If you were
to have visited the Health and Human Services (HHS) website two weeks ago and
browsed their “Affordable Care Act is Working” fact sheet, you would have read
something quite different than what you will read today. The footer of the fact sheet reads that the
content was last reviewed on January 8, 2015 which is which is fine, sometimes a
posting needs a little fine tuning here and there but what HHS has done to
their original fact sheet makes it look like an entirely new document in both
tone and content. The revision of the fact
sheet was clearly undertaken in an attempt to move focus away from aspects of ObamaCare
that are failing.
Fortunately, I had already saved much of the original content, before the original fact sheet was revised. Being able to look at the before and after content of the fact sheet provides us with a unique opportunity to review just how much ObamaCare has changed, for better or works, in the eyes of the Obama Administration.
Fortunately, I had already saved much of the original content, before the original fact sheet was revised. Being able to look at the before and after content of the fact sheet provides us with a unique opportunity to review just how much ObamaCare has changed, for better or works, in the eyes of the Obama Administration.
The First Sign of Distress
The first sign that HHS is beginning to walk back the claimed successes of ObamaCare comes from the fact sheet’s new opening statement which reads:
{new} “The evidence shows that The Affordable Care Act is Working in
terms of the key metrics of Access,
Affordability & Quality. Families, business, and taxpayers
are better off as a result.”
This revised opening statement has been tamped down considerably from
the original opening statement:
{original} “A new wave of powerful evidence points to one clear conclusion: The Affordable Care Act is working to make health care more affordable, accessible and of a higher quality, for families, seniors, businesses, and taxpayers alike. This includes previously uninsured Americans, and Americans who had insurance that didn’t provide them adequate coverage and security.”
Yes, the new opening statement has been watered down quite a bit and not without good reason. HHS obviously has to make the claim that ObamaCare is working but they pulled back considerably on their grand claims of success. It is worth noting that the new opening statement is void of the closing sentence included in the original opening statement. Most certainly this sentence was removed in an effort to move the talking point away from qualifying enrollments through the healthcare exchanges as to include the previously insured.
The Obama Administration is more than aware of the forthcoming battle with Republicans on the issue regarding the success of enrollment on the healthcare exchanges where the focus of the debate will be on exactly who the law was intended to insure verses who actually ended up purchasing insurance.
{original} “A new wave of powerful evidence points to one clear conclusion: The Affordable Care Act is working to make health care more affordable, accessible and of a higher quality, for families, seniors, businesses, and taxpayers alike. This includes previously uninsured Americans, and Americans who had insurance that didn’t provide them adequate coverage and security.”
Yes, the new opening statement has been watered down quite a bit and not without good reason. HHS obviously has to make the claim that ObamaCare is working but they pulled back considerably on their grand claims of success. It is worth noting that the new opening statement is void of the closing sentence included in the original opening statement. Most certainly this sentence was removed in an effort to move the talking point away from qualifying enrollments through the healthcare exchanges as to include the previously insured.
The Obama Administration is more than aware of the forthcoming battle with Republicans on the issue regarding the success of enrollment on the healthcare exchanges where the focus of the debate will be on exactly who the law was intended to insure verses who actually ended up purchasing insurance.
Affordability
is No Longer Gets Top Billing
Its very name implies the primary objective of the president’s namesake healthcare law, to make healthcare “affordable”. Affordability has been the number one talking point of Obama’s reform idea dating back long before he was even a presidential candidate as well as during most of his presidency. It was affordability that was going to drive millions of America’s uninsured to purchase healthcare insurance. Candidate and then President Obama often claimed that his plan would create such affordability that there would be no need for a mandate, the uninsured would be kicking down the doors to get in and sign up for healthcare insurance!
But the talking point of affordability has changed and where it once received top billing on the original HHS fact sheet, it now has taken a back seat to “Access”.
Its very name implies the primary objective of the president’s namesake healthcare law, to make healthcare “affordable”. Affordability has been the number one talking point of Obama’s reform idea dating back long before he was even a presidential candidate as well as during most of his presidency. It was affordability that was going to drive millions of America’s uninsured to purchase healthcare insurance. Candidate and then President Obama often claimed that his plan would create such affordability that there would be no need for a mandate, the uninsured would be kicking down the doors to get in and sign up for healthcare insurance!
