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Way back in the mists of ObamaCare time - like probably a year ago or so - I read or heard something that implied that a State not having its own exchange was a good thing for the businesses in the State but I never quite understood why that would be. Last week, I ran across a Wall Street Journal piece that explains the connection:
While the president's health law is vast and extraordinarily complex, it is in one respect very simple. Subsidies are only to be made available, and tax penalties for not signing up for health insurance are only to be assessed, in states that create their own health-care exchange. The IRS, however, is attempting to enforce tax penalties in all states—including Oklahoma and the majority of the other states that have declined to create their own exchanges. Citizens and businesses in these states must use the federal exchange instead.
The distinction is critical, because under the terms of the law it is the availability of government insurance-premium subsidies that triggers the penalties against businesses if they fail to provide their employees with health insurance that the administration deems acceptable.
In other words, if a State didn’t set up an exchange then the residents of that State can’t get government subsidies to help pay for health insurance. And if subsidies aren’t available in a State, the IRS cannot penalize businesses for not providing the kind of health insurance the government wants them to. (The IRS also cannot penalize individuals who choose to forgo health insurance altogether.)
At least that’s the way ObamaCare is written. The Administration wants to ignore the law, provide subsidies to those who buy on the Federal exchange, and thus be able to penalize businesses (and individual consumers) who fail to meet the ObamaCare requirements. Employers - including State and local government entities - are suing.
It will be interesting to see what the courts decide but in the meantime it seems foolhardy for residents of States without their own exchanges to count on premium subsidies when making decisions about what health insurance to buy.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post I never put up - it kind of sputtered out - and as part of that I wrote a footnote. I really wanted to post the footnote and have tried to shoehorn it into a couple different posts. I finally figured I’d just put it up on its own, a “stub”, so to speak.
In his well-worth-reading discussion of the possibility of adverse selection leading to an insurance death spiral, Yuval Levin points out that:
To provide affordable insurance to people with preexisting conditions, [the exchange system] depends on attracting millions of young, healthy Americans, many of whom do not currently have health insurance because they do not think it is worth their while to buy it, and yet it makes insurance both more expensive and less valuable for precisely those same people.
As he says, “[t]he economics of this always struck many people as implausible”.
So if, in fact, “young, healthy Americans” are not willing to carry the load in the exchanges, another group of not desperately sick people must be found to do so. In the eyes of many who support ObamaCare and particularly in the eyes of many who were unhappy about President Obama supposedly allowing cancelled policies to be un-cancelled, that group of people is made up of those currently insured through the individual market. Those who really, really want to force the currently insured into ObamaCare plans seem to assume first, that the currently insured are unwilling to go without health insurance; and second, that the currently insured are relatively healthy. The former assumption seems somewhat reasonable since these are people who have been buying health insurance, although I have some reservations. The latter assumption is more problematic.
I wonder if the assumption that those currently insured through the individual market are healthier than the uninsured (or, more accurately I suppose, than the uninsured in the same age ranges) might owe something to two wide-spread beliefs about how the individual health insurance market functioned pre-ObamaCare:
1) the belief that if someone is really sick, he can’t get health insurance in the individual market; and
2) the belief that if someone who is insured in the individual market gets really sick, she will be dropped by her insurer under any flimsy pretext.
These two beliefs would naturally lead to the assumption that everyone who is currently insured in the individual market is relatively healthy. However, the individual insurance market doesn’t really work that way and hasn’t for quite a while.
With regard to the first belief, Megan McArdle explains that it is not universally true that those who are sick cannot get insurance:
Since the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act passed in 1996, people with pre-existing conditions can still be covered as long as they maintain health coverage. It’s only if your coverage lapses that you run into trouble.
Can some relatively unhealthy people end up without health insurance? Yes. If someone gets sick and cannot afford his health insurance premiums, his coverage will lapse and, if his illness is the sort that could well lead to further health care costs down the road, he may well find it very difficult to get health insurance when he can again afford it. This does not mean, though, that everyone who is or was seriously ill is without individual health insurance.
