The Money Pit: Obamacare is already going broke

Not even raiding half a trillion dollars from Medicare upon this ill-conceived healthcare law's inception could stave off such a sinkhole. In a nutshell, as predicted by many, it appears that too many older, sicker people are signing up for Obamacare, while not enough young and healthy are buying it to subsidize the offset...

Reuters: Now that more than 2 million people have signed up for private insurance plans created by President Barack Obama's healthcare law, a crucial next check-up for the new marketplace will be to see how old customers are.

Early data from a handful of state exchanges shows the administration needs more young adults to sign up in the next three months to help offset costs from older enrollees and prevent insurers from raising their rates.

Critics of Obama's Affordable Care Act say the market won't attract enough young people to keep it financially viable, putting more pressure on government funds to compensate for any insurer losses.

USAToday: More than half of the almost 2.2 million people who bought health insurance on federal and state exchanges in the past three months are older than 45, records released Monday show.

If that trend holds, it could skew the health insurance market as older policy holders that use more health care are not balanced by younger policyholders who tend to use less health care. In effect, the younger policy holders subsidize older ones.

MarketWatch: Just 24% of the 2.2 million people who chose insurance plans through the state and federally run insurance exchanges by Dec. 28 were between the ages of 18 and 34, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, which released demographics data on enrollees for the first time on Monday. Health pros say that’s below expectations, with one estimate from the Kaiser Family Foundation finding that about 40% of the people expected to enroll in insurance plans would be in that age group.

If more young people don’t sign up for insurance before the end of the enrollment period on March 31, consumers may face higher insurance rates next year, experts say. That’s because insurance companies would find themselves without enough younger and healthier customers to help offset the costs of covering older and sicker Americans...

As more preexisting condition coverage comes into play, that will seemingly compound the problem. Not to mention the likelihood of this trend extending to the delayed employer mandate...of course, the administration doesn't want us even considering that until after the 2014 midterms.

Oh, and don't think Obamacare's the only thing going broke, as you here the sucking sound hit your own wallet.