October, 2014 Part 4, the Unfolding Disaster That is Obama Care: Lower Quality, Higer Costs, Broken Promises, Bad Operations, And More

Over the past few years, but especially over the past fourteen months, we have had to devote more and more posts each month to the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. This legislation, without a doubt, is the worst piece of legislation ever passed, likely passed by the most inept and useless set of Washington politicians that this country has ever had to endure. The disasters from this law include at least the following downsides:

• It has and will continue to increase the national debt.
• It will leave tens of millions of Americans still uninsured ten years from now.
• It has restricted overall economic growth.
• It raised taxes on all Americans in dozens of ways.
• It has reduced the job growth rate in this country.
• It has turned many full time workers into part time workers or into unemployed workers.
• It has generally increased the cost of health insurance, both premiums and deductibles, over what was available in the insurance market before it was passed.
• The Constitution was violated any number of times when the Obama administration unilaterally and illegally changed components of the law without the permission of Congress or the American people.
• The American people were lied to over and over, directly by the President and Democrats in Congress, on the negative ramifications of the law.
• It has caused millions of American to lose access to the current insurance policies they had.
• It has caused millions of Americans to lose access to their preferred doctors, preferred hospitals, and in many cases, current medicine treatments.
• It has likely increased the volume of people visiting hospital emergency rooms.
• It has caused thousands of doctors to retire early or change professions in order to not deal with the bureaucracy and idiocy of the law.
• It has exposed the inability of the Federal government and various state governments to develop, launch, and operate any kind of successful program.
• It has exposed millions of Americans’ personal financial information to identity thieves.
• It never addressed, and thus, never resolved, the root causes of our escalating health care costs in this country.

I am sure that I omitted some of the negative ramifications of the legislation but you get the idea. To review past discussions of past disasters from Obama Care, enter "the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care" in the search box above. To see what disasters have popped up over just the past month or so, read on:

1) Robert Moffit, writing for the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal, did a nice job recently summarizing the disasters that came out of the Obama Care legislation in the first year of its existence. These shortcomings. learnings, and failures included the following realities:

• Despite a three year lead time and probably about a billion dollars spent, the Federal government could still not deliver a workable website for Obama Care polices on time and on budget.
• The only worse performance was a number of states that NEVER got their Obama Care websites up and working despite millions and millions of dollars spent.
• While the average annual deductible for employer-based coverage was a little over $1,000 in 2014, the Obama Care health insurance policies sold through the Obama Care exchanges had average deductibles nationwide that usually topped $2,000.
• These higher deductibles occurred, along with higher premiums of Obama Care policies, despite the fact that the President promised promise the typical family insurance cost would go down by $2,500 annually.
• Statistics for the individual insurance policy market show that the average annual premiums for single and family coverage rose in a large majority of state and federal health-insurance exchanges all around the country. 
• In eleven states, premiums for twenty-seven-year-olds more than doubled in 2014 vs. 2013.
• In thirteen states, premiums for fifty-year-olds increased more than 50%. 
• The Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimated in early 2014, that 65% of small companies would experience health insurance premium rate increases, while only 35% were expected to have reductions. 
• CMS estimated that 11 million Americans employed by these small companies would experience premium rate increases, while only 6 million would see reductions. 
• A national study by the Heritage Foundation found that between 2013 and 2014, the number of insurers offering coverage in the individual insurance markets in all fifty states declined nationwide by 29%. 
• The Obama Care systems were so poorly developed that we really do not know how many American actually got insurance via the legislation, a disgrace from an operations and taxpayer perspective. Or in the words of the Congressional Budget office: “The number of people who will have coverage through the exchanges in 2014 will not be known precisely until after the year has ended.” One year after introduction and we still have no idea what really happened. Disgraceful.
• In order for Obama Care financials to work, the number of younger Americans obtaining Obama care policies needed to be in the 40% range. However, using the best sketchy data available, it seems that the actual percentage of younger, healthier people getting policies via the legislation is closer to only 28%, as announced by the White House on April 17, 2014.

Higher prices and costs, bad operations and planning, bad mix of customers, bad, bad, bad.

