Posted on 10/21/2015 9:51:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Obama administration has been bragging that nine million more Americans now have health insurance, thanks to Obamacare. But just like with most numbers cited to support the government takeover of health care in America, that “9 million” figure is deceptive.
We were told that 48 million Americans lacked affordable health insurance and something had to be done, but even five years after the passage of Obamacare, 33 million Americans are still uninsured.
If you dig deeper into the actual numbers and realize what really happened with those 9 million “newly insured”, there’s little reason to cheer.
The number of Americans with health insurance increased by 9.25 million in 2014, the first year that two key provisions of Obamacare took place: the subsidies for coverage purchased through the exchanges and Medicaid expansion. And according to recent research by The Heritage Foundation, out of that 9.25 million, “the vast majority of the increase was the result of 8.99 million individuals being added to the Medicaid rolls.”
In other words, over 97 percent of last year’s newly insured Americans were from Medicaid expansion.
I’ve written extensively about the numerous ways Medicaid fails the poor, and actually traps them in poverty – and Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid makes the difficulties much, much worse.
While Medicaid was originally designed to help needy mothers, children, and the disabled, Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion opened up the program to able-bodied, working age adults, the majority of whom have no dependent children and also don’t work. Adding several million people into Medicaid while failing to address the program’s systemic problems with financial solvency and access to doctors is bad enough. But every dollar spent incentivizing a healthy young adult not to work is a dollar taken away from someone who is truly needy and has no other options.
Even looking at the roughly 3 percent of the newly insured who aren’t part of Medicaid reveals Obamacare’s inherent shortcomings.
There were almost 4.79 million new enrollees in private individual market plans in 2014. However, as Heritage’s researchers noted, 4.53 million people lost their employment-based group coverage during that same time. This leaves a paltry 260,000 people with new private health insurance.
Obamacare has wasted billions of dollars, increased premiums and deductibles on millions of families, and has likely frustrated countless doctors into early retirement. This administration tore apart our country’s entire health care system, all to provide insurance for roughly the number of people who will attend a game at two major college football stadiums this Saturday.
Ronald Reagan once said, “We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.”
By this standard, President Obama is an utter failure. We’ve added nearly 9 million work-able adults without children onto the welfare rolls – a new entitlement class that has never been eligible for benefits before and in 2013 a record 48 million Americans were also dependent on food stamps – a record high.
This Administration can claim that their domestic policies are a success, but the only thing they’re really successful in doing is trapping millions more Americans in government dependence.
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Kristina Ribali is the Senior Coalitions Director for the Foundation for Government Accountability.
Big surprise, eh ?
The plan worked very well;the goal is increasing the number of Americans dependent on government.
read later
Obamacare is really a Fascist construct.
Its a highly ideological and rigged government-run “market.” Market supply comes from preferred crony-controlled firms, who are within the system. Profits, if slim, are assured in the fact that it is government-controlled system. Participants must support political, social and policies goals of the government and the fake market construct.
Obama is just putting more dead weight in the coach for the Boxers to pull. (Animal Farm)
Eventually the draft horses ask, “When do I get to ride?”
“The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.”
Michelle Obama
Off topic just slightly here ...
Dealing with dental insurance ...
Anybody heard of ‘once you have a crown put on a tooth’ there is no longer coverage on that tooth in your mouth ???!
My local dentist filled a cavity in a still exposed side of that tooth in June and the plan denied payment. They partially paid for the crown 4 or 5 years ago and this denial comes as a shock to our finances.
Any ideas is helpful.
a dirty little secret..
They put all of the millions of veterans who go to the VA hospitals and clinics into ObamaCare....
Not mine. I have a crown that is getting past its life cycle. Insurance would cover it with a $400 co-pay, same as when it was first installed.
Bookmark
one of the things a lot of those taking advantage of the medicade program do not understand it is not insurance. every cent paid out by medicade is kept track of by the state government. when you die in about 2/3 the states the state takes what ever property you have to pay against the money paid by medicade. those states that don’t take the money do it as a policy decision if the governor of that ste decides to start collecting the money thee could do it with out having a vote.
therebare a lot of people that think they are going to be able to pass there house on to there kids that loose it when probate happrns
How much misery and ruin of ordinary peoples health plans could have been avoided if they just expanded MEDICAID :-(
If one puts all their assets in a Legal Trust (Florida) does that avoid this govt theft?
I just received my Blue Cross policy renewal form. Premium is up 30% from last year for a Bronze level plan.
It was up about 15% from 2014-2015, so in the past two years, I’ve seen increases of more than 45%.
I’m basically working to pay for my health insurance and have two years to go before Medicare kicks in.
Paging Captain Obvious.
And those are the people we are NEVER going to stop paying for even IF Obamacare can be repealed.
These people are not being "insured." They are being given a government handout.
We knew Obama and democrats were lying about the numbers... because they and their supporters in DC are crooks...
I know 2 people that are actually part of the 260,000 actual Obamacare new enrollees. They both like it a lot as they managed to tweak their reported income sufficiently so as to pay next to nothing in premiums and co-pays, while still getting an excellent choice of doctors (unlike Medicare).
Seems to be working just fine, at least for them.
Thanks for posting this. I was operating on the assumption that medicaid expansion accounted for most of the newly insured, but it’s great to see the verified numbers. The grimly humorous aspect of this are the several studies that report that medicaid patients do worse than uninsured individuals. Classic case of the idiocy of Progressivism, though some might see a more sinister motive.
Here’s the question ... given that 97% of the newly enrolled are Medicaid recipients, how many of these folks would have been ELIGIBLE for Medicaid anyway had Obamacare not been passed?
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