An ill-conceived provision of ObamaCare is already threatening to upend insurance policies for millions of Americans. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners reported to HHS recently that they would not meet a regulatory deadline because of the massive disruption strict adherence to the new law would precipitate. According to some sources, there is potential for millions of people to lose their insurance next year based on rules which are supposed to control premiums by regulating the amount insurers are allowed to spend on administrative costs but actually just drive insurers out of the marketplace altogether.
Democrats officially titled ObamaCare the “Affordable Care Act,” but medical costs for Americans are guaranteed to continue to rise. The weak measures to control costs don’t begin for years, but the new regulations, taxes, and mandates will start much sooner. “What makes Democrats more immediately vulnerable is what’s going to happen to people’s health insurance costs next year. They’re going up. At least that’s the finding of a new report from the consulting group PricewaterhouseCoopers.”
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels expressed his dissatisfaction with ObamaCare during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute — claiming that the health-care overhaul is anything but “reform,” and stating that Indiana is “only just beginning to grapple — reeling might be the term — with what this will mean at the state level.”
The Massachusetts health-care program provides a clear blueprint for what would happen nationwide under ObamaCare: Increased demand and decreased supply would raise costs and lengthen lines; increased mandates would increase costs still further; and increased costs would lead to employers bailing out and insurers going out of business, with government-run health care being the inevitable end-result.
“The grossly misleading, full-color propaganda brochures that the Obama administration has been sending out to seniors at taxpayer expense don’t seem to have swayed many minds — at least not in the direction that the administration would want.”
The international law firm of Sonnenschein, Nath, & Rosenthal has produced a list of ObamaCare’s key provisions.
For the 4th-straight week, Americans show that they favor repeal of ObamaCare by a margin of more than 20 points — with independents in this week’s poll favoring repeal by a margin of 29 points.
A one-page chart examining all of the different ways ObamaCare’s employer mandate (free rider provision) will negatively affect hiring decisions of businesses at the margins.
ObamaCare appears to have one grandfathered standard for union bosses and another standard for everyone else.
Even though the majority of ObamaCare’s costly provisions don’t start until 2014, that doesn’t mean the bill won’t raise premiums next year. An expert with Fidelity Consulting Services estimates ObamaCare’s new provisions for 2011 alone will result in premium increases of 2 to 3 percent because of added costs for insuring young adults, removing benefit caps, and new mandates for preventive care.