The Impact of ObamaCare

In spite of all its rollout issues, the glitches, the delays and the special privileges, the promise of ObamaCare was that, in getting more people, mostly the young and the poor, insured, that would spread out the risk and make insurance cheaper overall, even with those subsidies. By how much? Well, there were promises made, over and over. But many states are seeing insurance rates rise at a faster clip.

Part of ObamaCare was the PCIP, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. John Lott notes that, at its height, at the beginning of 2013, there were 115,000 enrolled in it. Giving them targeted subsidies would have been a lot cheaper.

Millions of Californians have been added to the ranks of the insured, but 1/3 of California primary care physicians are set to retire. What are we going to do now? We passed a law that said insurance should be magically cheaper. That didn’t work. So then let’s pass a law to make doctors magically appear!

Mentioned links:

Survey shows ObamaCare sending premiums rising at fastest clip in decades

Note that at its height 115,000 Americans are said to have had pre-existing health issues that made it difficult for them to get “affordable” insurance

Pre-Existing Conditions: The Case For The Unaffordable Care Act

ConsumerWatch: Some Covered California Patients Say They Can’t See A Doctor

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Show transcript

In spite of all its rollout issues, the glitches, the delays and the special privileges, the promise of ObamaCare was that, in getting more people, mostly the young and the poor, insured, that would spread out the risk and make insurance cheaper overall, even with those subsidies. By how much? Well, there were promises made, over and over.

(see video above)

That’s just a few examples. There’s a video in the show notes with more.

Now, in some of those cases he did say “up to†$2500 dollars. And since 0 is technically on the way up to 2500, if you didn’t save anything, he can count you as a promise kept, just like anyone else trying to sell you something on TV. However, what about these folks?

A recent survey of 148 insurance brokers shows that ObamaCare is sending premiums rising at the fastest clip in decades.

“For the last, about, five years they’ve been doing this survey, so this was the largest percentage increase in any quarter since they’ve been doing (it),” said Scott Gottlieb of the American Enterprise Institute.

“But at 12 percent, 11 percent increase on average across all the states — that puts it at the upper end of any increase we’ve seen for decades.”

I don’t think that “truth in advertising†laws would allow you to claim that saving negative dollars is somewhere “up to†$2500. Now, are some people saving that much? I’ll stipulate to that, but in general, on average, this is costing the American people more, not less.

And for some states, it’s really bad. Premiums in Pennsylvania went up 28 percent. In Florida, up 37%. In California, up 53%. And those in Delaware have had to deal with a 100% increase in premiums.

Oh, and this isn’t considering the higher deductibles. That’s just as much a cost as the premium. And the Congressional Budget Office projects that the premiums of the ObamaCare plans are going to continue to rise.

Of course, those paying the penalty are saving loads of cash. That defeats the purpose, but hey, savings are savings, right?

—

Part of ObamaCare was the PCIP, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. John Lott notes that, at its height, at the beginning of 2013, there were 115,000 enrolled in it. So one big selling point seems to be working.

Except that dealing with something like this on its own would have been cheaper and less disruptive of the entire health insurance industry. Clayton Cramer did the math, and if you gave those people $20,000 per year to subsidize their insurance premiums, it would cost $2.3 billion. Now, that’s a lot of money anyway, but doing it that way would also allow millions of people to keep their plan if they liked their plan; just one example of the disruption that was caused instead.

Again I note that Republicans did have their own solutions to the health care problems, but Democrats insisted that the whole industry had to be upended in order to fix it. We’re finding out just how wrong that was. We are. Seems they aren’t.

—

There’s a difference between getting heath care coverage, and actually getting health care. In the US, you could always get health care. Emergency rooms had to see you whether or not you could pay them. And there were various free clinics, like one in Mountain View, California.

The Rotacare clinic was happy to help out their patients in getting ObamaCare coverage so they’d no longer need the free clinic. Months later, however, the same people are coming back. Why? They can’t find a doctor taking more patients or who are accepting the plans.

Conservatives warned that exactly this thing would happen, years ago. It was handwaved away as scare tactics. But it’s Californians who are scared now, about having to pay premiums, subsidized though they may be, and not be able to actually use what they paid for.

Millions of Californians have been added to the ranks of the insured, but 1/3 of California primary care physicians are set to retire. What are we going to do now? We passed a law that said insurance should be magically cheaper. That didn’t work. So then let’s pass a law to make doctors magically appear!

Savings that don’t materialize. Doctors that are no longer available. Problems that are small enough that a targeted solution would have been better. At each and every turn, we’re finding out that the problems of Obamacare were easily predicted, and its promises were impossible to live up to. But hey, after signing up a magic number of people, it’s been proclaimed as working. Yeah, well, the folks at Rotacare, or those with skyrocketing premiums, might just have a different definition of “workingâ€.

Related posts:

1. 
   
2. Episode 57: Millions of ObamaCare Broken Promises
   
3. Episode 65: Canadians Escaping Their Health System, American Workers Get Better Health Care From a Corporation, and How Wisconsin Got a Billion Dollar Surplus
   
4. Episode 5: A Closer Look at ObamaCare and the Supreme Court Ruling