When advocating for Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi famously said “we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” This rushed approach rankled many who worried that many of the programs calculations didn’t add up. It appears there concerns were justified, and now Americans everywhere are about to find out the hard way. As Rich Lowry notes:
Enrollment is falling short. The Obama administration projects that it will have roughly ten million people on the state and federal exchanges by the end of next year, a staggering climbdown from prior expectations. The Congressional Budget Office had predicted that there would be roughly 20 million enrollees. If the administration is to be believed, enrollment will only increase about another million next year from its current nine million and only sign up about a quarter of the eligible uninsured. RELATED: What’s Wrong with Obamacare? Premiums are rising. Not everywhere, but steeply in some states. Indiana is down 12 percent, but Minnesota is up 50 percent. Health-care expert Robert Laszewski points out that it is the insurers with the most enrollment and therefore the best information about actual enrollees who have tended to request the biggest increases — a sign that they don’t like what they’re seeing in their data. Relatedly, the economics are shaky. According to a McKinsey & Co. analysis, last year health insurers lost $2.5 billion in the individual market that Obamacare remade. Obamacare co-ops that were supposed to enhance choice and lower costs have been failing, and almost all of them are losing money, a victim of the absurd rules (no industry executives on their boards, no raising capital in public markets, etc.) imposed on them by the law.
The problem with Obamacare in a nutshell is that on one hand, by imposing motley regulations and mandates, it increases the price of health insurance, and on the other hand, by providing subsidies, it tries to hide the cost — but not enough. According to an analysis of the health consultancy Avalere, the poor or near-poor have been signing up, but enrollment steeply drops off further up the income scale as the subsidies fall away. It found that three-fourths of uninsured people earning less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level got coverage through Medicaid or the exchanges, while a small fraction of the uninsured making more than 250 percent of the federal poverty level have enrolled.
Lowry has it nailed. It is relatively impossible for a scheme based on political incentives with goodies for everyone to provide more care to more people at a lower cost than the private marketplace where providers are forced to compete and innovate. Now we’re left with an expensive, burdensome system that is destroying the profits of those private companies who got into bed with the government and hitting American taxpayers in the wallet. What happens next is nothing good. With repeal unlikely, it’s possible that companies will be forced to continue raising premiums in a way that is politically inconvenient for those leaders who sold the illusion that Obamacare would make them taller, faster, and better looking. This means little to Barack Obama, who will be busy working on his golf game when the shit hits the proverbial fan. But if Republicans can find a way to screw up this election, it might mean that the task falls to Hillary Clinton, she of the far left Hillarycare plan that was roundly rejected by the American public in the 90s. Clinton will have a choice between scrapping the whole thing, and admitting that the fundamental tenets of liberalism are shaky, or she can opt for the politically convenient approach- demonize private businesses and call for greater government regulation and further nationalization of our healthcare system.
I wonder which one she’ll choose?
AAN Staff
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