Obamacare: There Is No Train Wreck. Obamacare Is Working According To Design

"Where's The Train Wreck?"

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

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In non-Obamacare-train-wreck news... "I have made this point repeatedly, but it’s fundamental enough to bear repeating: The information environment surrounding Obamacare is fundamentally asymmetrical. The liberal policy wonks reporting on the program have made a good faith and highly successful effort to depict both the good and the bad news about the program in context. Conservatives, even the most wonkish ones, have engaged in a one-sided propaganda effort. If you get your news about Obamacare from conservative sources, you have heard an endless succession of horror predictions that, when not borne out, have gone uncorrected. The bottom line is that the program is doing what it was designed to do." Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine.

Other Obamacare reads:

Explainer: 7 factors that make the U.S. system inefficient, expensive. Lillian Thomas in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Analysis: Why did so many insurers sit out the first year? "Insurers sat out of the exchanges for different reasons in year one. Some were wary of the start-up risks. Others were openly taking a wait-and-see approach. Still more, it seems, didn’t want any part in the first year's batch of customers, who were expected to be older and sicker....And while the technical problems associated with the exchanges have been legion, plans that participated have reported predictably higher revenue, if unclear profits. One million more consumers signed up than expected…and while they weren't as young and healthy as the insurance companies had hoped for, they were more customers. Now, more plans want their chance to chase those dollars." Dan Diamond in The Advisory Board.

A 'clunky' transition toward electronic records. "Doctors largely supported the Obama administration’s $30 billion incentive program....They understood the potential of using health IT to reduce medical errors, increase efficiency and give patients and caregivers access to complete, portable and up-to-date records. If that vision isn’t motivating enough, there’s also cash on the line....But the transition has proved painful. Paperless records still don’t flow smoothly among doctors, hospitals and patients and they won’t for some time. Nor have measurable savings or widespread improvements been seen yet. And there’s a difference between liking the idea of electronic health records, or EHRs, and liking the particular systems in use." Arthur Allen in Politico.