AP: Q&A: Status update as health law marks a milestone

[Omaha Steve]

Thoughts?

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140401/DACT69L80.html

By NANCY BENAC

WASHINGTON (AP) - Like so much about the government's health care overhaul, Monday's deadline to sign up for coverage in 2014 didn't turn out quite as planned: Many people still are eligible for extensions that will let them enroll.

The change of plans shouldn't come as much of a surprise, given the disastrous HealthCare.gov rollout last fall, the mass policy cancellation notices that shocked even the president, and other set-in-law deadlines that turned out not to be not so firm.


Applicants wait during a health care enrollment event at SEIU-UHW office, Monday, March 31, 2014, in Commerce, Calif. Monday marks this year's open enrollment deadline, but consumers will get extra time to finish their applications. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)


Still, step by step, the law is taking effect. People are signing up. Insurance is kicking in or changing for millions of Americans.

It's time for a status report as the law marks a milestone, although no one's quite sure how to define success:

FULL story at link.

[Trust Buster]

1. I can define success with regards to the ACA

Success is 7 million citizens acquiring healthcare insurance independent of a particular employer. Success is untold millions more acquiring healthcare insurance through Medicaid expansion and by the ability to stay on their parents healthcare plan through 26 years of age. Success is the abolition of pre-existing condition status and yearly and lifetime caps. The legacy of this law, IMO, is that in an age when an employer can ship your job to a third world labor market in the blink of an eye, you now have an affordable and independent path to health insurance. You have more freedom. That, IMO, will represent the ACA's ultimate metric of success.