In ObamaWorld.
HHS Sebelius has released some guidelines for the new medical risk pools that will hit the streets in 90 days. We already addressed some of the potential problems in an earlier post.
Now it seems others are catching on as well.
The N Y Times makes these observations.
State high-risk pools, all of which operate at a loss, paid a total of $1.9 billion in claims in 2008, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress. The average claims per person totaled $9,437 in that year. Premiums paid by beneficiaries accounted for 54 percent of the money used to operate the existing high-risk pools. Assessments collected from insurance companies accounted for 23 percent of the total, while state general revenues and other taxes accounted for most of the remainder.
Currently risk pools charge 125 - 200% of standard rates, but the ObamaPool has a different math book.
Premiums in the new program will be set at “standard rates,” based on the average premiums charged by private insurers for similar coverage in the individual market.
“If I have cancer, my rate cannot vary based on my having cancer,” said Jeanne M. Lambrew, director of the Office of Health Reform at the Department of Health and Human Services.
For those of you playing along at home, see if you follow this.
Rates currently charged by risk pools are higher than the ObamaPool and those premiums are insufficient to cover the claims. But the ObamaPool uses new math to come up with better benefits and lower premiums.
Must be magic.
Or ObamaMath (like those 57 states he visited and the 3000% premium reductions that were promised).
Dr. Lambrew said the new program would “build on what works.”
I guess you need to define the word "works".
A plan that covers really sick people but does not charge enough to cover their claims would only work in Obamaworld. In the real world, that would be a plan that doesn't work.
So using ObamaMath to set up an ObamaPool in ObamaWorld makes perfect sense.
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