Thanks to Congressman Frelinghuysen & our Wall Street Financial VP for sending two URLs that provide more info re ObamaCare that will eventually impact all of us - including those who currently have perfectly good healthcare insurance. These are the people who will pay the taxes that provide the subsidies & Medicaid so the uninsured obtain coverage.
Initially the people being impacted are the 19 million who buy healthcare insurance on the individual non-group market. Health Affairs (the health policy journal, known as "the bible of health policy," that publishes original, peer-reviewed research & commentary) found that over half of such policies are considered inadequate by the ObamaCare legislation – owners of these policies are the people who are getting the cancellation letters from their carriers. Congressman Mike Rogers said that since October 1 we have had more people lose coverage than have signed on using the troubled exchanges.
The above URLs concentrate on serious pricing problems on the government website discovered by CBS News & others. The problem centers around the website providing only two points for people to check – those "49 or under" (which provides pricing only for a 27 year old) & those "50 or older" (which provides pricing only for someone who is 50). It doesn't take much imagination to see where someone using the prices for a 27 year old will be mislead, if they are in their 40s, when they get their real pricing or where someone who is in their early 60s will be shocked when they get their real pricing instead of that of a 50 year old.
Examples provided: 1) a 48 year old ineligible for subsidies thought she would pay $231 per month per the government website but her actual cost is $360 per month, & 2) a 62 year old's price per the government website is $394 per month & the actual price is $634 per month.
At the end of this post I provide a table composed by the Heritage Foundation that shows the average one month premium change on a state by state basis for people buying healthcare insurance in the individual non-group market compared to buying it on the ObamaCare exchanges. Please note that the table does not include any subsidies that could be received by some people, the non-group price may not include all of the coverage mandated by ObamaCare, & in some cases insurance was not available in the non-group market before ObamaCare for people with pre-existing conditions – so do your own analysis to see where you fit into all this – i.e., whether you will receive a subsidy or whether you will be paying through your taxes for someone else to receive a subsidy.
Under ObamaCare it is estimated that more than half the uninsured will qualify for subsidies, another 38% will qualify for Medicaid, & 10% will pay the full rate shown on the Heritage table. See chart immediately below that shows the distribution of the nonelderly uninsured as a percentage of the federal poverty level. The subsidies decrease on a sliding scale as your income moves closer to the 400+% of the federal poverty level @ which level the subsidies are eliminated.
| Location | Under 100% | 100-138% | 139-250% | 251-399% | 400%+ | Total |
| United States | 38% | 13% | 25% | 13% | 10% | 100% |
Now the launching of ObamaCare on October 1 has been so dreadful that many people have said it is hard to believe it could really be this bad – but website inadequacies, high
premiums, high deductibles, learning we cannot keep our doctors in many cases, & of course higher taxes that no Democrat cares about could very well just be the first wave of what will become single payer universal healthcare.
It is almost like ObamaCare has been designed to fail & when it does there are two alternatives & both of them scrap ObamaCare – 1) go back to some form of a regulated free market system, or 2) move to a single payer universal healthcare system. Click here to hear why we don't want to go to a universal single payer healthcare system – I sum it up this way: The statist's plan is to make people totally dependent on government - both financially through taxes & physically through universal healthcare. See O'Reilly Factor memo below from last Tuesday for more on this.
As employers drop employee healthcare insurance coverage & either pay the fine or as is more likely reduce employee's hours to make them part timers thereby avoiding the fine (this hasn't happened to any significant degree yet because BO waived the employer mandate until 2015 & employers don't have the incentive to reduce hours yet – the large number of part time employees has been caused by BO's purposely designed poor economy & is not yet the result of ObamaCare) many more than the current 19 million Americans will be thrown on to the exchanges. This will result in a further increase in taxes paid to pay for the additional subsidies & enrollments in Medicaid – a current example of single payer healthcare.
More & more Democrats are all of a sudden calling for delay in ObamaCare. A one year delay saves unsuspecting people what is currently being served up but it also puts the further implementation of this horrible law after the 2014 mid-term election which gives the Democrats a chance, with the pathetic amount of attention voters pay, to win the House & hold onto the Senate – a disastrous combination for America concerning BO's last two years in office with only minimal checks & balances here & there across the country.