But the talking point of affordability has changed and where it once received top billing on the original HHS fact sheet, it now has taken a back seat to “Access”.
Shifting the
Focus to Access
ObamaCare did not make good on its promise to deliver lower premiums for the inaugural open enrollment period and the 2015 open enrollment period arrived with across the board rate increases. As a result, the White House has become desperate to move the focus away from cost. One way they are doing so is by taking the spotlight off of cost and shifted it over to access.
Access makes a pretty week argument to the measurement of the success of ObamaCare as well however, the Obama Administration is banking on the apathy of the average American who, in general, is not engaged in the mechanics of the law. As such, HHS can throw “access” numbers around without having to qualify them and receive little of any pushback from the public who assume the administration is being forthcoming. This makes for a much easier sale than trying to convince the consumer that the latest increase in premiums, deductibles and co-pays that they are feeling in their wallets are somehow a success story for ObamaCare!
The revised fact sheet leads off with these two bullet points on access:
ObamaCare did not make good on its promise to deliver lower premiums for the inaugural open enrollment period and the 2015 open enrollment period arrived with across the board rate increases. As a result, the White House has become desperate to move the focus away from cost. One way they are doing so is by taking the spotlight off of cost and shifted it over to access.
Access makes a pretty week argument to the measurement of the success of ObamaCare as well however, the Obama Administration is banking on the apathy of the average American who, in general, is not engaged in the mechanics of the law. As such, HHS can throw “access” numbers around without having to qualify them and receive little of any pushback from the public who assume the administration is being forthcoming. This makes for a much easier sale than trying to convince the consumer that the latest increase in premiums, deductibles and co-pays that they are feeling in their wallets are somehow a success story for ObamaCare!
The revised fact sheet leads off with these two bullet points on access:
- There
has been an historic decrease in the uninsured. In just one year
we’ve reduced the number of uninsured by about 10 million people.
Meanwhile, millions of Americans have signed up for health coverage on the
Health Insurance Marketplace. And 3 million young adults have gained
coverage through a parent’s plan.
- More Americans have access to Medicaid coverage. Twenty-seven states plus DC have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. As another indicator of progress: Since October 2013, more than 9.7 million more Americans were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP - a 17 percent increase compared to average monthly signups before that time.
On the
surface, the administration’s claims of access look pretty impressive, but not
so fast, there is far more to the story than HHS is telling us here.
The big numbers, “about 10 million people” from the first bullet and ”9.7 million more Americans” from the second bullet both refer to Medicaid, they have just worded their claim two different ways in an attempt to move the enrollment story along without having to pin a number on how many have enrolled through the healthcare exchanges, which is the true goal of ObamaCare.
No attempt whatsoever was made by HHS to quantify the number of individuals who purchased and paid for a qualified healthcare plan through the Federally Managed Marketplace (FMM) during the initial enrollment period, the first bullet merely states: “Meanwhile, millions of Americans have signed up for health coverage on the Health Insurance Marketplace”.
Omitted from the revised fact sheet was the following original bullet:
The big numbers, “about 10 million people” from the first bullet and ”9.7 million more Americans” from the second bullet both refer to Medicaid, they have just worded their claim two different ways in an attempt to move the enrollment story along without having to pin a number on how many have enrolled through the healthcare exchanges, which is the true goal of ObamaCare.
No attempt whatsoever was made by HHS to quantify the number of individuals who purchased and paid for a qualified healthcare plan through the Federally Managed Marketplace (FMM) during the initial enrollment period, the first bullet merely states: “Meanwhile, millions of Americans have signed up for health coverage on the Health Insurance Marketplace”.
Omitted from the revised fact sheet was the following original bullet:
·
{original} Just recently,
the New England Journal of Medicine
found that 10.3 million uninsured Americans have gotten covered since the start
of Open Enrollment.
And understandably so that they {HHS} omitted this bullet as readers could
easily make the correlation that the cause to the drop in the number of
uninsured was nearly all the result of the number of people enrolling on to Medicaid. This would portray ObamaCare as a $2 trillion
Medicaid expansion which, to some degree, it is actually turning out to be, but
the Obama Administration would rather it not been viewed this way.
