Jan 7 2014
On one hand, insurance enrollment figures may be short of the numerical goals that were set earlier in the process, but some people still are predicting that health providers will ramp up hiring in response to knew demand created by the overhaul.
Fox News: Obamacare Enrollment Figures Still Far Short Of Administration's Own Goal
While the Obama administration is congratulating itself for signing up 2.1 million people in private plans on state and federal health care exchanges, some analysts say it's a little early to uncork the champagne. Robert Laszewski of Health Policy and Strategy Associates says, "ObamaCare has proven that it can enroll the sick people. To only have 2 million people enrolled out of 20 million uninsured, plus all the canceled policies, indicates you only got a very small group of people enrolled." That's not even enough, he and others argue, to make up for the policies that were canceled because they didn't meet the requirements of ObamaCare (Angle, 1/7).
The Atlanta Journal Constitution: Expect Health Care Providers To Ramp Up Obamacare Hiring
One thing's for sure when it comes to the impact of the Affordable Care Act: Health care and related industries are going to be on a hiring spree in the years to come to meet the demands of the law. While critics say the law will cause companies to cut jobs or work hours so they will not be penalized for not offering health care coverage – actions that are already under way based on anecdotal reports - other observers say the law will create scores of jobs. Health care providers will need more nurse practitioners and physician assistants, and companies that are required to offer insurance to employees will need more human resources staffers to keep track of their compliance (Seward, 1/6).
And, of course, the fact checking continues -
The Washington Post's The Fact Checker: Harry Reid's Claim That Under Obamacare 9 Million People 'Have Health Care That Didn't Have It Before'
There have been lots of numbers tossed around about enrollment under the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, but Reid's figure certainly jumped out at us, given the administration is backing away from its initial target of 7 million enrollees on the exchanges (Kessler, 1/7).
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 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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