In a surprising admission of bad news (behind the Boston Globe paywall on May 20), the Boston Globe reports that Obamacare's federally run state exchanges will be even worse than the RomneyCare exchange that has existed here in Massachusetts for the last few years. Hopefully there is some good news in that comparison for President Obama -- he needs some this week -- and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). If the comparision holds up, Obama will be happy to learn that very few people in Massachusetts actually use the RomneyCare exchange to buy health care insurance.
As the first illustration above shows, only around 40,000 people -- much less than 1% of Massachusetts' 6,500,000 residents -- are covered by insurance bought through the political-hack-ridden Massachusetts Connector Authority, which basically duplicates Massachusetts political-hack-ridden Medicaid organization. The 30 or so states that decided not to implement their own hack-ridden PPACA-related authority are saving themselves tens of millions of dollars.
The membership in insurance bought on the RomneyCare exchange has plateaued at the 40,000 number more or less since after the initial marketing. Most of the membership involves individually purchased insurance. There have been multiple failed attempts to involve small businesses. Discretion being the better part of valor, Obama has decided to forgo an attempt to involve small businesses in the federally run exchanges in other states.
As the second illustration1 shows, most of those insured by policies bought on the RomneyCare exchange are choosing the highest deductible policies possible. Their idea is to simply do the minimum mandated by RomneyCare to avoid the RomneyCare tax.
1 Subscriber numbers differ from membership numbers because some subscribers insure spouses or other family members on their policies. YAP refers to a high deductible plan for young adults that apparently do not want to be insured on their parents' policies any more than they want to live in their parents' basements.