Another Broken Obamacare Promise
*Editor’s Note: Recent news showcased that the cost of Obamacare for North and South Carolina residents is set to raise premiums for most people. No surprise here. This trend continues across the country. Reporting here is Nicole Kaeding of Americans for Prosperity.
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As a candidate running for president, President Obama declared “in an Obama Administration, we’ll lower premiums by $2,500 for a typical family per year.”
Just days before the ObamaCare exchanges open for enrollment, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finally released just how much insurance will cost hard-working Americans across the country. It turns out that health care premiums will increase quite dramatically, making this the latest in a long line of ObamaCare’s broken promises.
Rates for younger men will increase by an average of 97 percent next year. Rates for women won’t increase as dramatically, but will still increase by a shocking 55 to 62 percent. Enrollment by young individuals is critical for the success of ObamaCare, yet their premiums will increase as much as 279 percent next year.
But these numbers aren’t found anywhere in the HHS release. In fact, HHS and Secretary Sebelius are praising ObamaCare saying these premiums are actually less. How could that be?
Following in the footsteps of the crazy baseline budgeting process here in DC, HHS is actually using baseline health insurance premium analysis. Premiums are less than the Congressional Budget Office originally predicted, so ObamaCare “saved” Americans money. Tell that to the individuals who will be paying more for insurance next year.
Worse yet, supporters of ObamaCare argue that the premium increases don’t matter because individuals aren’t really paying these premiums. They’ll receive tax credits that offset the costs. That’s true…for some. Individuals between 100 and 400% of the federal poverty level will received tax credits to assist with the purchasing of insurance. But 400% of the federal poverty level is only $46,000 a year in income for an individual.
That isn’t much comfort for a 27 year old that has to shoulder these increased premiums and doesn’t qualify for a tax credit. In Indiana, premiums will increase 53 percent for a 27 year old male and thousands of them won’t qualify for the subsidies. Only 44 percent of those between 21-30 years of age in Indiana even qualify for subsidies. In Arkansas, it’s even worse. Premiums are up 247 percent and 53 percent won’t qualify for a subsidy.
We’ve seen a number of broken promises come from the Obama Administration when it comes to the health care law. First, President Obama promised that we could keep our doctors, and the New York Times showed on Monday how that won’t happen. Next, President Obama promised that ObamaCare would be openly debated on C-SPAN and that never happened. Then, he promised that if you liked your insurance, you could keep it. We now know that isn’t true either.
Sounds like this premium increase is just another broken promise to add to the ObamaCare pile.
Read more: http://americansforprosperity.org/legislativealerts/another-broken-obamacare-promise/#ixzz2g5t6vc1B
A 40-year old man in North Carolina will see his premiums increase up to 305% compared to what he was paying before Obamacare. A 27-year old man in North Carolina will experience an increase of 267% while his 27-year old wife will see an increase of 151%.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/09/25/double-down-obamacare-will-increase-avg-individual-market-insurance-premiums-by-99-for-men-62-for-women/
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Oh yeah, and Obama admitted yesterday that he lied when he said taxes would not increase to pay for Obamacare.
They did. Here’s what he said, and here’s the list:
http://www.atr.org/obama-obamacare-raise-taxes-things-a7883
And in the cases where your premium might actually go down a little, your out of pocket expenses are going to increase. When your employer dumps that ‘Cadillac’ Health Care plan that trip to the ER after an accident that cost you only a $100 co pay last year with your HMO will be $2-3000 out of pocket.
I disagree with Henninger. If it’s implemented it will not collapse but will be like Medicare and Medicaide. If it does collapse it will like a star does and become a black hole that will suck every dollar the fed can print into it.
STW, I tend to agree with you on the one hand, these are the days of unlimited money printing and deficit spending, so one could argue it won’t be allowed to fail. On the other hand, his premise is that it will fail not by it’s own accord but through the rejection of it by the American people if they come to learn it’s simply too cumbersome. As we say in the music biz, the wrong gear at the right price is still the wrong gear.
