Millions of married, older, white, college-educated, GOP-leaning Americans have quickly seen their political profile rise after their health insurance companies sent them cancellation letters with the launch of the giant new health care law. It’s not a huge segment of the population — estimates show between 10 million to 19 million people bought health insurance from what Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius dubbed the “Wild West” individual marketplace.
But the ones who are making the most anti-Obamacare noise are part of this group (think of the self-employed, small business owners, freelance writers, musicians and taxi cab drivers) that share one politically pertinent common denominator. Their complaints — amplified in recent weeks by Republicans and reporters — demonstrate one of the first tangible stumbles of the Affordable Care Act.
“It’s not theoretical anymore,” said Virginia-based health industry consultant Robert Laszewski. “You can spin in the White House press room, but these are people who will be sitting down with their friends and families at Thanksgiving sharing stories about their cancellation letters. That’s going to be the only thing that counts.”
Horror stories already abound of people who can’t get insurance through their employer and are now finding that their old plans don’t measure up to Obamacare’s standards. There may indeed be better policies around the corner, giving people more protections when they actually do get sick and requiring guaranteed coverage for things like prescription drugs, emergency hospital visits, maternity and mental health and not being black listed due to a preexisting condition.
Still, it’s the shock of the change — especially after President Barack Obama repeatedly promised that anyone could keep the plan that they had — that is very real and threatens to resonate through the 2014 midterm campaign.
“[Obama] may have known this is a more sophisticated issue – you’re going to get better, more benefits – but people who hear politicians are very literal,” said Harvard professor Bob Blendon, an expert on public attitudes toward health care policy.
Critics of the law are all too eager to share the spotlight with the slighted. On Wednesday, the Republican National Committee launched a website soliciting photos and scanned-in copies of letters from insurance companies that cited Obamacare as the reason for ending a policy. Glenn Beck suggests using the hashtag #InsuranceCanceled on Twitter. A tea party group that touted Herman Cain’s 2012 presidential bid has its own repository.
It all adds up to trouble for an Obama White House already on its heels for weeks dealing with a twitchy website. Now, it also has to answer toangry middle-class Americans armed with stories that humanize what’s largely been a battle fought in the policy weeds.
During a pair of House hearings this week, Republicans read aloud a series of constituent letters complaining about losing their self-purchased health insurance.
“It’s what they wanted,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said during a heated confrontation with Sebelius. “And I’ll remind you some people like to drive a Ford and not a Ferrari. And some people like to drink out of a red Solo cup, not a crystal stem. You’re taking away their choice.”
Sebelius replied that people who got cancellation notices must be offered new insurance plans either inside the new Obamacare marketplace or — if they don’t qualify for federal subsidies — inside or outside the marketplace. “They absolutely will have new coverage,” she said.
Obama himself acknowledged some people would lose their insurance during a health care speech Wednesday in Boston, though he also took aim at the “bad-apple insurers” who have been selling “cut-rate plans that don’t offer real financial protection in the event of a serious illness or an accident.”
“Now, if you had one of these substandard plans before the Affordable Care Act became law and you really liked that plan, you’re able to keep it. That’s what I said when I was running for office. That was part of the promise we made,” Obama said. “But ever since the law was passed, if insurers decided to downgrade or cancel these substandard plans, what we said under the law is you’ve got to replace them with quality, comprehensive coverage — because that, too, was a central premise of the Affordable Care Act from the very beginning.”
So who falls into the roughly five percent of the U.S. population that is actually getting these cancellation letters?
For starters, it’s not the 156 million working-age Americans who get their health insurance through employers, or 60.2 million who are covered by public programs, like Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program or Veterans Affairs insurance.
Major insurance companies contacted by POLITICO didn’t have demographic information on their customers. But the U.S. Census Bureau, think tanks and private foundations that track health care issues do have an idea.
According to Census Bureau data, 11.2 million people between 2010 and 2012 reported being a part of the private insurance marketplace, with large population states like California, Texas, Florida and New York providing the lion’s share of customers. But several smaller states also had large amounts of people who purchased their own insurance, including Colorado (275,000 people), Missouri (261,000 people), Oregon (192,000 people) and North Dakota (46,000 people).
Census data also shows about 4.6 million people who purchased their own insurance were married with the spouse present, with 1 million divorcees and 5.1 million people who never were married.
At the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a July survey found 81 percent of the people who bought their own insurance were white, with more than 60 percent married and living with their spouse. Forty-five percent said they had two children living in the household. Nearly half were between the ages of 18 and 44.
@Politico
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