A report on 89.3FM KPCC (The Marketplace) tonight in Los Angeles created a dramatic shift in my attitudes towards the ultimate end game of Obamacare. For many months now my excitement about the ACA ebbed and flowed as the horse-s#$! media continued railing against all of the "problems" with the law. I began to grow increasingly uncomfortable as more and more seemingly viable criticisms of the law were repeated ad nauseam on every channel. It didn't help that supposed Kossacks started telling their tragic stories about deductibles so high it didn't matter that they had insurance now. As liberals it's hard not to be concerned about the online community. We want desperately for things to get better for people and care quite deeply about the people on this site. Case in point: Meteor Blades recent heart attack was met with an outpouring of support that you just won't find on other sites. The people here are very real. And I know there are some people who aren't having a positive experience with the ACA. But...
Finally, I truly saw the light at the end of the tunnel; the reason why this will work and why OUR President will have an enormous room or hall in his Presidential library dedicated to the ACA. It came on the radio...
Elizabeth Wilner from Cantor media: "Small upstarts feel like they can take on the giants." Health Options is an upstart health insurance company in Maine. On the Maine exchange you only have two options; Health Options or Anthem Blue Cross. Well, guess what?
Health Options is "eating Anthem's lunch" on the exchange. They've cornered 71% of the new enrollees on the Maine exchange. While this doesn't fix every problem, as Joe Biden would say, this is a big F'in deal!
The simple notion of the ACA is that increased competition will replace monopolies and that competition will drive down prices. At the outset of such a huge undertaking as the ACA, with all of the uncertainty about whether it would even remain law, the risk associated with an upstart health insurance company were very high. As such, very few upstarts entered the exchanges and the result has been the former giants "competing" with each other. But now, the writing is on the wall and it looks like this:
1) Obamacare is here to stay. Period. The R's aren't even trying to repeal it anymore.
2) Small upstarts aren't just competing. They are cornering the market in some places.
3) The natural result is that the cost of healthcare will be driven down by more aggressive upstarts and not-for-profits entering the fray and the large companies will be forced to lower costs; and that includes deductibles!
This is the best news regarding the ACA by far. As people see small upstarts crushing it and entering the exchanges the natural result will be other companies entering the market to get their share of the pie. But this isn't where the good news ends. These companies can also market to HR agencies and insurance brokers and start to carve out customers from the slice of the pie that was once viciously guarded by the health insurance monopolies. With the credibility of success in the ACA, the associated PR campaigns, and momentum on their side, watch as the start ups start to sell directly on the commercial marketplace.
This is not Republican's worst nightmare. This is Republicans waking up from a nightmare and realizing that they are in a worse nightmare: not only has the ACA worked, but we've co-opted the narrative that free market competition works!!!
While we're at it let's start distributing a new bumper sticker:
And then we'll make a custom one-off especially for Megyn Kelly: