December, 2015, Part 6, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: More Death Spiral Talk and Realities

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements it rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
• Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
• Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
• Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating health care costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
• Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government health care programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
• Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high health care costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here but with a big exception: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our health care costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused deductibles and co-pays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

Let's conintue looking at the fiascos of the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington:

1) A recent article by Bloomberg summarized many of the Obama Care problems and disasters that we have been reviewing:

• UnitedHealth’s recent announcement that it might withdrawal from offering Obama Care policies in the near future is a potential sign that Obama Care is imploding onto itself.
• While UnitedHealth’s Obama Care policies represent only about 6% of the Obama Care policies issued so far, if a large insurance carrier like UnitedHealth care cannot be profitable with Obama Care, expecting to lose half a billion dollars in 2016 with Obama Care policies, it makes one wonder if smaller carriers can ever be profitable within the Obama Care framework.
• According to Larry Levitt, a health care insurance expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation: “The ACA [Obama Care] marketplaces are not yet profitable for most insurers. It’s going to take enrollment growth, especially among healthy people, to make it an attractive market for insurers. If enrollment stagnates, we could very well see insurers thinking twice about their participation.”
• As we have discussed, not enough healthy people signed up Obama Care policies, healthy people whose good health and payments were supposed to be used to subsidize the less healthy Obama Care insurance policy holders.
• According to the Robert Johnson Foundation, of the 24.1 million Americans who would be eligible and who could benefit from an Obama Care subsidy, only 8.6 million have actually signed up for an Obama Care policy, less than 40%.
• Overall, according to McKinsey, insurers lost $2.5 billion on their Obama Care policies in 2014 despite getting subsidies from programs like the law’s risk corridors.
• One of the problems that was forecasted long ago, is that sick people have signed up for Obama Care policies since under the law they cannot be turned away, received the expensive treatment and medical care that they needed, and then dropped their policy, knowing that they can sign up again anytime they want in the future.
• As late as last March, 2015, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) was sticking close to its original enrollment estimate for Obama Care of over 20 million people being enrolled in an Obama Care policy by 2016.
• Now, the CBO does not believe it will attain more than about half of the original forecasted enrollment and the March estimate, instead seeing Obama Care enrollment in the 9.4 million to 11.4 million range, about half of what was expected and promised.

While Anthem is a much larger Obama Care player than UnitedHealth, its chief financial officer, Wayne DeVeydt recent said his company would be “patient” relative to its Obama Care business, i.e. they are willing to stick around for a while, unlike UnitedHealth. But being patient is far from being exciting and happy.

2) A recent Breitbart article by Andrew Mark Miller on November 24, 2015 highlighted the five bad headwinds beating up Obama Care:

1. Insurance companies are withdrawing in droves - Possibly an overstatement but with the death of over half of the Obama Care co-ops and the high potential of UnitedHealth pulling out of the Obama Care market, the trend is not good. If another major company should decide to bail out and the remaining co-ops shut down, than droves is the appropriate term.

2. “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” was a cruel lie.

Obama continually promised Americans: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” After millions of Americans had their plans cancelled, Obama’s infamous fabrication was named the 2013 PolitiFact Lie of the Year. In fact, three Obama and Obama Care lies made the top ten list of their lies in 2013.

3. Still waiting on that $2,500 in savings Obama promised you? Beside continually promising that if you liked your current insurance policy, doctor and hospital you would be able to keep it under Obama Care, his other big deception was his continual promise that American families would see up to a $2,500 reduction in their annual insurance costs. Instead, premiums have increased, not decreased, deductibles have risen, and quality and choices have deteriorated.

4. Obama care customers say their plans are “useless” due to soaring deductibles. Not only have premiums gone up under Obama Care but deductibles have also risen leading to the problem that “you now have health insurance but you cannot afford health care." The New York Times recently described this type of experience Obama Care customers: “The deductible, $3,000 a year, makes it impossible to actually go to the doctor,” said David R. Reines, 60, of Jefferson Township, N.J., a former hardware salesman with chronic knee pain. “We have insurance, but can’t afford to use it.”

That same article reported that more than half of the Obama Care policies in effect have deductibles above $3,000 a year, making many of them useless for many Americans.

5. The Obama care “death spiral” conservatives warned about is real. According to Breitbart and the Obama Care death spiral: “Basically, too many sick people are signing up, and too few healthy people are doing so. This causes prices to surge, and that causes fewer healthy people to sign up. The death spiral continues until the insurance program collapse completely. The 20.3 percent price increase for 2016 is probably the cause of the current round of the Obscure death spiral.”

