1) An article from the news site Newsmax did a nice compilation of articles and analyses of the health care legislation in early April, 2014. Their findings include:
- According to Forbes Magazine, a quarterly survey by investment bank Morgan Stanley of 148 brokers who sell insurance showed that premiums accelerated in the last quarter more than of any of the 12 prior quarterly periods, a spike which happened to coincide with the lead in to the Obama Care deadline.
- This increase may have been the sharpest increase in health insurance premiums than possibly ever.
- The average premium increases for insurance renewals in the most recent quarter were over 11% in the small group health insurance market and 12% in the individual health insurance market.
- Keep in mind that these were double digit increase in just one QUARTER, they are not ANNUAL increases.
- By way of comparison, the survey back in last September showed that increases in the small group market averaged 3 percent, and 2 percent in the individual market.
- According to the Forbes analysis, in some states the state level increases have been 10 to 50 times those averages, according to Forbes.
- For example, in the individual insurance market, premiums have increased an average of 100% in Delaware, 90% in New Hampshire, 54% in Indiana, 53% in California, 45% in Connecticut, and 37% in Florida.
- Again, these are just quarterly, three month increases, not annual increases.
- For the small group market, Washington had an average increase of 588%, followed by Pennsylvania at 66%, California at 37%, and Indiana at 34%.
- The even worse news according to the Forbes analysis, the data shows that "rate hikes have accelerated as the legislation’s regulations have started to get implemented.
- It is believed that the rate increases are due to a combination of four factors triggered by and caused by Obama Care including new commercial underwriting restrictions, age restrictions that prevent insurers from pricing premiums differently between young and old beneficiaries to reflect the actual costs of providing coverage, new excise taxes being levied on insurance plans, and new benefit designs.
- The Newsmax article quotes an analysis that was published in the Daily Caller: "Morgan Stanley's results echo what consumers are already seeing: the Affordable Care Act's intensive regulation of the insurance market is driving healthcare premiums up strikingly.”
- The Washington Post recently reported that in some cases, insurance companies may have "low-balled" prices for 2014 to attract customers, which sounds like a classic “bait and switch" scam, while others will probably raise prices to boost profits or compensate for the costs of participating in the new law.
2) The Heritage Foundation has put together an analysis that shows how much of an increase in taxation the Obama Care legislation is expected to cost the American consumer within ten years (double click on the graph for a larger view):
Let’s do a little math:
- Many times in previous posts we have cited government reports that estimate that today, Medicare and Medicaid lose anywhere from $70 to $100 billion a year to criminal fraud and deception. Thus, if Obama and the rest of the Washington political class cared or knew how to run an efficient government operation, no taxes would be required because for about the first seven years we could have funded Obama Care by just fixing the broken processes in Medicare and Medicaid.
- In ten years, the annual cost burden of Obama Care will come out to a little over $1,000 per family per year (assuming that these numbers are not under estimates of reality, a highly likely scenario.) That means in ten years, every American family on average will have $1,000 less to spend on vacations, home improvements, recreation, etc., a stunting of economic growth across the board.
3) Let’s forget about cost increases and tax increases and pure numbers and look at a human side story of Obama Care. This story was reported by the Independent Journal Review in early April, 2014. Because of new regulations imposed by the Obama Care, more than two dozen widows who were married to Madison County, Alabama county employees are now going without health insurance.
These widows lost their healthcare coverage this year after the county was notified that the new Obama Care regulations rules would cause its independent health insurance program to cost an additional $25 million a year, an incremental expense they could not afford in their budget. As a result of the financial impacts, the county commissioners decided to join a state-wide insurance network that includes 50 other county governments in order to stay solvent while still providing health insurance coverage to their current employees.
However, there was one big downside to this plan, as Dale Strong, Madison County Commission Chairman, warned: “In joining with this large group, it does not provide for spouses when their husbands die or their wives die.”
Roger Jones, Madison County Commissioner, added: “A lot of these people are on low fixed incomes, some of them are living on Social Security and very little else, and health insurance is very important to them.”
It may be important to them and they may have been happy with their previous arrangement but as a result of Obama Care, they no longer have access to their former policies, a fact that Obama promised over and over again would never happen. This is what happens when leaders lie, citizens suffer and end up going without.
4) The lies from this Presidency never stop coming, with a new one recently uncovered and reported on by the Wall Street. One of Obama’s big selling points on Obama Care and Obama Care policies was that annual physicals, covering a range of tests and analyses, would be free to insurance policy holders in the new Obama Care world.
This emphasis on preventive care would theoretically identify a possible disease or ailment early in its life cycle when it is usually simpler and less expensive to treat. In theory, a good idea.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, under the legislation, preventive care includes screenings for high blood pressure and high cholesterol counts, evaluations for several cancers and diabetes, and vaccinations. The patient is allowed, in most cases, one free checkup per year, all promised by the President.
But hold on a minute. Like real life, in the Obama Care world there is often no such thing as free. And how free things become unfree under Obama Care is wild. Obama Care patients who go to their doctors for their free annual checkup are finding out that they may have to pay for the preventive healthcare visit after all. Why? If you mention past or ongoing health concerns during the physical, this will result in co-pays and deductibles and not a free physical, according to The Wall Street Journal analysis.
Under the Obama Care legislation, once you say that you might be sick, that moves the doctor encounter from a preventive or “wellness” care visit to potential new health issues. This subtlety makes the doctor visit to be now viewed as “evaluation and monitoring,” not wellness or preventive, which triggers patients having to fork out for the “free” annual physical. Insanity.
You cannot tell a doctor how you are feeling or what is ailing you, an exchange that should lead to better and cheaper healthcare, without risking paying for your “free” physical. You cannot make this stuff up it is so idiotic.
Let a doctor explain what happens: “Patients are scheduling physicals because physicals are free,” Randy Wexler, a family physician in Columbus, Ohio, told the Journal. “But they come in and say, ‘I’ve been having headaches. My back has been bothering me, and I’m depressed.’ That’s not part of a physical. That will trigger a copay.”
Wexler went on to say that customers and patients are not happy about the unexpected charges. “They’ll say, ‘I have diabetes and hypertension and heart disease and seeing you is preventing them from getting worse, so that should be fully covered. But under that theory, everything would be free with no copay.”
The Journal article went on to point out other non-productive and wasteful behavior that is being driven by this nonsense:
- Doctors interviewed by the Journal say that seniors have started canceling their annual wellness visits under their Medicare plans when they learn that if they mention a current health issue during the checkup they will likely be charged a co-pay.
- Some doctors are even warning patients in advance of the problem and ask them to schedule two visits, one for the “annual” and another for their current health issue, according to the Journal.
5) I am getting tired and depressed so I will end this disaster review for today. However, for a detailed look at how Obama is manipulating the numbers to make this horrid piece of legislation look better than it is, I refer you to the following in-depth analysis at:
Hopefully, we can wrap this month’s Obama Care disasters tomorrow.
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