Ruling Class and Obamacare

There has been a great deal of coverage about how hard people are finding it to sign up for Obamacare using the online exchanges. Take this story about how there is no one in Oregon who has signed up, despite there being an exchange there. Then I got to wondering...

If members of congress and their staffs were all going on the exchanges, albeit with massive subsidies that the rest of us don't have, how were they signing up for it if most of their home states were either saddled with the non-functioning generic Obamacare site or their own non-functioning state sites? Looking just a little deeper, I found a list for the House and Senate noting what members said they would use. From those list, it appears that the vast majority were choosing the safer 'no comment'  response to whomever is generating those lists. If only they had followed dear leader's example and just voted 'present' when Obamacare came up in the first place then we wouldn't be in this mess. Voting 'no comment' now is just too little, too late.

However, there were quite a few who said they were going to use the exchanges. So how exactly are they signing up? This article implies that they are using the DC health care exchange. (yes - that exchange that I wrote about earlier) Is that even legal? I believe they are bound to use their home state's exchange, not the one set up for DC residents. That is unless they are claiming to live in DC, in which case they are not qualified to represent their home states in office. I am very confused...

The joke appears to be in them though, as they are getting shafted by the same shoddy website that the rest of the DC residents are dealing with. Turns out that being political suck-ups and actually turning out a real, functioning e-commerce site don't necessarily equate to the same thing. Looking further at that article, the insurance companies have set up special phone lines for congress critters to use, bypassing the exchanges altogether. I am pretty sure that wasn't in the law either.

It will be interesting to find out how many of them actually end up without insurance like too many of my fellow citizens. I am dreaming of a remake of that classic movie: "Mr Smith goes to Washington and Looses His Health Insurance". 

What Obamacare Means To Me

I was going to the White House website to look over what Obama said about the 'fix' for all the people that were getting dropped from coverage, when I ran into the above 'whiteboard' video. I thought it was too good, given the disintegration of Obamacare and the administration's limp wristed fix not to take a look. here's my take on what I saw with screen shots of the video.

Hi, my name is Pat. The fact that this ad picked an androgynous women dressed in man’s clothing should probably tell you something about who wears the pants in the executive branch. Of course, as drawn, you can probably see a bit of a beard there, so maybe I’m actually a man with indeterminate bulges where breast would be, so I’ll just leave you guessing about that for a while, ok?

On to talking about heath care insurance then. 

As you can see, I do have giant man hands, capable of holding a giant health insurance card with MY NAME on it. It’s my private health insurance. Obama has promised me that no one can take that away from me – unless the health care plan is not one of the 2% of health care plans that have everything that the ACA stipulates, but we’ll get into that in a minute. Notice that my beard has grown a little and there’s a bulge where my man parts might be? Got you wondering, no?

When I go to the doctor’s office I get all this stuff done to me. For free! The ACA says that health insurance companies can no longer charge a fee or co-pay for these services. Of course, it doesn't say that they can’t jack up the amount they charge for premiums.

Here are some actual women. Notice the progression in age here. After you get out of college you grow bigger boobs, and get taller, and wear heels. Then by the time you reach 50 you shrink, get a big butt, and wear hideous hooped earrings. Then when you reach 64 the big butt is gone, but so are the heels and the boobs. Worse yet, you carry a handbag which may either be a small dog carrier or a flute. The important thing is to watch out for those three big blocks, because if you have the poor taste to live after 64, that big arrow and the death panels means you are going to get thrown off a cliff somewhere. But don’t worry – you’ll have health insurance!

Now we get to the good part for androgynous people of uncertain sexuality: sticking it to the fat cats! Turns out this great new law says that if the insurance company has too much overhead, like big salaries, fancy red cars, or buildings with more than three stories, then they have to send you a ‘rebate’ check with all their extra money. Well, actually, not to you, but to whoever pays for your health insurance. That doesn't actually mean that you will get any money, because that’s not in the law. Most of the money rebated has gone to the employers, who get to spend it on anything they like, like shiny red cars or buildings taller than three stories. 

Just for fun I did a Google search for ‘Some Insurance Company” and “Private Insurance Company”. Guess what? Neither of those actually exists! I think that’s a fake check there too. I mean really, what kind of real fat cat signs a check with a flower at the end? And look at the date – SEPTEMBER 200. I've heard of post dating checks, but never pre-dating a check by 1813 years.

