foxnews headline: Internal notes indicate only 6 people signed up for ObamaCare on first day

[BlueStreak]

39. Re: Indiana

Indiana has not signed up for Medicaid expansion. The right wing Gov Pence is trying to get that federal money without actually expanding Medicaid. He wants to maintain a program where he requires co-payments from the plan participants, and still excludes people based on assets. Basically if you have a 1965 Rambler station wagon, you are too rich for the Indiana Medicaid program. As of now, I don't think the Obama administrations have caved in, but they have in some other states, so they probably will cave in here too.

Regarding competition, I don't have an answer why there is so little competition. United Healthcare was in the market in 2013, and I think Humana was also, but they aren't in the exchange, at least not in my county for my age group. I don't know of any reason why they wouldn't want to compete. It seems that our premiums are about twice as high as California's, for example, so I'd think more companies would want to get in on that. It is too late for 2014, but I assume more will get into the Indiana exchange for 2015.

The big improvement I'd really like to see is the public option being included at least in cases where the premiums are more than 10% above the national average. If the insurance companies had to deal with that, you can bet they would rush in to make sure there were no disparities like this because the last thing they want to see is a public option in the exchange.