And those failures have continued to unfold every month, which is why we are going to take a few days now to cover what has happened just since last month’s updates. Before we do that, let’s do a quick reminder of where the program is from a numbers perspective:
- The Obama administration claimed that about 8 million Americans signed up for an Obama Care health care insurance plan during the initial sign up period.
- However, recent research from reputable sources found that it is likely that only between 80 and 90% of those who signed up actually followed through and paid for and bought a policy.
- If we take the midpoint of that range and assume only 85% followed through with payment, that 8 million sign up number is really only 6.8 million real policy holders.
- But other reputable research found that only about 57% of those who signed up for an Obama Care policy were previously uninsured, the other sign ups already had health insurance coverage and just churned out to an Obama Care policy.
- Thus, the actual number of INCREMENTAL Americans with health insurance via Obama Care is 57% of 6.8 million or around 3.9 million people.
- That means that 2.9 million Americans were not incremental insurance policy holders, they just churned from an existing policy into an Obama Care policy.
- Somewhere between 5 and 6 million people had their current health insurance policies cancelled as a result of Obama Care, policies that often were perfectly fine and acceptable to those carrying those policies.
- If we assume a best case view from the Obama Care perspective and assume all of the 2.9 million people who were not incremental to the Obama Care numbers came from this pool of 5-6 million people, than the net number of Americans who lost health insurance coverage as a result of Obama Care is between 2.1 and 3.1 million people (5 or 6 million less 2.9 million people).
- Thus, we have to take the 3.9 million people that were truly incremental because of Obama Care and subtract out either 2.1 or 3.1 million, ending up with a net gain in insured Americans of between 800 thousand and 1.8 million.
- Thus, after years of trying, billions and billions of dollars spent, we may have gotten incremental, expensive, and narrow insurance coverage to less than two million Americans.
Only in Washington can the nation spend billions and billions of dollars of taxpayer wealth and end up with a problem that is hardly any better than when before the program started. Insane.
That is where we stand today. Let’s take a look at what disasters have come to the surface since we last talked about Obama Care:
That is where we stand today. Let’s take a look at what disasters have come to the surface since we last talked about Obama Care:
1) One revenue component of the Obama care legislation was to impose a 2.3% tax on all medical devices. At that time, reputable economists pointed out that like any tax, economic growth and vitality would be suppressed, resulting in fewer jobs in the industry, less Federal total income taxes from those fewer workers that worked in the industry, and likely not as much tax revenue as the Obama Care supporters expected.
Well, low and behold, that reality is finally sinking in. According to an August 20, 2014 piece on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce website:
- Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) recently stated: "Everything from this ill-conceived tax's structure to its implementation has been a disaster.”
- Why is it a disaster? For starters, while the IRS originally estimated it would receive between 9,000 and 15,600 forms to pay the tax in the second and third quarters of fiscal 2013, the IRS ended up receiving only 5,100 forms.
- Second, while the IRS expected to pull in $1.2 billion in the second and third quarters of 2013 from the device tax, according to the, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, took in just $913.4 million.
- And most insanely, the IRS Inspector General issued a report which says the IRS cannot figure out who should be paying the tax, four years after the legislation was passed. Pathetic.
- From a jobs perspective, a report from AdvaMed estimates that as many as 165,000 U.S. jobs have been lost because of the medical device tax.
- Their report and research also found that research and development (R&D) has already been cut across the industry and more cuts are expected in the future, further depressing economic and job growth within the industry and nation.
If each one of those jobs resulted in about $5,500 in Federal income tax, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax being paid to the U.S. Treasury, not an unreasonable amount of money, than the Federal government broke even overall from a tax revenue perspective. The government broke even but I doubt that the 165,000 displaced workers would agree that it was the right thing to do. We end up with much ado about nothing except more heartbreak and hardship for average Americans with nothing in return.
2) An August 19, 2014 article from the Washington Free Beacon reviewed analysis work done by the Federal government which showed that American businesses were paying more to provide health insurance to their workers since Obama Care was passed. Remember, the President promised that health insurance costs would go down as a result of his legislation.
The analysis was done by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York which found that:
- A majority of businesses polled expect Obama Care to increase the cost of their employee health insurance coverage.
- The median of estimates from the survey put the expected increase at 10% in 2015.
- This year‘s survey, vs. last year’s survey, found an even larger majority of companies this year cited Obama Care as the driving force behind the cost increases.
- These expect increased costs will likely be passed on to employees in the large majority of the companies included in the survey by charging each employee a higher monthly premium for coverage. The survey also found that businesses are coping with higher costs by charging higher deductibles, co-pays and out-of-pocket maximums.
- Only a third of companies said they were not making changes to their health plans as a result of Obama Care.
3) Timothy Carney, writing for the Washington Examiner in an August 13, 2014 article came up with a crazy and dangerous potential financial disaster for his family as a result of Obama Care.
It seems that his wife is pregnant and they are expecting a child later this year.
He has health care insurance coverage and was not too worried about the delivery expense since he had already fulfilled his annual $5,000 deducible for this year which meant that going forward through the birth process in the hospital, his insurance company would pick up 90% of the costs. He initially thought he was in good financial shape for the delivery of his child.
He has health care insurance coverage and was not too worried about the delivery expense since he had already fulfilled his annual $5,000 deducible for this year which meant that going forward through the birth process in the hospital, his insurance company would pick up 90% of the costs. He initially thought he was in good financial shape for the delivery of his child.
But wait a second. He had fulfilled the annual $5,000 deductible for “in network” medical expenses. As a result of Obama Care, his wife reminded him that the breadth and options on doctors and specialists within their network might be more narrow than before Obama Care, i.e. some of the doctors and specialists at the hospital they plan to have the delivery might not be in their network. He has a totally separate (and higher) deductible for out-of-network care, meaning that he could take a serious financial hit if they had to deal with any medical personnel not in their network.
It turned out that some specialists in the hospital were in their policy’s network, some were out. Even worse, they could not request that only in network people serve their needs during child birth since only those specialists on duty when the birthing process began would be used in the baby’s delivery. Thus, the anesthesiologist might be out of their network, meaning they would have to pay the full cost. All because their policy had a very narrow choice of medical options, courtesy of Obama Care. More insanity.
That will do it for today and this month’s updates on the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. Narrow policy networks could mean higher costs for policy holders, higher business costs means higher costs for employees as businesses pass those higher, Obama Care-cost through to them, and lower employment as a result of the medical device tax which is generating lower tax revenue than expected. Failures across the board.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
No comments:
Post a Comment