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Fewer people to have health insurance under Obamacare

Finding out what’s in it: A new analysis of Obamacare predicts that in the next ten years the number of uninsured Americans will increase by 10 percent while premiums will continue to rise.

We estimate that average annual costs for the cheapest individual plans—the “bronze” plans—may increase by 96 percent, from roughly $2,100 to nearly $4,200. Bronze family plans prices, meanwhile, may increase by nearly 50 percent. The average plan in this category could come close to $13,000 a year in total premiums. Almost every plan will see a price increase of some kind.

Consumers will learn these unpleasant truths in the fall of 2016 when they attempt to extend their policies.

No matter where you live, the effects will ripple across the entire industry. The dramatically higher prices will almost surely drive some consumers out of the exchanges. But they won’t have many places to turn. Many—perhaps most—won’t be eligible for Medicaid, while others won’t have jobs that offer replacement health insurance. People in this position will thus choose between health insurance they can’t afford and becoming uninsured. Not even the IRS penalty will convince everyone to bite the bullet.

Prior to 2016 the law allows insurance companies to use tax dollars, subsidizes from the federal government, to artificially depress premiums. After 2016 that option disappears, and the real cost of Obamacare gets passed to the consumer, most of whom will not be able to afford it.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

12 comments

  • Cotour

    Q: How do responsible people who want to begin a family do that?

    A: The only people who will be able to have family’s are people with the highest incomes and people who have nothing and receive their health coverage from the government and the people in the middle class will be caught in the middle and their only choice will be to shift their lives to the lower common denominator and not the higher.

    (Is this healthcare system and the now permanent unlimited spending and un-payable U.S. debt the intentional or the unintentional creation of a permanent slave class in America?)

    Q: Who will be paying for this whole hot pile of socialist crap if the people of the middle class who pay taxes are no longer here to pay?

  • Edward

    “Not even the IRS penalty will convince everyone to bite the bullet.”

    Hah! That’s no penalty, the Supreme Court changed it to a “tax” so that this monstrosity would be “Constitutional,” as though the now-tyrannical government determining how We the People must spend our money could possibly be Constitutional.

    That this poorly conceived, badly executed, and devastatingly expensive (not just in dollars, but in freedoms and our children’s futures) law is worsening all the problems that it was supposed to solve is hardly surprising, considering that the leadership of this country does not think before it acts (“I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say … number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly.”) and can’t even lead two men in a discussion over a couple of beers (the interview with Cambridge police officer Crowley after the 2009 beer summit informed us that the only thing that Obama contributed to the discussion was the beer, no one apologized, they agreed to disagree, and no one learned anything meaningful from this “teachable moment” (reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDYOXnRsB4o) — if he can’t even lead a small discussion, what kind of community activist was he, back in the day?).

    So we trusted this “lead from behind” leader to run this country. Twice. And what a mess he made of it all. His signature legislation, Obamacare, with its requirement that we spend our money as the government determines,* demonstrates the tyranny that he has brought to this nation. Even race relations, despite the promise of his first election, are worse that they have been in decades.

    It is appropriate that Obama’s name is on his failed legacy, to honor his many other failed policies, both foreign and domestic. It is no wonder that he is looking desperately for another legacy.

    If this is the mess that government makes out of healthcare when it is only partially in charge, what kind of fiasco would it be if Obama gets his wish that government completely takes over as a “single payer” (read: socialist) health care system?

    I just might “go Galt” (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt#Cultural_significance).

    Or, since Nancy Pelosi told us that with Obamacare we can now quit our jobs and pursue our artistic aspirations, I would call it “going Pelosi.” (reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmL37TcBtpY)

    * This really is *not* a rhetorical question; I still want to know the answer: what other tyranny in all of history has had the audacity to direct its subjects how to spend their own money? If anyone knows, please tell me.

  • Cotour

    This is what is important and not all of that silly Constitutional crap that you have just enumerated. The media is the message man and the Golden Rule, he who has the gold makes the rules!