Oh, one other small note. If you don’t think the insurance companies are applying accounting measures so their ‘overhead’ is less than 20%, then you just don’t understand the way business works. Oh, the fat cats wills still get their big salaries and shiny red cars; it just won't show up as ‘overhead’. It’s an accounting trick that until now has been unnecessary but perfectly legal. It actually means beaucoup accounting overtime. That’s right – the bean counters just get richer. 

Ah – finally some people other than androgynous white women. We have an androgynous kid with a teddy bear and fraternal twins apparently celebrating their 22^nd birthday. I am thinking the kid looks very happy. It might have something to do with whatever he is getting in an IV there. Is this what Obamacare is all about? Making kids of indeterminate sex wear dresses and shoot up happy juice? It obviously isn't very good for him as he had an accident and there is a shocking pool of blue stuff under the table. A brave new world indeed!

Now the twins here are also a bit of a puzzle. They are both apparently looking at something in guy’s lap. He looks real happy about it, but she seems less than thrilled. I am thinking there might be a just a little bit of penis envy there.

Now as to the claim to women being charged more than a man one has to wonder why? What is it about a pre-menopausal woman that makes then different than a man of the same age? Is it the length of their hair? As noted in the above picture, women in their 20’s grow taller and have bigger boobs… perhaps it’s that. I for one welcome this change that brings sense to this absurd discrepancy in health insurance charges for no discernible reason.

As noted in this picture, with your old insurance, you had to read a lot of stuff on reams of paper, use a really old keyboard, and drink lots of coffee just to make sense of your coverage.

Under the new system, you still have to drink coffee and use an old keyboard, but the rotten insurance companies will bind it up in a neat little book with a ‘plain language’ (i.e. not necessarily plain-English) summary. Now if you have an unusual circumstance where you have to determine if you are covered, say your kid gets thrown headfirst by a horse into a fence and has to have a medical airlift to a hospital with head trauma experts by a private helicopter company and you have to figure out if that helicopter ride is covered by insurance, you will still have to read through all that fine print. However, a summary page is a really necessary thing to regulate. Way to go ACA!

Ah – finally, a clearly male white guy apparently in his mid thirties. He’s asking what happens if he doesn’t have insurance. I am guessing that’s because he still lives in his parents basement and spends all his time drinking and playing softball with all his slacker white buddies, but never mind. He deserves to have insurance, even though his pants bulge is noticeably smaller than androgynous female’s.

See, apparently there’s this great new website called the ‘Health Care Marketplace’ where this guy can get some really cheap insurance. How cheap do you ask?

This cheap! 60% of white guys like this wearing casual long sleeve shirts stylishly pushed up on the arms will get their choice of a plans, and one of them might be less than $100 a month! Whoops! This was not exactly true when they made this video and the low sign up rates due to ‘sticker shock’ in states with functioning exchanges indicate that it really is just not what is happening.

So how does cool slacker white guy get this (fake) cool cheap insurance? Here’s how:

Let’s see we have:

• In person: From that picture cool slacker white guy will have to hold hands with a rich fat cat wearing cuff links. I am thinking cool slacker white guy wouldn't want to have close contact with real working America, even though in reality that could be anyone, from felons to state senators. Here's something I noticed. The state senator in that link could be the model for androgynous women:

• By Mail: Yeah - trust an anonymous bureaucrat and the post office to pick out a cheap plan and sign you up. Sounds like a great plan. After all, it's only your life, what could go wrong?

• By Phone: Like many other's I thought of this guy when I heard you could sign up for Obamacare by phone:

• Online: Yeah - we all know how that's going.

So, that’s the end of the video. Let’s all get together for a group photo. Is everyone here? Good. Smile everybody! <click>

Well that didn't turn out very well! The twin guy changed his hair color and is now looking at twin girl’s breast. Twin girl is also smiling at something behind his back. I am thinking there is a midget hiding back there about to ax murder her evil male twin. The kid is done with his IV, but still wearing a dress. The androgynous woman is apparently still pretty happy, but now has a smaller package and (thank god!) has shaved. Cool slacker white guy has a larger package now, which is apparently an asset, as both the 25 and 64 year old women are checking him out and smiling. Altogether a typical group of Americans wouldn't you say?

Um, whoops! Wait a minute! I am not seeing any clearly ethnic people here. Who approved this video? Al Sharpton, call your office! The White House is (once again) perpetrating racial stereotypes. This has to stop NOW!

