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Really Understanding Obamacare
FrontPage Magazine
Discover The Networks
1/23/2014
Excerpt:
You undoubtedly have heard countless commentators—on both sides of the Obamacare debate—speak about how the new healthcare law will affect you. But if you’re like most people, there are many aspects of this immensely long and complex piece of legislation that you don’t know anything about. Moreover, you may wish that you felt better-equipped to answer the claims of devoted leftists who confidently assert that Obamacare is a benefit for the American people.
To address these concerns, Discover The Networks today announces the publication of one of the most important special features it has ever produced: Obamacare: Before and After. This new addition to our website: (a) examines the state of healthcare in America prior to Obamacare’s passage; (b) lays out free-market solutions that could have effectively addressed the problems that Obamacare was ostensibly created to solve; (c) explains all the major provisions contained in the Obamacare legislation itself; and (d) examines the politics of Obamacare—laying bare the unspoken yet transformative political agendas that sit at the very heart of this law.
Everything in Obamacare: Before and After is arranged in a reader-friendly, bullet-point format designed to make the complex simple, and to let you easily zero in on the topics that most concern or interest you. You will not get lost in dense and interminable text. Rather, you’ll get plain talk and clear, succinct information. Just a few of the vital facts that you will learn in this feature include the following:
* Politicians have commonly sought to win public favor by passing laws requiring insurance companies to include an ever-expanding range of mandatory benefits in all their healthcare plans, regardless of whether the insured even wanted them. As of 2009, there were 2,133 of these mandates which were, in some places, increasing the price of basic insurance by as much as 50%. Mandates like these are antithetical to a free marketplace.
* Consumers have long been barred from purchasing healthcare policies from insurers located in other states. This has dramatically reduced competition among insurers, and has kept the cost of premiums much higher than they would have been in a truly free marketplace.
* Government healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid egregiously shortchange doctors and hospitals when reimbursing them. Thus, healthcare professionals who accept Medicare and Medicaid patients are forced to charge their privately insured patients higher rates than would otherwise be necessary. This causes families with private insurance to pay an extra $1,500 to $1,800 for their premiums each year.
* From the moment President Obama and the Democrats began pushing for healthcare reform, they repeatedly emphasized the notion that 46 million Americans lacked insurance. This bogus figure included (with some overlap) 10 million who earned over $75,000 annually; another 8 million who earned between $50,000 and $75,000; 14 million low-income Americans who were fully eligible for government insurance programs but simply had never taken the time to enroll; 6 million who were eligible for employer-sponsored insurance but chose not to take advantage of it; more than 10 million (including many illegal immigrants) who were not U.S. citizens; and millions of young “invincibles” who chose not to purchase insurance because low-cost, bare-bones plans without a litany of mandates were not available in their states.
* Obamacare’s employer mandate stipulates that every business with 50 or more full-time workers must provide insurance coverage for all of them. Thus, business owners now have an incentive to limit their full-time work forces to 49 people or fewer, and to rely more on independent contractors.
* The Obamacare employer mandate adds, on average, $1.79 per hour to the cost of keeping a single person on the payroll full-time, and $5.51 per hour to the cost of employing a full-time worker with dependents.
* President Obama consistently promised that his health reform plan would “bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family.” But the premiums for insurance plans available on the Obamacare exchanges are higher than pre-Obamacare rates in at least 45 of the 50 U.S. states. For middle-aged policy holders in 32 states, the premium increases range from 26% to more than 100%. In 27 states, the Obamacare premiums for young adults are between 51% and 252.5% higher than pre-Obamacare levels.
* When Obamacare was being debated, the President repeatedly pledged that “no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.” But Obamacare imposes at least 18 new taxes, tax hikes, or official policies designed to collect hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues. Many of these will affect people at all income levels.
* The architects of Obamacare knew that if the economics of the law failed to work out as projected, insurers could lose a great deal of money. To address this possibility, Obamacare explicitly contains a provision designed to bail out insurers whose costs prove to be higher than originally anticipated.
* Obamacare was passed, without a single Republican vote, by means of a stunning series of sleazy backroom deals and procedural maneuvers.
