WSJ: Health insurance premiums to skyrocket (illegal, healthcare, Missouri, Obama)
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The WSJ has a piece today arguing that because the ACA " ignored virtually every actuarial principle governing rational insurance pricing", insurance rates will soon skyrocket.
The argument is premised on universal coverage not working: "while ObamaCare imposes a financial penalty—or is it a tax?—to discourage people from gaming the system, it is too low to be a real disincentive."
This is a big If, and potentially a major flaw in the argument, particularly since it ignores the "carrot" side of the equation; while there will be a penalty for nothaving insurance, there will also be a benefit from having insurance: you will be insured.
But accepting their supposition, that people will pay the penalty and game the system and therefore that rates will skyrocket, the authors make the interesting point that the states which will see the largest premium increases are those which (in their view) have been most responsible, in the sense that they have taken a laissez-faire approach to their health-insurance markets:
Quote:
Ironically, citizens in states that have acted responsibly over the years by adhering to standard actuarial principles and limiting the (often politically motivated) mandates will see the biggest increases, because their premiums have typically been the lowest...Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming and Virginia will likely see the largest increases—somewhere between 65% and 100%. Another 18 states, including Texas and Michigan, could see their rates rise between 35% and 65%.
Now, again, the argument's premise is by no means indisputable, but setting that aside and supposing the authors are correct in their estimates, thirty-one states are soon to see health premiums soar beyond the ability of their market to pay. And of course, this list of thirteen states (putatively) facing the largest premium increases is notably red, only Iowa and Virginia not belonging firmly in the red-state column.
In those red states (again, assuming the authors' predictions are proved correct) such a steep price increase will certainly bring calls for repeal of Obamacare - but that's clearly not going to happen. So what will be the alternative?
People need health insurance. People in those states predicted to be most affected will, in many cases, simply be unable to afford health insurance. The contradiction will pose a significant danger, to public health, state budgets, and personal finances. Obamacare will, for them, be an impossible solution. Returning to the status quo ante won't be an option, because repeal isn't going to happen. What's left?
If these dire predictions come true (and again, by no means a certainty), it may well be that opinion-makers and leaders in these most-affected states are forced to consider the single-payer alternative faute de mieux.
Naturally, in these deepest-scarlet parts of the U.S., it will be necessary to avoid the impression that a state-wide single-payer plan is "socialism" - but then, in many of those states, there are precedents with less odious associations: farmer's cooperatives, Huey Long-style "redneck socialism", and other populist initiatives which, deployed correctly, could wash single-payer clean of any Bolshevik mental associations.
It may well be that the next step beyond Obamacare will come, not from raving-looney-leftie blue states, but from the firey-red parts of the country which, faced with no other alternative, resort to single-payer as the only way to escape their dilemma.
There was also an interesting article in the NY Times how medical electronic records are not generating the savings they were initially planned to once implemented. This was also a big factor in the supposed savings Obamacare was supposed to capitalized on.
The WSJ has a piece today arguing that because the ACA " ignored virtually every actuarial principle governing rational insurance pricing", insurance rates will soon skyrocket.
The argument is premised on universal coverage not working: "while ObamaCare imposes a financial penalty—or is it a tax?—to discourage people from gaming the system, it is too low to be a real disincentive."
This is a big If, and potentially a major flaw in the argument, particularly since it ignores the "carrot" side of the equation; while there will be a penalty for nothaving insurance, there will also be a benefit from having insurance: you will be insured.
But accepting their supposition, that people will pay the penalty and game the system and therefore that rates will skyrocket, the authors make the interesting point that the states which will see the largest premium increases are those which (in their view) have been most responsible, in the sense that they have taken a laissez-faire approach to their health-insurance markets:
Now, again, the argument's premise is by no means indisputable, but setting that aside and supposing the authors are correct in their estimates, thirty-one states are soon to see health premiums soar beyond the ability of their market to pay. And of course, this list of thirteen states (putatively) facing the largest premium increases is notably red, only Iowa and Virginia not belonging firmly in the red-state column.
