The reckless consumer exploitation of Obamacare's partnership with the health industry which ties the hands of wage-earning consumers to use our most powerful assertion of consumer choice--choosing to purchase a financial product (health insurance) based on its ability to satisfy our needs and the additional choice of what type of health insurance plan best suits our needs with the imposition of the penalty for not purchasing, the individual mandate, and the forced purchase of "free?" checkups that simply raises the finite price of those services and incentivizes providers to participate in more defensive medicine has made an upside down world where the consumer, the paying customer is the ONLY stakeholder without say on how WE spend our money.
In sharp contrast to the crippled customer, Obamacare has fostered a whining money-grubbing health industry unlike we've ever been privy to before as providers threaten not to participate in their government partnership UNLESS the payoffs continue, are adjusted to make them easier to get and are coupled with increased payments for the cheap stuff--checkups and "preventive defensive medicine actions. As of last month, providers whined and CMS answered again, they can get more government money without compliance by using a "streamlined HARDSHIP application," which will reduce the information they must supply in order to get government bucks. Hardly what we've come to know as HARDSHIP, https://www.cms.gov/regulations-and-guidance/legislation/ehrincentiveprograms/paymentadj_hardship.html.
There's also the whining of insurance companies who in spite of guaranteed customers for their products are complaining that they're actually getting customers who NEED to use the product they pay for because they're sick, "We need younger people to join…" (Aetna CEO wants these changes to Obamacare, Josh Weiss, 4/28/2016, http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/28/aetna-ceo-wants-these-changes-to-obamacare.html. This in spite of the fact that Aetna's first quarter earnings were "…better than analysts estimated…" (same cite).
So there's the you're-not-giving-us-enough-money hardship that the government partnership with providers and insurers accommodates, somehow the government continues to find more money and more accommodation for them and then, in stark contrast is Obamacare's treatment of the paying customers--Wage-earning consumers (and some unemployed consumers as well) pay a penalty if you don't participate in the forced purchase of the products offered UNLESS you face hardship. Suddenly, when it comes to consumer hardship, the government's only answer is, "Fine, you have no insurance and the best we can do is not fine you for your hardship."
The brutality of the government-insurance company and provider partnerships often omits the neediest Americans--The government could care less if they're insured. https://www.healthcare.gov/health-coverage-exemptions/hardship-exemptions/. If you're poor then the government won't charge you the individual mandate tax. There's no streamlined way to get health insurance, they don't care if you get health insurance because you don't bring money to the table. If you're homeless, the government doesn’t care if you're uninsured. If you were evicted or facing foreclosure--no worries, the government doesn't care if you don't have health insurance. If you can't pay your medical bills--the government doesn't care if you have health insurance.
The tale of hardships is another indication that Obamacare was never about helping individuals, it was about helping government team up with insurance companies and providers in order to overcharge consumers and force them to purchase a financial consumer product while pursuing strategies that minimize payments and coverage and options for needed medical services.
For consumers, the exploited stakeholder, the source of funding for the health industry conglomerate, it is essential to remember before you're sick that YOU are the employer and source of funds for these other stakeholders whose "hardships" as addressed by their government partner only make our hardships worse.
