Time for consumers to get the memo, Obamacare CANNOT work for consumers. Here are10 reasons why:
1-Instead of reining in the insurance industry practice of raising prices and reducing coverage, Obamacare partnered with insurance companies in pursuing this policy by including a laundry list of coverage for checkups at the expense of expanded and more meaningful coverage for expensive and needed medical services--this is the Prevention distraction.
2-Instead of encouraging the business of insurance to come up with products that make sense for people to purchase in response to the millions of individuals who did not purchase health insurance because it left them in financial and physical peril even if they did have policies, Obamacare has embraced under-insurance, policies that are expensive and don't cover needed medical services that leave consumers in physical and financial peril if they have needed medical services--this is the Individual Mandate, forced purchase deincentivization for insurance companies to improve their product.
3-Instead of creating a TRUE single risk pool, Obamacare made a phony universal risk pool by singling out certain groups for higher premiums based on cherry-picking of high risk groups instead of either outlawing all criteria for higher premiums or by allowing for higher premiums based on higher cost centers. This is the TOBACCO USE AND AGE PENALTY, permissible as the only two justifications for higher premiums while excluding other high cost coverages like pregnancy, alcohol consumption, sedentary lifestyle, pre-existing conditions, drug use, legal and illegal, obesity. This is the single risk pool fallacy.
4-Instead of LIMITING HOW MUCH CAN BE CHARGED for a family insurance plan for all insurance plans, Obamacare ONLY limits how much families pay on exchanges, (merely 9.4 to 11.1 families this year) leaving everyone else to employee only coverage limitations making the purchase of dependent care coverage by employees for their families not only hugely expensive but often too expensive to be afforded--This is the family glitch.
5-Instead of fixing Obamacare entitlement payment provisions to include an assets test so that millionaires who can adjust their income declarations to fall within Obamacare income parameters and actually get government entitlement money in the form of premium assistance, Obama instead went to court to argue that the GOVERNMENT WOULD PAY MORE PEOPLE entitlement money by expanding definitions of what a "STATE ESTABLISHED EXCHANGE" means (King v. Burwell). This is the Millionaire handout potential.
6-Instead of DISCOURAGING the practice of DEFENSIVE MEDICINE that puts people in financial and physical peril as providers send people for endless tests to protect themselves from liability even in the face of the sobering statistic that medical error is the third leading cause of death in this country and therefore more medical engagement INCREASES an individual's risk of death, Obamacare ENCOURAGES defensive medicine with its "free checkups," where providers can now force people to get testing and argue falsely that "it won't cost us anything." Falsely because first, insurers work these "included" costs into what they charge and second because the risk of physical injury from medical error increases with an increase in medical services. This is the DEFENSIVE MEDICINE INCENTIVE.
7-Instead of DISCOURAGING INSURANCE FRAUD by providing for financial incentives for individuals, insurers and providers who crack down on fraud, like a money reward for recovered amounts, Obamacare DISCOURAGES discovering fraud by OMITTING fraud discovery/recovery from the 80 percent of their money they can use for "health care costs and quality improvement activities," forcing them to eat into their budgets for spending on themselves that are limited to 20 percent for "Administrative, overhead, and marketing costs," which obviously they're not going to eat into to find fraud when they can charge consumers more by working in those fraud losses into what we're charged in premiums. This is the FORGET ABOUT FRAUD PROVISION.
8-Instead of encouraging gender equality, Obamacare incorporates gender inequality with provisions that require everyone to pay for policies that include physical exams for women only, not men on an annual basis, that pay for female sterilization but not male sterilization and that pay for female victim of domestic violence counseling but not male victim of domestic violence counseling. This is Gender Discrimination.
9-Instead of LIMITING how much out-of-pocket maximum payments by consumers can go up each year, this was left to the random determination by government that results in an increase in our out-of-pocket maximum this year reaching $7,150 for an individual and $14,300. This is the SKIN IN THE GAME approach, charging consumers more to save payers money.
10-Instead of reinstating DSH payments, the disproportionate hospital share payments that helped hospitals that treat the uninsured, after Mandatory Medicaid expansion was stricken by the Supreme Court, the Obama Administration did NOT reinstate such payments, leaving the poor with fewer hospital alternatives for care. This is the Our Way or Screw the Poor approach.