A former U.S. Senator from Montana once described Obama Care as “Train wreck.” Turns out that was one thing that any U.S. politician has gotten right in decades. It is a train wreck and that wreckage discussion will continue tomorrow.

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:

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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.

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November, 2014 Part 1, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: More Data Processing Issues, Less Enrollees Than Announced and Personal Heartache 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 disasters, pain, and anguish it has generally caused. It has restricted health care access, raised health care costs, substantially added to the national debt, suppressed economic growth, contributed to high unemployment, 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. Starting today and likely going on for many days afterwards will be the latest disasters from this heinous piece of legislation that have popped up in just the past month or so. 

1) Last year when Obama Care officially launched, or flopped, the Obama administration decided to delay the equivalent process for small businesses. However, as the new Obama Care enrollment window approaches later in November, the administration is trying to get the Federal government’s small business online health care exchange process underway. 

According to a recent Cato article, the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) is supposed to provide an online portal for small businesses with fewer than 50 employees to purchase insurance. The SHOP process theoretically allows small business employers to provide a monetary contribution towards an employee’s health insurance purchase and also receive Federal government financial support in return. 

However, relying on a recent New York Times article, Cato shows that this Obama Care process is also likely going to be a house of horrors: 

• Some of Obama Care’s small business health insurance plans approved for use on the exchange do not show up when accessed. 
• The SHOP website exchange worked well during testing with some web browsers, like Chrome, but performed poorly with other browsers like Internet Explorer and Firefox.
• Health care premiums and other policy charges for some plans were erroneously displayed as percentages rather than dollar amounts, e.g. 350 percent rather than $350. 
• For some households, the principal health insurance subscriber ended being listed as a dependent, or vice versa. 
• The Obama administration is claiming that the SHOP website will be functional when open enrollment starts on November 15 but given their track record from last year, I would not bet that is the case. 

How well SHOP works even if its data systems work is cloudy, given the lack of success state level SHOP programs have had over the past year. While California signed up 1.4 million people through its state health insurance exchange, its small-business optioin enrolled only 1,700 companies statewide, with 11,500 employees and dependents. In Minnesota, the small-business exchange signed up 190 employers covering only 1,500 people. 

The complexity of filing and using Obama Care procedures for small business is likely to be too much effort for small business owners to go through for any Federal subsidies they may receive. Hold on for another bumpy and likely disastrous Obama Care data systems nightmare. 

2) The wonderful website, Bankrupting America, recently took a look at where we stand relative to Obama Care one year or so after it launched. Their “Top 5 Things To Know” about the status of Obama Care include: 

- Some Age Groups Experienced Healthcare Premium Increases Of 78 Percent In 2014. Bankrupting America cites a recent Washington Times article that reported on a new study which showed some age groups were experiencing Obama Care healthcare premium costs going up by as much as 78%: “Average insurance premiums in the sought-after 23-year-old demographic rose most dramatically, with men in that age group seeing an average 78.2% price increase before factoring in government subsidies, and women having their premiums rise 44.9%, according to a report by HealthPocket scheduled for release Wednesday.”

- Thirty Year-Olds Experienced The Second Highest Premium Rate Increases In 2014. The same study looked at data from the two largest metropolitan cities in each state and focused on three age groups: 23, 30 and 63. According to the analysis: “The premium increases for 30-year-olds were almost as high as for 23-year-olds — 73.4% for men and 35.1% for women.”

- As Of May 2014, More Than 214,000 Doctors Chose Not To Participate In Any Obama Care Plans. On Monday, an article in on The Daily Caller website discussed a new study showing doctors are choosing not accept Obama Care plans due to costs: “As of May 2014, over 214,000 doctors wouldn’t participate in Obamacare plans, and that number may be growing, according to AAF, a free-market think tank in Washington. Obamacare puts physicians — especially the dwindling number of those in private practice — in an especially difficult financial situation, expecting doctors to eat the costs of patients who discontinue coverage and to simply take on more patients to make up for bottom-level reimbursements. Exchange plans nationwide pay on average significantly less than plans in the private market and even Medicare, according to AAF. 

While private plans generally pay doctors $1.00 for performing a given service, Medicare averages just $0.80; exchange plans are allowing doctors just $0.60 for the same thing. That puts Obamacare plans more in line with Medicaid reimbursements, AAF reports, and Medicaid’s low reimbursement rates have been driving doctors away for years.” 