Health Exchange Fun - Part 3

This is the third part of the series I started a while back. You can see them all by going to the Health Exchange Fun label summary.

As I noted in the previous post, I meant to come back and look at the site before October 1st. With the government shutdown and so many other fun things to write about (and having a life), I didn't get a chance to to do that. Since October 1st, I have gone back to the main site a few times and tried using the default exchange (which is what a Virginia resident is supposed to do) to look over my options. As has been noted elsewhere, this is as far as I got:

Since that was out, I returned to the main screen and used to link to go to the exchange for DC residents. To do anything on the site, you have to establish an account. This got me thinking. What if the House measure succeeds in getting all Federal Employees to go through the exchange to get their healthcare? I decided to fill out the forms to see how hard it would be for Obama to do this himself.


After putting in an appropriate username and password, I had to select some alternative security questions and answers:

Entered some details about myself:

My kids & spouse:

Then got to this summary screen - so far so good:

I then selected to browse for plans:

Note the cute little people in the top right corner. Two adults and two children. Also note that the adults both are generic 'men' pictures, even though I entered a female spouse. In their efforts to be gender neutral here, they made 'man' shapes! How sexist! I am drafting a letter to the ACLU!

Moving on, the next screen was something of a surprise:

I was asked to select what kind of plans I was looking for. In DC, apparently the exchanges include dental care! I did not realize that dental was part of Obamacare. Reading the fine print, it appears that some plans come with pediatric care. How can the do this in a program that is only funded to support regular health plans? There seems to be a legal conundrum. What if they also included witch doctor consults? Would the taxpayer have to supplement that also?

I next was asked to select a plan type.

Not really knowing Obama's financial situation, I decided to select the cheapest and the most expensive. That way he will have an idea of what his high/low outstanding cost are. On the next screen, I selected to see all plans, regardless of the deductible:

Love the $$$ fanned out. I feel like I am playing the lottery!

Uh-oh! I encountered the first (non-fatal) error when I hit next:

Apparently, my form has already been processed before - even though this is my first visit. How is that possible? Has Obamacare somehow violated the space time continuum? I'm not so sure I am comfortable straying outside the laws of physics to get health insurance. I pressed 'Ok' and proceeded carefully...

The lowest priced plan has a $12000 deductible, and a monthly payment of $721. That probably is a bit our of reach for most the vulnerables of DC. let's see what the most expensive, lowest deductible plan looks like:

So that one cost more than what most people pay for rent. How practical! I am so glad that Obama is standing up to the childish Republicans to preserve our right to this health insurance.

I selected the 'See if I Qualify' button and got this:

If you think that is a blank page, you are correct! This is as far as I could get. I returned to the main page and selected the 'Apply for help paying' option,

since I was thinking that even Obama would need a little help with the above quoted rates. I was presenting with the intriguing following menu:

So apparently, call center folks will be using this web site to 'help' people. Since every other Tom, Dick, and Harry are using it too, what could go wrong? I wondered what that would look like, so I selected that option. It asked for my name and ID. Since I didn't have one I hit the back button, which brought me back to the main menu. After navigating back to the above menu, I selected to bottom option and got this:

So apparently, even 'authorized representatives' are going to have a hard time getting into this.

I selected the top option and filled in my information. I was curious what a 'homeless' person would do, so I choose those options:

You gotta love where technology has taken us. Now even homeless people without addresses can have health insurance. Of course, if they are say, sitting in Jamaica and filling out this, there is really nothing to stop them. Thus, the next set of questions:

I played with this for a little while. Selecting all manner of combinations of having & not having a valid citizenship - each time I selected next, I got this screen

Then this when I hit next:

I am not quite sure what I am supposed to provide 'Administrator' with here, but that message strikes me as a little scary. Not making any progress here, I hit my browser 'back' button to return to the main menu (not the previous one - I have learned how to navigate this site!) and select to apply without getting financial help:

 I am once again asked to enter in my name and ethnicity. This time I decide to be an incarcerated illegal alien:

When I select 'next', I am told to call a different toll free number with my 'reference number'.

I did not really see such a number anywhere. If I were a illegal alien sitting in a prison somewhere, filling out this web page on my computer, I would be getting pretty mad right now, maybe even start a riot! Attica! Attica!

