Millions and millions of Americans have been forced off of their current and preferred health insurance policies. Millions have lost access to their preferred doctors. Millions have lost access to their preferred hospitals. Millions are paying higher premiums and deductibles than before. Over a trillion dollars will be added to the national debt. Unemployment and underemployment has been made worse because of the law’s criteria. Economic growth has been stifled. Millions of Americans are now at a much higher threat of identity theft as a result of the poor data system processes of the law. Many Americans now have health insurance, at a higher cost, but are having trouble getting access to health care as doctors are retiring earlier as a result of the law and many doctors are not accepting the lower payments they will receive from Obama Care insurance customers. And after ten years, there will likely still be tens of millions of Americans who do not have health insurance coverage despite the purported universal coverage objective of Obama Care.
And as we have pointed out dozens and dozens of times, the legislation will never be successful because it never addressed the underlying root causes of our high health care costs in this country. Obama put forth an insurance solution to a public health problem:
- Americans eat too much.
- Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food.
- Americans smoke too much.
- Americans drink too much alcohol.
- Americans do not exercise enough.
- America’s food chain is infected and infested with high fructose corn syrup and sugar.
- America is aging making citizens much more likely to be victims of aging diseases such as dementia and Alzheimers.
- Medical practice tort reform is needed nationally and has been shown to work at the state level.
- Cross state border insurance company competition needs to be encouraged.
- The Federal government loses tens of billions of dollars every year via Medicare and Medicaid through waste, efficiencies, and outright criminal fraud, money that could be used to make America healthier, not criminals wealthier.
In the face if these ten root causes, Obama chose to ignore all of them and put in place a Rube Goldberg like government bureaucracy that has no chance of succeeding. To prove this point, let's take a few of days and look at the latest unfolding disasters being spawned by Obama Care:
1) The Heritage Foundation website recently ran an article by Clay Masters on how a much hyped Obama Care health insurance start up went belly up recently in Iowa. ObamaCare legislation set aside funding to create health care co-ops organizations to compete for Obama Care customers in areas of the country where there were not many insurance companies operating. CoOportunity was one such organization that was established in Iowa.
CoOportunity was the second largest co-op in the country in terms of memberships and policies and one of the largest in terms of the Federal government spending it received. Thus, things started out well for the effort, a lot of customers and a lot of Federal taxpayer money.
Yet, the co-op failed recently and relatively quickly for a number of reasons:
CoOportunity was the second largest co-op in the country in terms of memberships and policies and one of the largest in terms of the Federal government spending it received. Thus, things started out well for the effort, a lot of customers and a lot of Federal taxpayer money.
Yet, the co-op failed recently and relatively quickly for a number of reasons:
- The co-op paid out much more in medical bills than it had planned for.
- The reasons for this higher than expected payout is that their customer base was not only larger than anticipated but also sicker than planned for.
- Part of the reason for their sickly customer base is because the largest insurer in Iowa, Wellmark, decided not to participate in Obama Care in the state of Iowa.
- This left Iowa residents with pre-existing conditions and higher chance of health care needs no other choices except CoOportunity and Coventry to get health insurance from since they were the only two options for insurance in Iowa under Obama Care.
- Thus, while CoOportunity thought they would sign up about 12,000 customers, they ended up getting overwhelmed with tens times as many, many of whom needed high health care help and resources.
- Also, the co-op thought that Federal funding support would be extended beyond the initial investment but were recently told by the Federal government that there would be no more funding available to them.
Another Obama Care component blows up, at least in Iowa. Another unfolding disaster that leaves over 100,000 Iowa citizens still looking for healthcare insurance with only one option left in the Obama Care exchange program, Coventry, for the entire state. So much for lower costs, ease of getting insurance, and increased competition.
2) We briefly touched on this topic once before but more information is available so it is worthwhile reviewing it again. While Obama Care has been worse than even the worst predictions, another approach, the so-called single payer approach, would have been far worse. In a single payer approach, the government rules and operates every aspect of healthcare. Where it has been deployed around the world, the results have been dreadful: much higher overall costs, poorer quality of healthcare, fatal delays in treatment, etc.
Now, some members of Obama’s political party would have preferred to go with a single payer approach rather than Obama Care even though it has failed everywhere else. And as this blog has proven thousands of times, the current set of politicians running this country have no track record of success in successfully operating any type of program or initiative.
The fallacy of the political class operating a single payer healthcare system in this country was vividly illustrated when the state of Vermont decided to try and do a single payer system in the state:
- Obama Care legislation actually allowed states to opt out of the Obama Care requirements IF they elected to implement a single payer system for health care in their state.
- Vermont decided to take a shot at that option when in 2011,they passed legislation that would have established a single payer system by the year 2017.
- The fact that the state was being guided by Jonathan Gruber, the same “expert” that was responsible for much of the failures in the Obama Care effort, should have been a warning that this effort in Vermont might be doomed from the start.
