Who Would Have Thought? Another Week, Another Obama Care Calamity. Again.

It has almost gotten to the comical stage. It seems every week there is another snafu, disaster or calamity that comes to light when talking about Obama Care. Before getting into the latest, let's quickly review what has happened in some of the preceding weeks and months:

• Major U.S. corporations including AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, John Deere, and MacDonald's have publicly stated that it is highly likely they would consider dropping health care coverage for their current and retired employees because the Obama Care legislation makes it more profitable for them to pay a small fine for not providing health care insurance than continuing to provide it. Thus, Obama Care is not likely to achieve its objective of reducing the number of Americans without health care insurance, it will actually result in millions of Americans losing their current health care coverage.
• The original Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis estimated that Obama Care would reduce the nation's national debt by about $125 billion over the first ten years. However, subsequent analyses, that was extensively reported by the Associated Press, showed that the CBO analysis did not consider all of the cost components that were included in the final legislation. They estimated that the $125 billion was really closer to only $20 billion over ten years since the additional components actually cost about $105 billion over ten years.
• We then found out that the new way the legislation calculates eligibility for taxpayer subsidized Medicaid health care insurance will allow about three million Americans to become eligible for Federal assistance. Prior to the legislation, the government correctly forbade these three million Americans to get free rides on the taxpayer's taxes. The costs of these three million people will add billions of dollars to the national debt on an annual basis. Now, they will get free assistance, it will wipe out what paltry savings Obama Care still thought it had.
• We then found out that the way the legislation is written, Americans who get most of their income from collecting Social Security will spend substantially less when they apply for Federally subsidized health care insurance than those Americans that have the exact same level of income but get that income from working at a job. Thus, two Americans in the same income brackets and the one that is less of a burden to the government and American taxpayers will pay 50% more than the American that is not working and is more of a burden to the American taxpayer.
• We then found out that if an employee pays more than 9.6% of their salary for health care benefits, they can save that money and get health care insurance from the Federal established health care exchanges. What is potentially likely to happen is that companies might artificially increase the health care burden on its lower paid employees. This would make their health care costs exceed the 9.6% threshold and pushing these employees into the exchanges, saving the companies money and pushing those health care costs on to the Federal government and American taxpayer.
• We then we found out that from a small business survey that many small businesses have already dropped their health care insurance for their employees, either because they saw the expense under Obama Care as too burdensome or because when they went to renew their policies, it had gotten too expensive as a result of the legislation. Thus, like the bigger companies, other businesses are finding it less expensive to dump their current health care insurance programs, the exact opposite  of what Obama Care was supposed to do.
• Back in the spring it was widely reported that within a year of passage of Obama Care, the government had already granted over 1,000 waivers to its provisions. How effective and good is a piece of legislation if within the first year over three exemptions or waivers are granted to its provisions EVERY day?
• Then we found out from an analysis done by an economist at Cornell University, Richard Burkhauser, that the legislation may annually incur an additional $50 billion in government expenses because the law's calculations did not take into account the insurance costs of workers' spouses and children. The original analysis assumed that all workers would only be getting insurance coverage for themselves, a cost that is much lower than what is likely to happen per the way the final legislation was written.
• The same analysis verified the findings of many other experts and discussed above. The Cornell analysis estimates that the legislation's estimate that 75% of workers would remain on their current employer backed health insurance plans is way too optimistic and high. The Cornell analysis suggest that only 35%, less than half of the 75%, of today's workers will be able to keep their current plans. This is the exact opposite of Obama's promise, namely that currently insured Americans could keep their current coverage and policies.
• Another university research report reviewed the results of the Massachusetts health care law that was passed a number of years ago. The Massachusetts law was very, very similar to Obama Care's components. Unfortunately, the reality of the Massachusetts effort is a disaster. Emergency room visits went up while they were supposed to go down, emergency room costs went way up when they were supposed to go down, and overall health care costs escalated quickly when they were supposed to go down or at least go up slower. Thus, virtually none of the Massachusetts objectives in health care have been met, a fate that is likely to befall Obama Care.

All of these latest findings pile on to our original conclusions that 1) Obama Care will be a failure because it uses a heavy handed government bureaucracy approach to a public health issue (Americans eat too much, Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, Americans do not exercise enough, Americans smoke too much, Americans on average are getting older). i.e. they did not understand the root causes of high health care costs, 2) they criminalize Americans who do not purchase health care insurance, and 3) there was no effective tort reform for the health care industry, a primary driver of high costs.

But all of this is a precursor to our weekly Obama Care Calamity. According to a report by the Associated Press that was published on August 4, 2011:

•  Hospitals in Massachusetts will reap an annual windfall of $275 million due to a loophole included the new health care law.
• Hospitals in the vast majority of other states will get less money as a result of the law, 41 out of the 50 states.
• Of those nine that will get more money, the Massachusetts windfall  will be more than five times the amount of the nearest state, number two New Jersey at $54 million annually.
• The article reported that the way Obama Care is written it will encourage states  and hospitals to game and manipulate the system to maximize their payments at the expense of other states, hardly a productive use of time and resources.
• Herb Kuhn, president of the Missouri Hospital Association was quoted in the article: "What we are seeing is innovation in the area of how to manipulate the payment system."
• Steve Brenton, president of the Wisconsin Hospital Association was quoted in the article: "If I could think of a better word than outrageous, I would come up with it."
• Prior to Obama Care, Medicare officials were able to block this gaming and manipulation but Obama Care wiped out Medicare's ability to levelize the playing field.
• According to the article, Medicare officials "expressed concern with what it termed the manipulation of its rules to win an additional 8% increase for one state at the expense of others."

Great, the law has not only ticked off individual citizens and companies struggling to deal with and comprehend  the law's onerous components, regulations, costs, and waste, now we see that the law takes a fair, working situation that is fair to all states and turns it into the Wild West with states unproductively competing and scheming against each other. None of this scheming effort will reduce medical costs, make medicine more efficient in this country, or provide more affordable health care to Americans. It is just another calamity in a string of Obama Care calamities.

Makes you wonder if those in the political class in Washington ever read this legislation. If they did read it, you then wonder if they even understood what was in it and what the negative implications would be and are becoming. In either case, their negligence or their ignorance are the root causes  of this calamity, to the detriment of the country and its citizens.


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