People with canceled policies could dampen financial risks of online marketplaces

People who had their insurance policies canceled could improve the financial risks for the health law's online marketplace risk pool, a fact often ignored by those hammering the law. In the meantime, the uninsured and young aren't flocking to the marketplaces yet, and a health policy expert says one fix could help improve marketplace enrollment.

The Associated Press: People Whose Coverage Is Being Canceled Could Improve Overall Risk Of Obama Insurance Plan
It's Economics 101, a little-noticed consequence of a controversial policy decision. And there are winners and losers. Millions of people who currently buy their own health insurance coverage are losing it next year because their plans don't meet requirements of the health care law. But experts say the resulting shift of those people into the new health insurance markets under Obama's law would bring in customers already known to insurers, reducing the overall financial risks for each state's insurance pool (Alonso-Zaldivar, 11/7).

Politico: Uninsured Not Surfing Health Sites
Less than a quarter of uninsured Americans who plan to get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchanges have been to an exchange website, a new poll shows. Asked if they've been to any government health insurance website since they were launched on Oct. 1, only 22 percent of the uninsured who said they planned on using the exchanges said yes, according to a Gallup poll out Friday (Topan, 11/8).

Politico: For Younger People, Obamacare Sign-Up Comes Later
Everyone knows that a couple of million young, healthy people will have to sign up for Obamacare to succeed. But there's one big problem with that: They'll probably wait until the last minute. While older and sicker people have good reason to more aggressively try to get covered, the younger, healthier people aren't likely to exhibit much patience with a balky website. They're likely to put off the mandatory insurance sign up until much closer to the March 2014 deadline (Villacorta, 11/7).

Kaiser Health News: Make Tax Day Also Enrollment Deadline, One Health Expert Says
With one small fix, the administration could satisfy calls from some members of Congress to extend the time people have to enroll in new health insurance through online marketplaces, a health policy expert says (Appleby, 11/7).

The Washington Post's The Fact Checker: Read The Fine Print: GOP Spin On Premium Hikes
[Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio] first refers to President Obama's repeated claim, during the 2008 campaign, that his health plan would reduce costs by $2,500 a year for a typical family. As we have noted before, Obama's claim at the time was quickly criticized by fact checkers, including The Fact Checker, as dubious. ... Portman might have remained on solid ground if he has simply referred to Obama's pledge. But then he contrasted Obama's $2,500 number with a Congressional Budget Office estimate that premiums would go up $2,100 under the health care law. Oops. There are several problems with using this CBO number in this way (Kessler, 11/8).