Covered California Uncovered—Hijole Mano!

By Arthur Christopher Schaper (Bio and Archives)  Friday, March 14, 2014
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The San Jose, California Mercury News has reported that fifteen percent of people who have enrolled in Covered California have not yet paid their premiums.

That’s not good. What’s the point of an insurance exchange if no one is paying in so that the insurance companies can pay out when someone is sick and goes to the hospital?

This quote stands out, proving that the numbers, no matter how the Obama Administration and his Democratic colleagues may spin them, are spiraling down:

Health plans say they are doing everything possible to contact those enrollees who didn’t pay—through email, phone and snail mail. But it’s becoming increasingly likely that tens of thousands of Californians could end up the way they started—uninsured.

The insurance companies have taken to every means available to contact these provisional enrollees. They face the same fate which millions of uninsured (and unsure) Americans have struggled with in the federal exchange or their state exchanges.

The same President who claimed that we are the change we have been waiting for, who talked about the oceans rising, and the costs of health care falling, has fallen into his own rhetoric, and can’t get up.

Reports from the Washington Examiner, challenged by the LA Times, also indicate that an increasing number of doctors are refusing patients with Obamacare insurance. A CBS San Francisco report confirms, however, that California doctors are not thrilled with ObamaCare, or with Covered California, and many are shocked to find themselves listed on the Covered CA website, as though they will receive ObamaCare insurance payments. A more recent report highlights the complaints of new enrollees, who face a limited number of doctors, many of whom are not readily available.

While Covered California is uncovered to reveal that not as many people are covered, or will cover those seeking coverage, the state exchange has reached a new low to attract not only young enrollees (many of whom would rather pay the fine, and most likely won’t have to, since President Obama has waived the fee unilaterally).

The new advertisement presents migrant agricultural activist Cesar Chavez whipping up migrant workers, saying “Now is the time,” then misconstruing Scripture with “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.”

Then fellow migrant activist Dolores Huerta joins in with Covered California advocates to shame Latinos to get insurance. For her pitch, claiming to speak for Chavez, Huerta launches into compelling young Latinos to sign up for health insurance:

We have to be responsible citizens. If we do not do our part, we cannot help our community. Were talking about millions of Latinos who do not have health insurance. if you don’t sign up ,then your abuelos, your tios will not be able to have the health insurance.

People have worked so hard for the last sixty years, where every body in the United Sates can have health insurance. All you have to do is sign up.

And even if young Latinos, or members of any other ethnic group, wanted to sign up for health insurance through Covered California, they would uncover sign-upwebsite in Spanish, one which has forced Hispanic applicants to seek help just to decipher the meanings, along with outlandish prices.

If young Americans want to be responsible, then they will not take on the costs of Covered California policies, which are prohibitively expensive. President Obama even called on young people to give up their cellphone to get health insurance. That is terribly irresponsible, considering that such communication is crucial just to set up an interview to get a job, which many young people, including Latinos, are struggling to get.

President Obama also shamed Hispanic voters in a town hall, claiming that they should prioritize their costs. By the way, President Obama was responding to a gentleman with three kids who lives on $35,000 a year, and the cheapest plan he could find would cost his family $300 a month.

The ObamaCare rollout has been an unmitigated disaster, with rising costs, less access, with media affiliates no longer able to carry water for their media-hyped President. Uncovering Covered Califorina, one finds a system which has few insured, fewer who are paying, and fewest of all from the very demographics which the Obama Administration is trying to reach.

How low can one go? If you don’t sign up, you will kill your Grandpa? Hijole mano!