Thursday, November 13, 2014

November, 2014, Part 2, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Undermining Obama Care's Financials, Two Alternatives To This Mess, and Personal Obama Care Horror Stories

Although we just finished up almost two weeks of political class insanity, a regular monthly feature of this blog, we did not talk about any Obama Care insanity. We purposely avoided the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care since it deserves its own, dedicated set of posts. That is the only way to do justice to the worst piece of legislation ever passed by the worst set of Washington politicians to ever hold office. 

For a number of years we have been writing about Obama Care and the disaster, pain, and anguish it has generally caused. It has restricted health care access, raised health care costs, added to the national debt, suppressed economic growth, and has no real shot of ever reducing health care costs in this country since it never addressed the root causes of high health care costs in this country. 

To access past posts in the subject, just enter “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care” in the search box above. You will then be presented with dozens of posts containing hundreds of reasons why Obama Care was such an idiotic approach from day one. 

1) I recently came across a loophole within the Obama Care legislation that could cause some serious problems for the entire program down the road. According to a recent article by Ben Bullard, so-called short term health insurance plans could siphon customers out of Obama Care and weaken the overall business plan for the legislation. For some people, buying cheaper, short-term health insurance coverage that can be renewed on an annual basis might be a viable alternative to more expensive Obama Care policies. 

These short term health insurance policies, in addition to be much cheaper than Obama Care options, would allow people to re-evaluate and possibly change their coverage at the end of the term of the short term policy, based on their personal needs. 

 Details of this scenario include the following aspects: 
  • These individual (i.e. non-group insurance plans) short term plans are the only ones allowed for sale outside of the Obama Care exchanges. In general, these plans usually cost less than half of what similar Obama Care policies cost. 
  • As long as customers stay healthy, they can renew the short-term plans when the term length expires. If customers get sick while covered, these short term plans provide for their health care only until the end of the term of the policy, which is an obvious drawback if the customer developed a long term malady that required medical care beyond the end of the term of the policy. 
  • However, as stipulated by the Obama Care legislation, if that should happen, the customer could then sign up for an Obama Care policy since no one can be rejected with a pre-existing condition.
  • Thus, they could continue their treatment for their illness since stricken policyholders can still buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act, where insurers must charge sick and healthy people the same rate. 
All this sounds good in principle but apparently there are a few drawbacks. First, a short term policy holder will not qualify for an Obama Care subsidy so the face price of a short term policy loses some of its attractiveness from a cost perspective. Second, according to the article, a short term policy holder might be in violation of the requirement of Obama Care that everyone must have insurance and pay a fine so there may be an additional cost, namely the Obama Care penalty for not having an Obama Care policy. 

Despite these potential extra costs, short term plans likely work for a lot of people, especially younger, healthier people, who will opt out of Obama Care policies in order to still get coverage, pay less, and have the pre-existing condition requirement as a back stop for long term care. According to a short term insurance provider quoted in the article: “People with serious pre-existing conditions — they should go on Obama Care. But for everyone else, including the penalties and including the subsidies [for Obama Care plans], we cost 30-50 percent less and have that freedom of choice with providers.” 

Since the entire Obama Care house of cards depends on a large number of healthy, younger Americans signing up for Obama Care policies, if enough younger people opt for these short term care options, using Obama Care as a catastrophic back up for pre-existing conditions, that house of cards eventually collapses from a financial perspective. 

 2) Daniel Payne, writing for Reason magazine, recently published an article with two main components. The first component we have covered extensively, namely that he is one of millions of Americans who saw his health care insurance costs rise dramatically as a result of Obama Care. The second component is a new twist where he calls for a national debate not on how to fix Obama Care but what to completely replace it with: a free market approach or a 100% government controlled approach, bypassing the unworkable hybrid Obama Care approach. 