- The state single payer system, named Green Mountain Care, would have provided health care, dental care, and vision care for all state residents, all funded by the state taxpayers.
- While the Obama Care bronze policies have an “actuarial value of 60%," i.e. these policies on average pay out 60% for all health care expenses, the Vermont single payer plan would have had a whopping 94% actuarial value.
- Private healthcare insurance policies and companies would be eliminated in the state and instead of health insurance premiums, the whole thing would be paid for via taxation.
- Unfortunately, reality hit when the financial analysis of such a program was done.
- Paying for the program would have required a whopping 160% increase in taxation by 2019.
- The state income tax rate would have to be raised from an already high of 8.95% to a unreal level of 18%.
- For the wealthiest earners in the state, the total marginal tax rate would have been an astounding 56%, i.e. more than half of their income above a certain level would be paid in income taxes.
- Businesses would have been hit with 11.5% state payroll tax. This would be on top of a Federal payroll tax of over 15%, both taxes of which when combined would have stifled economic growth and job creation in the state.
- Thus, while their insurance premiums would have been eliminated, most state residents, both rich and poor, would have been worse off financially with a single payer system.
- But the pain does not stop there. Doctors would receive less money under the single payer system, probably forcing many of them to either retire or take their skills and practices elsewhere, leaving the state with a pronounced doctor shortage, i.e. you have single payer health insurance but you cannot get health care.
- The analysis of the situation relative to the doctors showed that there would have been longer delays in getting a doctor’s appointment and in receiving treatment and that the whole program would be financially negative within four years after being deployed.
- Fortunately,the governor and state politicians recognized this folly and stupidity and recently cancelled the entire effort, despite what Jonathan Gruber said.
Second, despite the analyses and experience of Vermont in taking a serious look at a single payer system, the insanity of the political class knows no bounds. Other states including Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, Oregon,Pennsylvania, and Washington are all considering a single payer fiasco for their states. Also, a New York politician, Richard Gottfried, has been going around with a series of town hall meetings to promote a single payer system for the state of New York.
Einstein once said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Apparently, single payer insurance ideas fall right in line with this definition of insanity.
3) We will finish each post in this Obama Care disaster series with some personal accounts of the hardship and hassle Obama Care has introduced into the lives of millions of Americans. We can talk about costs, and premiums, deductibles, and debt, and other bad numbers being caused by Obama Care but the personal stories of Americans drives the point home that Obama Care has been a disaster.
The source of these stories are from the website:
www.ourhealthcarestories.com
You can go to the website and look at the many other stories of heartbreak that Obama Care has created. The following three case studies come from this website:
ROB - WEST VIRGINIA My mother suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. From diagnosis to having to medically retire from being a registered nurse, took about 2 years. Her doctor got her on meds that greatly lowered the disease, gave her more mobility, and less pain. Once ObamaCare hit, the costs of all but 2 meds has tripled. The cost of the other 2 quadrupled. Being on a fixed income, she can no longer afford these meds. Then, to add insult to injury, the cost of her co-pays has doubled.
JULIE - COLORADO Julie Dagnillo experienced the turmoil of health insurance changes firsthand.
Anthem canceled the small-group policy at her work because it did not meet the minimum requirements of the Affordable Care Act. She said she earns too much to qualify for a subsidy on the state health insurance exchange. Her broker, who is certified with the exchange, told her she probably will pay at least $100 more a month for an individual plan purchased on the exchange, but that plan would have less coverage.
The insurer also sent her an early renewal for a policy she bought for her 23-year-old daughter, Lucy. The ACA allows children to stay on their parents' policies until 26, but the family decided the individual policy made more sense for Lucy.
The premium is about $10 more a month, but it is good only through the end of 2014. After that, Lucy's options include shopping for coverage on the exchange, where she may qualify for a subsidy, or taking an Anthem plan that would cost at least $110 more a month.
"I'm completely outraged," said Dagnillo, a Pueblo resident. "We're the ones suffering the brunt for the entire nation. They're going to put us into poverty."
MARCUS - SOUTH DAKOTA The problem is that millions of Americans, like me, simply cannot afford insurance. The estimates for mid-level plans by the Kaiser Family Foundation (I’d check directly on Healthcare.gov, but the site has crashed every day so far since Oct. 1), show that premiums for my family of five will cost almost $300 a month after subsidies. When it comes to my family’s budget, you might as well be asking me for $3,000,000 a month. There is no way that my family can afford to throw away that much money every month for a plan that still has a high deductible.
[. . .] My point is that we can throw all the insurance money we want at health care, but it won’t solve the problem of getting Americans (especially low-income Americans) the medical care we need. Until the cost of health care is dealt with, the individual mandate will just be another financial burden weakening an already-fragile working class.
These three experiences are great illustrations of what has been caused by Obama Care. People losing access to their current and preferred insurance policies, prices and costs going up, and at least Marcus recognizing that Obama Care will fail because it does not deal with the real causes of high costs.
More disasters tomorrow.
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