The Hawaii Health Connector - The First Domino to Fall?
 

http://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle...-services.html

From the article:

May 09--The Hawaii Health Connector has prepared a contingency plan to shut down operations by Sept. 30 after lawmakers failed to pass legislation to keep the state's troubled Obamacare insurance exchange afloat.

The Connector is in financial dire straits due to lack of enrollment.

Under the contingency plan, Connector functions would be transferred to the state so that the roughly 37,000 enrolled on the exchange would not lose their coverage. However, residents would have to re-enroll in healthcare.gov to ensure coverage next year.

To sustain its operations, the Connector needs to enroll 70,000. The program is funded by a 2 percent fee on each policy, which is set to increase to 3.5 percent July 1.

Hawaii, of all the state-run exchanges, was in the worst financial dire straits. But it's not the only one. According to WaPo, half of the states that opted to run their own exchanges are having financial challenges:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...afa_story.html

Nearly half of the 17 insurance marketplaces set up by the states and the District under President Obama’s health law are struggling financially, presenting state officials with an unexpected and serious challenge five years after the passage of the landmark Affordable Care Act.

Many of the online exchanges are wrestling with surging costs, especially for balky technology and expensive customer call centers — and tepid enrollment numbers.

What solutions are the states exploring?

Some are weighing turning over part or all of their troubled marketplaces to the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, which now works smoothly.

Gee. I wonder if those states will face the ire of the Dems who accused Repub governors for playing politics with Obamacare for refusing to operate a state - run exchange?

Excellent argument for national single payer.

Well, lookey here whelly...john-boy and the jew on the same page.

The ACA is only a slightly less odiferous turd than the previous health insurance turd. It guarantees that pretty the same overpriced, for shit medical coverage and medical care that we had before the ACA is available to everybody. Gee thanks Barack.

Problem with people like whell is that they keep saying that America is the greatest country on earth. And over and over they keep showing us that they just don't think it's actually worth paying for. If the people of the individual states don't want to pay for a decent health care system...if the people of the country as a whole don't want to pay for a decent health care system...we will continue to have a health care system that puts us right around 40th in the world in outcomes and only for twice as much money as almost all the nations with single payer systems.

Twice in one day whell plays the fool. Whell done.

:eek:Only whell could do that.;)

Whelly

Obama failed in his healthcare crusade. No arguments. This country is OWNED by the wealthy and that prohibits effective policies to safeguard the public in most every area of life here in the greed capital of the world.

John had the right answer in the first reply in this thread. Unfortunately, it is not possible to have a reasonable solution as he mentioned with so much money to be made and so many ignorant baggers allowed to vote.

As is any man of reason and independent thought.

Reason and independent thought, eh? John's got a ways to go with that one.:cool:

Pay attention then.

John is way smart.

People like he and Pat are tremendous resources and these are the guys I go to when forming an opinion. I don't always a agree but I sure as hell listen up and give great weight to their words.

You can only benefit from doing the same. :)

Trying to start something already? You know, it's not my decision to make but it occurs to me that your next vacation could be permanent.

Not any more than the Jew album. So who's starting? And you're a mod now, eh?

But maybe you were just foolin' around. Good. Me too.

PS- maybe you mis-interpreted my post. My intent was to suggest you have a ways to go before you'll be seeing me as a person of reason and independent thought. If I needed to be more clear, and subsequently caused you some affective distress...rest assured you have my amends.

Actually, I was listening to it. I like the Klezmatics.

Nope! That's why I said it wasn't my decision to make. You did notice that, right?

If it was, though...........

So, this means "If you're fooling, so am I but, if you're not fooling, I'm not either"?

Post-edit response:

You need to be more clear.

Oddly enough, when you say that I have a "long way to go" in achieving reason and independent thought, I tend to think you're talking about me.

An excellent platform plank for the Democrats in 2016.

Not really. How do you reckon they could spin that without sounding as if they were saying that the Obamacare that a Democratic administration and a Democratic congress brought you is broken and what we need is another Democratic administration and Democratic congress to fix it?

I mean, we know that the blame for Obamacare's shortcomings can be liberally spread around between both parties and the SCOTUS but the Democrats are the party the voters identify with it and with its problems.

Look hard-ass, I took responsibility for the mis-communication, and I apologized. Either you'll accept it, or you won't. Either way I who gives a shit.

And sure...you were listening to klezmer.:rolleyes:

Yes, I was. I like them. Deal with it. :p

Would it surprise you to learn that I'm making a chuppa for my landlord's daughter's wedding in July?

Thought so.

I think we need to drop this now. I suspect we'll never like one another but we don't really need to show it all the time. It gets pretty silly.

I actually hope that the Dems lead with health care reform and single payer. But I fail to see what the Repubs or SCOTUS have to do with any of the passage and implementation of PPACA. If anything, SCOTUS gave Obamacare a big, wet kiss in 2012.

And another excellent argument goes down the drain.

No doubt for the same reasons I don't.

A big wet kiss with a cyanide pill under their tongue. Medicare Expansion? State Exchanges?

And the "Blue Dogs" certainly did some serious damage, as well as the Senator from Aetna Joe Lieberman but the Republicans in both houses worked strenuously to defeat the legislation.

Works for me. Thank-you. Silly indeed.

Medicaid expansion - as written in PPACA - was problematic for reasons that had been previously tested before the courts. The Feds could not essentially threaten states with loss of funding to compel compliance with PPACA's mandate to expand Medicaid. As far as the State Exchanges, while there was funding / grant money available to help states set up exchanges and the states were encouraged to set up exchanges, exchanges were one step short of unfunded mandates. The states had to figure out how to pay for the exchanges over the long term. As many states are starting to find out, funding is proving difficult, particularly in states that charged a fee to enrollees where enrollment failed to meet projections. Besides, at the end of the day the state exchange language in PPACA was ultimately a concession to Bill Nelson, a conservative - but hardly a Blue Dog - Democrat. The concession was necessary to get his 60th and deciding vote to pass PPACA.

The legislation passed and the Repubs never had the votes to stop PPACA or even steer it. Whatever they did to "strenuously defeat the legislation" isn't relevant. Beyond the Blue Dogs, the Dems had to work hard to put together the votes in their own caucus for PPACA, and that took a hell of a lot of sausage - making.

So what do you want whell? You're like every other right-wingjob or GOP politician. THIS SUCKS!!! Of course it sucks. We're Americans...we're wealthy and stupid enough to have more stuff that sucks than any other people on earth.

But WTF do you want? You want no ACA, you want no single payer...you want it to be the good old employer sponsored, for profit insurance driven, for profit service provider, twice as expensive for shit outcomes system that we've had since the end of WWII? That's what you want? Because if you don't have a plan...you really just need to quitcher pissing and moaning and do something really important like most of your fellow Americans...grab a beer from the fridge and go watch the fucking NFL draft on the TeeVee or something.:rolleyes:

If I have to post it again, it will be about the 4th or 5th time I've done so.

I agree with you on this.

Increasing the income for the non working investor class off the backs of the sick and dying does not need be said again.

You don't have to do anything. Its a web forum.