The first post in this month’s update series can be accessed at:
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 Americans to actually lose their current health care insurance coverage.
- Rather than decrease the annual cost of health insurance for Americans 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) Earlier in this update series we reviewed how half of the sixty U.S. Senators who voted for Obama Care will not be in the Senate when it convenes in 2015. Now some of them are not around because of reasons not related to Obama Care, e.g. John Kerry is now Secretary of State, but at least half of those who lost their seats likely lost it in large part due to Obama Care.
A recent Bloomberg analysis took the analysis a little further, beyond just the Senate relative to last month’s elections:
- In 2009, there were 60 Democrats in the Senate. In 2015, there will be 46, a decrease of 23%.
- In 2009, there were 257 Democrats in the House of Representatives. In 2015 there will be 188, a decrease of 27%.
- In 2009, there were 32 Democratic governors. In 2015, there will be 21 Democratic governors, a decrease of 34%.
The good news is that voters punished those politicians that made bad legislation, lied, and false promises. The bad news is that while they are now gone, the bad legislation they made is still with us.
2) We have constantly reported on how health insurance costs will be going up next year and in future years, according to experts in the field. We recently quoted sources that showed that the average increase for Obama Care Silver plans, apparently the most popular plans, will go up an average cost of 5% in 2015, counter to what the President hyped a few years ago, namely that, on average, health insurance costs would go down $2,500 a year.
However, a recent article in Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) showed steeper price increases in the lower tiered, less expensive, and less robust Bronze plans offered via the Federal government’s Obama Care process, Healthcare.gov. Citing projections from the Healthcare.gov website, IBD wrote that Bronze plan premiums will increase next year by an average of 18% for those who purchase through the Federal Obama Care health care exchange.
That estimate was calculated using the largest market in each of the 34 states that use Healthcare.gov as a customer portal for Obama Care. It does not include those policies purchased in state operated Obama Care exchanges.
IBD summarized the price results by major metro areas in the following graph:
The IBD article points out a few interesting and/or disturbing trends:
The IBD article points out a few interesting and/or disturbing trends:
- Only nine of the Healthcare.gov metro areas can expect to see average premium prices fall or remain level next year for Obama Care Bronze plans.
- Five metro areas that will see Bronze plan premiums increase by more than 38%.
- Pity the Bronze plan holders in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa market who will see their bronze plan premiums more than double.
3) President Obama promised a lot of things that never came true relative to his pet piece of legislation, many of which were listed at the beginning of today’s post, e.g. premium costs would go down, you could keep your current doctors, your could keep your current policy, etc. One of his biggest boasts was how easy it was going to be to obtain Obama Care health insurance coverage via the online health care exchange process:
“Starting on Tuesday, every American can visit HealthCare.gov to find out what’s called the insurance marketplace for your state,” Obama said. “It’s a website where you can compare and purchase affordable health care plans … the same way you shop for a plane ticket on Kayak...I promise you, this is a lot easier. It’s like booking a hotel or a plane ticket.”
Well, this looks like another promise that went bad or was an outright lie that was used to sell in this horrid piece of legislation to the country. According to a recent article from the website, www.bankrate.com, almost two thirds of Americans say shopping for health insurance is as bad as having a tooth cavity filled and seven out of ten Americans say it is as bad as preparing one’s own tax returns or sitting in the middle seat on an airline flight. Trust me, booking a hotel room or plane ticket online was NEVER this painful or complex, promise broken.
Now, I am pretty sure that some of this angst in obtaining health insurance is not just related to Obama Care. But the President boasted that a lot of this angst would go away under his legislation, a boast that apparently has not taken hold if it is still like going to the dentist when it comes time to purchasing health care insurance. Just another day and another Obama promise failing to become reality.
Failed promises and increased costs, seems to be the primary results of the Obama Care legislation. And unfortunately, we are not done documenting the continued failures of the law in these categories of pain and others. More to come in the following 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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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