It's everything wrong with today's Democrats who push their agenda, truth be damned.
So it's no surprise that pre-primary THE NEW YORK TIMES is spinning the Congressional Budget Office's assessments of Obamacare to come up with a ludicrous attempt at soothing New Yorkers to vote Clinton by announcing, "Despite Fears, Affordable Care Act Has Not Uprooted Employer Coverage," Reed Abelson, 4/4/2016.
Unfortunately, Mr. Abelson is communicating nonsense to consumers based on the CBO report he claims to rely on. The headline should be: "Health Insurance Will Increase from 48 to 55 percent over the next decade with Obamacare just as it did from 2005 to 2014." That's actually in the CBO publication, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51130.
Having set the stage for the unthinking Democrats who intend to cast a vote for Clinton as A Vote that's HOPEFUL FOR NO CHANGE, Mr. Abelson plunges right in addressing wrongful "predictions that employers would leap at the chance to drop coverage and send workers to fend for themselves."
Sorry Mr. Abelson, employer health insurance HAS DROPPED since the implementation of Obamacare (eg "The Steady Decline of Employer-Based Insurance, Anthony Brino, 1/29/2015, http://www.healthcarepayernews.com/content/steady-decline-employer-based-insurance#.VwO-QUSwnDc).
And the costs of that employer health insurance are described by the CBO as "high and rising," ("Most Americans are covered by private health insurance, which they either obtain through employment or purchase individually. Insurance premiums—the payments made to buy that coverage by enrollees or by other parties on their behalf—are high and rising," https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51130.)
The reason that employer-based health insurance has not dropped even more precipitously than it has is because of our TAX CODE, not Obamacare. While Obamacare includes a nominal punishment in the form of a fine if employer of certain sizes don't offer health insurance, it is the TAX BENEFIT of the write-off that employers get for providing benefits that keeps them offering health insurance.
Mr. Abelson also omits the government Obamacare lovers' reasoning that employers could raise wages by denying health benefits which means that in addition to the additional tax dollars the government would get from employers whose bottom lines would be greater if they didn't offer health insurance, employees too would pay higher taxes--WIN-WIN for the feds. (Mr. Abelson argues that workers would expect more pay, not quite true, the government Obamacare lovers acknowledged the tax potential.)
Then Mr. Abelson goes off the deep-end arguing that "The reversal in thinking about employer benefits is so stark that even government budget officials are singing an optimistic tune." The CBO actually said that premiums are going up and up for employer-based health insurance and are going up and up for other non-group health insurance but not as fast because those policies cover less and require higher deductible, copay and coinsurance payments by consumers which keeps them a little cheaper. Here's the text:
"CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) project that in 2016, the average premium for an employment-based insurance plan will be about $6,400 for single coverage and about $15,500 for family coverage. Average premiums for coverage purchased individually (in what is called the nongroup market) are also high—but not quite as high as average employment-based premiums, mostly because nongroup coverage is less extensive and thus requires enrollees to make higher out-of-pocket payments when they receive care," https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51130.
That is not OPTIMISTIC from a consumer standpoint. Nor is the following determination by the government that says that the skyrocketing costs from 2005 to 2014 where we saw increases of up to 55 percent in the costs to us, the consumers, for family coverage are expected to continue for the next decade:
"Over the period from 2005 to 2014, premiums for employment-based insurance grew by 48 percent for single coverage and by 55 percent for family coverage. CBO and JCT expect them to grow at similar rates over the next decade," https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51130.
SIMILAR RATE INCREASES FOR CONSUMERS of up to 55 PERCENT. Optimistic? No.
The government's conclusion: "As a result of that growth, average premiums for employment-based coverage are projected to be about $10,000 for single coverage and about $24,500 for family coverage in 2025, nearly 60 percent higher than they were in 2016," https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51130.
Optimistic tune? Not so. So Mr. Abelson's happy dance is not only based on fantasy, but is misleading for consumers and Hillary Clinton's Obamacare+ will make it worse. Why?
Because Clinton is trying to expand the exchange enrollment by offering it to illegals and by making it more economical through more government handouts in the form of a $5,000 credit, not available to those receiving employer-based benefits. Clinton also promises to further explode the already exploding expenses of Medicaid by bringing back the expired incentives of Obamacare to cover 100 percent of costs of expansion for first three years if a state will adopt (https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/.)
Medicaid, expanded Medicaid is really the only successful part of Obamacare (successful is my word) both in terms of "higher than expected" enrollment AND IN TERMS OF PROVIDING BETTER HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE, "Medicaid provides more generous, more comprehensive coverage than many of the health insurance policies purchased by consumers on the exchanges," http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/us/politics/report-offers-a-mixed-view-of-health-care-law-costs.html.
OK, so the ballooning expenses of Medicaid based on its higher than expected enrollment will go even higher. While I'm for expanded Medicaid, we cannot IGNORE the enormous costs because governments won't. Remember the 1993 estate recovery law where government goes after estates to get back money spent on Medicaid? Not only hasn't that law been repealed, it's been EXPANDED, with governments adopting the trend of going after more assets of an individual to "recover" money so that more people's assets will be at risk if they actually use that form of health insurance.
Medicaid Estate Recovery is a 1993 law, but states like NEW YORK have already EXPANDED ways they can recover those monies, such as with laws like New York's that provide for Expanded Definition of "Estate" for Medicaid Recoveries, 2011, with Massachusetts proposing a similar law and other states following suit, https://www.health.ny.gov/health_care/medicaid/publications/adm/11adm8.htm.
As Medicaid enrollment and payments continue to increase to include those with higher incomes who are likelier to have assets, without a change barring clawbacks and estate recoveries, a population of individuals whose accumulated assets are at risk will increase.
After all, the government admits it wildly underestimated the costs of expanded Medicaid: "For the 2016–2025 period, CBO and JCT’s projection of the net cost of the ACA’s insurance coverage provisions is now $136 billion higher than their March 2015 estimate (from the last detailed projections that the agencies published). The largest difference from the March 2015 projection stems from an increase in projected spending for Medicaid because more people whom the ACA made eligible for Medicaid are expected to enroll than were anticipated when that projection was made," https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51385-HealthInsuranceBaseline_OneCol.pdf.
For voters buying into THE NEW YORK TIMES and Clinton message of VOTE FOR NO CHANGE, not only is the promise as unrealistic as Trump's wall, Sanders' Medicare for all, or Cruz's doing away with the IRS, but it's going to directly impact our access to healthcare by incentivizing the WORST plans available on the market, determined even by TIMES' reporters as worse coverage than Medicaid, at a higher cost but trying to disguise that wasteful expenditure by throwing more federal money in the form of a $5,000 tax credit at exchange participants only.
