Health Care: President Obama once told the country that ObamaCare was a "great product." When open enrollment for ObamaCare begins on Nov. 1, millions of Americans will discover just how big a lie this was.
Although the mainstream press has largely ignored it during this election in favor of wall-to-wall coverage of Donald Trump's alleged misdeeds, ObamaCare is absolutely coming unglued.
When the exchanges open for business in two weeks, people looking for insurance there will find far fewer choices, sky-high premiums and lower-quality plans.
A recent analysis by Bloomberg found that because insurance companies have bailed out of so many ObamaCare markets, more than 1.4 million people will be forced to switch plans during open enrollment. In most cases, that will mean finding new doctors and other providers as well.
Millions will find only one insurance company participating in their area. Oklahoma, Alaska, Wyoming, Alabama and South Carolina will have one ObamaCare insurer statewide, and so will most counties in Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina. Before ObamaCare, 17 insurers competed for business in Kansas. When the exchanges open up in November, most will have a choice of two.
A Kaiser Family Foundation review found that, overall, nearly a third of the counties in the U.S. will have only one insurer.
Premiums for the vast majority of these plans will climb at rates that were unimaginable before ObamaCare "fixed" the individual insurance market.
In Obama's home state of Illinois, for example, the average increase for a Silver plan is 45%. The average for the cheaper Bronze is 44%. The biggest hike in the state is 84%, and the smallest is 20%, according to the state insurance commissioner.
In Nebraska, the average premium hikes for the two remaining insurers in the state are 41% and 55%, says the state's insurance department.
Even with subsidies, many will find ObamaCare unaffordable.
Consider the plight of people in California — where the statewide average premium hike for next year is 13.2%.
A 25-year-old living in the state's vast "Inland Empire" who makes $18,000 a year will end up paying an average of $1,080 a year — after subsidies — for a Silver plan that comes with $3,000 in deductibles, according to Covered California. That means they'll have to spend roughly 20% of their income on premiums and medical bills before seeing a dime in benefits.
For a 40-year-old who makes more than $47,500 — and won't be eligible for any subsidies — the cheapest Bronze plan will cost $2,412 a year, and come with $6,800 in deductibles.
The Obama administration claims that these massive rate hikes don't matter because 87% of the people who buy insurance in the ObamaCare exchange get subsidies. But that overlooks the fact that most people who don't qualify for subsidies don't bother buying through the exchange. When you factor that in, roughly half of the market faces the full brunt of these outrageously steep price hikes.
While all this is going on, the coverage is getting worse. Most of the plans offered in ObamaCare exchanges next year will be highly restrictive HMOs — the very kind of insurance the government tried to push into the market in the 1990s and which the market overwhelmingly rejected.
In Illinois, five insurers offered more patient-friendly PPO plans this year, but only one will do so next year.
None of these calamities should come as a surprise to anyone, since this is precisely what happened in several states that tried the same mix of ObamaCare's "guaranteed issue" and "community rating" regulations in the 1990s.
Like ObamaCare, these states saw competition decline, premiums skyrocket, and the young and healthy drop coverage. Most states either repealed or significantly weakened these rules after their markets started to collapse.
The geniuses behind ObamaCare claimed their creation would avoid these calamities by imposing the individual mandate and offering subsidies. But these obviously aren't working as promised.
Now the question is: Will Democrats in Washington do what these states did — admit their mistake and try to undo the damage? Or will they use ObamaCare's failure as an excuse for imposing still more federal government control over health care.
If Hillary Clinton wins the election, we already know what the answer will be.
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