Although it is unkind to continue to unleash ObamaCare on the citizenry it is really the only way to get the attention of our apathetic society to see if they are capable of doing something about it for ourselves & our Posterity.
---O'Reilly Factor Talking Points Memo October 22, 2013 Entitled Socialist Agenda?---
"With ObamaCare descending into chaos, the President & the Democratic Party are in a perilous place. Americans are starting to figure out that the government-controlled healthcare industry is likely to be a nightmare. So why won't the feds fix the situation before imposing it on the people? The answer is that ObamaCare is just part of a vision for the forced sharing of assets. The strategy is largely kept quiet, but there have been hints. MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry has said, 'You do have a right to healthcare & to education & to decent housing.' That is a socialist-communist vision, that the state should provide all citizens a certain lifestyle @ the expense of other citizens. If healthcare is a constitutional right, then everything associated with good health would fall into the civil rights category. So your entire environment – house, food, clothing, transportation, mental health – would have to be paid for by the state if you could not afford it. In order to provide for the have-nots, the far left wants the government to seize the assets of solvent Americans. That's what ObamaCare is all about – taking from those who can afford healthcare to provide for those who cannot. Talking points believes most Americans don't understand what's going on in this country. The USA cannot afford to pay for ObamaCare unless working Americans give up more of their assets. In some cases, much more."
click on table to enlarge
click on table to enlarge
Hi Doug - I found the last paragraph in ObamaCare - Prelude To Single Payer Universal Healthcare particularly interesting/depressing. The inevitable ripple effect, that you cautiously predict, from “Healthcare a Constitutional Right” could have consequences that are not recognized by the country at large. How do we protect ourselves from the incremental loss of wealth?
ReplyDeleteYou literally ask the $64,000 question. The first thing to do is realize what is happening & I find even some long time RTE readers still don’t get it. Once someone does understand – & I know you do – take whatever precautions fit your own situation because the consequences of ObamaCare are coming. The key for us & America is for the ObamaCare sledgehammer to wake people up when they wind up paying something for nothing – whether a premium for a policy they don’t want or a tax penalty for not buying this unwanted policy. We have been losing ground for many years so it is hard to say if the American people are capable any longer to rally – they are very used to thinking they are entitled to government programs & may choose single payer. There will be @ a minimum an incremental loss of wealth like you say – the best thing to do is to recognize this & minimize it.
DeleteAbove is excellent response. Regarding "loosing ground": credit the Left for relentlessly pushing their agenda especially since the 60's. We therefore are part to blame as we did not counter sufficiently. We must therefore take advantage of this ObamaCare debacle and potential for a $ collapse and explain how both of these events will decimate the poor and middle class. Otherwise the American public will accept the ObamaCare consequences and live with them as a "cost" (and benefit for many per subsidies and enrolling in Medicaid) of securing their overall entitlement welfare state. An exceptionally strong leader can catapult our efforts. I hope that Ted Cruz will step up his game and make the case for free markets, limited gov, and personal freedoms. The Harvard debating champion is more than capable. He must make it his top priority.
DeleteBig corporations like Apple & Google are ahead of the curve & keep their money overseas. My old landlord would say of the Government, “It’s their money they just let you use it they can take it back anytime they want.”
Delete"Although it is unkind to continue to unleash ObamaCare on the citizenry it is really the only way to get the attention of our apathetic society to see if they are capable of doing something about it for ourselves & our Posterity. "
ReplyDeleteThat is the bottom line. People are going to have to own it. They let a bunch of incompetent, power hungry fools (Democrats and Republicans) take over their lives, now they will have to learn the hard way. It is not going to be pretty but turning points rarely are.
Wait until the Independent Payment Advisory Board begins to operate. And they are accountable to no one.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. We will then be on our way to 6 month waits for MRI's for severe knee injuries. We must educate Americans this is around the corner unless we block this ObamaCare debacle.
DeleteDoug, It's very clear to me that this entire bill was designed to fail so that everyone would eventually be shoved, kicking and screaming, into a single payer plan. This was BO's and his progressive cronies goal from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteI watched 10 minutes of the hearing this morning and turned it off in disgust. The way it works is insane and nothing will ever be resolved with this method of investigation. What a waste of time!!!