2) The overall purpose of Obama Care should have been to reduce the ever escalating cost of health care in this country. One year into the program, it does not look like it is working, at least yet, according to an October 13, 2014 Associated Press article:

• The article found that one in four privately insured adults in this country say they doubt they could pay for a major unexpected illness or injury, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 
• The survey found the biggest financial worries were among people with high-deductible plans that require patients to pay a big chunk of their medical bills each year before insurance kicks in, a primary driver of both employer provided insurance and Obama Care policies.
• Edward Frank of Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania, said he bought an insurance  plan with a $6,000 deductible last year through the Obama Care national exchange but still ended up paying $4,000 out of pocket for a shoulder condition: "Unless you get desperately ill and in the hospital for weeks, it's going to cost you more to have this plan and pay the premiums than to pay the bill just outright. The deductibles are so high, you don't get much of anything out of it [his Obama Care policy]." 
• The poll found that 19% of all privately insured adults did not go to the doctor when they were sick or injured, because of costs while those with high-deductible plans, the figure was 29%.
• Seventeen percent of privately insured adults skipped a recommended test or treatment but 23% among of those with high-deductible plans skipped them.
• Eighteen percent of all adults went without a physical exam or other preventive care while 24% among those with high-deductible plans.
• Many of those polled claimed they made financial trade-offs to pay medical bills with 33% of all adults saying they cut back on entertainment, 18% saying they used up all or most of their saving, and 19% said they dropped down their contributions for retirement savings.
• Those with high deductible plans made even deeper cuts to other expenses.

Regardless of whether or not you have an Obama Care policy or not, it appears that the law had not had the intended effect after one year of reducing household health care expenses as promised by the law’s supporters since according to this poll, health care expenses are still causing a lot of hardship for a lot of Americans with no end in sight.

3) The midterm elections are on November 4, 2014 but the Obama Care exchange websites will not have the new 2015 insurance premium costs loaded for consumer review until November 15, 2014. Could it be that the cost increases for Obama Care policies for 2015 are going to be so high as to negatively influence election decisions? Or is it just a coincidence that the open period for enrollment in 2014 is a month later than it was in 2013? 

Given the track record of this administration for honesty and integrity, I know where I fall relative to this answer but I will let you decide for yourself: political maneuvering or coincidence?

4) David Hogberg, writing for Amy Ridenour’s National blog, is one of the foremost experts on the inner workings of Obama Care. He recently published some additional fun, but not funny facts, on Obama Care:

- We have discussed the reality many times that even though you may now have health insurance via Obama Care, it does not mean you have quality health insurance via Obama Care. Mr. Hogberg cites a recent study the Avalere organization did for the American Heart Association:

• The study looked at the doctors available through three lower cost silver plans on the Obama Care exchanges in 10 metropolitan areas.  
• Avalere analyzed whether the silver plans covered the top 10 physicians in a metropolitan area in three specialties: cardiologists, neurologists, and diagnostic radiologists. 
• A physician was included in the list of 10 if he was one of the 10 highest in terms of Medicare payments, with the assumption that higher Medicare payments was a surrogate for being in demand in his specialty field. 
• The study found that in many metro areas, Obama Care customers had access to few, if any, of the top ten doctors in that specialty and that metro area.
• In Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles, for example, there was zero access to the top ten cardiologists.

You have insurance but you do not have quality health care.

- Mr. Hogberg also cited a recent LA Times article that reported that: 

• The “state’s largest health insurers are sticking with their often-criticized narrow networks of doctors, and in some cases they are cutting the number of physicians even more, according to a Times analysis of company data.” 
• California insurer HealthNet is terminating one of its Obama Care Preferred Provider Network plans and “switching to a plan with 54% fewer doctors and no out-of-network coverage, state data show.”
• Despite the reduced network, "premiums for that new stripped-down policy are going up as much as 9% compared with pricing for the PPO….HealthNet said its cutbacks were necessary to avoid even steeper rate hikes.”

That will do it for today, more of the same: higher costs, lower quality, less choice, more stress, failed objectives, broken promises. And more of the same 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:

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

October, 2014 Part 1 - The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care - More Americans to Lose Their Policies, But Insurance Companies Might Get Bailed Out and More

Over the past few years, but especially over the past fourteen months, we have had to devote more and more posts each month to the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. This legislation, without a doubt, is the worst piece of legislation ever passed, likely passed by the most inept and useless set of Washington politicians that this country has ever had to endure. The disasters from this law include at least the following downsides:

