Experts Expound

“Is California ready to fully implement the Affordable Care Act? The deadline to ramp up Covered California is Oct. 1 and the full kickoff for ACA is scheduled for Jan. 1. Are we ready?”

Ready or not, here it comes. All the planning in the world and a likely media splash still won’t be enough because the bar has been set so high for the program’s success, and Republicans are eager to see it fail.

California is more ready than any other state. We have taken the ACA seriously from the start, unlike GOP governors in some other states, and there will be no repealing Obamacare in California.

We are more ready than any other state or the federal government.  Are we ready to start seeing patients and paying claims?  Hard to imagine…

“We” are not ready, and we (and the country) are headed for a train wreck. Obama has already delayed the employer mandate, small companies are cutting full-time employees, and individuals are realizing that it will be much cheaper to pay the penalty than buy insurance, meaning that thousands of individuals will remain uninsured. Other than that, everything is just fine.

We’ll be in decent shape and miles ahead of other states, but there will be plenty of bumps along the way for Obamacare opponents and single-payer advocates to take advantage of.

We appear ready for the launch; the bigger question is whether uninsured Twentysomethings, “the immortal ones,” not being carried on a parental policy, will buy in.

Nothing goes this smoothly, ever, and if anything can screw up, it will. There will be pitfalls, but at the end of the day, this state will serve as a model for other states that are dawdling.

Since health plan revenue depends on younger, healthier people buying into the system, what happens if they don’t? Did you worry about health coverage when you were 21? I know what I worried about and it wasn’t health insurance.

I don’t see how we can possibly be ready when we don’t even know how many people who are uninsured now are going to receive coverage when the law goes into effect. Since this depends on federal dollars, what happens when the administration changes? Will California pick up the tab?

I have no idea.  I know a whole lot of money, time and effort is being spent to make sure that we are ready, but are we?  Hard to know.

California is as ready as any other state to do this.  Probably even more ready that the federal government.  It is bad policy but we are going full speed ahead.

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Ed’s Note: Those from whom we sought opinions include Andrew Acosta, Elizabeth Ashford, Hector Barajas, A.G. Block, Mark Bogetich, Barry Brokaw, Richard Costigan, Dale Debber, Peter DeMarco, Mike Donovan, Jim Evans, Kathy Fairbanks, Jeff Fuller, Rex Frazier, Tom Gede, Ken Gibson, Evan Goldberg, Deborah Gonzalez, Sandy Harrison, Bob Hertzberg, Gale Kaufman, Jason Kinney, Dave Lesher, Elizabeth Leslie, Chris Lehane, Greg Lucas, Donna Lucas, Mike Madrid, Aaron McLear, Nicole Mahrt, Steve Maviglio,  Adam Mendelsohn, Jacob Mejia, Beth Miller, Paul Mitchell , Barbara O’Connor, Kassy Perry, Jack Pitney, Matt Rexroad, Roger Salazar, Dan Schnur, Will Shuck, Ray Sotero, Garry South, Kevin Spillane, Robin Swanson, Ben Tulchin, Angie Wei, Scott Wetch.