A recent study shows approximately $1.2 billion in annual excess costs to the auto insurance industry from cost shifting due to low reimbursement rates from government-run health programs. Thus ObamaCare’s $500 billion in cuts to Medicare payments could lead not only to greater cost-shifting and higher costs for other Americans’ health care, but also to higher costs for auto insurance.
A survey of the British National Health System by the charity Mencap has revealed that there is “institutional discrimination” against patients with learning disabilities in the NHS, the government-run system for which Dr. Donald Berwick — President Obama’s nominee to head Medicare and Medicaid under ObamaCare — has professed his “love.”
A new report by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts reports that low-income state residents could see their premiums jump up, as ObamaCare’s Washington-driven regulations overturn existing state systems. “The report reveals that, despite the promised increase in federal funding, some Massachusetts residents might end up facing higher premiums.”
The Congressional Budget Office has determined that ObamaCare’s program to create high-risk pools to cover the uninsured until 2014 will fail unless they are heavily restricted or cost an extra $5 to $10 billion. “Healthcare reform’s high-risk insurance pools could end up excluding hundreds of thousands of Americans or costing three times more than what’s budgeted now, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday.”
Polling in eleven key swing states shows that voters, especially independents, are still in strong opposition to ObamaCare. “We found that public opinion about health reform is roughly stable, and opposition to reform appears to be an important determinant of voting intention in the midterm elections-particularly for political independents.” Results also show that opinions on the health care law are especially salient for independents in determining how they plan to vote in November.
A small-business owner writes that, with 16 full-time employees averaging $40,000 in annual wages, his share of the small-business tax-credit promised under ObamaCare would be … $0. But his business would become eligible for the tax-credit if he starts cutting his employees’ wages or laying them off.
With baby boomer physicians nearing retirement, the United States is likely to face a six-figure shortage of doctors even without the significant increase in demand for health care that ObamaCare would create. But should the health-care overhaul remain in place — spawning greater government control and making a career in medicine less attractive — access to high-quality health care in America would be further reduced.
“The Obama administration’s inept handling of the oil leak foreshadows what will happen when hapless government bureaucrats begin administering our healthcare.”
With statistics showing that an insured person is actually more likely to visit an emergency room than an uninsured person, and with a shortage of primary-care doctors available to service the newly insured, the health care overhaul’s implementation would lead to tens of millions more emergency room visits each year — opposite the result that ObamaCare’s backers have said it would have.
Looking at the problems ObamaCare is likely to cause for the federal budget and American businesses and families, repealing it is far from impossible. Other unpopular or ill-conceived health care measures have been repealed in the recent past before their enactment. “President Barack Obama’s signatures on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act do not end the national debate on federal control of health care. The debate merely enters a new and perhaps even more difficult and divisive phase. Based on current revelations and previous experience, this continuing debate gives Congress ample justification to repeal Obamacare. At the very least, Congress can dismantle or defund its damaging provisions.”