• It has and will continue to increase the national debt.
• It will leave tens of millions of Americans still uninsured ten years from now.
• It has restricted overall economic growth.
• It raised taxes on all Americans in dozens of ways.
• It has reduced the job growth rate in this country.
• It has turned many full time workers into part time workers or into unemployed workers.
• It has generally increased the cost of health insurance, both premiums and deductibles, over what was available in the insurance market before it was passed.
• The Constitution was violated any number of times when the Obama administration unilaterally and illegally changed components of the law without the permission of Congress or the American people.
• The American people were lied to over and over, directly by the President and Democrats in Congress, on the negative ramifications of the law.
• It has caused millions of American to lose access to the current insurance policies they had.
• It has caused millions of Americans to lose access to their preferred doctors, preferred hospitals, and in many cases, current medicine treatments.
• It has likely increased the volume of people visiting hospital emergency rooms.
• It has caused thousands of doctors to retire early or change professions in order to not deal with the bureaucracy and idiocy of the law.
• It has exposed the inability of the Federal government and various state governments to develop, launch, and operate any kind of successful program.
• It has exposed millions of Americans’ personal financial information to identity thieves.
• It never addressed, and thus, never resolved, the root causes of our escalating health care costs in this country.

I am sure that I omitted some of the negative ramifications of the legislation but you get the idea. To review past discussions of past disasters from Obama Care, enter ”the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care” in the search box above. To see what disasters have popped up over just the past month or so, read on:

1) An article in the Investors Business Daily that was written by Stephen Moore and published on October 1, 2014, highlighted the very real reality that insurance companies that took on Obama Care policies are likely going to receive taxpayer bailout funds as a result of the Obama Care legislation.

The bailout potential is legislation's controversial "risk corridor" program, which is supposed to provide financial "protection" against losses to insurers that sponsor exchange plans. The basis of the concept was to create a pool of funds from the profits of some insurers with ObamaCare plans to offset the losses of others. According to a 2013 analysis by the Society of Actuaries, the risk corridors program "provides a strong incentive for insurers to participate in the health insurance exchanges set up by the Affordable healthcare act.". 

In other words, the Federal government took a lot of the risk out of being an Obama Care policy provider. If a company screwed up its operations or financial results, they could always blame the legislation and get rewarded for not doing the job profitably.

Without these subsidized risk corridors and financial incentives to prop up the Obama Care plans, insurance companies will stop issuing Obama care plans and policies, and the entire program could be derailed.

Mr. Moore’s article goes on to compare this insanity to the insanity that was used to back up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the real estate industry, a back up plan that cost the American taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars. The Federal government guarantee on bad mortgages encouraged bad mortgages to be written by mortgage brokers since they could count on the government to make them whole on defaulted bad mortgages. 

The guarantee against losses on Obama Care enrollees encourages insurers to toss sound underwriting standards out the window, knowing that any bad policy decisions will be financially rewarded by the American taxpayer. Should be interesting to see how Obama and the Federal government try to spin this potential taxpayer hit where the lowly American taxpayer bails out big companies who are in cahoots with the Federal government. 

2) Casey B. Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, recently wrote a piece on how the Obama Care legislation is turning the country into a country of part time workers, based on analyses done by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He ponts out three specific reasons why the law is causing more part time jobs to be caused vs. full time jobs to be caused or retained:

• Obama Care carries an explicit tax on full-time work.
• Obama Care carries an implicit tax on full-time work for those who are ineligible for the Obama Care’s health insurance subsidies.
• Obama Care carries an implicit tax that links the amount of available subsidies to workers’ incomes.

Based on these three factors, the Mercatus analysis and research found that the law will eventually reduce weekly employment per person by about 3 percent—translating to roughly 4 million fewer full-time-equivalent workers. 

The primary conclusion of their work is that Obama Care and its subsidy and tax structures create strong incentives to work less. It will create an environment that will put millions in a position in where working part time (29 hours or fewer, as defined by the ACA) will yield more disposable income than working their normal full-time schedule. Furthermore, it appears, based on their study, that women will be far more affected then men by this impact on full time employment.

Thus, another piece of freedom slips away. When government policy dictates whether or not you should work full time or part time, that is not a good policy. That choice should be left to the individual with government policy not having any influence on that freedom of choice.