This 214,000 estimate means that about 20% of the nation’s doctors are not partaking of Obama Care. Now, one could make the claim that the reverse is good news: 80% of the nation’s doctors are participating. However, given the low reimbursement levels, which number do we think will grow in the future and how good will be the quality of those doctors that continue to take Obama Care patients look term? My estimate: the 80% number drops as does the quality of care of the remaining doctors. 

- Obama Care Puts Doctors Who Accept Plans Purchased Through The Obama Care Exchanges At Risk Of Never Getting Paid. The same Daily Caller article goes on to explain: “The structure of the Affordable Care Act itself puts doctors who accept plans purchased on Obamacare exchanges at risk of never being paid at all. Obamacare requires insurers who sell plans on the exchanges to keep coverage active even after a customer has stopped paying their premiums, for an extra 90 days. For the first 60 days after a customer has stopped paying but is still insured, the insurance company has to pay for any care the patient uses. But for any services used in the final 30 days before a customer’s insurance can be terminated, doctors that see those patients won’t be paid at all.” 

- New State Data Shows Obama Care Might Not Have 7.3 Million “Paid” Enrollees. Investors Business Daily recently reported that there are likely far fewer Obama Care policy holders than the originally 8.1 million that the administration reported or the more recent estimate of 7.3 million after you take into account those Obama Care enrollees that that never materialized since they never paid for the policy they signed up for. According to their analysis: “The most telling data point since the Department of Health and Human Services announced exchange membership last month comes from California, where the 1.4 million sign-ups as of mid-April have dwindled to just over 1.1 million paying customers — a drop of 20.3%. That decline is on the same scale as in Florida, where insurer rate filings in June showed 763,000 exchange plan members, down 22.5% from the 984,000 sign-ups reported by HHS. California and Florida have seen their combined reported membership drop by 506,000. If enrollment were still holding at 7.3 million, the combined 5.6 million sign-ups in every other state and D.C. through mid-April could have only dropped by about 200,000, or 3.8%.” 

We have already shown how the true incremental number of Americans with health insurance policies via Obama Care is closer to only one or two million. Since Obama Care caused upwards of six million Americans to lose access to their preferred and current health insurance policies, that original 7.3 million, or whatever the real number was, has to be reduce by upwards of six million in order to estimate the true incremental number of Americans with health insurance coverage.

3) Sometimes we get lost in the numbers trying to prove that Obama Care is good or bad. In the quest to understand the reality of the Obama Care numbers, we forget to acknowledge that Obama Care has caused serious hardships for people at the individual and family levels. However, a new website, 

www.ourhealthcarestories.com 

has been set up to capture the hardships and heartaches that Obama Care has created at the personal level. We will conclude each post in this Obama Care series with some examples from this website where Americans, in their own words, explain how Obama Care has disturbed and disrupted their lives, their health care, and their wealth. 

STEVE from Alabama: Like many, my health premium has nearly doubled ,and my deductibles and co-pays have increased some four fold. Yesterday my wife, who has a serious illness that has attacked her eyes over the years, learned that she could no longer receive a prescription that her doctor wants to write for her. This drug would help maintain her condition as to avoid flair ups with her eye problems. Her doctor informed her he can no longer prescribe the medication due to the recent health care law changes. 

DAVID from Alabama: I was really looking forward to my $2,500 savings I was promised. My total yearly cost instead went up by $2,620 with a higher deductible. President Obama could not have been this far off in his prediction which means he knew he was lying and said it anyway. 

JOHN from Pennsylvania: I pay for my family's insurance and had a plan that fit the family well. $2,500 deductible and $533 a month. Last year, I tried really hard to get on the Obamacare site and after probably 10 hours of trying finally got a quote. The results weren't good. $1433 a MONTH for bronze coverage with a $5000 deductible. I continued with my $533 a month plan this year because I renewed it last December, but just got a letter saying my plan could not be renewed. I'm now facing coverage that will likely cost almost 3X as much with a deductible twice as big. How is this affordable coverage? 

The President's promise of being able to "keep your plan" is just not true for me and never has been. I continue to be happy with my pre-Obama plan but bureaucrats claim to know what's best for me and my family. I strongly disagree. 

That will do it for today. Another Obama Care data processing system about to implode, Bankrupting America updating the legislation’s disasters based on real numbers and real realities, and three Americans tell their horror stories about Obama Care, adding a human touch to the hard, cold numbers of disasters. More tomorrow and beyond.

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