Obamacare policies are shockingly unaffordable for many

Reblogged from This Got My Attention:





There’s an interesting article in Reason Magazine online looking at just how shockingly unaffordable Obamacare policies are for many Americans. I’ve mentioned before from just personal inquiries that if we had to insure under an Obamacare policy we would get a far lower quality policy than we currently have. Obamacare does not lower costs and it increases deductibles and copays. It’s an enormous ripoff for the average American. But, on to the article.

Don’t get your hopes up for swelling ranks of enrollees, though. USA Today ran the numbers and found that, in much of the country, Obamacare plans are so expensive that many people who make too much to qualify for subsidies are exempt from requirements that they purchase insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
For USA Today, Jayne O’Donnell and Paul Overberg write:

More than half of the counties in 34 states using the federal health insurance exchange lack even a bronze plan that’s affordable — by the government’s own definition — for 40-year-old couples who make just a little too much for financial assistance, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
Many of these counties are in rural, less populous areas that already had limited choice and pricey plans, but many others are heavily populated, such as Bergen County, N.J., and Philadelphia and Milwaukee counties.
More than a third don’t offer an affordable plan in the four tiers of coverage known as bronze, silver, gold or platinum for people buying individual plans who are 50 or older and ineligible for subsidies.
Those making more than 400% of the federal poverty limit — $47,780 for an individual or $61,496 for a couple — are ineligible for subsidies to buy insurance.

One thing that the article points out is that if the Healthcare.gov website can’t provide you with a policy that costs less than 8% of your income then the individual mandate is waived. Well, “Thank you very much, Sir. May I have another?” The problem is that many people want insurance. But, the Obamatrons have ruined the insurance market so badly that affordable insurance in not available. Waiving their gun-to-the-head mandate enforced by the IRS isn’t much help.
You may be asking (or maybe you’re not, if you’re one of the Obamatrons marching lockstep over this rapidly approaching cliff) how the most brilliant drones in the world could possibly have gotten this so wrong. Well, the Reason Mag article puts it very well.

This situation comes about because, as health industry expert Kip Piper says, “The ACA was not designed to reduce costs or, … to make health insurance coverage affordable for the vast majority of Americans. The law uses taxpayer dollars to lower costs for the low-income uninsured but it also increases costs overall and shifts costs within the marketplace.“
This is not a new revelation, by the way. In 2010, the Heritage Foundation’s Joshua Wade warned:

Obamacare will succeed only at shifting the burden to taxpayers and the privately insured.  Americans with private health insurance will indirectly subsidize care received by those reliant on Medicare and Medicaid. It is for this reason that for many Americans, Obamacare will actually cause medical costs to rise.

Ouch.
Perhaps it’s just as well. Those folks priced out of health coverage would have had a hell of a time getting in to see a doctor with one of the exchange plans, anyway.