* As early as February 2010, the President demonstrably knew quite well that Obamacare’s “grandfather” provision for the preservation of existing plans was toothless, and that millions of Americans were likely to lose their insurance. The Obama administration’s own officials explicitly predicted that as a direct result of Obamacare, some 93 million people would in fact lose their existing insurance plans and would be forced to purchase new ones.
* It is a matter of public record that President Obama and many other leading Democrats view Obamacare not as a final solution to the nation’s healthcare problems, but rather as a stepping stone toward the ultimate goal of a single-payer system administered entirely by the federal government. Obama has acknowledged this numerous times over the years, as have Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Kathleen Sebelius.
* One of the leading objectives of Obamacare is the redistribution of wealth, mostly from middle- and high-income households to: (a) tens of millions of low-income people who will be funneled, en masse, into Medicaid, and (b) moderate-income households that will be newly eligible for federal (taxpayer-funded) subsidies. This redistribution will have the effect of promoting an entitlement mentality and a greater dependence on government.
* Another Obamacare objective is political payback. The law has designated some $67 million in taxpayer funds for nearly 50,000 so-called “navigators” to help people enroll in Obamacare plans. These navigators, who are mostly affiliated with more than 100 leftist organizations that have strongly supported President Obama over the years, will each be paid up to $48 per hour.
* Obamacare is also designed to serve as a vehicle for Democratic voter-registration. The online application form that individuals must complete when seeking an insurance policy via the Obamacare exchanges, asks applicants if they would like to register to vote. If they answer “yes,” the website facilitates that process. The Washington Post observes that Democrats “stand to benefit the most from a surge in voter registration among those who currently lack insurance,” because “by more than a 2 to 1 ratio, uninsured Americans supported Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney” in 2012.
* Obamacare is designed to increase the size and power of the federal government. The IRS, for instance, will hire more than 16,000 new agents to monitor and enforce compliance with Obamacare’s financial mandates. Moreover, Obamacare will be administered by at least 159 newly created boards, commissions, and agencies—with the assistance of dozens of existing federal bureaus.
View the complete article, including important links, at:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dis...g-obamacare-2/
FrontPage Magazine
Discover The Networks
1/23/2014
Excerpt:
You undoubtedly have heard countless commentators—on both sides of the Obamacare debate—speak about how the new healthcare law will affect you. But if you’re like most people, there are many aspects of this immensely long and complex piece of legislation that you don’t know anything about. Moreover, you may wish that you felt better-equipped to answer the claims of devoted leftists who confidently assert that Obamacare is a benefit for the American people.
To address these concerns, Discover The Networks today announces the publication of one of the most important special features it has ever produced: Obamacare: Before and After. This new addition to our website: (a) examines the state of healthcare in America prior to Obamacare’s passage; (b) lays out free-market solutions that could have effectively addressed the problems that Obamacare was ostensibly created to solve; (c) explains all the major provisions contained in the Obamacare legislation itself; and (d) examines the politics of Obamacare—laying bare the unspoken yet transformative political agendas that sit at the very heart of this law.
Everything in Obamacare: Before and After is arranged in a reader-friendly, bullet-point format designed to make the complex simple, and to let you easily zero in on the topics that most concern or interest you. You will not get lost in dense and interminable text. Rather, you’ll get plain talk and clear, succinct information. Just a few of the vital facts that you will learn in this feature include the following:
* Politicians have commonly sought to win public favor by passing laws requiring insurance companies to include an ever-expanding range of mandatory benefits in all their healthcare plans, regardless of whether the insured even wanted them. As of 2009, there were 2,133 of these mandates which were, in some places, increasing the price of basic insurance by as much as 50%. Mandates like these are antithetical to a free marketplace.
* Consumers have long been barred from purchasing healthcare policies from insurers located in other states. This has dramatically reduced competition among insurers, and has kept the cost of premiums much higher than they would have been in a truly free marketplace.
* Government healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid egregiously shortchange doctors and hospitals when reimbursing them. Thus, healthcare professionals who accept Medicare and Medicaid patients are forced to charge their privately insured patients higher rates than would otherwise be necessary. This causes families with private insurance to pay an extra $1,500 to $1,800 for their premiums each year.
