“ObamaCare’s a painful shot in the wallet. A Greenwich Village resident was socked with an eye-popping 25 percent increase in health premiums — and his insurance company is slapping part of the blame on President Obama’s health-care overhaul that took effect yesterday… Doug Gowland’s monthly bill will jump $140 — from $565 to $705 — under the hike, according to a letter he received from insurer EmblemHealth. In the notice, EmblemHealth told Gowland, who is healthy, ‘The proposed rate increase includes two components: a basic increase on your type plan and an increase due to the cost of enhanced benefits required by the new federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.'”
“Two of Minnesota’s biggest health plans said Thursday they have temporarily suspended sales of individual health insurance policies because of uncertainty related to the new federal health reform law… Insurance officials said the industry has been scrambling to figure out the new federal regulations for months.”
“One of the major impacts of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is that individuals and families will see higher health insurance premiums. Obamacare imposes several costly new mandates and restrictions on health insurers and providers that will raise health cares costs and therefore premiums. This paper lists a dozen factors that will contribute to higher premium costs.”
Justifications for ObamaCare’s individual mandate under the Necessary and Proper Clause and the Commerce Clause both fail to adhere to recent Supreme Court precedents. This suggests that the overturning of ObamaCare is plausible under a realistic analysis of contemporary jurisprudence and not merely an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.
“Competition used to discourage insurers from providing lousy access to care, but under ObamaCare competition will reward skimping. Under ObamaCare’s price controls, insurers that gain a reputation for providing quality coverage to the sick will attract sick people and go out of business. Insurers that gain a reputation for providing lousy access to care will drive away sick people and thrive.”
“Senator Max Baucus recently admitted that he never read the new health care law. But that hasn’t stopped him from trying to re-write it after the fact, in a way that would drive more health plans from the market and give consumers less choice.”
“The CBO estimates that about 32 million individuals will gain health coverage due to the PPACA – about half of whom will be covered by Medicaid. However, about 23 million people will remain uninsured in 2019 – nearly half the 50.7 million today. This figure may be wishful thinking. The penalties for forgoing health coverage are less than the cost of coverage ($695 per individual or 2.5 percent of income). Furthermore, new federal regulations will require insurers to accept all applicants regardless of health status. An unintended consequence of this is that many will wait until they become sick to enroll in health coverage. In the short run, the PPACA may cause 1.4 million people to lose their limited benefit health plans, when new regulations implemented on September 23, 2010, will ban annual caps on benefits.”
A wave of new ObamaCare mandates are starting soon, and insurers are alerting customers than the mandates will cause premium increases. “CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports starting next week, your insurance company can no longer put dollar limits on essential benefits such as hospital and lab services. Dependent children will be covered to age 26. You’ll get preventive care with no deductible or co-pay. But there’s a price.”
ObamaCare forces unrealistic mandates on insurers, forcing them to cover children regardless of their health status. Instead of resulting in new health care for children as promised, companies have been driven from the market. “The insurers will no longer write ‘child-only’ policies — a small, niche market — over concern that the health reform law will make the market unstable and unprofitable.”
ObamaCare requires insurers to guarantee health coverage to children with pre-existing conditions starting on September 23rd. That will raise costs so significantly for insurers that they are abandoning the child-only market and cease issuing any new policies.