More on Access - The Sub-26ers
Back to the first bullet point on the revised HHS fact sheet for a moment, the final line reads, “And 3 million young adults have gained coverage through a parent’s plan.” As often as the president himself speaks of the millions of young adults who now have healthcare coverage as a result of ObamaCare, having to provide this access is actually an admission of failure not success.
Before ObamaCare existed, most or maybe even all of those 3 million stated were insured. Offspring up to the age of 24, who met the insurer’s student criteria, were already permitted to stay on their parents insurance policies. Age 24 was the adopted cut-off age where most students had completed collage and would then transition on to the regular workforce where they would then be eligible for their own employer provided healthcare insurance. Young adults who were not students or did not have a parent’s insurance policy to piggy back on could obtain a very low cost “catastrophic” healthcare plan. These catastrophic plans were very well suited for the young and healthy.
However, due to the “essential healthcare benefits” package, mandated to be included in all healthcare plans, the low cost catastrophic healthcare plans would no longer be available leaving a large number of young adults without affordable healthcare insurance. To fill this insurance void created by ObamaCare, a provision in the law was added which required insurers to allow offspring to remain on their parent’s healthcare insurance regardless of student status or living arrangement. Additionally, due to the high unemployment rate amongst young adults, the new provision in the law extended the age criteria of a young adult from 24 to 26.
This new provision in the ObamaCare law is nothing more than a band aid and places an undue cost burden on insurers, which of course are passed on to the consumer. But the administration needed this provision to stop the bleeding caused by bad policy.
More on Access - The Sub-26ers
Back to the first bullet point on the revised HHS fact sheet for a moment, the final line reads, “And 3 million young adults have gained coverage through a parent’s plan.” As often as the president himself speaks of the millions of young adults who now have healthcare coverage as a result of ObamaCare, having to provide this access is actually an admission of failure not success.
Before ObamaCare existed, most or maybe even all of those 3 million stated were insured. Offspring up to the age of 24, who met the insurer’s student criteria, were already permitted to stay on their parents insurance policies. Age 24 was the adopted cut-off age where most students had completed collage and would then transition on to the regular workforce where they would then be eligible for their own employer provided healthcare insurance. Young adults who were not students or did not have a parent’s insurance policy to piggy back on could obtain a very low cost “catastrophic” healthcare plan. These catastrophic plans were very well suited for the young and healthy.
However, due to the “essential healthcare benefits” package, mandated to be included in all healthcare plans, the low cost catastrophic healthcare plans would no longer be available leaving a large number of young adults without affordable healthcare insurance. To fill this insurance void created by ObamaCare, a provision in the law was added which required insurers to allow offspring to remain on their parent’s healthcare insurance regardless of student status or living arrangement. Additionally, due to the high unemployment rate amongst young adults, the new provision in the law extended the age criteria of a young adult from 24 to 26.
This new provision in the ObamaCare law is nothing more than a band aid and places an undue cost burden on insurers, which of course are passed on to the consumer. But the administration needed this provision to stop the bleeding caused by bad policy.
One Final
Point On Access - the Essential HealthCare Benefits Package
The last bullet point in regards to access, from the revised HHS Fact Sheet reads as follows:
The last bullet point in regards to access, from the revised HHS Fact Sheet reads as follows:
- Millions
of Americans who already had insurance have seen their coverage improve
because they now have access to preventive services like vaccines, cancer screenings, and
yearly wellness visits at no out-of-pocket cost. In addition,
Americans cannot be denied or dropped from coverage because of a pre-existing condition or because
they hit an annual or lifetime cap in benefits.
Well wasn’t that
considerate of the crafters of ObamaCare to “improve” on the healthcare coverage
obtained by millions of American’s who apparently were not capable for deciding
what was in their own best interest.
These improvements or “essential healthcare benefits” (EHB), as defined
by HHS, are not provided by choice however, they are mandated as part of a new
law. For millions on the left, the EHB
package is viewed as a grand gift from their government to which they feel does
a better job at making decisions for all of us than we can do for ourselves. Unfortunately, those that believe their
government did them a favor in providing the EHB package has been hornswoggled
by the Obama Administration who had a very different objective in mind when
they created the EHB package.
