Say, How’s That ACA Enrollment Working In North Carolina?

09 Nov, 2013 by William Teach

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In a word, “rocky”

Rocky Start For North Carolina Health Care Exchanges

North Carolina’s largest insurer is having its share of problems with the Obamacare website.

Internal emails obtained by WNCN-TV show that Blue Cross Blue Shield show that only 1,000 people had filled out applications as of October 15th.

In fact, only one person was able to successfully use Healthcare.gov to enroll in the new exchange.

Well, hey, at least there’s one. That’s better than Delaware, which has zero so far.

But even that single person has not paid, which means the enrollment is not complete.

Obviously, this must be the fault of those dastardly Republicans who voted 100% against this law. If only they had supported the law that they utterly loathed, maybe that one person might have paid.

The Lonely Conservative points out that the D.C. Exchange has had a whopping 5 enrollees who’ve paid. But, as CheerTeam Obama says, they’re starting slow but their really going to pick up steam. You know, like the economy.

Meanwhile, Obama is thinking about making “administrative” fixes to the ACA, but the media meme is that he has few options

President Barack Obama says he’ll do everything he can to help people coping with health insurance cancellations, but legally and practically his options appear limited.

That means the latest political problem engulfing Obama’s health care overhaul may not be resolved quickly, cleanly or completely.

Which is interesting due to the fact that the actual law leaves enormous discretion in crafting the actual rules of Obamacare. Did you know there is no actual requirement for contraception, sterilization, nor abortifacients within the text of the law? Section 1302 deals with the required coverages. Maternity coverage, yes. Nothing about condoms or birth control pills.

There are lots and lots of things that can be changed because HHS was given the authority to craft the rules. Like, um, the date. Section 1251

(2) CONTINUATION OF COVERAGE- With respect to a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which an individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act, this subtitle and subtitle A (and the amendments made by such subtitles) shall not apply to such plan or coverage, regardless of whether the individual renews such coverage after such date of enactment.

It was left to HHS to define renewal and coverage. They decided to define it very narrowly. Renewals usually include small, and sometimes big, changes. But a person or group would be renewing that plan. Obama’s HHS crafted rules making this darn near impossible. On purpose. To make sure plans were cancelled in order to drive people to the Exchanges and Medicaid.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.