And the next pieces of that not pretty picture continue below:
1) Fox News recently conducted its own public opinion poll relative to how people feel about Obama care and found the following results, all consistent with the previous polls we reviewed from NBC, CBS, Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:
- The poll found that 57% of registered voters believe that implementation of Obama Care is a joke while 31% say it’s “going fine.”
- Poll participants overwhelming say that Obama Care will have a negative effect on their wallet.
- 71% of those polled believe Obama Care will raise their taxes.
- 62% agree with the premise that Obama Care increase their health insurance premiums.
- 65% believe Obama Care will raise the Federal budget deficit.
- Pluralities of participants of the survey agree with the notion that ObamaCare will reduce the quality of healthcare for themselves and all Americans.
- 63% of Americans say that the law needs to be amended and that Congress should continue working on legislative fixes for the law.
- That’s up from 58% in July.
- Only 31% say think that Congress should move onto other issues and leave Obama Care as it is.
Again, for my liberal friends that automatically knee jerk and convulse whenever Fox News is mentioned, feel free to ignore these poll results, but they are consistent with poll results from mainstream news sources other than Fox.
2) The Associated Press recently did an investigative report on what Obama Care is doing to smaller sized hospitals across the country. Remember that Obama Care cuts the funding for hospitals that accept Medicare and Medicaid patients in order to fund Obama Care’s programs.
If the cut in Medicaid and Medicare funding to hospitals goes through, many of these hospitals will either close because of financials or stop accepting Medicare and Medicaid patients, endangering the health and welfare of those patients:
- Since 2000, 19 hospitals in New York have closed due to financial pressures and two more are about to close.
- Among other causes, the article notes that, “Revenue from government health programs like Medicaid has gotten smaller,” and that situation is expected to get more dire as a result of Obama Care.
- According to the article, actuaries at the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services have been warning about this growing crisis since the passage of Obama Care in 2010.
- Paul Spitalnic, the acting chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is quoted in the article that assuming the Obama Care cuts go into effect, “the prices paid by Medicare for health services are very likely to fall increasingly short of the costs of providing these services. Medicare prices would be considerably below the current relative level of Medicaid prices, which have already led to access problems for Medicaid enrollees, and far below the levels paid by private health insurance. Well before that point, Congress would have to intervene to prevent the withdrawal of providers from the Medicare market and the severe problems with beneficiary access to care that would result.”
What a mess. We actually have a health care law that will make health care less accessible to Americans in the form of fewer financially viable hospitals or fewer hospitals that take Medicare and Medicaid patients in order to stay financially viable. And if the Washington political class gets scared enough to restore the funding to Medicare and Medicaid hospital payments, then the financial model for Obama Care blows up even more.
How badly does it blow up? According to a General Accountability Office analysis, such a scenario would add about $6.2 TRILLION to the national debt. So much for Obama Care “not adding a single dime to the national debt,” as was promised when the legislation was enacted. Just another unintended consequence/disaster of Obama Care, fewer hospital resources to treat the sick.
3) We have made the case many times that those who actually wrote Obama Care were pretty much out of touch with reality. For instance, the law says you will be fined if you do not purchase health care insurance for yourself and your family:
- But the financial penalty for not purchasing insurance is a small fraction of the cost of purchasing insurance so why would anyone feel the overriding need to pay more, especially younger, healthier Americans, for insurance that they probably do not need.
- Additionally, that fine can only be imposed if your IRS tax return says you are entitled to a tax refund and the government/IRS withholds the Obama Care small penalty from that refund. Assuming they can even find out that you do not have insurance AND you are getting a refund.
- Additionally, the law says anyone with a pre-existing condition cannot be turned down for health insurance, so why not delay purchasing health care insurance until you need it since you cannot be turned down? Insanity and a complete loss of touch with reality.
We go through this review to show an example of how inane this law is when you get down to the details. Consider the following scenario, as calculated via the Kaiser Foundation’s Obama Care benefits calculator:
- If an individual or family makes “too much” money, they will lose their eligibility for a Federal Obama Care health insurance subsidy, and be stuck paying the entire insurance premium themselves and their families.
- Theoretically, a pay raise or other household income enhancement would force them to fork over thousands of dollars more to the insurance companies, all because they made over the federally mandated income threshold.
- The income thresholds are based on the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), which varies by family size, age and other factors.
- For example, if a family made between 300% and 400% of the FPL, that family would be responsible for paying no more than 9.5% of their income toward insurance premiums. As long as the family’s income remains at or below 400% of their respective FPLs, they would get federal Obama Care subsidies to pay the remainder of the insurance premium.
- As soon as a family makes even $1 over 400% of the FPL, they’re no longer eligible for a federal subsidy, and they must pay the entire premium themselves.
- Consider an American family of five as an example. Both parents are 56 years old, and they have three kids. Their income is exactly 400% of the FPL at $110,280.
- Because their income is at the highest threshold, they are responsible for paying no more than 9.5% of their income toward insurance premiums, and they qualify for an Obama Care subsidy that picks up the difference.
- Using this data and the Kaiser Family Foundation “subsidy calculator,” the calculator determines that the Obama Care “Silver” plan’s annual premium is $19,832.
- The subsidy would cover $9,355, and the family would be responsible for the remaining $10,477 (9.5% of their $110,280 income).
- Now assume that mom and dad each get a 50-cent raise in their ANNUAL salaries.
- Their household income climbs an entire dollar to $110,281, putting their household income exactly $1 over 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.
- This $1 annual increase to household income means that the family no longer qualifies for Obama Care’s 9.5-percent-of-household income cap on their health-insurance premiums.
- According to the legislation’s inane calculations, the family’s total annual premium for their Silver health-insurance plan remains $19,832 but now because they earn too much money to qualify for the Federal Obama Care subsidy, they must pay all of that $19,832 premium.
- As a result, the cash they must pay out of pocket for their health insurance plan goes from $10,477 per year to $19,832 per year, an increase of $9,355.
- Thus, a $1 dollar annual increase in annual household income is negatively offset by the additional $9,355 they must pay for health insurance.
This is obviously an extreme example. No one gets an annual raise $1. But the concept is still valid. The drop off in benefits and help in paying sky high health insurance costs, given changes in household income, is drastic and plain stupid relative to whoever wrote the law. If we were going to have a law like this, the dropoffs should have been smoothed over so that American workers could still enthusiastically look forward to raises without having to worry about losing money as a result of those raises. Government logic run amok.
Americans who think the legislation is a joke. Hospitals going bankrupt or cutting services as result of the legislation, the exact opposite of what you want in a health care crisis. And dumb government logic that makes workers' raises a potentially very large negative on household income. What else could go wrong? Come back tomorrow to find out.
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