Masquerading as a windfall to consumers, the EHB package has far less to do with providing essential benefits than it does to generating a new revenue stream to help fund the costly law. The argument made by those who created the law was that the EHB package leveled the playing field between the group marketplace and the individual marketplace however, they fail to mention in their argument the extreme disproportionality in cost the EHB package creates between the two.
Because of the enormity and wide range of coverage offered in healthcare plans on the group marketplace, most of the benefits mandated in the new EHB package already existed and again, because of its enormity, the cost of to provide these extra benefits to the few that require them is shared amongst a massive pool of the insured.
The individual marketplace is quite different from the group marketplace and is not very accommodating to the mandated EHB package. Prior to ObamaCare, individual plans wear tailored to suit the needs of the individual being insured. Not filling these policies with unnecessary benefits was the individual marketplace’s only edge that kept them competitively priced to plans offered on the group marketplace. Now, by mandating that all healthcare plans include the EHB package, that competitive edge has been taken away. As logic would dictate, the individual marketplace not being able to spread the cost of these mandated benefits across the same massive pool of the group marketplace, rates would obviously skyrocket and they did.
Masquerading as a windfall to consumers, the EHB package has far less to do with providing essential benefits than it does to generating a new revenue stream to help fund the costly law. The argument made by those who created the law was that the EHB package leveled the playing field between the group marketplace and the individual marketplace however, they fail to mention in their argument the extreme disproportionality in cost the EHB package creates between the two.
Because of the enormity and wide range of coverage offered in healthcare plans on the group marketplace, most of the benefits mandated in the new EHB package already existed and again, because of its enormity, the cost of to provide these extra benefits to the few that require them is shared amongst a massive pool of the insured.
The individual marketplace is quite different from the group marketplace and is not very accommodating to the mandated EHB package. Prior to ObamaCare, individual plans wear tailored to suit the needs of the individual being insured. Not filling these policies with unnecessary benefits was the individual marketplace’s only edge that kept them competitively priced to plans offered on the group marketplace. Now, by mandating that all healthcare plans include the EHB package, that competitive edge has been taken away. As logic would dictate, the individual marketplace not being able to spread the cost of these mandated benefits across the same massive pool of the group marketplace, rates would obviously skyrocket and they did.
Changing the
Definition of Affordable
Affordability has been played down in the revised HHS fact sheet not only by taking away its top billing but also by removing claim of any actual consumer approval of the law. In the area of affordability, the revised fact sheet focuses on subsidies and a number of other items which HHS claims have reduced cost, none of which explain to consumers why more money is still being taken out of their wallets.
This bullet from
the original HHS fact sheet has been removed all together:
·
{original}70% of Americans with Marketplace insurance plans
feel they can now afford care if they get sick, and a majority say their
premiums are easy to afford. (Source: The Commonwealth Fund)**
This bullet
was removed largely due to the fact that those Americans who do not receive tax
subsidies, thus footing the entire burden of their healthcare insurance, find their
premiums and deductibles have increased significantly since the rollout of the
healthcare exchanges. This was not what
was promised to them by their president!
So what happened, where did that annual $2500 per family savings President Obama repeatedly touted would result from ObamaCare go? Sadly, the answer to that question is that it never existed. The claim of savings made by the Obama Administration was a product of bad math, intentional or unintentional we may never know.
Industry experts were skeptical of the claims of savings being made by that administration as they saw a law that did little to reduce the rising cost of healthcare and at the same time, stack a mountain of regulations on insurers including the mandate of the EHB package. The experts saw no way that insurance cost could possibly be reduced under the set of circumstances created by ObamaCare. And as experts began to gather cost data from the various insurers, their skepticism was quickly affirmed.
In the final months leading up to the highly publicized HealthCare.gov website rollout, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) began compiling cost data regarding the premiums that were going to be offered on the FMM as the information became available. From this the KFF created a comprehensive, state by state map and as the map coalesced, President Obama’s worst nightmare slowly began to emerge before Americas eyes. The driving force behind the president’s historic healthcare law, “lower premiums”, failed to transpire in literally every state. The results were dreadful.
