange screen that says you still need to pay for your insurance in order to be enrolled.
And once they see that orange screen, they should be contacted by an insurer that they chose to — for their coverage. If they’re not contacted by that insurer, officials are telling me the customers and the consumers need to call their insurers and get in touch with insurance companies to make sure that their information was transmitted and that they will, in fact, be able to pay and get covered by January 1st.
Some Democrats may worry about this, but guarantee that the Obama administration is laughing and laughing and laughing (behind closed doors) over it. Because, a private company like Amazon is responsible for the entire product cycle, so if ‘Amazon Ins.’ can’t register enrollment, then the consumer lawsuit is justified against them. But if the gov’t that can’t be sued for consumer fraud is responsible for registering enrollment and subsequently people are denied healthcare ins. payments, then ‘Amazon Ins.’ is the unwitting fall guy for the consumer lawsuits. And if it goes out of business then the gov’t (who caused the problem) will just have to clean up the mess of the ‘inept’ ins. co. and take over health ins. This is why the admin. did not worry about launching without the back end. Needed enrollees and didn’t care about lawsuits from those whose info. didn’t go through. Win-win for destruction of private ins. Hey ins. cos., any second thoughts about signing on with a backstabbing liar?
I browsed the healthcaredotgov site on Nov 30. I found the minimum income to apply was ~$11,000. So, unemployed people have to go to their state exchanges. Before this news clip, I did wonder where payments were directed if system protocols weren’t in place so that insurors got their payment. Did it go to an IRS account? I fear, as we all should, it will be single payer, single distributor. Rush recently played an Obama audio clip from 2003 where he says he supports a single payer, universal healthcare system.
I don’t want to dwell too heavily on the technicalities of the website, because 1) people just get used to the pain and ignore it, and 2) the technical problems can ultimately be improved, so time is on Obama’s side on this point. The problem is the fundamental unworkability of the system (less money, fewer doctors, more patients, more bureaucracy: any fool can see it’s a formula for disaster); the website is more a symbol, representing the lumbering, destructive incompetence of the government juggernaut, which has now turned its focus on your most personal and intimate decisions.
I just, for some reason, watched some of Meet The Press. A Washington Post editor along with a former advisor to Owebama on Owebamacare were on. Remember when you were a kid and adults would shovel you b*llsh!t knowing that you wouldn’t say anything because you were just supposedly a dumb kid? And David Gregory ate it up with two spoons. Apparently California, unlike the rest of the country, is humming right along with plenty of young’uns signing up.
Ezra Klein (of Journolist fame) and Ezekial Emanuel (Rahm’s brother). Maybe MTP invited a conservative to ‘balance’ the panel and he/she couldn’t make it. Regardless, it ended up as Journolist on TV, everyone get synched on the talking points. MTP is an embarrassment.
MTP should just get a disco ball and play some Beatles songs “it’s getting better all the time….yea yea yea… Woooo…..”
That was them. I was dozing and too lazy to remember names. I must say that Emanuel was very embarrassing – even for a liberal.
Re the South Carolina man with cancer whose ins. was cancelled and then an ins. agent saw him on FNC and got him ins.: The ins. agent has now received a letter from the IRS saying that he owes $6,000 in back taxes that must be paid by 12/26/13. Merry Xmas from the IRS. http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2013/11/irs-goes-after-chicago-insurance-broker-and-cancer-patient-.html
To give an accurate impression of Obamacare someone needs to photoshop the Hindenburg (like the picture above) crashing into the stern of the Titanic as it raises up before slipping beneath the water and place the whole thing in Pearl Harbor.
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