I tried filling it out as a regular person, using a pseudo real SSN:

and got this again:

An interesting note here. When I entered a totally BS SSN, I got an error. This makes me think that there might me a security flaw here where this would be a tool for screening valid SSNs. That's a little frightening also.

Since I was clearly going nowhere, I went back to the main menu and played a little with finding an 'trained expert' to help me out. This helpful map was displayed:

What's interesting about this, is trained experts don't actually have to be located in DC to help out the residents there. In fact, it appears that brokers are predominately outside the district. That seems a little odd. I do hope that they are paying Google for this map service and not violating Google's terms of service:

When I selected one of the experts, and clicked on what looked like a web link I got this:

Effectively, a 404 error.

In browsing the 'trained experts', I came across this one:

This was clearly a made up entry that somehow made it into the database, unless trained experts who speaks 'Amharic' (a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia) or Mandarin is needed for DC - which it could be. I looked up the web address mentioned in the e-mail reference and came up with this:

So Sara didn't purge her test entry from the database before the DC site went live. This seems a little, I don't know unprofessional and amateurish? 

I could go into a whole rant here about how the 'agile' development process is so much BS, but I will save that for another time. Suffice it to say we are getting exactly what we paid for with these health exchanges. God help us all...

Health Exchange Fun - Part 2

(All parts of this series can be found here)

This is the second part of the series I started a couple of days back. If you missed it (How could you?) it is here. If you are really coming in late to this series and by some miracle I write another post about the healthcare exchanges before I wonder off, distracted by a shiny object, you can see them all by going to the Health Exchange Fun label summary.

In my previous post, there was one observation in the comments about how it seemed unfair that I didn't include a link to government healthcare marketplace that I was reviewing. For those that are having trouble, here's how you find the site:

1. Go the the main google search page (www.google.com)
2. type (exactly) "Healthcare Marketplace" and hit enter
3. Select the very first entry that comes up in the results

You see, the government has given Google bazillions of dollars to ensure that result is what you get, so as a taxpayer, why not get your money's worth? I'd encourage everyone use this method. Following a link from me is just lazy - and Americans are anything but lazy. Why do you want to be so un-American? (my apologies if you are a foreigner reading this from someplace like Austria or Australia) Oh - and since the exchanges open up on October 1st, why not go there on that day to see what's up? It's every American's duty to check it out. Let's all check out that link at like 1:18:09pm to celebrate the day Obama was first sworn in. I'll see you there!

To continue my examination of the healthcare marketplace, as noted before I had clicked on my state and got the information prompt telling me that this web site is where I can signup. The information section provided links for applying for coverage, comparing plans, and enrolling. That seems odd - isn't 'applying for coverage' the same as 'enrolling'? Man - this healthcare stuff is going to be hard. It's not just about catching the flu and going to the doctor's office for antibiotics anymore.

I selected 'Apply for Coverage' as that was the first thing listed and seemed like the logical choice. Uh-oh, no more smiling people, just a long page of words and stuff. This just got real! Since I have an admittedly short attention span I went to the most colorful part of the page - the box at the bottom with the big friendly green button offering to 'FIND HELP'. That's exactly what I needed! I put in my city state and hit enter.

Well, how nice. Another screen asking me once again to put in my address,

even offering an example:

Example: "Austin, TX" or "33109"

Out of curiosity, I checked to see where that zip code was located using the fore mentioned Google search. here's what I got:

Cool! An island! I wonder if they have pirate treasure there? The only problem is how do I get there from Austin TX? Something is just not right here...

Moving on, I entered my city and state. No Help. I thought, well what about someplace close to DC, like Arlington VA. That's like less than a couple miles from the White House. Surely they would have someone to help me navigate the ACA maze. Here's the results:

Well, they aren't in Arlington. But I guess they will do. Looking at their 'services' page I see:

HealthWorks for Northern Virginia is a charitable nonprofit that provides medical, dental and behavioral health services to anyone in need, regardless of age or ability to pay

So a one non-profit health clinic with offices in Herndon and Leesburg is going to provide sign up guidance to the millions of people that live in the Northern Virginia area? This will not end well. Perhaps the HHS could reach out to the abortion clinics too. There's bunches of them and I'd bet they'd be glad to help.

