Obamacare advocates seek to fix problem they made worse

The Washington Examiner ^ | May 25, 2015 | Byron York

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Back in 2009, when Congress was debating the Affordable Care Act, many liberal Democrats felt it did not go far enough — that it should be even more sweeping, even more expansive, even more costly.

Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, one of the Senate's most liberal Democrats and a veteran of many legislative battles, urged his colleagues on the Left to go ahead and pass the bill. "The key to this is that this modest home, we can put additions onto it in the future," Harkin told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in December 2009. "But if we don't have the starter home, we're never going to be able to put those additions on."

Harkin's view prevailed, and many Democrats came to view Obamacare as a starter home. Now, even though the Affordable Care Act still faces an uncertain future in the courts, they want to start building the additions.

The first addition is the result of a problem Obamacare itself made worse.

"A different healthcare issue has emerged for Democrats, in sync with the party's pitch to workers and middle-class voters ahead of next year's elections," reported the Associated Press a few days ago. "It's not the uninsured, but rather the problem of high out-of-pocket costs for people already covered. Democrats call it 'underinsurance.' "

The problem is that the deductibles on many Americans' health insurance policies have shot up so high that as a practical matter they can't afford care. If a couple had a deductible of, say, $500 in the past, and it's now $3,000, that couple has to spend a lot of money out-of-pocket before reaping the benefits of coverage. And the higher the deductible, the more likely a person is going to skip some sort of needed treatment or medicine because he or she can't afford the up-front costs.

"About a quarter of all non-elderly Americans with private insurance coverage do not have sufficient liquid assets to pay even a mid-range deductible, which at today's rates would be $1,200 for single coverage and $2,400 for family coverage," the Wall Street Journal reported in March.

So now, many of the same groups that agitated for Obamacare are agitating for new government spending or tighter controls on the insurance industry and businesses to "solve" the problem. But perhaps the first question to ask is: How did those deductibles get so high in the first place?

The answer is Obamacare.

Obamacare's upward pressure on deductibles started in the law's first year. By the fall of 2010, six months after President Obama signed the bill into law, Obamacare dictated that insurers could no longer impose lifetime caps on payments, could not deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, and had to insure adults up to the age of 26 on their parents' policies.

Those provisions raised the insurers' costs, and since then some additional cost-increasing Obamacare provisions have become law. Sure enough, deductibles began to increase significantly. The pro-Obamacare group Commonwealth Fund measured adults for whom the insurance deductible represents five percent or more of annual income. In 2003 and 2005, Commonwealth Fund found, three percent of adults were in that category. In 2010, the figure doubled, to six percent. In 2012, it rose to eight percent. In 2014, it rose to 11 percent.

Republicans have long predicted the increase in deductibles. But most analyses from liberal groups pay scant notice to the effect that Obamacare's edicts are having on deductibles. Instead, groups on the left like the Center for American Progress are coming up with proposals for new mandates, like more free preventive services and a "shared savings rebate," in which employers would be forced to turn over some healthcare payments to employees, as solutions to the problem.

For the liberal groups, it's time to start building additions to the starter home.

Meantime, it appears a new round of health premium increases is underway, spurred in part by the fact that the Obamacare risk pool includes more older and sicker — and more expensive to insure — people than originally estimated. That doesn't bode well for the deductible problem.

"The big rate increases have begun," notes the respected insurance analyst Bob Lasziewski. "So how are they going to cut deductibles in the face of the increases we are starting to see?"

As the Associated Press noted, some Democrats see high deductibles and out-of-pocket costs as an issue they can exploit in 2016. But Republicans have a sharply effective response: Why should voters trust Democrats to solve a problem they made worse in the first place?

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Combined General and Obamaocare Nanny State PING!

[skeeter]

When will all the sheep realize the government is not interested in solving problems. They’re interested in their money, period.

[lowbridge]

“Obamacare advocates seek to fix problem they made worse”

They’ll only make it even more worse with their fixes.

[vette6387]

Another “starter home,” to add to all those other “starter homes” from the past that are now “mansions to stupidity and financial ruin.”

[Poison Pill]

When will all the sheep realize the government is not interested in solving problems.

5500 years of organized human government and counting

[Hugin]

"The key to this is that this modest home, we can put additions onto it in the future," Harkin told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in December 2009. "But if we don't have the starter home, we're never going to be able to put those additions on."

[9thLife]

The left in a nutshell:

1. Screw up everything
2. Blame the opposition

[Amendment10]

Thank you for referencing that article Tolerance Sucks Rocks. Please bear in mind that the following critique is directed at the article and not at you.

"Back in 2009, when Congress was debating [emphasis added] the Affordable Care Act, ..."

This is a shameless rewrite of history. Corrupt Congress infamously rammed the unconstitutional Obamacare bill through the system without even reading it.

[ChicagahAl]

..."starter home"...

The analogy to a starter home only works if we compare Obama(don't)Care to public housing in the ghetto:

Rats, cockroaches, gangs, illegal drugs, murder, rape, drive-by shootings, incompetent and corrupt management, and a certain number of beneficiaries who are happy about it because it's free.

More like a "starter ghetto".

Don't worry... there will be "additions" tacked on later.

[fhayek]

There fix, as always, is to make someone else pay for it. Remember Maggie Thatchers admonition.

[ForYourChildren]

[clearcarbon]

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

5500 years of organized human government and counting

"No government in the 6,000 years of modern mankind history has led its people into anything but the history books with a simple lesson, don’t let this happen to you."

--edcoil

[smartyaz]

Ronald Reagan 1963. “The more their plans fail, the more the planners plan”

[Yosemitest]

"The left in a nutshell:
1. Screw up everything
2. Blame the opposition"

Accurate description.

