What We Read Today 05 April 2014

Econintersect: Every day our editors collect the most interesting things they find from around the internet and present a summary “reading list” which will include very brief summaries of why each item has gotten our attention. Suggestions from readers for “reading list” items are gratefully reviewed, although sometimes space limits the number included.

• Who Are Obamacare’s 7 million Enrollees? (Meghan Foley, Wall St. Cheat Sheet) The most complete assessment we have yet seen on the status of Obamacare. Finally someone has put the whole story together without political bias undertones (in some cases bias has been the entire story).

• Gaba sees 16 million QHP enrollees (Allsion Bell, Life Health Pro) Charles Gaba, a closely watched Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act plan enrollment tracker, is reporting at ACASignups.net that he believes at least 6.6 million people have paid for commercial “qualified health plan” coverage through the exchanges or will soon pay for the coverage. Analysts at the Rand Corp. have estimated, based on survey totals, that another 9 million people have bought QHPs outside the exchange system, Gaba says. In addition Gaba says data from the Centers for medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS) indicate an additional 6.6 people have signed up for Medicaid or CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program). Add Gaba’s numbers up and 21-22 million have Obamacare qualified insurance coverage, with 9 million outside of the government sponsored exchanges. With millions more expected to enroll in the April extension period and by qualifying for special enrollment between now and November 14, Obama may be bragging all the way into the mid-term elections.

• Switzerland snubs U.S. effort to sanction Russian billionaires (Caroline Copley and Tom Miles, Reuters) Hat tip to Roger Erickson. Russian officials sanctioned by the European Union will be barred from new business interests in Switzerland but billionaires included on the U.S. sanctions list face no restrictions, the Swiss government said on Wednesday.

• IRA rollover ruling stuns advisers and savers (Robert Powell, Market Watch) You can calm down – the headline is slightly misleading. It applies only to rollovers which involve the distribution to the IRA owner with a rollover from the individual to a new IRA custodian within 60 days. It does not apply to direct transfers from one custodian to another, in spite of the term “rollover” often being applied in those cases. A common term for that is “direct rollover”. Now that you have regained composure you have yet another reason to avoid indirect rollovers which have you in possession of the money for up to 59 days.

• Russian ambassadors: ‘next we’ll take Catalonia, Venice, Scotland and Alaska’ (Shaun Walker, The Guardian) An unauthenticated audio (could well be a hoax) has two Russian diplomats trash talking about taking over the world. Sarah Palin will indeed see Russia from her house – she need only look at the ground she’s standing on.

• Fox News bar chart gets it wrong (Flowing Data) You have not been getting any news the past few days if you haven’t seen this embarrassment. Flowing Data says there is a pattern: See also this, this, and this.

There are 13 articles discussed today ‘behind the wall’.