I did a little checking to find out about that organization, since they obviously are a very important part of the ACA implementation in Northern Virginia. First off I learned that, according to their web site, the President of the board is Tom Couglin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Coughlin

No, not that guy, this one:

Tom Coughlin, a resident of Sterling, has more than 32 years experience in the Public Health Service in the Department of Health and Human Services. He is recently retired from the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Bureau of Primary Health Care

A recently retired HHS employee. Well that makes sense. The CEO is listed as Deborah Dever. LinkedIn has her listed as the President of Money Mailer - you know, those packets of index card sized coupons you used to get in the mail? That was her. I say used to as I haven't seen any of them in quite a while. I guess they just couldn't compete with Google.

That's all I have time for today. I think perhaps next time I will explore a state Marketplace site - like the state of Washington DC's marketplace. That should be fun.

Today marks the Autumn Equinox, so off I go to seize what I can of the day, as it will only get less as winter progresses. To quote a wise old TV cop "Let's be careful out there"

Health Exchange Fun - Part 1

(All parts of this series can be found here)

So I have heard that the Obamacare Exchanges were going to open soon, so I took a little stroll over there to see what it was all about. I was greeted by this young smiling lady:

Who is she and what does she have to do with Obamacare? A Google image search of her did not reveal any matches. I looked carefully at her earrings, and the appear to have letters in them - 'SMMM'. Could that mean 'Sons of Mary Mother of Mercy'? Probably not. I guess it's her initials - so i'll call her 'Samantha'. So Samantha, can I call you Sam? Yes? Good. I am interested in getting health insurance. Ah, I see you have a link over there to 'Get Insurance'. I'll click on that. Goodbye, and thanks for all the help!

More pictures of smiling people! This time two ladies, perhaps a mother and daughter? There is still no explanation of what they have to do with healthcare insurance but there must be something about this site that is making everyone smile! I guess they aren't worried about being kicked to the curb when their employer drops their coverage (here, here, here) . When I clicked on "Small Business", I found this lady, who apparently couldn't put down her phone long enough to have her picture taken:

I'm guessing the message here is that Obamacare doesn't include dental care. I have to say, as a middle aged white guy, I am starting to feel a little awkward, like I wondered into the wrong bathroom or something...

I then went to the 'Choose Your State' selection bar to see what my options were. Clicking on the menu, I noticed right away that territories and the District of Columbia had apparently become states with the adoption of Obamacare. How nice for them. Just for fun, I selected the Northern Marina Islands state. The 'information' section informed me that if I live in the Northern Marina Islands I am not eligible to use the 'Marketplace' to apply for health insurance. So first the ACA makes territories into states, but then excludes them from coverage? That's just not right! What about people from other states that are there on extended stays or otherwise domiciled in a 'real' US state? They can't apply? I am already confused...

So then I picked my state, Virginia. The help selector noted that I could use this web site to apply, compare plans, and enroll. This is because Virginia declined to set up it's own exchange, so the Federal government opted to do that for the citizens of Virginia. How nice and helpful of them. Was it part of the law that they would have the authority to do this? This is what I found on the HHS site:

In states that elect not to establish a Marketplace, the ACA requires HHS to establish and operate a "federally-facilitated Marketplace" (FFM) in that state. This would also apply in the event HHS determines that despite state efforts to establish a Marketplace, the Marketplace has not made sufficient progress to become fully operational by January 1, 2014. An FFM can be implemented by HHS alone, or a state can enter into a “partnership” with the FFM, combining state-designed and operated functions with federally designed and operated functions. Partnerships are considered a subset of the FFM, indicating that HHS has authority over partnerships in the FFM.

So rather than set up a separate web site for each state that does not set up an exchange, there is one federal site for all of them. I am not a lawyer, but this seems to be a violation of the intent of what the ACA says is to be done. Where exactly in Virginia is this FFM that the HHS has set up? The location wasn't given in the web site. I strongly suspect that it doesn't exist, but that is a topic for another time.

That's all I have time for today. I must make more time to look into this wonderful web site in the future. Stay tuned!

On to more madness: Part Two

UPDATE UPDATE: Even Better! Welcome IMAO Readers! Take a look around and maybe come on back sometime. Oh, and feel free to give the puppy blender readers a piece of your mind in the comments, or whatever...

UPDATE: Holy Cow! An Instalaunch! Welcome Instapundit readers! Have a look around and see if there is stuff on my little blog that amuses you. I do humor, serious, and hiking notes. A little something for everyone... to quote a very wise old TV man, "ya'll come back now, ya hear?"