Obamacare Economics

[Peter1469]

Obamacare Economics (http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2015/06/27/worse_than_the_supremes_obamacare_economics_101724 .html)
The Affordable Care Act was kept alive by SCOTUS, but it is unsustainable from an economic perspective. Read the entire article.


The economics of Obamacare are very bad. The law is inflicting broad damage on job creation and new-business formation. It ruins job incentives by making it pay more not to work, thereby intensifying a labor shortage that is holding back growth and in turn lowering incomes and spending.


And across-the-board Obamacare tax increases are inflicting heavy punishment on investment -- right when the U.S. economy desperately needs more capital as a way of solving a steep productivity decline.


Because of Obamacare, there's an additional 0.9 percent Medicare tax on salaries and self-employment income, a 3.8 percent tax increase on capital gains and dividends, a cap on health-care flexible spending accounts, a higher threshold for itemized medical-expense deductions, and a stiff penalty on employer reimbursements for individual employee health-policy premiums.



There are more economic issues at the link.

[texan]

I had been thinking about this, again, the people were totally lied to about cost. All politicians operate like a used car salesmen. See Iraq and ocare for first hand examples. What most people don't know is the cbo has to grade what is provided. So if there is exaggerations or misrepresentations they can't say anything. They just grade it as is and can anyone see a flaw with that?

Ocare is really expensive and getting more expensive. There is only about 8 mil signed up, where is the 30 to 40 mill that we were told would be all over this? Great favorable assumption. They do not have enough healthy payers to sustain it as it's structured.

To bad the people won't stand up to both of these parties!

[zelmo1234]

It is gong to be the straw that breaks the Camels Back, but the Camel is evil and spitting on people so it is likely a good thing.

Now if people can figure out every tax deduction and loophole to cut revenue by about 15% Nothing illegal just following the rules set forth, that would help to starve the beast as well.

[waltky]

Why Obamacare premiums are rising...
http://www.politicalforum.com/images/smilies/confused.gif
Taxpayers on the Hook as Obamacare Exchanges Near the Edge of Collapse
August 12, 2016 | The health insurance exchanges that are the beating heart of Obamacare are on the edge of collapse, with premiums rising sharply for ever narrower provider networks, non-profit health co-ops shuttering their doors, and even the biggest insurance companies heading for the exits amid mounting losses. Even the liberal Capitol Hill newspaper is warning of a possible “Obamacare meltdown” this fall.


Three states – Alaska, Alabama, and Wyoming – are already down to just a single insurance company, as are large parts of several other states, totaling at least 664 counties. UnitedHealth is pulling out completely, Humana is pulling out of 88 percent of counties it was in, and last weak Aetna strongly suggested it will be exiting, too, unless it gets bribed to stay with a huge, annual infusion of direct corporate bailout payments from taxpayers. Dealing with the wreckage will be at the top of the agenda for the new president and Congress next year, and their options will be limited – especially if, as appears likely, we will continue to have divided government. Most Democrats would prefer moving toward a totally government-run system while Republicans continue to favor repeal.

The most likely outcome, then, is the muddled middle, keeping gravely ill Obamacare on life support, with the major policy fight being over the extent to which taxpayers should be forced to provide billions in direct corporate bailout cash infusions. Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini was pretty blatant in a recent interview with Zachary Tracer of Bloomberg. Here’s the key part: “Rather than transferring money among insurers, the law should be changed to subsidize insurers with government funds, Bertolini said. ‘It needs to be a non-zero sum pool in order to fix it,’ Bertolini said. Right now, insurers ‘that are less worse off pay for those that are worse off.’” In other words: everybody is losing money, so taxpayers need to pick up the tab.

The Obama administration is already playing fast and loose with the law to shovel as many bailout bucks to insurers as they can – on top of Obamacare’s huge subsidies to lower income consumers and a penalty tax on people who don’t buy in. They shortchanged taxpayers by $3.5 billion that, contrary to law, they sent to insurance companies instead. And their legal posture in a $5 billion lawsuit to contravene a funding restriction expressly enacted by Congress to prevent a bailout via the so-called risk corridor program amount to a promise that they will somehow get them paid in the future. Democrats will likely support legalizing these payments and authorizing even larger direct corporate bailouts on an ongoing basis as a way to keep insurance companies in the Obamacare exchanges and avoid admitting failure.

Republicans will likely be attacked as saboteurs for resisting bailout payments, but that misses the point. Direct corporate welfare to bribe companies to participate in a poorly designed program is throwing good money after bad, masking rather than fixing problems while the cost to taxpayers climbs into the stratosphere. We won’t be able to get to a real solution until we acknowledge that Obamacare is too rigidly structured and regulated to offer products people actually want, and needs to be reformed or replaced with genuine, functioning markets that give us a much wider variety of plans with different benefit packages, provider networks, and payment structures. Before that can happen, Obamacare supporters need to be held accountable for the law’s manifest failures – not permitted to paper them over with billions more of our tax dollars.

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/phil-kerpen/taxpayers-hook-obamacare-exchanges-near-edge-collapse

[Peter1469]

That was the plan all along....

[Tahuyaman]

AETNA has made it public that they are leaving most government run exchanges.

This will mean dramatically rising premiums.

The ACA is resulting in the exact opposite outcome as the administration and Democrats claimed. I'm sure it's somehow Bush's fault.

[exploited]

Obamacare was never a particularly good solution. A mixed system whereby catastrophic coverage is provided by a single payer, and elective coverage is covered by private insurance, is objectively superior to both the old and new US healthcare system.

[MisterVeritis]

Obamacare was never a particularly good solution. A mixed system whereby catastrophic coverage is provided by a single payer, and elective coverage is covered by private insurance, is objectively superior to both the old and new US healthcare system.
You are full of crap. It is time for you to take a dump. A huge dump. Come back when your eyes are no longer brown.

[exploited]

You are full of crap. It is time for you to take a dump. A huge dump. Come back when your eyes are no longer brown.

Compelling.

[Tahuyaman]

Liberals will make the claim that the only fix will be a complete take-over by government.

In other words, apply even more of the demonstrated failure.

[Peter1469]

Obamacare was never a particularly good solution. A mixed system whereby catastrophic coverage is provided by a single payer, and elective coverage is covered by private insurance, is objectively superior to both the old and new US healthcare system.

People who can afford one of the pre-Obamacare catastrophic plans should be allowed to and left alone.