The issue is, the new doughnut hole, created by an inability to pay for family coverage through employer-sponsored insurance, which under the ACA only has limits on how much premiums can cost for employees rather than limits on what can be charged to the employee’s family members and eligibility for Federal assistance or public insurance in the form of Medicaid.
First, the “resolution” I anticipate for the so-called glitch in the ACA that’s gaining attention as employees realize that their families aren’t poor enough to qualify for the elaborate credits and subsidies provided for under ACA and that they’re not rich enough to afford the cost of health insurance for their families through their employers, is that families will have separate insurance from breadwinner insurance. That separate insurance will be of lesser quality in terms of coverage received for cost and will likely be of the bronze or silver level on the new health exchanges.
My problem with the coverage of this feature of the ACA is that everyone is afraid of considering that perhaps, just perhaps, the doughnut hole is intentional. I believe that this so-called “Glitch” was actually a “Goal.”
What we know is that the President’s agenda was to get more people insured. In order to get people insured, the President very early on made it clear that his attention was directed towards those too poor to afford health insurance so that he insisted on a shift in law that “allows” parents to keep paying health insurance costs for their grown children and carrying them on their health insurance policies until the age of 26, and he adamantly adhered to requirements for federal credits and subsidies to help poorer individuals purchase insurance in the event they were not poor enough to be eligible for Medicaid. The President also supported the new tax on those who don’t have health insurance which became part of the law.
We also know that health benefits exchanges, a merely administrative change that’s supposed to make it easier for people to choose an insurance plan to pay for at different levels ranging from bronze to platinum is also a big part of the transparency/efficiency features the President supports. Those are supposed to go into effect in 2014.
We also know that in order to qualify for Federal subsidies and/or credits, even if they meet income limit requirements, that individuals will have to choose silver-level health insurance plans or higher rather than the cheapest plans offered.
But there are some obvious truths that many others, including those who call this new experience of the ACA a glitch seem reluctant to realize which those of us who are living middle class lives, who have experienced the calloused indifference the President has to any who are middle class unless they’re civil servant government and/or union protected positions, have realized and that’s that the President will not stop using the middle class as a piggy-bank until we are a two-class nation of poor and rich.
This is not a glitch in my opinion, but a goal. People affected by this new doughnut hole are going to be middle class families, whose breadwinners work for companies that offer insurance to them at low or even for free but whose families will no longer be able to be insured by those companies because their premiums have soared. These people who are being told that for this year they won’t be charged a tax because they’re unable to afford health insurance for their families through their employers, next year will flock to the health exchanges for worse coverage.
The alleged “glitch” accomplishes many goals.
First, the “employer burden” will be relieved by employees whom no longer having a realistic option for carrying their dependents on their employers’ plans. Employers happy, check.
Secondly, these new insurance hunters will flock to the health exchanges to find some health insurance for their families which will create real traffic and use of the sites that will be used by the Federal government to justify maintaining such sites regardless of the fact that the government itself is creating the need. Must keep Federal funding for health exchanges because look how useful they are, check.
Third, parents of adults who cannot afford health insurance will be no better and no worse off than before, since carrying their grown children on their employer-sponsored policies will no longer be an option with the new sky’s the limit premiums, they’ll pay for other insurance coverage for their grown children (of course with less-quality coverage). Letting parents pay for their grown children’s health insurance, check.
Fourth, poorer people who qualify for Federal subsidies and credits will likely in many instances have superior insurance in many cases to individuals who exceed income qualification for credits and subsidies because these subsidies only apply to health plans at the silver level or better whereas the forgotten middle class will not get Federal help and will likely choose bronze-level coverage. Lower the quality of the middle class to help everyone else, check.
To me, these results are not “glitches,” the President has consistently shown his indifference to the private-sector middle class all along even saying so (Yeah, we’re doing fine). What is stunning is that anyone still believes that the welfare of the private-sector, non-senior citizen middle class matters to the President at all.
