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“In 2003, 5.3 million Americans were enrolled in Medicare Advantage. Today, there are 11.3 million, or 24 percent of all Medicare enrollees. On average, Medicare only covers about 60 percent of health care costs. Medicare Advantage was designed to help fill the gap for those that can’t afford conventional supplemental coverage. Most of Obama’s Medicare Advantage cuts will hit those with incomes of less than $32,400 per year, according to a recent Heritage Foundation study. The Heritage study also projects 7.4 million more seniors will be forced out of Medicare Advantage within four years.”

State budgets are already in the red, and ObamaCare saddles them with new costs for Medicaid expansions and to establish and implement new insurance exchanges.

“McDonald’s Corp. has warned federal regulators that it could drop its health insurance plan for nearly 30,000 hourly restaurant workers unless regulators waive a new requirement of the U.S. health overhaul. The move is one of the clearest indications that new rules may disrupt workers’ health plans as the law ripples through the real world.”

“The provisions that are going into effect this year aren’t central to the law’s significant changes to American health care. Repeal is resonating with a large segment of the population because much more sweeping changes are in the works, changes that will redistribute wealth, disrupt insurance arrangements that most people find perfectly acceptable today, and create risks for the quality of American health care. Those concerns are not going away anytime soon.”

ObamaCare’s Medicare Advantage cuts will especially hit the Latino community. “In fact, according to my colleagues’ estimates, nearly 300,000 Hispanics will lose or be dropped from their Medicare Advantage plan, or find that the plan they were in is no longer financially attractive, facing an estimated $2.2 billion loss in annual benefits. Plus, approximately 56 percent of New York seniors would lose their Medicare Advantage plans. So much for the President’s repeated promise that we would be able to keep our current health coverage if we liked it.”

“The Obama administration has a dilemma. On the one hand, it wants to be seen as the champion of preventive care — because these are the only tangible services that touch the lives of the 80 percent of the population that is basically healthy. On the other hand, a vast increase in insurance coverage for such services will only increase health care costs and crowd out access to care for those who have more serious medical needs.”

Businesses are unable to plan for ObamaCare’s new mandates and taxes, because of the regulatory complexity. “But at this point, the answer is just not knowable, since regulators still have to write so many regulations, including what health services employers will be required to cover under mandatory insurance.”

“These are the enrollees in Medicare Advantage plans, health plans operated by private insurers (Cigna, Aetna, United Health, etc.) that provide extra benefits to the elderly and the disabled on top of standard Medicare coverage. The price they will pay for health reform will be a double whammy: less spending on Medicare coupled with reduced subsidies for their Medicare Advantage plans. In many areas, Medicare Advantage enrollees will lose about one-third or more of their health-insurance benefits.”

A new ObamaCare calculator from The Heritage Foundation lets you analyze how the costs of the bill would change if certain assumptions used by the Congressional Budget Office are incorrect.

“It’s now been six months since Congress passed Obamacare — not a long time given the sweeping nature of the legislation and the long phase-in schedule for its most significant provisions. Even so, it is already abundantly clear that Obamacare’s critics were dead right: The new health law has set in motion a government takeover of American health care, and a very hostile one at that. The Obama administration’s clumsy and overbearing behavior since its passage proves the point.”