3) David Hogberg’s writing has been referenced a number of times in this blog. Mr. Hogberg writes for Amy Ridenour’s National Center blog and specializes in health care and Obama care issues. His recent writing from October 10, 2014 took a look at how Obama Care was impacting health insurance coverage obtained from employers:

• His analysis was based on research work done by various branches of the Federal Reserve Board.
• The only piece of good news coming out of the research was that the percentage of businesses that are increasing the number of employees covered exceeds those that are covering fewer employees. 
• However, all of the other the other changes to employer plans was bad news for employees.
• The percentage of businesses that are increasing employee contributions, premiums, deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums and co-pays far exceed the percentage that are reducing them in every type of business. 
• As for range of services covered and size and breadth of the networks, the differences between the percentage of businesses that are reducing them versus increasing them aren’t as large, but they are still substantial.

So, costs are going up and quality is going down, offset by some increase in the number of employees covered. Not a good report card but not surprising, given all of the other analyses and realities we have reported about this heinous piece of legislation. Obama promised lower costs and higher quality care and like most Federal government endeavors, we got just the opposite: lower quality at higher cost.

4) All opinion polls about Obama Care show a strong majority of Americans who want the law radically changed or terminated altogether. Recent polling shows the same results with even Democratic voters more and more believing that this is a very bad piece of legislation:

• In May, only 6% of Democrats said Obama Care hurt them. But recent polling shows that 15% of Democrats polled said Obama Care hurt them.
• The poll found that only 27% of Democrats say Obama Care has helped them, a slight 4% increase since May. 
• Overall, more than one in five Democrats (21%) said in the long run Obama Care will “make things worse.”

Not a good sign when you core constituents are having growing doubts about the legislation. And that doubt could get larger by the November elections since in the next few weeks, insurance companies in thirteen states and DC are likely going to terminate hundreds of thousands of existing insurance policies as a result of Obama Care mandates that require these polices to fulfill extensive Obama Care requirements: “It looks like several hundred thousand people across the country will receive notices in the coming days and weeks,” said Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

In Virginia alone it is expected that 250,000 existing health policies on the chopping block…forcing people to seek alternative health care coverage in the middle of election season. And we already know what is likely to happen when these people look to buy Obama Care policies:

• Many of those forced out of their current plans and into Obama Care may not be able to keep their doctors or access their favored hospitals.
• They will likely face higher deductibles and out-of-pocket expense, making Obama Care an election issue on the eve of voting.

An other month and another set of disasters: perfectly good insurance policies getting cancelled for no good reason, businesses cutting back on insurance coverage for their employees, loss of freedom in deciding whether to work full time or part time, and other taxpayer bailout for big business highly likely. And we have just begun, more disasters tomorrow and the following days from the piece of legislation that never stops giving…bad news.

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

September, 2014 Part 5 The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care - Enrollees Continue to Drop Out And Still A Drag On The Economy

Over the past few years, but especially over the past thirteen months, we have had to devote more and more posts each month to the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. This legislation, without a doubt, is the worst piece of legislation ever passed, likely passed by the most inept and useless set of Washington politicians that this country has ever had to endure. The disasters from this law include at least the following downsides:

• It has and will continue to increase the national debt.
• It will leave tens of millions of Americans still uninsured ten years from now.
• It has restricted overall economic growth.
• It raised taxes on all Americans in dozens of ways.
• It has reduced the job growth rate in this country.
• It has turned many full time workers into part time workers.
• It has generally increase the cost of health insurance, both premiums and deductibles, over what was available in the insurance market before it was passed.
• The Constitution was violated any number of times when the Obama administration unilaterally and illegally changed components of the law without the permission of Congress or the American people.
• The American people were lied to over and over, directly by the President and Democrats in Congress, on the ramifications of the law.
• It has caused millions of American to lose access to the current insurance policies they had.
• It has caused millions of Americans to lose access to their preferred doctors, preferred hospitals, and in many cases, current medicine treatments.
• It has likely increased the volume of people visiting hospital emergency rooms.
• It has caused thousands of doctors to retire early or change professions in order to not deal with the bureaucracy and idiocy of the law.
• It has exposed the inability of the Federal government and various state governments to develop, launch, and operate a successful program.
• It has exposed millions of Americans’ personal financial information to identity thieves.
• It never addressed, and thus, never resolved, the root causes of our escalating health care costs in this country.

I am sure that I omitted some of the negative ramifications of the legislation but you get the idea. To review past discussions of past disasters from Obama Care, enter ”the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care” in the search box above.

Let’s see what disasters we can find today.

