The Obamacare "revolt" that isn't by David Atkins The press is screaming with headlines that the v

[BlueStreak]

1. A lot of noise about nothing

Nothing will pass Congress. The house only wants to undermine the ACA, and that's exactly what happens if you let insurance companies keep selling junk policies. The Senate bill is better, but you simply cannot force the insurance companies to offer a policy they have determined they don't want to offer. That is the prerogative of the free market. If we had "government run HC, it would be a different story, but obviously we don't.

Moreover, you don't just put together a provider network in a couple of weeks. These companies were planning for a year or more to discontinue those products so they did not sign up docs and hospitals to be in a network for policies that they wouldn't be selling. And many of them put together all new networks for their ACA policies. They can't just presume that Docs will want to be in the network for non-ACA policies. You have to go back to each practice and let them choose if they are going to participate.

So when it comes down to it, it is a bunch of noise about nothing. Those insurance companies that are in a position to extend the old policies and want to do that will do so under the Obama plan. And the media will be completely confused about what is going on. But by the time any of that takes shape, there will be a million people who will have enrolled in ACA policies and the media will have reached the point in their narrative when it is time to say that the website is now working. In fact it has been working pretty well for a couple of weeks, but that didn't fit with the narrative.

So we just have to ride this one out. Congress is irrelevant.