The Devastation That Is Obama Care, February Update: More Jobs lost, More Hours Cut, Higher Costs, Fewer Benefits

Earlier this year we did a long series of posts on Obama Care and the implications of its implementation. The first of those six posts can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-devastation-that-is-obama-care-part.html

The findings were not pretty:

• Companies cutting workers hours in order to get out from the onerous fines and expenses Obama Care would ipose on them, fines and expenses that those companies could not survive under.
• Employees who did not have health insurance before Obama Care now not only have health insurance but have seen their hours and wages cut drastically as a result of the legislation.
• Democratic Senators trying to get parts of the legislation repealed, legislation that they touted, since it is resulting in layoffs to medical device companies and higher unemployment in their home states.
• A piece of legislation that never addressed the true, underlying root causes of our high health care costs in this country, rendering the final law useless in actually resolving the causes of these high health care costs.
• While supposed to provide unviversal health care insurance to every American, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculated late last year that possibly up to twenty million Americans will not have health care insurance coverage in ten years, falling miserably short of the universal coverage goal.
• A majority of states have opted out of having their own Obama Care health care insurance exchanges, forcing the Federal government to step up and provide that service within ten months even though the information systems, the agreements, processes, procedures, etc. for such a massive undertaking are nowhere close to being on schedule.
• Rampant cronyism and conflicts of interest will render the legislation sub-optimal for the country but lucrative to certain political insiders.
• Increases in health care costs for people with existing health care plans in order to fund the “free” stuff that Obama Care gives away.
• Escalating national debt beyond what would have happened without the legislation.

These are a just a sampling of what we covered, the continuing and unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. Well, since these posts, the news has continued to roll in and it is not good, as the following news reports point out:

1) According to a Washington Times article from February 5, 2013, Obama Care, which was supposed to provide universal health care insurance to every American, will actually cause 7 million Americans to lose their current employer-based health insurance coverage. This is almost double the previous estimate. This new, dire prediction is based on the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO said that this year's tax cuts have changed the incentives, in a negative financial way, for businesses to provide health care insurance to their employees, likely resulting in fewer companies continuing to provide coverage. Instead, they'll choose to pay a penalty to the government.

Great program, does the exact opposite of what is supposed to do and the trend is not in the right direction. This is also in direct conflict with Obama’s original boast that workers who liked their current employer provided health care plans would be able to keep their plans. Another promise down the drain, another Obama Care objective missed.

2) In late January, 2013, the IRS announced that the CHEAPEST family health care insurance plan from Obama Care exchanges will cost a whopping $20,000 per year. And this is a so-called “Bronze” plan, gold and silver plans, which offer more features and coverage, will cost even more.

Thus, another objective missed, in addition to the previous objective of getting health care coverage for every American. Not only will Americans not get coverage if they lack it now, as we have previously reported, and not only will Americans currently getting health care coverage from their employers lose it, Obama Care will make it prohibitively expensive for most American families to afford it.

In addition, consider this additional insult. If families do not purchase health care insurance for their families, mostly likely because they cannot afford it, they will have to pay a fine for not getting coverage. Thus, the legislation will result in plans that most families cannot afford and then fines them for not being able to afford the plans the government provides. Insanity.

3) A February 1, 2013 report from CBS in D.C. reported that another medical device company is blaming President Obama’s health care law for the layoffs of nearly 100 of its employees, about 7% of its current workforce. The company, Smith & Nephew, stated that the a 2.3% tax on medical devices in the Obama Care law reduced its profitability and caused the layoffs.

These layoffs are in addition to the many we already described in the previous set of post referenced above. More people losing their jobs and possibly their health care coverage as a result of a piece of legislative garbage that was supposed to increase employment and reduce the number of people without health care insurance.

4) The following Associated Press report is unique in that we had not previously thought this would happen at least partly as a result of Obama Care. A southwestern Pennsylvania hospital, the Windber Medical Center, will stop delivering babies after March, partly because hospital officials believe they will be able to afford providing the service based on revised reimbursements under forthcoming changes to Federal health care provisions as a result of Obama Care.

5) According to a New York Times article from early January, 2013:

• Health care insurance companies across the country are getting double-digit increases in premiums approved for certain customer
• These increases on premiums are occurring even though one of the biggest objectives of Obama Care was to reverse the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.
• Particularly hard hit by the higher rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.
• In California, Aetna has applied for rate increases of as high as 22%.
• Also in California, Anthem Blue Cross has asked for a 26% increase while Blue Shield of California is looking for a 20% increase for some of its customers
• The article points out that these rate increase requests are all coming after a 39% increase requested by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 which helped give momentum to the implementation of Obama Care.
• In other states, including Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20% for some policy holders, amounting to several hundred dollars a month.

No wonder businesses across the nation are cutting back on providing health care insurance for their small business employees. Another Obama Care failure, reining in runaway health care insurance company rates.

So fewer jobs, fewer work hours, fewer people getting health care insurance from their employers and now possibly fewer hospitals delivering babies, all because of Obama Care. The bad news just keeps on rolling in.

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