Obamacare Complacency and Consumers
Misdirected political energy isn't always opinion, it's looking at results. Headlines today inundate us with Russia news that leaves me unsurprised in lieu of our smug claims of globalism, so political corruption has gone "global" along with the shenanigans utilized by Democrats and Republicans in attempting to garner power. Shrieking and trying to point to a single bad player is really spinning our consumer wheels, dumping corruption and lying and dirty pool from politics is unlikely.
What's been absent has been attention to Obamacare either reform/repeal language that is meaningful for consumers. This complacency is ludicrous based on what's going on in our health industrial complex and most assuredly indicates what was suspected previously, both Democrats and Republicans liked Obamacare because A) It didn't affect public employee cushy benefits and B) It was a legalized system of saving both government and insurance companies money on paying for healthcare for their customers through the old-fashioned means of covering less and-or charging more.
These are facts admitted even by the Obama government when it noted that the Exchange rates for insurance purchase were artificially lowered by payoffs to insurers (the three Rs, risk adjustment (still around today), reinsurance and risk corridors (which were federal government payouts to insurers that expired at the end of 2016) (see Six Years In and Starting to "Get" Obamacare, the LA Times, http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/2016/07/six-years-in-and-starting-to-get.html) and through narrow networks that were unsustainable (CBO publication 49973, March 2015).
The number of uninsured has always been a floating number, though mandatory insurance purchase or penalty and expanded Medicaid logically would mean more Americans would have health insurance before the enactment of these two provisions under Obamacare.
The cost of health insurance purchase has kept going up though again, those using Exchanges so that the government paid for their plan increases and those using Medicaid where the federal government paid for the majority of coverage rightfully didn't care.
Prohibiting insurers from either declining coverage or charging more for health insurance purchase for those with pre-existing conditions, was countered with Obamacare's carve-out exceptions, singling out people based on age and tobacco use for higher premiums. This Obamacare provision arguably is less effective than the interim plan the federal government had for individuals who had pre-existing conditions who had been declined for coverage before Obamacare's provisions kicked in. It should be noted that the original 2010 insurance coverage REQUIRED that individuals had no health insurance for at least six months to be eligible, a provision that should be omitted if this government plan is resurrected as it should be. Health insurance denial should be enough "proof."
The out-of-pocket maximums and deductibles and copays and coinsurance, the costs of USING health insurance once you have it exploded under Obamacare. These amounts keep going up reaching epic proportions that both discourage individuals from using their health insurance and leave many Americans with crippling health care costs. These amounts must be controlled, especially with the soaring prices of prescription drugs.
While consumers bicker over Republican or Democrat, even Obama's own statements in August 2016 that he made in JAMA (yes, a Journal, and the Journal took quite a hit for its political promo), where even amidst his egotistical inaccurate self-congratulation deigned to touch reality by advising changes to Obamacare including "…increasing federal financial assistance for Marketplace enrollees, introducing a public plan option in areas lacking individual market competition, and taking actions to reduce prescription drug costs," -Obama.
In other words, Obamacare failed, people still can't afford premiums, people still can't afford drugs, and there is no effective method in the law for controlling prices charged to consumers absent a public option.
As another benefits season approaches the Obamacare stain is shared by Republicans and Democrats and has been relegated to an irrelevant status as people would rather accuse Democrats of being Socialists and Republicans of being Nazis. The energy of these imaginary conversations makes ripples, but when push comes to shove we're all still under the burden of Obamacare and its failures this fall.