With regard to the second belief, Ross Douthat links to a Kaiser Health News article explaining that insurers dropping policy holders who get sick (rescission) is rare:
Rescissions are very rare. They apply only to the individual market (less than 10% of private health insurance) and even then they occur less than 4/10ths of 1% of the time. Even when it does happen, there is almost always an appeals process where the decision is reviewed by an internal committee and often submitted to outside reviewers. Further, when insurers are wrong – as they may sometimes be – it is the job of state regulators to correct this injustice.
So the currently insured may not be as healthy as those who want to force them into ObamaCare policies believe. And, in particular, those who have been buying health insurance in the individual market and are willing to continue doing so even as ObamaCare drives up premiums and reduces benefits would seem to be those who are more likely to have health problems themselves.
In order to survive, ObamaCare needs an influx of relatively healthy people who are well enough off not to end up in Medicaid. Otherwise, the risk pools for ObamaCare policies are going to end up with mostly sick people whose health care costs exceed the premiums they pay. The insurance companies will lose money hand over fist; the government will have to bail them out and/or insurers will bow out for 2015; the insurers who remain in the individual market will increase premiums for next year.
So far, things don’t look too good. Although information is spotty, a lot of people who go through the exchanges seem to be ending up in Medicaid. Those buying insurance policies through the exchanges seem to be skewing older, will usually means more medical costs. Anecdotally, the success stories we’re hearing about are people who are seriously or chronically ill and are grateful to finally get health insurance so they can receive treatment. That’s a good thing from a human point of view but not great for the survival of ObamaCare. Also anecdotally, there are “a lot” of people who are electing early renewal on their existing insurance plans which means they are not part of the ObamaCare policy risk pools. And there seems to be an increased interest in going without health insurance. with information about self-pay and alternatives like accident insurance being passed around - although, of course, we don’t know how many people will take such a drastic step when push comes to shove.
So if the young and healthy don’t seem interested in buying ObamaCare policies and those who currently buy insurance in the individual market are doing everything possible to stay out of the ObamaCare plans, who can offset the older people and the sicker people who are eager to sign up? Simple: Those who believe ObamaCare is worth saving and who currently have health insurance through their employers.
Currently employed ObamaCare supporters can choose to forgo their employer-provided plans and enroll in the ObamaCare plans. Because they are healthy enough to work they are, pretty much definitionally, relatively healthy. True, very few of them will be eligible for subsidies. Also true, they will almost certainly find that the ObamaCare policies provide worse coverage or cost more (or both) than their employer-provided plans. But if they want to save ObamaCare, their flooding into the ObamaCare metallics will do it. And surely if currently employed ObamaCare supporters believe it is right and good that millions of people must give up the individual policies they like and take on plans with higher costs and worse coverage in order to help the sick and the needy, those same ObamaCare supporters must also believe it is right and good that they themselves should do the same.
In a comment to my earlier post about ObamaCare providing subsidies to help with out-of-pocket costs, Grim asked whether the out-of-pocket subsidies (available only to those who purchase a Silver-level plan) are “generous enough at -250% FPL that it's cheaper to buy a Silver plan than a Bronze or Catastrophic?” After thinking about it, it seemed to me that the way to figure out how much someone will save by buying a Silver plan with out-of-pocket subsidy instead of a Bronze-level plan without such a subsidy is to look at the difference between the actuarial value of the two kinds of policies and see how that compares to the price difference between the two policies.
To do this comparison, I used the Silver and Bronze plans offered by Health Republic Insurance of New Jersey, a health insurance co-op seeded through ObamaCare. Specifically, I compared their two Prime Plans. The monthly premiums are (I told them I was 35 - a harmless fantasy with one of “those” birthdays coming up):
Silver Prime Plan - $384.99
Bronze Prime Plan - $346.75
Therefore, the Silver plan costs $458.88 more than the Bronze plan for the entire year.
From the subsidy information page I cited in my earlier post, I get the following information about the actuarial values of the out-of-pocket subsidies as determined by how your income relates to the Federal Poverty Level (FPL):
If your income is 200-250% of the FPL, a Silver policy must cover 73% of your costs.
If your income is 150-200% of the FPL, a Silver policy must cover 87% of your costs.
If your income is 100-150% of the FPL, a Silver policy must cover 94% of your costs.
We also know that:
If your income is more than 250% of the FPL, you do not qualify for an out-of-pocket subsidy. In that case, a Silver policy must cover 70% of your costs.
