Today marks one month since the disastrous start of Healthcare.gov, the seriously impaired federal health insurance marketplace.
And what a month it’s been. For the first 16 days, a federal government shutdown largely deflected attention from the website’s problems. But since then, three congressional hearings have been held — and more are planned. Political pundits are anointing winners and losers (mostly losers) and trying to predict how the fallout could affect congressional elections next year.
I’m more interested in real-life winners and losers, people whose lives will be changed for better or worse because of the Affordable Care Act.
Clearly, if the website problems persist for much longer and people are unable to sign up for coverage, the list of losers will grow longer by the week. Consumers will lose because they won’t be able to enroll in health plans. Insurers will lose because they will have far fewer customers than anticipated. Hospitals will lose because the law cuts back their reimbursement for care they give to the uninsured. And on and on.
But for the moment, let’s assume some — or most — of those problems will be fixed by the Nov. 30 date promised by the Obama administration.
Winners
On a very obvious level, winners include young adults who can now remain on their parents health plans until age 26.
They include consumers with medical ailments who have been denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions.
They include residents of states that opted to expand their Medicaid programs for the poor to cover those with incomes of up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level ($15,856 for an individual and $32,499 for a family of four).
Losers
By contrast, losers include those with lower incomes who live in states that decided not to expand their Medicaid programs. The Daily Briefing run by the consulting firm The Advisory Board Co. had a smart look this summer at which states will have the most uninsured residents in 2016. Being uninsured means you’re losing out.