1) Last month, we did a thorough analysis that showed that the Obama Care effort did not incrementally deliver health care insurance to 8 million Americans as the administration claimed. In reality, depending on what assumptions you use, at best only 800,000 to 1.8 million Americans incrementally got private health insurance as a result of the billions of dollars spent on Obama Care. Those numbers, analysis assumptions, and calculations can be accessed for review at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/08/august-2014-unfolding-disaster-that-is.html

A recent blog post on Amy Ridenour's National Blog, written by David Hogberg, also took a look at how 8 million Obama Care signups is really not 8 million signups. His analysis goes as follows:

• Mr. Hogberg quotes reporting by The Hill that government figures show that enrollment has already dropped to 7.3 million, down from the announced 8.0 million.
• The main reason for this large 9% drop already is that the lower number reflects the fact that 700,000 or so people never followed through to pay for their Obama Care policy and thus, they never acquired Obama Care insurance. 
• Mr. Hogberg is skeptical that the 7.3 million number is legitimate since he cites the reality that last month, writer Jed Graham of Investor’s Business Daily reported that Aetna, the “nation’s third-largest health insurer had 720,000 people sign up for exchange coverage as of May 20, a spokesman confirmed to IBD. At the end of June, it had fewer than 600,000 paying customers.” 
• That would mean that 17% of the drop in the total number Obama care enrollees came from just a single company, Aetna, 120,000 (Aetna’s lost Obama Care customers) divided by 700,000 = 17%.
• Thus, it is highly likely that the 700,000 number drop is too optimistic since if Aetna lost 120,000 customers (almost 17% of all of its Obama care enrollees), than what did the hundreds of other insurance companies lose including health insurance giants like UnitedHealthcare. Cigna, and others, both large and small?
• And this 700,000 drop does not include the 115,000 or more enrollees that are going to lose their insurance coverage since they never should have received it in the first place, per a previous post.

What a mess. The 8 million number was in all likelihood the high water point for Obama Care enrollees. If the number was still at that level, you can be sure that the Obama administration would be bragging about it to support Democrats running for election in November. The fact that they are not bragging is a great indication that there is nothing to brag about and that that 8 million number has dropped like a rock over just the past few months.

2) Allen B. West used to be a Florida Congressman, he lost his reelection bid in 2012 and since then has been an active speaker and commentator on all things political, including Obama Care. A recent online post by him cited the feelings and pessimism of a number of people in the health care industry relative to the negative ramifications of Obama care:

• Health economist John Goodman recently stated that three Federal Reserve Banks, in Philadelphia, New York and Atlanta, have surveyed the businesses in their Fed area and roughly one fifth of the employers are saying they cut back on employment: “Roughly one fifth are saying they’re moving from full time to part time. More than one in ten are saying they’re doing more outsourcing – all this because of the new health care reform.”
• Goodman has gone on to say: “And so we see this everywhere that people are restricted, they’re pushed below 30 hours, they count as part time and when they’re part time, the employer doesn’t have to provide health insurance. Even among full-time workers, their take home pay is going to go down because one thing that almost all the employers are doing in response to Obamacare is raising the deductibles, raising the co-payments and making the employee pay more of the premium.”
• Doug Holtz-Eakin, former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, recently stated: “For the smaller employers — those that have between 20 and 49 employees — you get a negative impact on jobs, you get a negative impact on wages in those jobs. What this means for small business as a whole is over $22 billion of earnings gone for their workers and 350,000 jobs.”
• Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation: “You have a kind of a natural cliff there, that keeping your employees under that magic number relieves employers of the mandate to provide insurance. The 30-hour cutoff is how the administration determines whether you’re full time or part time."
• Tevi Troy of the American Health Policy Institute: “Yes we are going to see increased cost to employers who are trying to provide health care for their employees, but employers don’t just take that lying down.”

So here you have the expert opinions of an economist who specializes in health care, a former government executive, a think tank executive, and an industry spokesperson who all come to the same conclusions: Obama Care is killing small businesses ability to grow, hire, and expand which is a primary driver of the nation’s anemic economic growth since the last recession.

As with the enrollment numbers above, if Obama Care was growing the economy or at least not stifling it, I am sure the Obama administration would be shouting at the top of their lungs that the legislation has been good for the economy as we approach the November elections. Their silence on the regarding the economy and Obama Care speaks volumes in this political season.

That will do it for today. Only two disasters but they are significant. More proof that the original Obama Care numbers were highly inflated relative to reality and the continuing reality, according to the economic numbers and subject matter experts in the field, the legislation is killing small business growth and overall economic growth.

More disasters to follow for the next few days.

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