Regardless of your income level, a Bronze policy must cover 60% of your costs.
So what we want to know is: How much do you have to spend on health care to recoup the difference between the cheaper Bronze policy and the more expensive Silver policy; that is, to recoup your extra $458.88 in annual premiums?
If your income is more than 250% of the FPL, we can frame this question as:
How much must you spend so that 10% of your spending is greater than $458.88?
The 10% is the greater cost coverage (actuarial value) of a Silver plan (70%-60%).
Answer: You must spend $4,588.80 in order to break even if you buy a Silver policy rather than a Bronze one.
Now we can do the same math for the various out-of-pocket subsidy levels, using their coverages (73%, 87%, 94%) to determine how much more they cover than a Bronze plan at 60%. This gives us cost coverage differentials of 13%, 27%, and 34% which yield the following calculations:
If your income is 200-250% of the FPL, you must spend $3,529.85 in order to break even.
If your income is 150-200% of the FPL, you must spend $1,699.44 in order to break even.
If your income is 100-150% of the FPL, you must spend $1,349.65 in order to break even.
So - and obviously this makes sense - the lower your income and the more you spend on health care, the better deal a Silver plan is for you. But does the out-of-pocket subsidy always make it cheaper for someone whose income is less than 250% of the FPL to go Silver rather than Bronze? No, it doesn’t - assuming, of course, that I’m thinking about this correctly.
Walking through this exercise has made me curious about how the out-of-pocket subsidy is being presented to consumers. The Kaiser subsidy calculator tries to explain it in summary form. For example, if I tell the calculator I’m 35 and live in New Jersey and make $20,000 per year, it tells me about my subsidy and some of my options, and then says:
Out of Pocket Costs
Your out-of-pocket maximum for a Silver plan (not including the premium) can be no more than $2,250. [snip]
You are guaranteed access to a Silver plan with an actuarial value of 87%. This means that for all enrollees in a typical population, the plan will pay for 87% of expenses in total for covered benefits, with enrollees responsible for the rest. If you choose to enroll in a Bronze plan, the actuarial value will be 60%, meaning your out-of-pocket costs when you use services will likely be higher.
As I change the income amount I give it, the out-of-pocket maximum and actuarial value for a Silver plan change accordingly.*
The Kaiser article I cited earlier says that the application of the subsidy can be structured differently from one insurance company to another because insurers “have some flexibility in how they structure their plans to meet cost-sharing reductions.” The article gives an example of way this may work in California, where policies are required “to standardize deductibles, copayments and coinsurance amounts”:
In California, for example, a standard silver plan will have a $2,000 deductible, a $6,400 maximum out-of-pocket limit and a $45 copayment for a primary care office visit. Someone whose income is between 150 and 200 of the poverty level, on the other hand, will have a silver plan with a $500 deductible, a $2,250 maximum out-of-pocket limit and $15 copays for primary care doctor visits.
I suppose it’s possible that all States with their own exchanges have required insurance companies “to standardize deductibles, copayments and coinsurance amounts.” If they haven’t, I’m sure the programmers writing their exchanges wish they had.
*****
Notes:
* Interestingly, it does this for New Jersey even though New Jersey does not have a State exchange and, therefore, out-of-pocket subsidies should not be available. I don’t know if this means that the Kaiser calculator simply isn’t worrying about stuff like that or that the Obama Administration has decided to ignore that part of the law also.
I’m On November 24, the Fox News Sunday roundtable discussed Obamacare; you can see the entire segment here. At about 3:25, Chris Wallace asked a question, posing it first to Nina Easton from Forbes and then to Juan Williams:
Wallace: Nina, let’s assume - because at some point the website will start working - but we still have millions of people with cancelled policies. As it turns out this week, we’re finding out that doctors are not being included in a lot of these plans so the promise that “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor” is not true. From your reporting, as the next few months go on, will the experience of ObamaCare be better or worse for people?
Easton: I think George [Will] put his finger on it with that word “kerosense” because this was supposed to be a safety net program, this was supposed to make people feel more secure. What it’s doing is making people feel less secure. So, beyond the website problems, you’ve got now stories of cancellations, the Stage 4 cancer victim who suddenly doesn’t have coverage to go to her own doctors. You’ve got the child, this chronically sick child, who can’t go to the Seattle Children’s Hospital because the cost of that hospital is so high and they’re not included. You’ve got these stories after stories coming out now. And then you’ve got AIE coming out this week saying, well...