This bad news should have come as no surprise to the president, as at the request and funding of HHS, a study was conducted, by the Rand Corp, the results of which were released in September of 2013 and concluded that premiums would in fact go up as much as 43% as a result of ObamaCare.
President Obama, looking for any glimmer of hope he could find in what was rapidly growing into a big pile of despair, found it in the State of New York. As premium pricing information rolled in, it became more and more apparent that the only state that would truly benefit from the regulations imposed on insurers by ObamaCare was the great State of New York, which looked to realize premium reductions as much as 40 and 50%. New York was quickly adopted by President Obama as his ObamaCare poster child, speaking of their windfall in premium reductions at every opportunity he could create.
And on the eve of the HealthCare.gov website rollout, not long after the grand media affair at which the Mayor of New York released the good news of the sharp cut in premium costs in his state, President Obama appeared at a nationally televised media event where he took a victory lap on the coat tails of New York’s good news. This would be the last time we would hear the president speak of premium reductions without the caveat of subsidies.
With the new day came President Obama’s change in his definition of affordable healthcare. As he was painfully aware, across the nation Americans were flocking to the HealthCare.gov website to get their first look at the long awaited affordability in healthcare only to find higher premiums in virtually every place in the nation and in far too many cases, significant increase. The president’s repeated claim of a $2500 per family reduction in healthcare spending vanished at a click of a mouse.
And from that day forward the president had changed his definition of affordability to include the caveat of a tax credit or subsidy.
So what happened, where did that annual $2500 per family savings President Obama repeatedly touted would result from ObamaCare go? Sadly, the answer to that question is that it never existed. The claim of savings made by the Obama Administration was a product of bad math, intentional or unintentional we may never know.
Industry experts were skeptical of the claims of savings being made by that administration as they saw a law that did little to reduce the rising cost of healthcare and at the same time, stack a mountain of regulations on insurers including the mandate of the EHB package. The experts saw no way that insurance cost could possibly be reduced under the set of circumstances created by ObamaCare. And as experts began to gather cost data from the various insurers, their skepticism was quickly affirmed.
In the final months leading up to the highly publicized HealthCare.gov website rollout, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) began compiling cost data regarding the premiums that were going to be offered on the FMM as the information became available. From this the KFF created a comprehensive, state by state map and as the map coalesced, President Obama’s worst nightmare slowly began to emerge before Americas eyes. The driving force behind the president’s historic healthcare law, “lower premiums”, failed to transpire in literally every state. The results were dreadful.
This bad news should have come as no surprise to the president, as at the request and funding of HHS, a study was conducted, by the Rand Corp, the results of which were released in September of 2013 and concluded that premiums would in fact go up as much as 43% as a result of ObamaCare.
President Obama, looking for any glimmer of hope he could find in what was rapidly growing into a big pile of despair, found it in the State of New York. As premium pricing information rolled in, it became more and more apparent that the only state that would truly benefit from the regulations imposed on insurers by ObamaCare was the great State of New York, which looked to realize premium reductions as much as 40 and 50%. New York was quickly adopted by President Obama as his ObamaCare poster child, speaking of their windfall in premium reductions at every opportunity he could create.
And on the eve of the HealthCare.gov website rollout, not long after the grand media affair at which the Mayor of New York released the good news of the sharp cut in premium costs in his state, President Obama appeared at a nationally televised media event where he took a victory lap on the coat tails of New York’s good news. This would be the last time we would hear the president speak of premium reductions without the caveat of subsidies.
With the new day came President Obama’s change in his definition of affordable healthcare. As he was painfully aware, across the nation Americans were flocking to the HealthCare.gov website to get their first look at the long awaited affordability in healthcare only to find higher premiums in virtually every place in the nation and in far too many cases, significant increase. The president’s repeated claim of a $2500 per family reduction in healthcare spending vanished at a click of a mouse.
And from that day forward the president had changed his definition of affordability to include the caveat of a tax credit or subsidy.
