New Year, same trend. In spite of supporters' insistent assertions to the contrary, Obamacare is not working wellfor most Americans. The law is unpopular, is hurting far more peoplethan it's helping, and routinely confirms that the "Affordable" Care Act was a terrible misnomer. Late in 2014, we learned that the administration's (dubious and flawed) enrollment figures had been deliberately goosed, that the government drastically pared back its updated enrollment projections, and that consumers should expect that many patients enrolled in Medicaid -- an empirically failing, recklessly expanded program -- will soon be forced to grapple with a fresh bout of access shock due to impending reimbursement cuts. Now that the calendar has flipped to 2015, key elements of the program's website are still under construction, and Obamacare consumers have more treats to look forward to, including "ballooning" deductiblesfor the middle class. USA Today reports:
Just so we're clear, this data is drawn from Americans still on their employer-based plans -- not those enrolled through Obamacare's exchanges, whose deductibles are substantially higher. Deductibles are mandatory minimum costs consumers must pay before their coverage (into which they pay with monthly premiums) kicks in. Those premium payments continue to rise, by the way. Obamacare defenders say that rate increases are lower than expected, an argument that fails on two levels: First, Americans were promised sharplyreduced premiums. Second, some experts are warning that monthly costs are likely to to accelerate faster in a few years, after the law's artificial price control provisions ("the three R's") sunset. Couple consumers' bloating deductible payments with rising rates, and it becomes clear that for all of his revisionism and smugness, Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber was right. Cost containment was never a genuine goal of the "Affordable" Care Act; Democrats only emphasized it as a means of placating the masses. Meanwhile, other wonks have been predicting that a messy tax season, replete with many unhappy surprises, awaits many Obamacare consumers. As Kevin noted last night, the government screweth up, and the tax man cometh:
Another line in this Washington Examiner story is worth highlighting, too: "The fine for not having insurance in the second year of Obamacare is $325 or 2 percent of taxable income, whichever is greater." The individual mandate tax is growing, as several major mandates kick into effect following political delays -- even as loopholes and postponements remain. And we'd be remiss to write a post on Obamacare's new year without mentioning the legal cloud hanging over the law, threatening to plunge it into total chaos. If the Supreme Court rules that consumers living in the majority of states that declined to set up their own exchanges are ineligible to receive federal subsidies -- which is what the law explicitly states in its text, and Jon Gruber repeatedly affirmed -- it will result in a political earthquake. Contra Kathleen Sebelius, "rebranding" (or "re-education," as she once put it) won't save Obamacare. Perhaps she and the administration may have been wise to listen more carefully to Chuck Schumer.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2015/01/05/report-obamacare-deductibles-slam-middle-class-n1938011
http://freebeacon.com/issues/obamacare-in-the-new-year/
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