In those red states (again, assuming the authors' predictions are proved correct) such a steep price increase will certainly bring calls for repeal of Obamacare - but that's clearly not going to happen. So what will be the alternative?
People need health insurance. People in those states predicted to be most affected will, in many cases, simply be unable to afford health insurance. The contradiction will pose a significant danger, to public health, state budgets, and personal finances. Obamacare will, for them, be an impossible solution. Returning to the status quo ante won't be an option, because repeal isn't going to happen. What's left?
If these dire predictions come true (and again, by no means a certainty), it may well be that opinion-makers and leaders in these most-affected states are forced to consider the single-payer alternative faute de mieux.
Naturally, in these deepest-scarlet parts of the U.S., it will be necessary to avoid the impression that a state-wide single-payer plan is "socialism" - but then, in many of those states, there are precedents with less odious associations: farmer's cooperatives, Huey Long-style "redneck socialism", and other populist initiatives which, deployed correctly, could wash single-payer clean of any Bolshevik mental associations.
It may well be that the next step beyond Obamacare will come, not from raving-looney-leftie blue states, but from the firey-red parts of the country which, faced with no other alternative, resort to single-payer as the only way to escape their dilemma.
So Obama lied remember we had to pass it to know what was in it
Also from the article:
"Although President Obama repeatedly claimed that health-insurance premiums for a family would be $2,500 lower by the end of his first term, they are actually about $3,000 higher—a spread of about $5,500 per family."
Can anyone name 1 (just one) federal government agency that is run well, efficiently and on budget? And now we hand over more of our money to the feds and entrust them with our bodies.
Questions:
Will those collecting any kind of entitlement that they did not pay into (welfare, food stamps etc) have to pay the fine as well or is there an excemption?
Are illegals going to receive ObamaCare? I haven't been following the latest illegal immigration moves.
There was also an interesting article in the NY Times how medical electronic records are not generating the savings they were initially planned to once implemented. This was also a big factor in the supposed savings Obamacare was supposed to capitalized on.
The entire program is going to start caving in on itself very quickly.
Also from the article:
"Although President Obama repeatedly claimed that health-insurance premiums for a family would be $2,500 lower by the end of his first term, they are actually about $3,000 higher—a spread of about $5,500 per family."
Right - if this is the case, in other words, if Obamacare fails in its chief ambition, which was to provide near-universal insurance at lower cost through a network of mostly private insurers, where do we go next? As I said, the doctrinaire and ideologically-driven apart, the nation as a whole does not want to go back.
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Can anyone name 1 (just one) federal government agency that is run well, efficiently and on budget?
Define your terms.
Quote:
Questions:
Will those collecting any kind of entitlement that they did not pay into (welfare, food stamps etc) have to pay the fine as well or is there an excemption?
Taking "those collecting any kind of entitlement" to mean people eligible for government assistance, who by definition have very low incomes, most of those will be eligible either for tax credits against insurance costs or expanded Medicaid eligibility, and therefore will likely have affordable insurance, and therefore not be required to pay the penalty.
Quote:
Are illegals going to receive ObamaCare? I haven't been following the latest illegal immigration moves.
What does "receive Obamacare" mean?
Quote:
Do folks go to jail if they don't pay the fine?
No - ACA provides no criminal penalty for not having insurance, merely a financial one.
(These are pretty elementary aspects of the law, which have been covered in detail in the national press - why don't you know the answers already?)
There was also an interesting article in the NY Times how medical electronic records are not generating the savings they were initially planned to once implemented. This was also a big factor in the supposed savings Obamacare was supposed to capitalized on.
Yup, Obama and his masterminds claimed that switching over to digitized records would save the US healthcare industry billions and billions of dollars every year.
That is what government always does; assemble a small panel of agenda-driven "experts" who then go on to advise, and write rules the rest of us are forced to accept.
The further we get from the day ObamaCare was forced down our throats, the more we find that those things the "experts" and politicians told us were false, misleading or outright lies. It does not matter to the left, because they keep creating new panels of expert masterminds to tell the rest of us how we should live our lives.
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