Pulling Back
on their MLR Claim
In July of
2013 President Obama said this about Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) provision rebates
that were being issued by insurers:
"Last year, millions of Americans opened letters from their
insurance companies. But instead of the usual dread that comes from getting a
bill, they were pleasantly surprised with a check," he said. "Another
8.5 [million] rebates are being sent out this summer, averaging around a
hundred bucks each."
The
following bullet bullets are from both the original HHS fact sheet as well as
the revised fact sheet. Note the
difference in the tone of the two as well as the omission of the final line
from the original posting:
·
{original} American consumers have saved $9 billion dollars
since 2011, because the law says that insurance companies have to spend at
least 80 cents of every premium dollar they receive from folks in your state on
their care – not on things like marketing or getting a bonus for their
CEO.
Families received an average rebate of $80: money that hardworking families can
put toward their electric bill or back into their grocery budget.
(Source: CMS)
and
·
{new} Consumers
have saved $9 billion since 2011, because the law requires insurance companies
to spend at least 80 cents of every dollar on consumers’ health care
and empowers states to review and negotiate premium increases.
In both forms,
at the very least these bullet points are highly misleading. As for the line that was omitted from the
original bullet point, it was simply untrue as few families ever received such
a rebate. So what happened to all the
MLR rebates? The answer to this
question is quite simple actually.
Employers who provided group insurance plans to their employees were the major recipient of the MLR provision rebates and it stands to reason as they are the ones footing the bill. It is highly unlikely that these employers were dividing up their rebate checks and distributing them to their employees, they are much more inclined to utilize the rebate to offset the growing cost of future employee benefits.
While HHS and the president both made the MLR insurance rebates sound like a grand gift to millions of Americans the reality is that only one third of those rebate checks actually ended up in the hands of an individual. And as insurers have gained better control of their costs and the MLR provision, the number of rebates being issued is significantly fewer and most for mere dollars and cents.
Employers who provided group insurance plans to their employees were the major recipient of the MLR provision rebates and it stands to reason as they are the ones footing the bill. It is highly unlikely that these employers were dividing up their rebate checks and distributing them to their employees, they are much more inclined to utilize the rebate to offset the growing cost of future employee benefits.
While HHS and the president both made the MLR insurance rebates sound like a grand gift to millions of Americans the reality is that only one third of those rebate checks actually ended up in the hands of an individual. And as insurers have gained better control of their costs and the MLR provision, the number of rebates being issued is significantly fewer and most for mere dollars and cents.
Helping
Small Businesses
Completely omitted from the revised HHS fact sheet where the claims of how ObamaCare was helping small businesses, but fortunately I saved them. The original fact sheet included these two bullets which in their literal sense do hold some truth however, as has typically been the case when HHS speaks of the benefits and successes of ObamaCare, they are leaving out most of the story.
Completely omitted from the revised HHS fact sheet where the claims of how ObamaCare was helping small businesses, but fortunately I saved them. The original fact sheet included these two bullets which in their literal sense do hold some truth however, as has typically been the case when HHS speaks of the benefits and successes of ObamaCare, they are leaving out most of the story.
- {original}The law is making coverage more affordable for small
businesses, with tax credits and protection from excessive price
increases.
- {original}Entrepreneurs can start their own businesses without
the fear of losing their coverage.
The US Small
Business Administration estimates that there are approximately 22 million
entrepreneurs “non-employer” businesses.
These are the people that HHS claims to be helping in the two bullet
points above. Reality overrides rhetoric
however and the help that is claimed to be provided to these 22 million
individuals does not offset the problem that ObamaCare has created for them. Here is the less told story.
Historically these 22 million individual obtained their healthcare insurance on the private marketplace. The marketplace provided them with a vast array of choices so individuals could select an insurance plan that best suited both their personal and financial needs. For a young adult creating new phone applications in his or her apartment, a low cost, high deductible plan was a perfect fit while and older individual that performs high wire acrobatics might elect to secure a much more costly but forgiving healthcare plan. For entrepreneurs, all was well in the individual marketplace until the passage of ObamaCare.
