The Patriot Post® · Where ObamaCare Isn't Working
Next March will be the five-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare. Despite the fact it was sold as a way to make sure the 30 to 50 million uninsured in this country could get health insurance at affordable prices, the law has never been popular with Americans. You may recall we were promised more health care for more people at lower rates thanks to increased competition. Of course, the most famous of what turned out to be many BIG Lies about the law was this: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” Over the last couple years as the law was implemented, millions have found that’s not the case.
Just in time for the ramp-up to both the midterm election and the next open enrollment period, commentator Ezra Klein decided it was time to convince Americans that this bitter pill of ObamaCare is really good for them. Klein attempts to make the case that ObamaCare really isn’t as bad a disaster as those in conservative media portray because now “[t]hey know that premiums are lower than projected and insurers are joining the exchanges.” He adds, “So the argument has developed a good-news-is-bad-news quality.”
If you look at the argument in those limited terms, perhaps Klein is correct. Instead of being a sudden calamity, perhaps we’re witnessing a slow-motion disaster.
As health insurance expert Bob Laszewski writes, “We won’t know what the real Obamacare rates will be until we see the 2017 rates – when there will be plenty of valid claim data and the Obamacare reinsurance program, now propping the rates up, will have ended.” Look for an executive order in the next year or so to extend that reinsurance program for an extra year to remove a potential October surprise for the 2016 Democrat nominee.
This also helps explain why additional insurers are joining the exchanges, as the reinsurance program can cover them in case of loss. The insurance industry is not known for stupidity, nor is it immune to standing in line for taxpayer handouts, and the expansion of Medicaid rolled into ObamaCare simply put Uncle Sam first in a very long line.
In short, Klein’s piece is the Left’s latest attempt to squeeze some lemonade out of the truckload of lemons we received with ObamaCare.
But after all the false starts, accounting tricks, carve-outs for favored groups and industries, and years of toil on a half-finished website, we have only to think back to the system it replaced. While the employer-based health insurance system has numerous flaws and many people could slip through the cracks, it was effective in most cases. Americans still had a significant choice of providers and plans depending on how much they wished to pay, while those who chose to forgo coverage or participate in the market via their own health savings account (HSA) had those options, too. Now we have decreased choice in smaller networks, with higher co-pays and deductibles, and increased restrictions on HSA spending. All this comes with the added bonus of the IRS breathing down your neck if you still wish to opt out of health insurance.
Finally, there’s a philosophical question that Klein doesn’t address but was brought up by ObamaCare architect Ezekiel Emanuel, who hopes to die at the age of 75. Namely, how much value will bureaucrats put on your life?
Because most over 75 are covered under Medicare, which isn’t a sustainable model without taxpayer assistance – witness the annual fight over whether to slash Medicare payments to physicians as a budget fix – bean counters, not doctors and patients, will determine what age constitutes a full life. Perhaps Emanuel will “stop getting any regular preventive tests, screenings, or interventions [and] will accept only palliative – not curative – treatments if [he is] suffering pain or other disability,” but what if those who wish to prolong their life find the treatment will no longer be covered under insurance because the government has to allocate its scarce resources toward those who are younger or healthier? We’ve opened this Pandora’s box with ObamaCare.
And with a president who prescribes painkillers over pacemakers, the answer may not be the one with which Liberty seekers would agree.