Wallace: American Enterprise Institute, conservative think tank.
Easton: American Enterprise Institute, conservative think tank. But it says, is predicting millions, tens of millions more cancellations by small businesses coming around next Fall deciding that - they got in under the line, it’s complicated, but they got in under the wire this time with their policies, but now they’re going to have to have Obama standard policies, and there’s going to be cancellations coming out there. So there’s this sense, this deep sense, of insecurity that I think has infused the body politic and it’s going to affect the 2014 elections.
Wallace: Juan.
Williams: Well, you know, I got to go talk with the President and senior officials at the White House this week and this topic came up and, I mean, and their position is, look, ObamaCare inherits all the problems of health care generally but no one was promising that everyone was going to the executive suite at the Mayo Clinic. The idea is that you had people who were uninsured, people who were underinsured, and what the Affordable Care Act does is to set minimum standards for networks to make sure that people have someplace to go and there were so many people who had no place to go and that’s what they’re addressing in trying to put in place this program. And yet, I mean the attacks, I think this is just, again, more attacks coming from Republicans who don’t like the plan. And guess what? I’ve gotten that message, I think the President and the White House has gotten it, they don’t like it. It’s what the White House now calls the original sin. They cannot work or expect Republicans to work with them to fix the plan.
My first reaction to Williams’ ludicrous response was that Williams (and presumably “the President and senior officials”) are totally clueless. The cancellations are not about an “executive” - presumably a middle-aged man who has spent his entire adult life smoking, drinking, eating too much, and chasing his secretary around the desk - now experiencing health problems and expecting the government to pay for his platinum-plated health care. The cancellations are about - as Easton says - seriously ill people, including children, who currently have good health care and are losing that care. To claim that someone with advanced cancer who wants to keep seeing the doctors that are keeping her alive is asking for the moon is just ridiculous. And to claim that parents who want their chronically ill children to keep getting the top-flight treatments that are helping those children are greedy pigs gorging at the public trough is disgusting.
Now, though, I think the response of Williams, et. al., reflects not cluelessness but a new overarching narrative: In order for the uninsured to get any insurance, those currently buying their own insurance in the individual market will have to get worse insurance - and any of the currently insured who object to this are selfish. In other words, it is right and just that those who have something should have less so those who have nothing can have more. This is naked redistribution in its starkest terms. And what ObamaCare redistributes is not just money - it’s lousy health insurance, uncertain health insurance, and the attendant fear and suffering. ObamaCare redistributes misery, taking it from those who haven’t had health insurance and giving it to those who have.
Is it good that people who have not been able to get health insurance can now get it? Yes, it is. Am I willing to pay little extra to help them get that health insurance? Yes, I am. Am I willing to make my own health insurance and, therefore, probably my own health care worse to help them? No, I am not. Am I willing to live with the uncertainty unleashed by ObamaCare and the realization that I have no recourse against the government’s ham-fisted “improvements” to my health insurance in order to help people without health insurance? No, I am not.
I’m willing to help people who cannot afford to buy food by having the government give them money, including some of my money. I am not willing to help them by having the government tell me what kinds of food I’m forbidden to buy, what kinds of food I’m required to buy, and what price I must pay for my food. I’m willing to help people who cannot afford to buy shelter by having the government give them money, including some of my money. I am not willing to help them by having the government tell me what rooms I’m forbidden to have in my home, what rooms I’m required to have in my home, and what price I must pay for my home. I’m willing to help people who cannot afford health insurance by having the government give them money, including some of my money. I am not willing to help them by having government tell me what health insurance I’m forbidden to buy, what insurance I’m required to buy, and how price I must pay.
Period. (Although, as someone pointed out to me recently, “period” just doesn’t mean what it once did.)
