Another part Obamacare quietly going away

We saw the demise of the Affordable Care Act’s foray into long-term care when the CLASS act bit the dust. It was a smack-your-forehead moment when the not-ready-for-prime-time-players realized that their grandiose idea of selling insurance coverage for nursing home care was both unaffordable to citizens and much more expensive than originally calculated. My professional organization, NAIFA www.naifa.org led the effort to shine the light of truth on this fiasco of the Obama administration and the CLASS Act was withdrawn. Here is a Business Roundtable blog article that discussed this - http://businessroundtable.org/blog/class-act-dumped

One of the earliest ACA programs was the Pre-Existing Conditions Insurance Plan or PCIP. In Washington it is called PCIP-WA. Well, it’s going down, albeit quietly. The PCIP was drafted to provide an [expensive] method for uninsured people to obtain health insurance even though they had pre-existing conditions. In other words, a cancer sufferer, obese diabetic heart patient or someone afflicted with HIV/AIDS could enroll and get coverage immediately. The premiums were NOT low but the coverage was a method to avoid bankruptcy for those who needed this plan and could afford to buy in.

Well, the administration is quietly closing the program down. There are two reasons for the PCIP going out of business: 1) the program ran out of money (gee, what a surprise) and 2) beginning in January 2014 these folks should be able to obtain health insurance through their State health insurance exchange – policies that do not have health screening for enrollment and have no waiting periods for pre-existing conditions. Read about it here-- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/15/obamacare-uninsurable_n_2698435.html?utm_hp_ref=business

Like everything else Obama has initiated there was a large amount of fanfare when the program came out. Like everything else that Obama has touched, the demise of the PCIP is happening without widespread public notice. Some 23 States have a PCIP in place. People who have a policy will be allowed to continue the coverage but we expect that all states will cease taking new applications within days.

When you meet people who think Obamacare is the best thing the USA has done to take care of its citizens, reflect on your experiences with the post office (broke), the DMV, FEMA (it took them 5 days to get fresh water to Katrina victims), OSHA, FDA, etc. and consider how it is going to be when the government takes over ALL of your health care.