Obamacare: replacing infirmaries with ignorance
By Michael Leiferman
America needs health care reform. Nearly 49 millions people lacked health insurance in 2011. Thousands of Americans are left bankrupt after life-threatening illnesses force them into hospitals they cannot afford. American health care is some of the worst in the developed world and something must be done about it.
However, the Affordable Care Act is not the reform that America so desperately needs. The Obama administration’s attempt to create much needed reform have failed. This failure has left millions of Americans in situations either unchanged or worse off than they were before the Affordable Care Act was put into effect.
Incomplete and unready
The Affordable Care Act has caused an incredible amount of confusion amongst those that the bill affects. The main cause of this confusion is the fact that the ACA was never intended to be put into law in its current form. Political situations compelled the Democrats to force an unfinished bill and a bill of fixes through the House with the reasoning that even a rushed bill is better than no bill.
This slapdash process has created a state of panic in which government agencies, private companies and doctors scramble to find out what they are required to do before the deadline for implementation arrives. The deadline for companies to insure employees has already been pushed back till 2015 because companies were unable to properly prepare in the time given.
The unintended and the uninsured
The ACA mandates that the States set up “exchanges” where Americans can purchase health insurance online from a variety of insurers. However, these exchanges are being almost uniformly rejected by the states. States have very little incentive to set up these exchanges as they can be costly and the states do not receive the full cost from the federal government. This has increased the cost burden on the federal government by forcing them to set up exchanges on the state’s behalf.
The ACA provides a mandate for states to expand Medicaid as well as set up exchanges. States were originally required to expand Medicaid or face the removal of all funding for the program. The Supreme Court ruled that this stipulation was unconstitutionally coercive and stuck down the provision. This has led to 20 states refusing to expand Medicaid with two more weighing their options. This leaves millions earning less than $11,500 a year without subsidies but also unable to qualify for Medicaid. Instead of working closely with the states in order to find a solution that works for everyone, the Affordable Care Act attempted to impose its will on the states, leaving nearly 8 million Americans without affordable health care as a consequence.
It adds to the deficit
Many defenders of the ACA point to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the ACA will reduce the deficit by $124 billion from 2013 to 2022. However, this estimate is based on the current bill and the promise that the subsidies provided by the bill will be offset by other measures.
These measures present problems. Lowering payments to hospitals is a notoriously unpopular promise, and some say that the taxing of expensive programs is an unfair burden on the wealthy. To put it simply, the CBO’s estimates rely heavily on Congresses’ promise to cut widely supported spending and to tax the rich, both of which would require bitter political fights and are by no means certain to happen.
The Death Spiral
The most compelling argument against the ACA has been dubbed the “Death Spiral.” It is possible that young, healthy people will simply accept the government’s fine of 1% of their income and refuse to buy health insurance.
If healthy people choose to opt out, then the bulk of the newly insured will be ill and expensive for health insurance companies, causing a rise in health care cost. This rise creates a snowball effect, with higher costs turning even more healthy people away from health insurance and driving up the cost of health care costs even more until eventually the market becomes unsustainable.
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Five costly misconceptions about the Affordable Care Act
By Toni Cross
Jimmy Kimmel recently took the streets to ask how average Americans feel about our system of health care. An overwhelming majority had favorable views of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but negative views about Obamacare.
The problem is, Obamacare is the same thing as the Affordable Care Act.
This isn’t the only misconception; so let’s clear things up.
Not a government takeover
Politifact.com named the idea of the ACA being a government takeover “Lie of the Year.” The law is not a move towards European-style socialist medicine; it actually relies on the free market. In fact, more people will be getting private health care. The law simply establishes marketplaces where private companies will have to compete with each other to offer better deals on coverage for those who don’t have any.
The public option, a provision which would have allowed the government to compete against private insurers in the marketplace, was not passed. The law even gives tax credits so people can afford to buy insurance from private providers.
Doesn’t add to deficit
Although some claim Obamacare will add to the debt, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects it will lower the deficit by $124 billion over 10 years. In fact in 2011 the CBO announced that if Republicans succeeded in repealing the Affordable Care Act, the deficit would increase by $109 billion in 10 years.
Uninsured issue
Obamacare is not to blame for the eight million Americans who will remain uninsured; red states that voted against the Medicaid expansion are to blame. Contrary to popular belief, the ACA does not actually provide free health care for everyone because there is in fact, a minimum income requirement ($11,600 for individuals and $23,000 for families). The original version of the Affordable Care Act included a provision that forced all states to expand Medicaid. This expansion would have taken care of individuals and families that didn’t meet the income requirement for Obamacare. However, the Supreme Court ruled this part of the law “unconstitutionally coercive” and struck it down.
As a result, 15 governors of red states (including Florida Governor Rick Scott) chose to opt out of the expansion and seven more are considering opting out. This means that some people are considered “too rich” for Medicaid but “too poor” for Obamacare and are therefore left without any insurance.
Better than the old system
Medical bills are to blame for 62.1% of all the bankruptcies in the U.S. Even worse, 75% of those who go bankrupt because of medical bills have health insurance. Before the Affordable Care Act, insurance providers could and routinely did put a limit on how much they would spend on your health care. Thanks to Obamacare, they can’t do that anymore. The companies could also drop you if you got sick or made a mistake on your applications, even if you had been paying for insurance for years; you could be denied coverage for having pre-existing conditions like asthma, diabetes and even being a victim of domestic violence. Insurance providers would often refuse to cover people who had family histories of heart disease because that can cause other medical problems. Women would often have to pay more for their coverage. All of this is now illegal. Another benefit is that under the new law, insurance companies can’t keep more than 20% of premiums for overhead and profits (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).
Congress not exempt
The point of the Affordable Care Act is that if you’re happy with your insurance (whether you pay for it or your employer pays for it), you can keep it. Senators and representatives have insurance through their employers (technically, we the taxpayers). If a member of Congress retires or returns to the private sector to work and needs health insurance, they could get insurance through a private provider or through Obamacare.