“It’s like owning a rent-stabilized apartment in Manhattan that’s too small and is falling apart.”
No it is not. Obamacare is like them outlawing those types of places to live in - even if you don’t mind living there and part (the main?) reason is because the rent is cheap. Instead, everyone is FORCED to live in a place with granite counter tops, a dishwasher, child-proofed outlets and a bidet. (Yes - even old bachelors need to rent/buy the more expensive places with the special outlets and a bidet.)
But the grandfather clause that “let’s you keep your insurance plan” is like that illusory “deal” of a rent stabilized apartment. The landlord can’t afford to fix anything, begrudges electricity and heat, because the fixed rental rates don’t cover his expenses. So, too, the insurance companies that carry the grandfathered policies will be forced to still carry them, even though their risk pool is getting shallower and shallower. They’ll fight like a Dickens character to avoid paying anything ever, because their bottom line is disappearing. Ultimately, they’ll have to go into receivership, and the receiver will be even more grudging to the grandfathered policy holders, because he has to pay all the claimants, while the other holders, fed up with the shoddy treatment, reluctantly enter the fold of Obamacare, paying more under the Affordable Health Care Act than they did before it.