I knew the individual health insurance market was broken, but I didn't realize it was this broken

Jonathan Cohn's Six Things the Media Doesn't Understand About Obamacare is an excellent read. I've been mulling the implications of this quote he includes, from Karen Pollitz:

In the traditional market, virtually all states require that renewal rate increases must be uniform for all policyholders in a block.  But insurers can close a block, starving it of influx of newly underwritten policyholders, so rates will spiral.  Healthy people in the block will tend to bail because they can still pass underwriting and so move to other, more favorably rated policies.  Sick people stranded in the block will all face the same rate increase at renewal, but it will spiral even more rapidly as risk profile of the block deteriorates.

For someone who is in the individual health insurance market, This. Is. Creepy.  People with employer-provided insurance or Medicare have no idea how broken things are.  Thankfully, on January 1st, 2014 Obamacare ends these games and allows the free market to function properly.

Six Things the Media Doesn't Understand About Obamacare

This article by Jonathan Cohn does an outstanding job of clearing things up.

Update: Jonathan Chait explains Why Letting Everyone Keep Their Health-Care Plan Is a Terrible Idea.

Update #2: Kevin Drum reminds people that Obamacare Will Be a Boon For Millions.

The governors of Connecticut, Kentucky and Washington on how they got Obamacare running so well in their states

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/18/dem_governors_explain_how_they_got_obamacare_working/

A Health Provider Strives to Keep Hospital Beds Empty

Nurses calling patients, asking them not to shovel snow?  It's called accountable care, a provision of the Affordable Care Act with great promise for bending the health care cost curve.

Obamacare's Winners and Losers, in One Chart

In this chart, 97% of the country is either (1) unaffected by Obamacare, or (2) a clear winner.  The remaining three percent of the country ends up getting higher quality insurance at a higher price.

Why Obamacare is good for business

James Surowiecki has a great article in the New Yorker about the effects (and non-effects) of Obamacare on businesses, particularly small ones.  In short, "the likely benefits of Obamacare for small businesses are enormous."  Moreover, Obamacare does away with "job lock," making it easier to start a business.

A great long read regarding Obamacare: Jonathan Chait in the New York magazine.

The Plot to Kill Obamacare: Why it continues to drive many Republicans to madness. By Jonathan Chait.