The Defects In Obamacare
Stanley Feld M.D., FACP, MACE
We live in an era of sound bites driving opinions rather than details driving opinions. The devil is always in the details.
The defects in Obamacare are too numerous to count. President Obama provides the traditional mass media with sounds bites leading to false conclusions.
The sound bites are misleading. Many of the sound bites are lies. One such sound bite is Obamacare is working and therefore does not need changing.
He and the Democrats keep the discussion on the sound bites level and do not dig into the real issue. President Obama even keeps the details away from congress the very people he is dependent on to pass the bill.
President Obama kept the facts and details about Obamacare away from the congress and the people. He is now doing it with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed regional regulatory and investment pact. Just as with Obamacare, President Obama expects congress to vote in favor of a pact they have not debated and have not had an opportunity to read the details in the final bill.
It is another one of those bills where the administration is telling the congress and the American people you have to pass the bill in order to see what is in it.
Americans are tired of his lack of transparency and lies. They do not trust President Obama anymore.
Congress should never make the same mistake they made with Obamacare. If they do all Americans should rally to throw all the bums out.
The devil is always in the details.
United States Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) said,
“Congress is being kept in the dark as to the substance of the TPP negotiations, while representatives of U.S. corporations—like Halliburton, Chevron, PHRMA, Comcast, and the Motion Picture Association of America—are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement. […]
" More than two months after receiving the proper security credentials, my staff is still barred from viewing the details of the proposals that USTR is advancing. We hear that the process by which TPP is being negotiated has been a model of transparency. I disagree with that statement.[98]”
President Obama and the speaker have told us it is good pact for the country’s economy. Senator Cruz is right. “Don’t vote for something whose details you do not know.”
There are many defects in Obamacare. One major defect is that it is not affordable to consumers, the federal government or state governments. When fully implemented the cost of healthcare to the federal government will be at least 50% of our GNP not the 23% of GNP predicted. Twenty three percent is bad enough.
Federal and State taxes will have to be increased to cover all medical care entitlement costs.
President Obama keeps telling us that Obamacare is working. He says it is here to stay.
The reality is Obamacare is an unworkable and costly failure in multiple areas including the health insurance exchanges, healthcare.gov, insurance premiums and deductible costs, the development of Accountable Care Organizations, maintenance of employer insurance and more.
Americans deserve a better system than Obamacare.
It is impossible to cover all of the harmful details of every category in one blog.
It is disingenuous for President Obama to claim, in his repeated sound bites, that there is no need to change anything in Obamacare because Obamacare is working fine.
The real cost of Obamacare to consumers (especially taxpayers), the federal and state governments and the economy have not been disclosed nor are they transparent.
The real costs start to leak out with stories about how the costs affect consumers and their lifestyle.
This usually leads to the sound bites that it will be better to have a government single party payer system.
The underlying defect is that this system leads to consumers being dependent on government and not responsible for themselves. Government changes rules on a whim. Consumers do not have options. This is a road to serfdom.
“After the Affordable Care Act kicked in, a 52-year-old sales and marketing entrepreneur reported his monthly health-insurance premium to cover himself and his family grew to $848 from $513. Like others, he wasn’t happy about it. “It’s taking a lot out of pocket,” he said.”
He is one of millions of Americans who earn too much to qualify for government subsidies on policies purchased through the federal insurance exchange. He was in favor of Obamacare before he realized Obamacare’s effect on reality.
Obamacare requires insurance companies to offer insurance policies with broad coverage and greater protection against catastrophic medical costs. It also requires coverage on illnesses and conditions such as pregnancy and birth control coverage for people who do not need this coverage.
Obamacare was supposed to save every family $2,500 a year. It costs families more than $2,500 dollars a year. It was not supposed to affect anyone making less than $250,000 per year.
It is true that many of the above a not taxes. However it is a cost burden on consumers making less than $250,000 a year.
Others, making less than $50,000 a year, receive complete or partial government subsidies. This is what is meant by redistribution of wealth. It is a significant cost burden on consumers making $50,000 to $250,000 dollars a year.
Everyone remembers President Obama promising that Obamacare will not cost families making less that $250,000 one dime.
Obamacare premiums have become unaffordable to people earning less than $50,000 per year as well.
Obamacare’s goal was to cover everyone with broad insurance coverage and greater protection against catastrophic medical costs.
Yet, only 10 million out of 330 million are covered by the exchanges. Each enrollee in the exchanges also has high deductibles. These deductibles can be as high as $6,000 a year.
Many of the insurance companies claim they will be losing money after the government’s health insurance industry subsidies disappear in 2016.
These companies will leave the Obamacare federal health exchanges reducing competition. This in turn will increase premiums further and make premiums more unaffordable.
Another detail overlooked is enrollees are poorer, sicker and older. The pool is not diluted by younger, healthier and richer. The result is more expensive insurance rates.
“ HHS was saying that it needed about 40 percent of the exchange policies to be purchased by people age 18-35 to keep the exchanges financially stable. It was 28 percent in both 2014 and 2015, according to HHS data. The CBO had projected about 85 percent of exchange enrollees to be subsidized, falling toward 80 percent as enrollment grew; instead, that number is 87 percent and actually rose slightly from 2014.”
According to a study last year by the National Bureau of Economic Research, people who bought silver and bronze plans on the federal and state health insurance exchanges saw total premiums and out-of-pocket payments rise an estimated 14% to 28% higher than pre- Obamacare premiums and out of pocket expenses.
Obamacare is not fulfilling any of President Obama’s sound-bite promises.
His claim that Obamacare is working well and does not have to change makes absolutely no sense.
If one tells a lie enough times it becomes eventually becomes the truth.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone
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