In the early days and even today, ObamaCare has had little effect on the group insurance marketplace as cost have always been able to be spread across a large spectrum of age groups and health conditions. The individual marketplace was quite different however, as each plan was priced to their specific offerings and the age/health factors of the insured. This all changed the day ObamaCare was passed in to law.
Insurers were provided a short grace period but just months after the new healthcare law was passed they were no longer able to deny coverage or factor in the added risk of insuring someone with a pre-existing medical condition. This created quite the dilemma in the private market place because, well, it was the “private” marketplace.
A stop gap provision in the law, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP), provided payment to insurers to offset the cost of insuring high-cost/high-risk individuals as mandated by the new law however, most insurers found the payment insufficient to cover their risk and therefor had to increase premiums to all of their private plan customers. The result, numerous increases in policy costs over the next few years as insurers gained a handle on the new and highly regulated marketplace.
The result of skyrocketing premiums on the individual marketplace was millions of the insured having to give up their personal choice in affordable healthcare and seek out a new, less cost prohibitive plan which was never as good as what they once had. Many were driven in to catastrophic plans and once those were no longer offered on the marketplace found themselves joining the ranks of the uninsured, a very scary proposition for a person trying to provide security to his or her family.
Once the federal marketplace opened on January 1, 2014 those of the 22 million who had been forced to compromise their healthcare coverage, were now paying unsustainable insurance premiums or had been driven out of the insurance marketplace all together, could now secure a subsidized plan. In most cases, the options provided to these individual still cost them more than in the pre-ObamaCare days.
No, ObamaCare has not been a great deal of help to Small Businesses as HHS professes and it is no wonder that HHS removed these bullet points from their fact sheet.
Historically these 22 million individual obtained their healthcare insurance on the private marketplace. The marketplace provided them with a vast array of choices so individuals could select an insurance plan that best suited both their personal and financial needs. For a young adult creating new phone applications in his or her apartment, a low cost, high deductible plan was a perfect fit while and older individual that performs high wire acrobatics might elect to secure a much more costly but forgiving healthcare plan. For entrepreneurs, all was well in the individual marketplace until the passage of ObamaCare.
In the early days and even today, ObamaCare has had little effect on the group insurance marketplace as cost have always been able to be spread across a large spectrum of age groups and health conditions. The individual marketplace was quite different however, as each plan was priced to their specific offerings and the age/health factors of the insured. This all changed the day ObamaCare was passed in to law.
Insurers were provided a short grace period but just months after the new healthcare law was passed they were no longer able to deny coverage or factor in the added risk of insuring someone with a pre-existing medical condition. This created quite the dilemma in the private market place because, well, it was the “private” marketplace.
A stop gap provision in the law, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP), provided payment to insurers to offset the cost of insuring high-cost/high-risk individuals as mandated by the new law however, most insurers found the payment insufficient to cover their risk and therefor had to increase premiums to all of their private plan customers. The result, numerous increases in policy costs over the next few years as insurers gained a handle on the new and highly regulated marketplace.
The result of skyrocketing premiums on the individual marketplace was millions of the insured having to give up their personal choice in affordable healthcare and seek out a new, less cost prohibitive plan which was never as good as what they once had. Many were driven in to catastrophic plans and once those were no longer offered on the marketplace found themselves joining the ranks of the uninsured, a very scary proposition for a person trying to provide security to his or her family.
Once the federal marketplace opened on January 1, 2014 those of the 22 million who had been forced to compromise their healthcare coverage, were now paying unsustainable insurance premiums or had been driven out of the insurance marketplace all together, could now secure a subsidized plan. In most cases, the options provided to these individual still cost them more than in the pre-ObamaCare days.
No, ObamaCare has not been a great deal of help to Small Businesses as HHS professes and it is no wonder that HHS removed these bullet points from their fact sheet.
And in Conclusion
The majority of Americans know little more about ObamaCare other than it remains to be a major point of contention between the left and the right. Most honestly believe that the healthcare law is working and why shouldn’t they when they hear their president claim time and again that millions of Americans now sleep better at night knowing that they now of the security of healthcare. From this singular perspective ObamaCare certainly is working however, as is in most cases, what is buried under the surface tells a very different story and in the case of ObamaCare, it isn’t a good one.
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