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/08/29/Obama-s-Labor-Day-Weekend-Three-Fundraisers-and-an-MSNBC-Wedding

  • Pzatchok

    When the IRS “tax” penalty is cheaper than the actual insurance then people will just accept the penalty as a defacto insurance premium and expect full service for their payment.
    Thus expecting the federal government to be the provider since they are the recipient of the payment.
    Thus the federal government will be vastly overwhelmed by the needed increase in services and will then need to cut services and also increase the ‘penalties’. And they will have to do both.

    All this Obama care did was create a new insurance company. The federal government. And the democrats will learn what its like to actually run an insurance company and provide a service to complaining customers. Customers that will NEVER be 100% happy just like they were not happy with their old insurance companies.
    I would make sure that every administrator to the new office was a devout democrat. No matter what administration was in charge. Make the stink of failure cling to them for all time.

    The left would have been far better off it would have just expanded Medicare/Medicaid to cover the people they wanted to cover. The lower income.
    They would only have needed to raise the already existing M/M premiums being charged now.

  • Edward

    Really, Contour? The Constitution is silly? The document that is the very basis for our laws? The document that Obama ignores so that he can pretend that *he* is the law (like every other tyrant)?

    When the government ignores the law and turns a country into a lawless one, then we have a serious problem. It is that Constitution that you mock that is supposed to set the standard for our laws.

    The only thing that allows us to be free and prosperous is a stable set of laws that apply equally to everyone. Without that, then who knows whether they will be arrested for breaking some new made-up-on-the-spot law, such as: let the religion of peace always have its way, otherwise they might get violent?

    The reason that we were a nation of laws, not of men, was so that we could freely walk down the street and go about our business without fear of arbitrary harassment. Now that we are a nation of men, the government feels free to reward its friends (such as giving to the auto unions 40% of a company that Obama managed into bankruptcy rather than the promised rescue from bankruptcy) and punish its enemies (such as Tea Party groups and their members and donors being continually audited and harassed).

    People are losing their jobs because they donated to a political campaign. Businesses are being forced to do business in ways that violate their religious freedoms – Oops, that would be ex-freedoms. We are directed, on pain of confiscation of property, how to spend our own hard earned money. People are losing work hours (and income) because their employers are having trouble staying in business while complying with tyrannical laws – yet those same people are *still* responsible for spending their money per government direction, whether or not they can afford to do so. Boeing spent huge sums of money to expand its production line, only to discover that the federal government’s unelected regulators arbitrarily made up new rules (with the authority of law) that suddenly made it harder to do so. (Regulation without representation.)

    Kids are being told that they cannot have the time-honored tradition of opening their own lemonade stands. The Attorney General announces that he will not prosecute any of “his people” (whatever that means). School loans can only be made through the federal government, except for one government-favored bank in North Dakota.

    Various government agencies are monitoring our tweets, telephone calls, internet usage, and who-knows-what else. Schools are directed to feed students such lousy lunches that the students refuse to eat them (as though they really were full of lice).

    The president tells us that if we were successful, then we didn’t build that. Because we aren’t smart enough and we don’t work hard enough to have done so. Our successful business is successful only because of the government.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=192oEC5TX_Q
    In this tyranny, if you are a friend of Obama’s – if you agree with his governance – then you are allowed to be successful. If you are a foe, then he makes sure that you can’t keep your business or job (and is loss of healthcare next? Did Obama’s foes include those veterans who had to wait until their deaths before they could receive VA care?).

    Freedom has left the nation when the tyrannical government informs the formerly-free press what is and is not a scandal, then the country allows our ambassadors to be murdered freely by terrorists, the IRS to freely harass lawful citizens, guns to be handed over to drug cartels, the press’s decisions on what to report to be monitored (the only reason to monitor something is to do something about it if you don’t like how it is going), and the president creates, without Congressional checks and balances, de-facto laws intended to reward friends and punish enemies.

    And all I get from you is that the Constitution is silly.

