[1]
by NW Spotlight
Amidst the noise of the disastrous Obamacare marketplaces rollout, many Americans probably didn’t notice that just before Thanksgiving the Obama administration moved next year’s open enrollment period [2] out by one month – so that voters won’t know what their insurance premium increases will be until AFTER the 2014 election. The change moves the enrollment period from an Oct. 15, 2014 start to a Nov. 15, 2014 start – after the 2014 election.
The White House claims [3] the move “gives [insurance companies] more time to assess the pool of people who are getting insurance through the marketplaces and then make decisions about what rates will look like in the coming year.”
Touching as this newfound concern for insurance companies by the Obama administration is, the delay of next year’s open enrollment period is a clear admission on the part of the President of yet another Obamacare failure. An indication that the White House anticipates skyrocketing insurance premiums as a result of Obamacare – and they want to hide this from voters until after next year’s midterm elections.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) condemned the move, saying [2] “If premiums go through the roof in the first year of Obamacare, no one will know about it until after the election. This is clearly a cynical political move by the Obama Administration to use extra-regulatory, by any means necessary tools to keep this program afloat and hide key information from voters… The Administration is welcome to prove me wrong by committing to put out 2015 plan year premium rates by November 1, 2014.”
Coverage notes
- The individual insurance market provides coverage [4] to more than 19 million Americans, or about 5% of the population [5].
- Around 49% of the population [5] is covered by employer-based insurance, or around 154 million Americans [6].