GNP’s Editorial that the ACA is good for our Heath
The GNP’s Editorial last Sunday October 20, 2013, on the “Affordable Care Act” (ACA) is good for our Heath” is a matter of opinion. It will be affordable only to those eligible for Medicaid/Medi-Cal, or those who are low income, signed up on a State exchange and eligible to get subsidies. All the rest will have sticker shock.
The President ultimately will have no choice but to delay the ACA implementation, longer than the two week extension, due to its disastrous online meltdown. There are already ten democrats urging for its delay. The reason why the system failed was the administration’s attempt to pre-register individuals before allowing them to search for policies and prices, rather than to allow individuals to scan policies and prices before deciding to whether or not to register. This is all part of the Administration’s grand scheme to have more power and control over our lives. Once the glitch is finally fixed and implemented, the ACA will still fail under its own weight.
There are 37 states that refused to implement the ACA exchange. The Obama administration decided to set up a massive Federal online exchange for those non-participating states. Although the IRS contravened the text of the law when it promulgated a regulation to issue subsidies in all fifty states, it lacked the authority. Individuals are only eligible for subsidies if they purchased a policy on their states exchange, not Federal. A lawsuit soon followed which a judge on Tuesday allowed it to proceed.
The ACA is designed to provide primarily coverage not access to healthcare. There are fewer doctors and hospitals participating in the ACA exchange due to low reimbursement rates, resulting in longer wait times to get an appointment and access to treatment.
Many businesses are dropping their employee healthcare plans due to higher health coverage requirements and costs, while insurance companies are dropping current coverage on individual “no frills” catastrophic policies, with high deductibles, that fail to meet the administration’s mew guidelines under Obamacare, i.e. older couples will be required to have maternity coverage. Florida blue has already given notice that it is dropping 80% of its individual policies, and in California, Kaiser has given notice to 160,000 of its policy holders. As of October 29, 2013, two million people have now received cancellation notices on their existing individual policy. Presently, we may have had more people who have had their policy cancelled than who have signed up.
The ACA will rely more on nurse practitioners and doctor assistants, or foreign educated doctors, to treat patients, due to a doctor shortage, many doctors indicating that they will retire due to the ACA, while other doctors said that they will go private, becoming a non-provider, and not participate in the exchange because the ACA is paying even less in medical reimbursement under the ACA exchange. The doctors considered the top in their field, will maintain a much smaller patient base, who can afford to pay cash for their services, including a non reimbursable concierge fees for non covered services.. Presently, primary care doctors are not reimbursed for reviewing outside reports or consulting with outside specialists concerning their patients.
President Obama repeatedly assured the American people that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance plan and their doctor would be able to keep it, Period. On February 25, 2010, on television the President said that actually any insurance plan you have can be grandfathered in so that you can keep it. So you could to decide not to get in the exchange the better plan, to keep your acme plan, high deductible catastrophic plan, that we would be required not to get the better one.
Per Internal Revenue Bulletin 2010-29, dated July 19, 2010 and Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010, that “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy and therefore relinquish their grandfather status. The Obama administration has known that for at least three years per IRS Bulletin 2010-29, that an estimated 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. They will all be forced to buy pricier new policies on the exchange, and for most will experience “sticker shock.” That means the administration knew that 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them. This is necessary because the AFA requires more middle income families paying more into the system to subsidize others who earn less.
Under Obamacare, “your premium is based on how wealthy you are instead of how sick you are”. This will be the case for 88% of people who visit the exchange. Those whose incomes surpass a certain amount will not be eligible for a subsidy under the state exchange. In 2013, the limit is $45,960 for an individual and $94,200 for a family of four. One caveat, if you sign up on a state exchange and were either eligible to be on your parents plan, up to age 26 or eligible to be on your employer’s plan, you are not eligible for any ACA insurance subsidy. If you inadvertently sign up on the exchange, unaware of these facts, and claim the subsidy, and the IRS later on during its verification process determine this fact, it will apply any amount due, including penalty and interest, against any future tax refund due you.
The majority of Americans, who are low information voters, believe that that under the ACA their insurance premium will be going down and that they will have greater access to healthcare. Nothing could be further from the truth. They have been duped by the Obama Administration.
How is this possible when;
- The government have set a higher minimum increase coverage, making ineligible all catastrophic acme plans.
- We have a doctor shortage, with many doctors indicating that they will retire because of the ACA, while other have said that they will not participate under the exchange and become a non-provider.
- Insurance companies cannot deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, that will significantly increase their cost that will have to be passed on in the form of higher premiums. The administration is gambling that 7.5 million healthy youths will sign up to offset the higher costs. What happens when this does not materialize and many will opt for the penalty.
- $750 million has been transferred from Medicare to Obamacare, that will result in higher premiums for seniors and loss of Medicare advantage.
- The government already spent almost a billion dollar on the exchange, 600 million on advertising.
- The ACA has significantly expanded the role of government to run Obamacare, including 16,000 new IRS positions to enforce the healthcare law, more regulations and oversight to come, requiring doctors to digitalize and submit all prior patient medical records, including future office visits, requiring patients to complete questionnaires, on each office visit that will be transmitted to the government, that will go into a data bank, similar to the NSA, so that it can be later disseminated by government officials. All this will result in longer office visits, resulting in higher paperwork, higher costs, and longer waits to get appointments and to be seen by your doctor.
The ACA needs about 7.5 million healthy young adults to sign up to cover the cost of the elderly that will not happen. Rather than paying thousands of dollars annually with a high deductible, they will opt pay the penalty, that is $95 per person (up to a family maximum of $285, or 1 percent of family income, in its first year. This will become more apparent to those in the 21-35 age bracket, seeking policies, and finding that they do not qualify for subsidies, will find that the cost of health coverage is unaffordable and opt for the penalty forcing premium prices and the deductible even higher for those participating in the exchange.
In the end, it will no longer be a decision on what type care is best for you, between you and your doctor. Rather, it will be bureaucrat s in Washington now making the decisions since they are ones now holding the purse strings. Welcome to socialize healthcare where their ultimate goal is universal healthcare. Just wait until we have immigration reform, when 12 million additional illegals are added to the healthcare rolls. Then all hell will break out.
