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July 09, 2013 at 09:23 AM
State and federal efforts to set up the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) exchange program are, obviously, facing problems and delays.
I actually did my first PPACA delay blog entry back in February.
I have contributed to the delay-related pile-on by tweeting links to Rube Goldberg cartoons.
Yesterday, I had fun linking to a really, really complicated flowchart that purports to explain how PPACA exchange health plans will be priced, how folks will figure out what each consumer will pay, and how the payments will actually get into the hands of the folks are supposed to get the payments. That flowchart is, really, useful in one way and kind of funny in another way.
Of course, the same could be said about a PPACA eligibility flowchart developed by an arm of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC).
Some people want to kill PPACA dead with a stake, and it seems reasonable to think that could still happen. To me, it seems as if reporters who write “PPACA will do X” on such and such a date without putting any “supposed tos” or “coulds” in are playing with declarative mood fire.
On the other hand: Whether people want PPACA to ooze to life or not, it might ooze to life anyway. Even if everyone agreed to kill it, who knows if that’s possible. Maybe it’s got zombie-like powers of regeneration. Maybe even the people with silver stakes in their pockets should take an interest in civilizing PPACA, to the extent possible, in case, for example, the exchanges really do open.
On the other hand: Whether we keep our current system, or kill PPACA and end up with some new, PPACA II system, or a PPACA Slayer system, that will probably be complicated, too.
