This weekend we were treated to Jeffrey Young's dystopia where Democrats selling fear warned of the "chaos" that COULD ensue with efforts to change Obamacare. Jeffrey Young wrote an almost incoherent article for the Huffington Post that better belongs in a sci-fi magazine in his article, "How Trump Could Devastate Obamacare by Barely Lifting a Finger on 11/19/2016 (I'm finding that more and more cites are coming up as errors, so just search title and author and date).
What was Mr. Young addressing? Young's Armageddon tale was a scattered attempt to frighten people that Obamacare's cost-sharing subsidies (entitlement payments on top of premium assistance entitlements) could disappear for lowest-income American Obamacare enrollees because of a judge's May 2016 decision that deemed the funding of those entitlement payouts illegal and which is currently on appeal by the government.
Never mind that the payments were found an illegal Obama-like power grab trying to bypass Congress' funding role, never mind that the judge's decision also made it clear that it would not be effective until the appeal decided the issue, never mind that it affects about two percent of a population ALREADY GETTING government payouts towards premiums, never mind that Donald Trump is president-elect and has zero to do with Obamacare, the law founded and sold in deception and maintained by lackeys more committed to presidential footprint than the American people's welfare.
So why did the frightened Mr. Young write the article? Because it's really the only platform Democrats have, the fear they can create that things might get worse. In a retro acknowledgment to the success of this fear-selling strategy of the things could be worse scenario, that has left scared Americans listening to the now proven inaccurate reporting, predicting and spinning pro-Obama media, Mr. Young is trying it once again.
First, for those seven million two-entitlement receiving Obamacare recipients who Mr. Young worries about, what if you're one of them? What does this mean for your second cost-sharing entitlement payment right now? Nothing. You'll still get it as the appeal of the judge's May 2016 finding of its illegal funding that bypassed Congress has not yet been decided.
OK, so Mr. Young is reporting no news. Now into the fear marketing. Mr. Young starts delving into possible ways these payments COULD be stopped. Well, first of all, they were already deemed illegal, so there's that and if that's confirmed on appeal, then yes, they stop unless Congress authorizes shelling out the money for them.
If that happens, who's affected? Mr. Young talks about "seven million." OK, so seven million people already getting premium assistance wouldn't get a second entitlement payment to cover costs of medical services. That is two percent of the population.
This two percent are working people who EVEN IF they don't receive the additional government money for cost-sharing WILL continue to get government entitlement dollars to pay for their premium assistance.
In context, Obamacare has left between two and four million working Americans UNABLE to afford health insurance AT ALL for their families, the family glitch. This problem, has been ignored by Democrats for six years because it doesn't play into their government-insurance company partnership which is Obamacare.
Of course, reality isn't the kind of headline Democrats like: IN WAKE OF May 2016 JUDICIAL FINDING OF ILLEGALITY GOVERNMENT MAY NOT PAY OUT SECOND ENTITLEMENT FUNDING TO SEVEN MILLION OBAMACARE ENROLLEES ALREADY RECEIVING PREMIUM ASSISTANCE--Not nearly as "scary," not nearly as easily blamed on what President elect Trump "might" do.
But let's say you want to spread the alarm, COST SHARING BENEFITS THREATENED, you're going to have to hop onto your Fearworld pony and spread today's Democrats FEAR platform which only survives if you lie or refuse to answer questions.
For instance: Why do you think that the government has gone to court for the right to PAY MORE MONEY in entitlement payments (premium assistance, King v. Burwell, which they won the right to pay more) and cost-sharing payments under Obamacare plans when this administration increased our payroll taxes by two percent by allowing prior provisions to lapse (far more than seven million people affected), when this administration denied social security cost of living adjustments to our older Americans (far more than seven million people), when this administration cut long-term unemployment benefits (far more than seven million people), when this administration cut food stamps (far more than seven million people), when this administration raised the threshold for when people can deduct medical expenses from 7.5 percent of their income to 10 percent of their income (again letting a provision protecting Americans lapse)?
The answer is the ugly truth, the protection of Obamacare as a presidential "legacy" has created the weird protection of law over people and lies over truth as Democrats ignore the basis of Obamacare the partnership of government and insurance companies to screw the American people.
You might ask: If cost-sharing is so vital and as we know it's only a dollar payment available to individuals who select silver or better plans (rather than the least expensive bronze plans), why has the government been unable to get more people to choose these silver plans and their additional payouts, especially the young and healthy?
The answer is the ugly truth, the protection of insurers' interests in incentivizing participation by young-healthy individuals to balance out actually having to pay out on claims for others means manipulating those young-healthies to buy into more expensive insurance plans that older-sicker people would more readily buy into. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked and so the government's added some more little pushes, first the greater increase in bronze plans than silver plans for the 2015 benefits year to make the silver plans a better "value," and then this year's CMS ruling to further regulate the availability of short term insurance plans that they specifically called out as a means of giving young people an alternative to paying through the nose for Obamacare.
As a follow-up you might ask: So you don't think Obamacare will be repealed, so you're worried about preserving the government payouts for cost-sharing under Obamacare? That would be news and hopefully that would be news to President Trump who has like Obama, earned his election in no small part due to issues around the healthcare industry.
And if Mr. Young believes that the Republicans intend to repeal Obamacare, which would render his article even more moot if there was such a standard, why not spend some time on a real issue for Americans which is that Republican replacement plans should NOT be rushed into because their plan ideas so far are not better for American consumers. Instead we should sever the plans to repeal and replace and encourage thoughtful and informative disclosure of what the replace would look like.
But in Mr. Young's world he'd rather you lock yourself away like a frightened nitwit imagining the world coming down around you and leaving "geniuses" like Obama to tell you they've got you covered, just as the Democrats have done for six years as their ideas for change have become a narrow caricature of a wish-list that neither prioritizes nor fully considers its impacts on the American population, much like Obamacare.