  • Cotour

    That was sarcasm, I get bored sometimes :)

    Have you never read anything that I have written on the subject? I see that I certainly have inspired you to share your opinions on the subject of the Constitution. Well done!

  • Edward

    Touchy topic for me, now that we are in a tyranny — the very thing that the Constitution is designed to take us away from in the first place and to avoid through all of future history.

    It is the (mis)interpretations by the Supreme Court (which declared itself the final word in interpretation), and the lack of check or balance by the Congress that demonstrates that all three branches have succumbed to the temptation of becoming tyrants themselves. But then, the Founding Fathers warned us of this likelihood. And here we are.

  • Cotour

    The Constitution is not exactly designed to “keep us away” from tyranny its designed to counter balance the nature of man which is to abuse power. Its more of a power dance or a shade of gray with push and pull than a black or white good or bad, on or off model. There will always be the abuse of power, no matter who has the power. And these things are what lies at the foundation of the Constitution and that is what makes it so frustrating to those that would push against it, the harder you push the harder it pushes back. And since this is all an on going unique social experiment invented by people who really knew abuse of power we do not know how much it can take or how long it will last.

    Both party’s have lost their way, it’s not something new its just very big and very plain to see to some at this moment in time. Your going to have to wait it out for the next 2 to 3 years before we can see where we are going. Stay flexible and stay calm. Know the game, play the game, win the game. (I will note when I am being sarcastic in the future)

  • Edward

    “Know the game, play the game, win the game.”

    That is exactly what all three branches are doing, at this very moment. The object of their game is to see how fast government can become a tyranny without starting a revolution. The president ignores the other two branches and makes up laws through executive orders and regulations, Congress ignores that the president does these things, and the Supreme Court rules that tyranny is OK, so long as a tax is involved (Obamacare) or it profits government (Kelo v. City of New London). Even the First Lady has gotten involved by requiring schools (when did she develop that power?) to give inadequate (low calorie) or inedible (or both) lunches to the pupils, so the kids now are hungry most of the day.

    Meanwhile the population is intimidated into silence or into going along to get along.

    Since both parties have lost their way — neither protects us from tyranny by following the Constitution — then what am I waiting two or three years for? Both parties will still be power hungry and without moral compasses, so what will be different then?

    Thus, I have no intention of shutting up:
    http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/what-ever-you-do-dont-shut-up

  • I think Gomer Pyle, USMC, sums up the Progressive and the useful idiot (redundant, I know) reaction to Obamacare best: “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”

  • Cotour

    First, I never said for you to “shut up”, quite to the contrary, my point is that you are seeing the situation as an either or kind of situation and not as it actually is, a shifting push and pull of power. Point out the inequities, enumerate them but step back and see the whole and not only the inequities. Not being able to accomplish this task only allows your opponents to define you as “extreme” and a right wing radical because there is no end game. This is all about the civilized transfer of power related to governance, (brilliant!) if we can see no reasonable end game then what is the point?

    All of these potentials are calculated in the original design, why? Because the Constitution was designed to counter balance what is mans natural tendency as it relates to power which is to abuse it, resulting in the tyranny you identify.

    “Since both parties have lost their way” This is the point at which the people must shake off their haze of comfortability and communicate their displeasure with their representatives the direction that the country is going. And do it again and again and again until things have been once again brought to some kind of reasonable balance related to American “values”. And yes politicians are playing the game, they understand the rules and they play it. what you don’t like is that the game is counter to your morality, why? Because one of the rules is that politics really has no morality, morality is optional. So your expectation for moral decisions to be made are unreasonable, you are playing a different game, a game that just keeps the moral masses busy while the real game is played right under their noses. And there in lies yours, mine and most others frustrations, until you really dig down and understand what game is really being played.

    I again have not suggested that you shut up or that you not be pissed off, I get pissed off, everyone who posts here gets pissed off when we see what is going on, I just ask after you get pissed of and calm down you consider a more refined, strategic and productive way of viewing the situation.

    As always, all the best to you.

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