How will this play out? Healthy people will choose to pay the penalty. Sick people will sign up. Rates, subsidies and taxes will increase until the Feds ride to the rescue and take over the entire system. Wait times skyrocket and care gets rationed even more than it is now.
Lewis pointed me to an article that might be our best hope:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304526204579097443230322758.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion
Does this lawsuit stand a chance??
http://www.pacificlegal.org/cases/Tax-raising-Affordable-Care-Act-started-in-wrong-house-of-Congress
In a nation where the Rule of Law has been destroyed, in a word, no.
The goal is a single payer system, the government, which will then ration health care and, as has been pointed out here by others, if you’re not part of the political class or well connected, your health care will not be as good as those who are.
But but but it’s supposed to be cheaper.
Those trillion dollar bills that were talked about a while back might soon find their way into the mainstream.. Keep printing Obama you “can do it”… Yes you can!!!
Obama does try to model himself on Hugo Chavez. After Years of Socialist Bolivarianism shortages are rampant in Venezuela and hyperinflation is raising its ugly head as the central bank ‘primes the pump’.
Kay Hagan, once again (9/30/13), votes to stick Obamacare down our throats. She also votes for her own exemption from Obamacare.
Seriously folks, get a grip. We don’t know what the costs will be for sure. We do know one thing: everybody will pay their fair share and young people will have to take personal responsibility for their health. What’s so bad about that?
Terence,
Please educate me on what my fair share is? Who determines my fair share? How can one take personal responsibility when the government is creating an entitlement program to bail them out?
People who did not have insurance will now have to purchase it. No more free healthcare. People who used emergency rooms as primary care doctors. We will now give them cheap healthcare so they are not forcing the rest of us to pay huge emergency bills. It’s paying for healthcare in a more efficient way than before.
The same people we subsidized at emergency rooms are now just going to be subsidized on a much more expensive and complicated system that hurts the rest of us. And hell, the CBO still projects that 31 million people will be without insurance.
Instead of this ridiculous government takeover that does nothing to address cost, there are a ton of free market solutions to healthcare…and for the poor I’d love to just give them a grant to purchase their own insurance in that free market. Obamacare denies choice, eliminates competition, is a bureaucratic nightmare, and is wholly unworkable. All it does is shift the chairs on the Titanic without addressing underlying problems.
More efficient? The ACA’s own required “burden tracker”…this is the Obama administrations own numbers…show that there are 157 new regulations with 1000’s of new rules. It estimates that compliance alone will cost businesses 127,602,371 hours annually. Does that sound more efficient to you?
No they don’t have to purchase the Health Insurance. They can just pay the penalty(tax) which in most cases is cheaper than the coverage and continue to use the ER as primary healthcare.
Mine went up to 18,000 with a 20,000 deductible. No way I could ever afford that and even if I could I would be an idiot to pay that. That is essentially NO coverage unless I get cancer. I’ll take my chances…even if I HAD 18,0000 PER YEAR I would seriously rather die than waste that much money on nothing.
You’re buying insurance in the wrong place. None of the policies in the NC exchange are anywhere near that much.
That sounds like a Lamborghini Plan rather than a Cadillac Plan.
“The same people we subsidized at emergency rooms are now just going to be subsidized on a much more expensive and complicated system that hurts the rest of us.”
Christian:
Do you understand in the slightest bit the dynamics of our healthcare system? Do you even want to know? Or you are you content just being ignorant?
It is well documented–probably dozens of times over–that paying for the uninsured to see primary care doctors instead of going to the emergency room costs us less. As a tax payer, don’t you want to pay less?
Oh, and regarding your irrational “ridiculous government takeover” comment. Government is already in control of healthcare. If you don’t have insurance then by law you cannot be turned down by an emergency room if you are sick.
So we already have universal, government controlled healthcare. It’s just a matter of how we pay for it. Simple as that. Stop with the middle school logic and return to reality.