In order for the ACA to succeed, the government and insurers are going to have to find a way to get healthy 18- to 35-year-olds to sign up in large numbers. In fact, Allan Einboden, CEO of Temple-based Scott & White Health Plan {Texas}, laid out the challenge to insurers in a commentary on CNBC.com this week.
...is a RW distortion to create the impression that enrollment needs to skew to young people or the law will fail. It's fairly silly on the face of it. First of all, millions of young are eligible to stay on their parents' plan. Secondly, about 25 percent of the current enrollees are young people.
Dean Baker
The Washington Post Still Can't Get It Right, Health Exchanges Need Healthy People, It Doesn't Matter If They Are Young
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-washington-post-still-cant-get-it-right-health-exchanges-need-healthy-people-it-doesnt-matter-if-they-are-young
Given that the health care law was designed to cover everyone, and millions were unable to get insurance because of pre-existing conditions (think even of the junk policies that dropped people when they got sick), the notion that the laws' success depends on a higher percentage of young healthy people than any other segment is absurd. Republicans and the media will keep pushing this meme while they work to sabotage the real cost control mechanisms.
Republicans Seek To Sabotage Obamacare With Higher Premiums
Conservative wonks and Republican lawmakers are coalescing around a new strategy to sabotage Obamacare by repealing a temporary piece of the law designed to hold down premiums in the event of major market disruptions.
The provision -- called "risk corridors," but dubbed the "Obamacare bailout" by the law's opponents -- seeks to stabilize costs by creating a pot of money that takes in funds from insurers who enroll healthier customers and uses it to pay out insurers who enroll sicker customers. It's a safety valve that sunsets after 2016. The repeal push is clever messaging in a sense because it lets conservatives snatch the mantle of populism from liberals against wealthy insurance companies. But it comes with its share of dangers, too.
Last November, as TPM reported, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced legislation to repeal this provision. Since then it has picked up 13 Republican co-sponsors, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and two companion bills in the House, which are supported by numerous Republicans. The idea has been championed by conservative lobbying groups like the Club For Growth and Heritage Action, and pushed by writers including Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post, Ramesh Punnuru in Bloomberg View and Deroy Murdock in National Review.
The conservatives are open about the end goal: collapse Obamacare by causing higher premiums on the law's marketplaces for the newly insured, which progressive experts who support Obamacare agree would occur.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obamacare-bailout-risk-corridors-conservatives-sabotage
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