First, his personal story: He recently received word that his insurance carrier, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, would be amending his current health insurance plan effective January 1, 2015. That plan, a low-premium, high-deductible setup meant to cover major medical expenses and not much else, will not be renewed in 2015 because of Obama Care. His replacement policy, which is basically the same as his current plan, will see his monthly premiums quadruple from $55 a month to just over $200 a month. 

He points out that none of his options are really good options. He could enroll in his employer’s insurance plan, but that would also cost him a little over $200 per month. He could get insurance through one of the Obama Care exchanges, and possibly qualify for a Federal subsidy, but the least expensive plans hikes his annual deductible way up to $1,350. 

 His frustration obviously boiled over with the following description of Obama Care, a frustration that has probably been also experienced in millions of households across the country: “This is the essence of Obamacare: delivering inferior products at higher prices. And while it’s been somewhat satisfying to watch the ACA’s disastrous first year, at heart this is a deeply distressing and worrisome sign of things to come. This is your money, your family’s health, and your liberty—all sacrificed so that a bunch of inept bureaucrats could score points wheeling out "healthcare reform" and help you buy things you simply don't want to buy.” 

While he blames Democrats for this mess, he also holds Republicans accountable also. He claims that any Republican alternative to Obama Care really involves just window dressing differences. For example, he cites Virginia's “supposedly super-conservative Senate candidate Ed Gillepsie: who has proposed a health care reform plan that’s a mess of tax credits, pre-existing condition provisions, and "state-run high risk pools”. 

In other words, not much different than Obama Care. Payne calls for a real debate about two radically different approaches: The first approach would strip away government interference in the health care market as much as possible and let individuals make their own health care decisions with their own money without the heavy hand of the government forcing them to buy products that may not want, taxing Americans to pay for their heavyhandedness, and creating huge government bureaucracies that do not work. 

The second approach would go completely opposite with government becoming even more involved, implementing an enormous government-administered, single-payer health care system. This approach would at least be less horrendously complicated than the Obama Care but would be much more expensive, bloated, and low-quality than even our current situation.  
He makes a good case for one approach or another. With Obama Care, we end up in the middle of the road which is where most critters get run over. 

 3) There is a third approach that Mr. Payne fails to discuss. That approach is to attack the real root causes of our high health care costs in order to reduce the demand for health care services. If you reduce the demand, prices go down. Obama saw our higher health care costs as an insurance problem. The high health care costs are the result of many other, root cause factors that result in high insurance costs. 

By not understanding the root causes, the Obama Care approach has no chance at succeeding. We will cover this third option in detail in tomorrow’s post. 

Now, let’s go back to the website we discussed yesterday, www.outhealtrhcarestories.com and look at some more of the personal suffering that Obama Care has caused Americans across the country: 

 DAN in Oregon - I am a Durable Medical Equipment specialist and after 15 years of helping people with medical equipment, I am now unemployed and buying my own insurance which costs me 10 times what I paid previously. Obamacare has ended my career and my affordable health insurance. 

HEIDI Arizona -I don’t qualify for any of the programs because “my employer provides insurance for the family.” Can’t afford it, but I guess that’s just a minor detail. 

YVETTE in Maine - The least expensive of the new federal healthcare options will cost her $14,400 a year. 

 DAVID in Michigan - I received a letter from my insurance company that I was going to lose my insurance coverage due to obamacare. In order to keep my plan the way I had it but to make aca compliant my premium would raise from $430 a month to $699 a month which is not affordable at all or my out of pocket deductible would go from $5000 to $15000. Which is also not affordable[. . .]It would be cheaper for me to pay [the] fine/tax then it would be to go with Obamacare. 

 Beyond the financials of Obama Care, beyond the numbers of Obama Care, beyond the philosophy of Obama Care, this is what the legislation is doing to American lives on a very personal basis. And this cost is being paid even though the potential for Obama Care being successful is next to nil. More unfolding failures tomorrow, along with more personal tales of anguish and a third approach to fixing what ails the health care situation in this country. 

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: