When Illinois’ Obamacare co-op went belly-up last month, Valerie Kincaid faced losing not just her insurance but her team of cancer doctors, too.
For six years, the 41-year-old leukemia patient has relied on doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago to keep her disease at bay. Once a month, she visits the hospital to receive an oral therapy that keeps her chronic lymphocytic leukemia under control and allows her to live a relatively normal life with her husband, Brian, and her 11- and 13-year-old sons.
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The renewed call by Democrats for a public option health plan has steeled Republican resistance to expanding the healthcare law, suggesting 2017 may bring nothing but more gridlock when it comes to fixing the problems that even Democrats now admit are plaguing Obamacare.
Both House Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have called for repealing the law and replacing after President Obama made a new push this week to expand his signature law by adding a government-funded healthcare option long sought by Democrats.
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The end of Barack Obama’s presidency is near, and his most important domestic policy accomplishment is teetering and threatening to fall and smash to pieces.
Obamacare, or at least the most-touted part of it, is failing, and for not for mere technical reasons.
By expanding Medicaid, it got more people insured. But the president’s experiment manipulating private insurance markets has created no net benefit and is headed for disaster unless enrollment miraculously skyrockets.
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Nearly 30 million American adults remain uninsured. Despite the Affordable Care Act’s vast—and growing—cost to taxpayers, it has failed to place the U.S. on the road to near-universal health insurance coverage. To deliver coverage that is more affordable and attractive to middle-class Americans, structural reforms to the ACA are urgently needed. Until then, America’s middle class will suffer the ACA’s high costs without enjoying its benefits.
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More than 50 fiscally conservative groups are asking Congress to prevent the Obama administration from giving insurers “bailouts” for their Obamacare losses.
Congress should take two steps toward that end, according to a letter sent Wednesday by Freedom Partners and dozens of other groups.
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When asked by a voter during Sunday night’s presidential debate what she would do about skyrocketing costs under Obamacare, Hillary Clinton praised the law’s expansion of coverage, and also vowed to “fix” the problems with the law to get costs under control. However, her plan for fixing Obamacare, far from solving its problems, would make many of them worse.
Broadly speaking, Clinton’s proposals boil down to increasing the amount that the federal government subsidizes and regulates healthcare. But Obamacare is rooted in the regulate and subsidize approach, and what has happened is that the regulations have driven up costs and even the hundreds of billions in subsidies aren’t enough to chase those higher costs.
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States with some of the worst Obamacare news this year also have the biggest need for people to sign up, presenting a major challenge to advocates for the healthcare law.
Of the six states where insurers have proposed the steepest price increases affecting the most people, five have among the highest uninsured rates in the country, according to data compiled by independent analyst Charles Gaba.
In Tennessee, where 11 percent of residents remain uninsured, average monthly premiums could rise by 56 percent next year if insurers follow through with the prices they have proposed.
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When open enrollment in Obamacare starts next month, enrollees in four states will be able to choose plans from only one insurer.
Alaska, Alabama, Wyoming and Oklahoma have confirmed to the Washington Examiner that they will have only one insurer offering Obamacare plans for 2017. The revelation comes in the wake of defections from some major insurers that have left Obamacare exchanges due to financial losses.
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A look at transcripts of Clinton stump speeches since she kicked off the general election campaign on Labor Day finds the Democratic candidate almost never talks about Obamacare. She doesn’t promise to expand it. She doesn’t promise to protect it. She doesn’t extol its benefits. She just doesn’t mention it.
There’s no doubt Obamacare is in trouble. Enrollment in the exchanges has fallen far short of projections. The purchasers of policies have turned out to be older, and in need of more care, than expected. Major insurers are pulling out of the exchanges altogether. Premiums are going up. Deductibles are skyrocketing, meaning many are left to pay most of their healthcare costs themselves.
About 27,000 Hoosiers will lose their Obamacare plans next year after Indiana University Health Plans announced it is withdrawing from the Indiana marketplace, citing big losses from the new enrollees. It had covered 15% of marketplace enrollees last year. Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, a Republican, said the announcement from IU Health Plans is evidence the healthcare law is “collapsing before our eyes.” “Because of the broken Obamacare system, Hoosiers continue to face rising premiums and limited choices rather than reliable, affordable healthcare,” Coats said.
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