Selling Health Insurance Across State Lines––A Really Dumb Idea

Any candidate that suggests such a scheme only shows how unsophisticated he and his advisers are when it comes to understanding how the insurance markets really work––or could work.

I gave a speech to 750 health insurance brokers and consultants in DC last week.

When selling health insurance across state lines, something Trump and a number of other Republican presidential candidates have been pushing, was mentioned the audience literally laughed. That's what health insurance professionals who spend their days in the market think of it!

This is about as dumb an insurance "reform" idea as has ever been proposed.

John Kasich's Ohio Health Care Record: Making Lemons Into Lemonade

It's easy to be critical of Obamacare.

But from the time The Affordable Care Act was passed until a new President and Congress have a chance to change things in 2017, America's governors haven't had the luxury of just complaining about it. They have had to govern.

Governor Kasich and his team have made big health care change a reality by collaborating with the key stakeholders in Ohio. On that score they have made lots of Obamacare lemons into lemonade.

Read my op-ed today at the National Review.

And, my post last fall at Forbes regarding Kasich's Medicaid expansion in Ohio. 

Obamacare Hits 12.7 Million Enrollments––But Only Grows 8.5%

Today the administration announced that 12.7 million people signed up for coverage in the Affordable Care Act's insurance exchanges.

Said the HealthCare.gov CEO, "We knocked the lights out this year. We did a great job."

Let's take a closer look.

Why the Obamacare 2016 Open Enrollment Stalled: The Big Unwritten Story About Obamacare––How Unaffordable It Is For the Working and Middle Class

Back on December 22nd when the President triumphantly announced 6 million enrollments on HealthCare.gov and the administration pointed to "unprecedented demand" on the exchanges, I was the skunk at the garden party arguing in the Washington Post that it was all just churn as existing customers were only trying to escape all of the big rate increases.

Well guess what? It was all churn.

The administration will shortly announce the total number of people who signed up for Obamacare under the Affordable Care Act.

The number signing up in 2016 will turn out to be not much more than the number who signed up last year after those who don't pay are netted out––no sizeable gain in enrollment has been accomplished on a national basis. [February 4 Update: The increase was 8.5% over 2015.]