From the article:
"At his press conference this week, President Obama tried to reassure Americans about ObamaCare. Instead, he displayed either an incredible lack of understanding about his own law, or something far worse.
Asked about increasing Democratic concern over what Sen. Max Baucus called a looming ObamaCare "train wreck," Obama claimed that it's all much ado about very little.
But almost nothing he said in defense of ObamaCare was accurate. Among his statements:
"A huge chunk of it's already been implemented."
In fact, all that's been implemented so far are a few PR-friendly changes like a mandate to cover children up to age 26 and a more generous Medicare drug benefit.
Democrats put off the bulk of the law — the massive market regulations, the government-run exchanges, mandates to buy coverage, and various taxes and fees—until 2014, both to hide its true costs and to avoid any unpleasantness before the 2012 elections.
"For the 85% to 90% of Americans who already have health insurance ... they don't have to worry about anything else."
Really? The Congressional Budget Office expects 7 million workers — and possibly as many as 20 million — will lose their employer coverage because of ObamaCare. That's plenty to worry about.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said millions of seniors will get dumped from their private Medicare Advantage plans by 2017 thanks to sharp payment cuts required by the law.
And small businesses now providing coverage face huge rate hikes thanks to ObamaCare's many market regulations and benefit mandates. Maryland's biggest insurer, nonprofit CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, said ObamaCare will force rates up by 15% next year.
"The other stuff's been implemented and it's working fine."
That's only true if you ignore the fact that ObamaCare's high-risk pools have been a disaster, attracting a third as many people as predicted while costing far more than the administration budgeted."
I can tell you that the small business where I work has seen a series of significant increases in health care costs over the past few years. It definitely makes a difference when we decide whether to hire someone. If it gets worse than it already is, I don't know what will need to be done, but at some point the costs of an employee are simply too high compared to the benefits, if the benefits include hyper expensive health care.
For the mid-sized business I work for, our family monthly premium went from $322/mo. in 2012 to $926/mo. in 2013 for the same coverage. I wonder if the company will even offer health coverage of just kick everyone to the exchanges.
ReplyDeleteIt will be a punt to the exchanges. That is what the unstated plan is. The government must control our lives, our healthcare.
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