Costs of ObamaCare

 

ObamaCare’s massive costs to ordinary citizens starting to become known

By Dave Andrusko

Pro-abortion President Barack Obama

Typically we’ve made the update on ObamaCare’s latest round of disasters one of the first items posted at nationalrighttolifenews.org.  However so much rolls in during the course of the day that on at least some days we’ll make it the last post.

What’s the latest? Since this is the final item of the day, I will summarize in bullet points:

· Remember those cost savings –individually and as a nation—that were promised? Well the New York Times reports, “For months, the Obama administration has heralded the low premiums of medical insurance policies on sale in the insurance exchanges created by the new health law. But as consumers dig into the details, they are finding that the deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs are often much higher than what is typical in employer-sponsored health plans.” Having talked to many family members and others with more specialized knowledge, when Robert Pear of the Times wrote “much higher,” he was actually understating the costs for many categories of people.

· How can that be and why is that so? The “how/why” is not new; it’s only that only recently has the ordinary citizen been able to have the numbers (roughly) spelled out for them. Pear brilliantly summarizes what we have found out, shopping for insurance for our children: “Until now, it was almost impossible for people using the federal health care website to see the deductible amounts, which consumers pay before coverage kicks in. But federal officials finally relented last week and added a ‘window shopping’ feature that displays data on deductibles. For policies offered in the federal exchange, as in many states, the annual deductible often tops $5,000 for an individual and $10,000 for a couple. Insurers devised the new policies on the assumption that consumers would pick a plan based mainly on price, as reflected in the premium. But insurance plans with lower premiums generally have higher deductibles.” Yes, that is $5,000 for an individual, $10,000 for a couple. To get lower numbers you have MUCH higher premiums.

· As many have observed, including, us, the public is now being told relentlessly that Healthcare.gov is humming with efficiency (we will doubtless later be told that all was not sweetness and light). But writing in the New York Post, Michael Tanner, begins, “The good news, if you want to call it that, is that roughly 1.6 million Americans have enrolled in ObamaCare so far. The not-so-good news is that 1.46 million of them actually signed up for Medicaid. If that trend continues, it could bankrupt both federal and state governments.”

· Then there are states that have their own versions of ObamaCare. Here’s what Jim Geraghty of “Morning Jolt” wrote today. “Although state officials have provided the public scant detail about the troubled launch of Maryland’s version of Obamacare, emails and documents show that the project was beset behind the scenes for months by an array of technical issues, warring contractors and other problems. Since Maryland’s online health exchange opened Oct. 1 for people to buy insurance under the Affordable Care Act — and immediately crashed — the two main companies in charge of the website have taken their fight to court, a corporate project manager was replaced and a high-powered consulting firm was quietly brought in to restore order. Though state officials initially said the crash of the online exchange was an unexpected and fixable problem, emails and documents obtained by The Baltimore Sun through state open-records laws outline serious issues before and after the launch.”

· There are also security concerns galore, too numerous to go into.

· Finally there was appearance of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (one of the architects of ObamaCare) on Fox News Sunday, with Chris Wallace. Under the headline, “Belligerent Zeke Emanuel Again Helps the Anti-Obamacare Cause in Sunday Chris Wallace Interview,” Newsbusters’ Tom Blumer observes that Wallace pressed Emanuel “until he forced a ‘yes’ out of him to a simple question: ‘Didn’t he (President Obama) say, ‘If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.’” That move brought out Emanuel’s ridiculous contention that what Obama somehow really meant was, ‘If you want to pay more for an insurance company that covers your doctor, you can do that. This is a matter of choice.’”

Can’t keep the insurance you like and new policies are exorbitantly expensive; can’t keep the doctor you want; the data you give can wind up anywhere; and the Medicaid-eligible constitute almost the entirety of those signing up for ObamaCare…it gets worse and worse and worse.

Source: NRLC News