*****
Reading:
Mickey Kaus has some interesting posts on another anger-inducing aspect of ObamaCare: there is a very targeted, very visible monetary redistribution that has fallen not on all or most of the taxpayers in the country but only on those who are “over 400% of poverty unlucky enough to be in the famous 3% who are trapped in the individual insurance market”. (I actually think even many people who fall below 400% of poverty and therefore get subsidies may find themselves worse off financially once the high deductibles, limited networks, and scarcity of out-of-network plans manifest themselves - but that’s not yet a highly visible problem.) His points about how narrowly targeted this monetary redistribution is are also true for the misery redistribution I write about above.
You can read through Kaus’ recent posts - the ObamaCare ones are obvious from their titles - but here are snippets from a couple of them:
3 Problems with Today’s Obamacare Excuse:
It’s BS for Gruber to suggest that the current “small number” of losers is inevitable in any attempt to “fix” the insurance market. Obama could have constructed a reform along Medicare lines, with a large number of Americans who lost a little by virtue of paying higher taxes. [snip]
Instead Obama (and Gruber) created his “small” number of big losers–a seemingly arbitrary group (since they are only those affluent people who happen to be in the individual market). And, again, it’s anger at that arbitrariness and unfairness Obamacare objectors are mainly expressing, not a general aversion to helping the poor.
Eddie Murphy in Reverse:
It would be one thing, after all, to tax everyone who made more than 400% of poverty and use the money to finance health care for the poor. It’s another to say that in any particular situation where the government has to charge for a service it can almost reflexively charge those who make over “400%FPL” more than other citizens. The first is standard broad-based redistribution (whatever you think of it). The second is a sort of branding, in which better-off people–and 400% of poverty, $62,040 for a couple, is not that better off–are presumed fair targets for adverse discrimination on any given occasion. [snip]
If you want to produce a political rebellion, this seems like a good recipe: social inequality that disses the top 50% of society, including the heart of the middle class. There’s a reason Bill Clinton didn’t think of this.
And finally, What’s the Obamacare line today?. No snippet, just a fun read.
[When I tell any truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do. - William Blake]
Apparently some of the media reported that Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey had decided not to renew their Basic and Essential plans. As Horizon’s original statement on this made clear, this was not Horizon’s decision but was made for it by the recently promulgated Federal regulations.
Horizon has released another statement (missing link added) entitled, “Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey Statement Correcting Media Accounts About the Renewal of Canceled Health Plans,” to make this not just clear but extra super-duper crystalline (emphasis mine):
In response to media stories that incorrectly state that Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey decided not to renew individual health plans that the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance said could be renewed, the company's Director of Public Affairs, Thomas Rubino, issued the following statement:
"Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey would like to be able to renew its Basic and Essential and Basic and Essential Plus plans (B & E plans) currently held by more than 90,000 members. Horizon BCBSNJ had every intention to renew the plans, based upon President Obama's declaration that health insurers would be able to renew recently cancelled plans.
The federal government, however, has decided not to allow New Jersey’s B & E plans to be renewed in their current form. The B & E plans would have to be drastically altered, which would significantly increase premiums.
In order for Horizon BCBSNJ to renew the current B & E plans, the federal government needed to extend its waiver to the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance to allow the current B & E plans to be renewed for another year because these plans do not conform to Affordable Care Act mandates. The federal government has refused to extend this waiver, which expires on December 31, 2013. Without the waiver, the current B & E plans no longer exist and cannot be renewed. This was not Horizon BCBSNJ’s decision.
The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance made this clear in its statement Wednesday, when it said: "Further guidance provided as recently as this week by the federal government makes clear that even if an individual wants to keep their existing coverage in New Jersey, certain provisions will still be altered in order to make each plan consistent with federal mandates."
Horizon BCBSNJ understands our members’ frustration that they will not be able to keep their current B & E plans. If given the option to do so, Horizon BCBSNJ would renew the current B & E plans for our members.
Members who currently have Horizon BCBSNJ B & E plans will be able to keep their current plans until the renewal date of their policy in 2014. At that time, they will have to choose a new ACA compliant health plan.
You know things are getting interesting when your insurance company is trying to defend you from your government. I figured the least I could do was return the favor.
[Those who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it. - Lysander Spooner (of whom I had never heard but who turns out to be a remarkably interesting man)]
Here’s what President Obama said on November 14, 2013, when he announced that his Administration would not prosecute health insurance companies who continued to sell plans already in effect, even if they did not meet the ObamaCare requirements or the grandfathering requirements:
Already people who have plans that pre-date the Affordable Care Act can keep those plans if they haven’t changed. That was already in the law. That’s what’s called a grandfather clause that was included in the law. Today we’re going to extend that principle both to people whose plans have changed since the law too [sic] effect and to people who bought plans since the law took effect.