ANYTHING OBAMA SAYS is worthless.
Watch what he does, and not what he says.
The ILLEGAL ALIEN IN CHIEF wants ~ and is DIRECTING the policies that regulate ALL health care plans
in the United States ~ TO FAIL !
NEVER FORGET THAT !

Many of us have said for many years that Obama is doing this INTENTIONALLY.
He using the old Soviet Plan from 1934 or earlier.




Only idiots and the evil voted for Obama, or ANY of the Democrats.
AND NOW, WE CAN ADD "Establishment Republicans" TO THAT LIST, ALSO!
They've lied to us, constantly, and really are "Collapsing the System".
And now, these "Useful IDIOTS" who voted for them, are buying the lies that "Obamacare was designed to work." ?
It was designed to fail from the start.
THEN ... THEY GO TO THE "SINGLE-PAYER SYSTEM".

Flashback: Obama's Campaign to Transition to Single Payer Health Care (VIDEO)


obama master plan on health careover the years in his own words--SINGLE PAYER!!! ( 3:38 )

They've been sucking our wallets dry for over four years now on the "Obamacare" LIE.
AND NOW THEY WANT MORE TAXES ?
Our Founding Fathers would have hung them already!

Lets review:

Who was it that cut future funding for Medicare by $575 billion?

...the president and the Democratic Party successfully bamboozle voters... The 2012 election could turn on this falsehood.
The truth is that the Obama health law reduces future funding for Medicare by $575 billion over the next 10 years ...

Mr. Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius frequently make that false claim.
Indeed, even Medicare's mailings to seniors repeat the claim
that reducing spending on Medicare will make it more financially secure for future years.
The fact is that Mr. Obama's law raids Medicare.

"In early 1968 President Lyndon Johnson [DEMOCRAT] made a change in the budget presentation by including Social Security and all other trust funds in a"unified budget." "

Who was it that expanded Medicare and Medicaid to cover many, many more people than it was originally designed to cover?

The History of Medicare

In 1965, the Social Security Act established both Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare was a responsibility of the Social Security Administration (SSA), while Federal assistance to the State Medicaid programs was administered by the Social and Rehabilitation Service (SRS). SSA and SRS were agencies in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). In 1977, the Health Care Financing Administration was created under HEW to effectively coordinate Medicare and Medicaid. In 1980 HEW was divided into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The first U.S. President to propose a prepaid health insurance plan was Harry S. Truman [DEMOCRAT]. On November 19, 1945, in a special message to Congress, President Truman outlined a comprehensive, prepaid medical insurance plan for all people through the Social Security system. The plan included doctors and hospitals, and nursing, laboratory, and dental services; it was dubbed "National Health Insurance." Furthermore, medical insurance benefits for needy people were to be financed from Federal revenues.

Over the years, lawmakers narrowed the field of health insurance recipients largely to social security beneficiaries. A national survey found that only 56 percent of those 65 years of age or older had health insurance. President John F. Kennedy [DEMOCRAT] pressed legislators for health insurance for the aged. However, it wasn't until 1965 that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed H.R. 6675 (The Social Security Act of 1965; PL 89-97) to provide health insurance for the elderly and the poor.

On July 30, 1965, President Johnson signed the Medicare and Medicaid Bill (Title XVIII and Title XIX of the Social Security Act) in Independence, Missouri in the presence of former President Truman, who received the first Medicare card at the ceremony; Lady Bird Johnson, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, and Mrs. Truman also were present. President Johnson remarked: "We marvel not simply at the passage of this Bill but that it took so many years to pass it."

Medicare extended health coverage to almost all Americans aged 65 or older. About 19 million beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare in the first year of the program. Medicaid provided access to health care services for certain low-income persons and expanded the existing Federal-State welfare structure that assisted the poor.

The 1972 Social Security Amendments expanded Medicare to provide coverage to two additional high risk groups disabled persons receiving cash benefits for 24 months under the social security program and persons suffering from end-stage renal disease.

...(continued at link)

So Democrats,

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE
FOR INSURING THE FAILURE
OF THE MEDICARE/MEDICAID PROGRAM,
and now YOU DEMOCRATS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE INTENTIONAL DESTRUCTION OF THE U.S.A. ECONOMY!!!

So DEMOCRATS ... SHUT UP!!!

You have no integrity!!!

Sen Mark Kirk's statement Thursday, Dec 1, 2011 ...

"There are 55 million Social Security beneficiaries that will see little or no extra cash from this 2012 tax holiday;
instead, the dedicated payroll contributions meant to pay for future benefits are being diverted from the Trust Fund
and replaced with Treasury debt that does not even have a AAA credit rating.
Social Security was designed to be independent and free from the danger of Congressional manipulation,
and maintaining the firewall between the Social Security Trust Fund and general government funding is the best way to maintain the solvency of this important program.
Neither bill protects the Social Security Trust Fund
so I voted no. "

It's not our fault that DEMOCRATS raided the Social Security Trust Fund.
Let's remember ...

Not ALL are to blame for the empty lock box.

It's the Democrats Communists.

Let's take a deeper look.

Obama: "I Don't Want the Folks who Created the Mess to do a lot of Talking" "

Okay, then the DEMOCRATS need to shut up!!!

[hosepipe]

WE ARE THE GIVERNMENT here to protect YOU from the problems WE CREATED...

no kidding you cannot make this up.. Welcome to Charlie Manson America..

Americas DAYMARE...

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Manson family values.

[upchuck]

Never forget that nobamacare is merely a stepping stone to every liberal’s ultimate wet dream, Single Payer.

[Still Thinking]

But Republicans have a sharply effective response: Why should voters trust Democrats to solve a problem they made worse in the first place?

Excellent question, but apparently they do, or at least did. They re-elected the putz in 2012, even after he rammed this monstrosity up our tailpipes.