Obamacare exchanges are ill conceived: over regulated, overly expensive benefits, & charge excessively high premiums. Go through the presentation to see how it hurts small business, healthcare, workers and insurance.
The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates. – Tacitus
Manipulating or micromanaging health insurance companies will not stop healthcare inflation. Two separate issues! Left wing politicians do not understand private markets or business.
The patient access and affordable care act also known as Obamacare. *Research found that wasteful spending in the health system has been calculated at up to $1.2 trillion of the $2.2 trillion spent in the United States, more than half of all health spending. PROBLEM: The unicorn of actual health care reform is strangely absent from Obamacare.
What's not absent is the even greater increase in health insurance since Obamacare was passed. Informed minds can no longer say "Obamacare is better than nothing." Before you wonder what I would do differently, check out my ideas for true insurance reform.
COBRA has helped people for 25 years keep their health insurance. But state health insurance exchanges will probably make COBRA obsolete. Of course, COBRA was never well embraced to begin with, having only 13% enrollment.
I would love to see Obamacare drive down the cost of healthcare and make it affordable for everyone. I have my doubts. Another single payer system, Medicare, which is trillions in the hole. Obamacare duplicates that type of success, by dumping millions into the Medicaid Ghetto. Try and get a doctors appointment within a reasonable time on Medicaid. I double dog dare ya.
Many employees stay with their employers because of the benefits, especially if they have a sick family member. With the exchanges, that employer loyalty goes out the window and you are left with just pay and maybe a fancy title. But companies can always sign up for their own health insurance with many controls and hire out the administration.
With less money being spent on benefits, you would thing employee pay would rise. Of course, if companies are laying off to reduce their potential fines, COBRA admin costs will increase. And in the Obamacare economy, many people are thankful just to have jobs.
Pooling risk failure
Health Exchanges have been tried before. In California, we had HIPC, later called the PAC Advantage. It actually lasted 13 whole years. But it was voluntary. Same song, pooling risk to reduce costs. HIPC only had a few thousand participants, in a state of 30 million. If the Supreme Court rules Obamacare's mandate unconstitutional, no one will enroll.
Insurance companies do not like to compete head to head, especially on a large scale. If they could make money with that type of system, it would have already been tried and succeeded privately.
The reason HIPA/ PAC Advantage failed is simple, there's a fancy term called "Adverse Selection." Basically, since the health insurance will be guaranteed issue, the chronically ill with expensive medical conditions will gladly enroll, while the younger, healthy workers pay the fine and forego the coverage.
Romneycare
A good example is RomneyCare in Massachusetts. The "mandatory" coverage is not policed very well, with only 17% of people being penalized for not having health insurance. Copays and co insurance have increased, as well as the premiums by 40%.
Obamacare has provision that requires employers to immediately insure a new employee. Often, employees don't work out and decide to move on or are fired after the honeymoon with their new employer is over. if companies have to insure new hires, they will be more hesitant to bring new people on.
Insurers will have a short leash if Obamacare becomes enforced, esp,. by 2014. There are many new regulations, taxes and fees, where Obama basically declares war on for profit health insurance carriers.
Increasing Prices
What happens in a hostile work environment? You don't want to operate there any more. Insurers are looking at other lines of coverage, or even other industries, like information technology. Less competition means higher prices. Obamacare was more about increasing government power, and not about making health coverage affordable. if it was, why mandate sweeping comprehensive benefits for everyone, even those that didn't need it?
The CBO estimates health insurance could jump 30%. I've heard estimates of the coming increases in premiums as high as 400% after Jan 1, 2014 when the guaranteed issue provisions begin. That will lead to depression and even more than the 3 million jobs already lost in the Obamacare economy. And those that still have jobs will have lower wages, because employers can only pay so much in wages and benefits. Government pressure does not lead to lower prices, only fewer participants.
Car Insurance Analogy
I don't believe you can force people to buy a product and have them happy with the results. Even if you site auto insurance as an example, a person does not have to own car insurance. You would have to buy health insurance just for the privilege of existing.
Also there is a vast difference in the way car insurance vs. health insurance works. nearly 100% of people with health insurance will have a claim. Some very very expensive. Many people drive, yet never get into an at fault accident. And you don't have to
have car insurance, just don't drive the car. And there are alternatives to having car insurance, like a surety bond or cash deposit.
Car insurance is administered through the states anyway, who are supposed to have more authority over their residents than the federal government.
Health expenses are usually covered regardless of fault. And adverse selection will put many insurers out of business, equalling less choice. I am not a reporter, I was a health insurance agent. 300,000 health insurance agents are not happy getting their commissions cut, thanks to the MLRs or medical loss ratios in Obamacare. But it's just as well because the insurance exchanges will effectively end their careers. Add 300,000 of those jobs to the 3 million already lost under Obama.
Alternatives:
With the Obamacare penalties, your main alternatives are to pay it or have your credit ruined. You could also become Amish, be an illegal immigrant, or prisoner. Or pay the $7,000 - $15,000 in health insurance premiums if you are in the middle class.
You didn't have bills before right? Something they are doing in Massachusetts, claim jumping, but that won't be happening until 2014. And you should stay insured if you can afford it.
What you can do now
If you care about:
The value of the US dollars in your pocket
The quality of care you will receive
The sustainability of social entitlements
Go to RepealItNow.org. Or call 800 392-1700. Also call your congressman and tell them to repeal Obamacare.
In the meantime, shop for rates at the top of the page in the green box. Until 2014, you will have many more choices. After Jan 1, 2014, you will probably have only 4 plans to chose from if the states can get their exchanges set up in time.
Unless the Supreme court rules against Obamacare and / or it's many parts, universal rationed healthcare will be here to stay.
A final challenge: If anyone can show me where government has taken over an industry and run it better and more efficiently than private business, email me. I am open to
having my mind changed, and I surely do not know everything about insurance, and even health insurance.
*PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
Recommended Obamacare / PPACA / Affordable Care Act Links:
Craig Casey is an Writer, Coach, Blogger, Husband, and Former Health Insurance Agent helping people on the web since 1999 with their health insurance problems.
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