So state insurance commissioners still have the power to decide what plans can and can’t be sold in their states, but the bottom line is insurers can extend current plans that would otherwise be cancelled into 2014. And Americans whose plans have been cancelled can choose to re-enroll in the same kind of plan. [snip]
And — and so what we want to do is to be able to say to these folks, you know what, the Affordable Care Act is not going to be the reason why insurers have to cancel your plan. Now, what folks may find is the insurance companies may still come back and say, we want to charge you 20 percent more than we did last year, or we’re not going to cover prescription drugs now. But that will — that’s in the nature of the market that existed earlier.
On that same date, a letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services clarified that the President’s announcement did not cover all of 2014:
... health insurance coverage in the individual or small group market that is renewed for a policy year starting between January 1, 2014, and October 1, 2014, and associated group health plans of small businesses, will not be considered to be out of compliance with the market reforms specified below under the conditions specified below.
At that point, the “conditions specified below” were that the policy be in effect as of October 1, 2013, and that the insurance company send a notice explaining how the policy being renewed did not conform to ObamaCare standards and that the policy holder has other options for coverage.
The letter also lists the parts of ObamaCare with which the insurance companies are permitted to not comply. It is now clear that either there are some significant portions of ObamaCare that were not included in that list, or that the Administration has changed the rules again. Either way, the President’s November 14 statement has been revealed to be untrue.
The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance has given health insurance companies the option of continuing cancelled health care plans, thus taking the President up on his offer. However, the November 26 press release announcing this decision cautions (emphasis mine):
“Despite the President’s recent announcement of a fix claiming that individuals will be able to keep their existing coverage, the fact is that many plans cannot be renewed in their current form and face selective enforcement by the federal government,” Commissioner Kobylowski said. “However, while restrictive federal parameters exist, we will cooperate with health insurers that choose to renew these plans.”
Further guidance provided as recently as this week by the federal government makes clear that even if an individual wants to keep their existing coverage in New Jersey, certain provisions will still be altered in order to make each plan consistent with federal mandates. Some of these potential changes include:
- In the individual market, plans that were supposed to be fixed by the President’s recent announcement will still have to eliminate the annual limits;
- In the small employer market, services that are now covered under an annual cap will have to be revised to remove the cap; and
- Continuing plans will still be subject to federal Obamacare fees and taxes for 2014.
Because of these changes, despite what the President and the Obama administration has recently claimed, it is anticipated that health insurance costs will increase for New Jersey consumers.
The most popular plan in the New Jersey individual market is the Basic and Essential Plan, which covers more than 109,000 consumers and currently includes annual limits as a means to keep the premium affordable. Obamacare’s elimination of the annual limits will devastate this plan, and rates may require adjusting to cover the cost of additional requirements.
In response to the Department’s press release, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey issued a statement on November 27 (emphasis again mine):
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey is evaluating the Department of Banking and Insurance’s decision to allow health insurers the option to continue cancelled health care plans. Given the federal requirements to modify current products, we are assessing the impact to our members. Our initial sense is that this decision may still provide some relief for our small employer customers.
The statement from New Jersey’s Department of Banking and Insurance makes it clear that most New Jersey residents in the individual market will not be able to renew their plans in their current form after December 31, 2013. In particular, the requirement that Basic and Essential and Basic and Essential Plus plans have to be modified to meet Affordable Care Act requirements, essentially means Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey would have to create new plans that would cost substantially more. We do not consider that a viable option for our individual members.
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey is evaluating the operational and financial impact of offering the option of renewing current products to our small employer customers and individual customers, who have products other than Basic and Essential and Basic and Essential Plus. It is important to note that more than 70 percent of consumers in the individual market have the Basic and Essential or Basic and Essential Plus plans.
What was it Obama said again?
And — and so what we want to do is to be able to say to these folks, you know what, the Affordable Care Act is not going to be the reason why insurers have to cancel your plan.
You can say it all you want. Doesn't make it true.
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