Case Against Obamacare Takes Another Hit. People Who Lost Insurance Got It Back

"Where's The Train Wreck?"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/01/wheres-train-wreck.html

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Case against Obamacare takes another blow. "Republicans and their supporters frequently say that 5 million people 'lost' health insurance, because the old policies didn't comply with Obamacare's standards and/or insurers cancelled them pre-emptively. Sometimes Republicans and their supporters imply that these people actually ended up uninsured. But if Rand is right -- and, again, there's no way to be sure right now -- then it would appear most people who lost their old plans were able to get new ones instead. That's consistent with anecdotal reports from insurers. To be clear, that doesn't mean people who lost their old insurance policies are happy about the change -- or that they don't have a legitimate beef with the president, who famously promised that Americans could 'keep their plans.' Some these people are now paying more for their coverage. Some have fewer choices for doctors and hospitals. But plenty of people who lost coverage were able to replace it with plans that were cheaper, more comprehensive, or both. In short, not all the 4.8 million people who lost their old coverage are worse off. It's not even clear that a majority of them are. That's one more reason the case against Obamacare may be even weaker than you've heard." Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic.

Only 1Million Americans Lost Health Insurance, Not The 5 Million Claimed.
(Republicans are lying dogs.)
"The long-awaited Rand Corp. study of Obamacare's effect on health insurance coverage was released Tuesday and confirmed the numbers that had been telegraphed for more than a week: At least 9.3 million more Americans have health insurance now than in September 2013, virtually all of them as a result of the law. That's a net figure, accommodating all those who lost their individual health insurance because of cancellations. The Rand study confirms other surveys that placed the number of people who lost their old insurance and did not or could not replace it -- the focus of an enormous volume of anti-Obamacare rhetoric -- at less than 1 million. The Rand experts call this a 'very small' number, less than 1% of the U.S. population age 18 to 64....Rand acknowledges that its figures have limitations -- they're based on a survey sampling, meaning that the breakdowns are subject to various margins of error, and they don't include much of the surge in enrollments in late March and early April. Those 3.2-million sign-ups not counted by Rand could "dramatically affect" the figures on total insureds, the organization said." Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times.