* From the moment President Obama and the Democrats began pushing for healthcare reform, they repeatedly emphasized the notion that 46 million Americans lacked insurance. This bogus figure included (with some overlap) 10 million who earned over $75,000 annually; another 8 million who earned between $50,000 and $75,000; 14 million low-income Americans who were fully eligible for government insurance programs but simply had never taken the time to enroll; 6 million who were eligible for employer-sponsored insurance but chose not to take advantage of it; more than 10 million (including many illegal immigrants) who were not U.S. citizens; and millions of young “invincibles” who chose not to purchase insurance because low-cost, bare-bones plans without a litany of mandates were not available in their states.
* Obamacare’s employer mandate stipulates that every business with 50 or more full-time workers must provide insurance coverage for all of them. Thus, business owners now have an incentive to limit their full-time work forces to 49 people or fewer, and to rely more on independent contractors.
* The Obamacare employer mandate adds, on average, $1.79 per hour to the cost of keeping a single person on the payroll full-time, and $5.51 per hour to the cost of employing a full-time worker with dependents.
* President Obama consistently promised that his health reform plan would “bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family.” But the premiums for insurance plans available on the Obamacare exchanges are higher than pre-Obamacare rates in at least 45 of the 50 U.S. states. For middle-aged policy holders in 32 states, the premium increases range from 26% to more than 100%. In 27 states, the Obamacare premiums for young adults are between 51% and 252.5% higher than pre-Obamacare levels.
* When Obamacare was being debated, the President repeatedly pledged that “no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.” But Obamacare imposes at least 18 new taxes, tax hikes, or official policies designed to collect hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues. Many of these will affect people at all income levels.
* The architects of Obamacare knew that if the economics of the law failed to work out as projected, insurers could lose a great deal of money. To address this possibility, Obamacare explicitly contains a provision designed to bail out insurers whose costs prove to be higher than originally anticipated.
* Obamacare was passed, without a single Republican vote, by means of a stunning series of sleazy backroom deals and procedural maneuvers.
* As early as February 2010, the President demonstrably knew quite well that Obamacare’s “grandfather” provision for the preservation of existing plans was toothless, and that millions of Americans were likely to lose their insurance. The Obama administration’s own officials explicitly predicted that as a direct result of Obamacare, some 93 million people would in fact lose their existing insurance plans and would be forced to purchase new ones.
* It is a matter of public record that President Obama and many other leading Democrats view Obamacare not as a final solution to the nation’s healthcare problems, but rather as a stepping stone toward the ultimate goal of a single-payer system administered entirely by the federal government. Obama has acknowledged this numerous times over the years, as have Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Kathleen Sebelius.
* One of the leading objectives of Obamacare is the redistribution of wealth, mostly from middle- and high-income households to: (a) tens of millions of low-income people who will be funneled, en masse, into Medicaid, and (b) moderate-income households that will be newly eligible for federal (taxpayer-funded) subsidies. This redistribution will have the effect of promoting an entitlement mentality and a greater dependence on government.
* Another Obamacare objective is political payback. The law has designated some $67 million in taxpayer funds for nearly 50,000 so-called “navigators” to help people enroll in Obamacare plans. These navigators, who are mostly affiliated with more than 100 leftist organizations that have strongly supported President Obama over the years, will each be paid up to $48 per hour.
* Obamacare is also designed to serve as a vehicle for Democratic voter-registration. The online application form that individuals must complete when seeking an insurance policy via the Obamacare exchanges, asks applicants if they would like to register to vote. If they answer “yes,” the website facilitates that process. The Washington Post observes that Democrats “stand to benefit the most from a surge in voter registration among those who currently lack insurance,” because “by more than a 2 to 1 ratio, uninsured Americans supported Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney” in 2012.
* Obamacare is designed to increase the size and power of the federal government. The IRS, for instance, will hire more than 16,000 new agents to monitor and enforce compliance with Obamacare’s financial mandates. Moreover, Obamacare will be administered by at least 159 newly created boards, commissions, and agencies—with the assistance of dozens of existing federal bureaus.
View the complete article, including important links, at:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dis...g-obamacare-2/
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