It is our contention, backed up with dozens of blog posts and hundreds of examples, that Obama Care is easily the worst piece of legislation ever produced and enacted by the Washington political class. To prove out point, just review previous posts by entering the search term, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care” in the search box above or just browse through the previous monthly posts over the past years to find out why this law is so bad.
Below are just a few of the many failings of the law:
- While the law did get health insurance coverage for millions of uninsured Americans, it also caused millions of other Americans to actually lose their current health care insurance coverage.
- Rather than decrease the annual cost of health insurance for American households by $2,500, as promised by President Obama, on average, it actually increased the cost of household health insurance.
- Rather than being able to retain access to their preferred doctors, hospitals and drug treatments, millions of Americans lost access to their preferences despite Obama’s promises that they would not lose that access.
- Despite the promise that the number of emergency room visits would go down, the volume of visits has gone up.
- The law made a doctor shortage crisis even worse.
- The law’s weak data systems operations placed millions of Americans at a high risk of identity theft.
- The law has resulted in the American taxpayer subsidizing abortion expenses despite the promise that Obama Care insurance policy subsidizes would not allow taxpayer money to subsidize abortions.
- The law never addressed the underlying root causes of high health care costs in this country (e.g. a fat, sugar, and salt infested food chain, smoking addictions, lack of exercise, aging diseases, etc.) and thus has no chance of actually doing what it was supposed to do, reduce health care costs in this country.
- The law has stunted economic growth and employment growth throughout the economy.
- The law will add over a trillion dollars to the national debt despite the Obama promise that it would actually reduce the national debt.
1) Brianna Ehley, writing for Yahoo Finance, recently published an article entitled, “Obamacare Enrollees Could Get Hit With Surprise Costs.” If current Obama Care enrollees do nothing during the current Obama Care registration period, their current policies will automatically renew for 2015. Sounds simple enough, right
Wrong. Ms. Ehley writes about another convoluted aspect of the legislation that could cause Obama Care policy holders to see their subsidies actually get reduced next year, increasing the overall cost of their Obama Care plans: “Because of the complicated way federal subsidies are calculated, some subsidy-eligible consumers could be surprised with a lower tax credit than last year - further driving up the total cost of their health insurance. Here’s how it works: Subsidies or tax credits are calculated by using the cost of the so-called “benchmark plan” or second-cheapest “silver” plan sold in the area where the consumer lives. If the cost of the benchmark plan changes, which is likely the case, the tax credit or subsidy changes as well. People who don’t enroll in the new benchmark plans will then have to pay the tax-credit difference if the new benchmark plan is cheaper.”
Apparently, this possibility of lower subsidies and higher costs is a very real possibility for millions of Obama Care policy holders. Congressman Mark Meadows has estimated that about 3.8 million Americans could get a higher tax bill related to their Obama Care health plans if they auto-enroll next year, as reported by The Hill. That estimate comes from Human Services analyses done in regions where the Obama Care benchmark plan is changing.
On top of this potential for lower tax subsidies, the Obama administration is encouraging returning customers to shop around for 2015 policy coverage, using the warning that the rates on their current policies have likely increased. Premiums on the silver plans will increase by an average of 10% next year, according to an analysis by Avalere Health.
So much for annual health care costs going down $2,500 a year for an average household: "For the vast majority of people, if they stay in the same plan, they’ll see rate increases from the single digits to the high single digits,” Andy Slavitt, principal deputy administrator for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told reporters on a recent press call.
Nothing is easy with Obama Care. Now those on an Obama Care plan have to shop around every year just to keep from paying more. And with every new policy and every new insurance carrier comes a different list of doctors, hospitals, and medicines covered. Conceivably, an American family who had their health insurance policy cancelled because of Obama Care, and lost access to their preferred doctors and hospitals in the process, moved to an Obama Care policy in 2014 with a different set of doctors and hospitals and is now being encouraged by the Obama administration to move to a third different policy in 2015 with yet another set of doctors and hospitals. Insanity.
2) The Heritage Foundation recently reported on a recent Gallup poll regarding the Obama Care legislation. The poll found that for the third year in a row, a majority of Americans say it’s not the proper role of government to make sure everyone has health care coverage. 52% of poll respondents said it is not the responsibility of the Federal government to make sure all Americans have health care coverage, while 45% responded that it is.
This continues a downward trend of Americans approving of government and politicians intervening in the health care industry. In 2000, 59% of Americans said it was the Federal government’s responsibility to provide health care, and the majority increased to 69% in 2006. But since 2012, the majority has opposed the idea that health care coverage is the government’s responsibility:
3) As a final piece of Obama Care insanity for today, we present a two minute video clip from Fox News that contains a series to short clips covering three main areas:
- Jonathan Gruber calling Americans too stupid to understand his brilliance and the brilliance of Obama Care along with the tricks, lies, and deceptions that were used to deceptively pass the legislation.
- Politicians extolling the work and brilliance of Jonathan Gruber and his MIT pedigree to sell in the concept of Obama Care.
- Politicians denying that Jonathan Gruber exists, saying they never heard of Jonathan Gruber, or that Jonathan Gruber was a minor, insignificant contributor to Obama Care, once they saw themselves getting tainted with his “stupid American people” remarks.
That will do it for today’s Obama Care disasters. More registration confusion, higher costs, higher disapproval ratings, and political class idiocy relative to the Gruber scandal. We will wrap up this month’s insanity and disasters tomorrow.
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Please visit the following sites for freedom:
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http://www.reason.com
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http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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