In the last few months of 2013, Obamacare suffered a series of embarrassing setbacks dealing with everything from a clunky website to plan cancellations tothe White House feeling compelled to arbitrarily ignore the law.
Since that time, though, people seem to have adapted to this new burden.
But adaptation doesn’t mean approval. There are still serious problems with Obamacare, as evidenced by the fact that the Obama Administration has postponed implementation of various provisions 38 times!
However, the White House wants us to believe the law is a success, even if that requires statistical contortions.
So let’s look at the record.
My Cato colleague Mike Tanner argues that Obamacare has been a disaster, writing for Townhall that “…in the last year we’ve also seen plenty of bad news for consumers, providers, employers and taxpayers.”
In his column, he looks at various groups and assesses whether Obamacare has succeeded or failed.
What about universal coverage?
…the best estimates suggest that roughly 8 million people gained insurance under ObamaCare, but roughly half of those were enrolled in Medicaid (outside of the exchanges), which isn’t really health-care reform so much as adding people to government welfare. And it still leaves 41 million American adults uninsured.
That doesn’t sound too impressive, particularly when you consider all the damage that Obamacare has imposed.
What about keeping your health plan?
…roughly 6 million Americans were kicked off their insurance because their plans failed to offer a lengthy-enough maternity stay, didn’t provide sufficient drug and alcohol rehabilitation benefits or otherwise fell short of the insurance that federal bureaucrats thought that they should have. …on average, ObamaCare plans were worse than the plans they replaced, in terms of both providers covered and cost-sharing. A new wave of cancellations is about to begin as well. …In several states, insurers have dropped plans that they offered on the exchanges or even withdrawn from the market altogether. And if that was not bad enough, Americans with employer-based insurance may find out their insurance has to be changed starting next year.
So we pay more and get less, while also dealing with lots of uncertainty.
What about consumers?
If judged against President Obama’s promise that health-care reform would save us all at least $2,500 through lower premiums, ObamaCare deserves an F. …In states where the individual market was not already dysfunctional, there were significant premium increases.
So the President was lying? I’m shocked, shocked.
What about taxpayers?
This summer the Congressional Budget Office announced that it had given up trying to score the cost of ObamaCare, given the frequency with which the administration was making unilateral changes to the law. …roughly 85 percent of those enrolled through exchanges are receiving subsidies, higher than predicted. Overall, the best estimates suggest the law will cost $2.63 trillion over the next 10 years. That will be paid for by $1.38 trillion in new taxes and at least $1.25 trillion in additional debt.
Imagine that. A new entitlement is going to be a fiscal boondoggle. Who could have predicted that outcome?
What about jobs?
…surveys from Federal Reserve Banks in New York, Philadelphia and Atlanta confirmed that businesses are cutting employment and shifting workers to part-time positions because of ObamaCare. According to the New York Fed, 21 percent of manufacturers and 17 percent of service companies have reduced the size of their workforce because of the law. In addition, roughly 20 percent of both manufacturers and service companies said that they have shifted workers from full- to part-time jobs.
The overall impact on employment could be as high as two million workers.
But there is a tiny sliver of good news. Or, to be more accurate, there’s a tiny sliver of not-as-bad-as-we-thought news.
…some costs are lower because so many states have chosen not to expand Medicaid.
In other words, the Obama White House thought it could bribe states to expand the welfare program that provides health care.
And some statist governors, such as John Kasich, rolled over for Obama.
But many states realized it would be a long-term fiscal disaster to expand Medicaid, notwithstanding promises that Washington would pick up the tab in the short run.
Let’s close with a video on one of the more bizarre aspects of Obamacare. Apparently, people are getting screwed out of their healthcare plans because of strange rules that all plans have to fit within certain bands.
I can’t imagine why the politicians wanted the law to work this way, other than the statist instinct to micro-manage other people’s lives. You have to watch the video to grasp the inanity of the policy.
And if all this isn’t sufficiently depressing, keep in mind that the White House wants to use your tax dollars to bail out the big health insurance companies.
