Top Ten Obamacare Disasters to Come
Obamacare’s digital issues are just the beginning.
By Grace-Marie Turner

President Obama’s Monday Rose Garden speech replayed the same talking points he has been using for more than three years about Obamacare, while also offering old-tech suggestions, such as telephone hotlines and paper applications, to work around the law’s disastrous website.

But enrollment in Obamacare insurance ultimately does depend upon the website’s problems’ being fixed, because the information gathered via phone calls and paper applications must be entered into massive federal government databases to check eligibility. A delay of the individual tax penalties will be inevitable if the site isn’t fixed soon; you can’t penalize people if they can’t enroll.

But eventually, software can be fixed. Obamacare’s epic policy flaws can’t.

The problems increasingly are going to be up close and personal, as people see for themselves the impact it has on their lives and pocketbooks. The top ten debacles to come:

1. Deductible shock: When consumers finally do get onto the Healthcare.gov website, they are in for a new kind of sticker shock. Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute has exposed the high cost of Obamacare premiums — the next price shock will be the whopping cost of the deductibles.

A Chicago Tribune analysis showed that 21 of the 22 lowest-priced plans offered for Cook County residents on the Illinois exchange have annual deductibles of more than $4,000 for an individual and $8,000 for family coverage. (Deductibles are the money consumers must spend on health care before most insurance benefits kick in.)

This policy design is a direct result of the law’s instructions about the percentage of average health costs that insurance must cover (60 percent for Bronze, up to 90 percent for Platinum plans). The result: Americans who choose the relatively lower monthly premiums, probably in part to avoid rate shock, will be faced with huge deductibles.

2. Will people pay? When people see they have to pay several hundred dollars a month for a plan with this huge deductible, will they pay the premiums? Many will find it hard to fit the cost into already-strained family budgets.

The Congressional Budget Office expects 7 million people to enroll in health insurance through the exchanges by 2014, and it needs about 2.7 million of them to be “young healthies” who will enroll, and pay premiums that are higher than their age or health status would warrant because of the law’s regulations. Enough Americans may enroll, but will they keep up with their premiums month after month? A key date will be April 1, when people who enroll by December will be dropped from their plans if they haven’t paid the premiums. If they default, they will be forced to pay the penalty.

3. Attracting the sickest: Sicker Americans, with high health costs, are the ones most determined to get through the Healthcare.gov website to enroll. If they dominate enrollment, premiums will have to rise in 2015, discouraging even more young healthies from applying in the future. The industry calls this a “death spiral.”

We’ve already seen a preview: People enrolled in the temporary high-risk pools created under the health law have cost an average of about $28,994 a year, so much more than expected that the pool ran out of money and closed enrollment almost a year early.

4. Less expensive plans vanish: Many people just want to stay with their current plan — as the president repeatedly promised they could. But Kaiser Health News reports that thousands of people are being notified their current insurance is being cancelled because the policies don’t comply with Obamacare’s benefit mandates. Just a sample:

Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people — about half of its individual business in the state. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent.

But the cancellation notices, which began arriving in August, have shocked many consumers in light of President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their plans if they liked them. “I don’t feel like I need to change, but I have to,” said Jeff Learned, a television editor in Los Angeles, who must find a new plan for his teenage daughter who has a health condition that has required multiple surgeries.

5. Families lose out: Obamacare’s subsidies will mean that the federal tax code’s existing marriage penalty will get much bigger for certain Americans, especially older, middle-income couples. Families will have to reckon with the fact that remaining married could cost them $10,000 a year or more because single people with lower incomes qualify for bigger subsidies.

6. Repaying subsidies: It’s going to be very important to accurately indicate annual income on one’s insurance application. Those who understate income, either because their situation changes or they reported inaccurate information, and therefore get a larger subsidy than they are entitled to will be required to repay the excess, possibly amounting to thousands of dollars.

7. Public health-care costs are going to explode. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where actuaries make calculations about the trajectory of public health expenditures, have this to say:

In 2014 the implementation of provisions of the Affordable Care Act related to major coverage expansions is expected to accelerate health spending growth to 6.1 percent. Through the remainder of the projection period . . . this rate of growth is sustained as a result of improved economic conditions and an aging population’s increased demand for health care.

Following this 2014 cliff, they expect that — under optimistic assumptions about the law’s cost-saving provisions — Obamacare will modestly increase the rate of health-care cost inflation, which is set to wreck the federal budget already.

So much for the president’s promise to “bend the cost curve.” It’s bending the wrong way.

8. More jobs lost: The Obama administration delayed for a year reporting requirements for the mandate that companies provide health insurance for their employees. But with those provisions coming into effect in 2015, employers will continue to restructure their businesses to stay under 50 employees and push workers under 30 hours a week to avoid the hefty fines that will be used to enforce this regulation. Andrew Puzder, chief executive of CKE Restaurants, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that “the evidence that Obamacare is having a negative impact on hiring is unequivocal, abundant and consistent with common sense.” Job creation will continue to suffer.

9. Identity theft and fraud will explode: Tens of thousands of “navigators,” “assisters,” and other agents are being hired, generally by nonprofit organizations, to help people apply. They will be gathering personal information, such as one’s Social Security number, address, income, employer’s name and address, children’s names and birthdates, and health habits, to find out if you qualify for Obamacare subsidies. Others are going door-to-door to get people enrolled, and there is no easy way of determining if the person at your door is legitimate. While these aides do receive some training, they’re not professionally licensed and don’t go through the background checks required of insurance agents and brokers. The risks of potential identity theft are very real, and 13 attorneys general have expressed deep concerns about the security of the exchanges’ information. When this starts happening, it will generate a new wave of negative coverage of the law.

10. Federal-exchange subsidies eliminated? A number of lawsuits are making their way through the courts that could further challenge key aspects of the law. Suits in Oklahoma, the District of Columbia, Indiana, and Virginia federal courts are challenging the legality of distributing health-insurance subsidies through the exchanges created by the federal government, correctly contending that the law explicitly says the subsidies are available only to people enrolled in exchanges created by the states. That could mean that people in 34 states would not be eligible for Obamacare subsidies (even if they were to slog their way through the complex application process).

If you thought Healthcare.gov was bad, just wait.

Stick a Fork in Obama
By William L. Gensert

We are only three and a quarter years away from transforming the United States of America. We may never get back to where we once were, but we can sure roll back much of the mess Barack Obama has created through his misguided policies and serial incompetence.

With ObamaCare's ascendancy and impending crash, America will be on the cusp of transformational action. The misery the ACA will bring to almost every American cannot be overestimated in its ability to incite anger -- and, anger has consequences and repercussions. The failure of the ACA has the potential to make 2014 a wave election for Republicans. In 2016, we may see a true conservative as president.

America put men on the moon. Now, with 3 ½ years and a half a billion dollars, we can't even build a website. This is how much Barry and his ilk have degraded the brand. We used to be the shining light on the hill. Now, we are darkness at the end of the tunnel. Barack Obama has been the worst thing that has ever happened to the Oval Office, and in the end, ObamaCare will seal his fate as a failed president.

Three and on half years ago, who would have thought that the most emblematic part of the Affordable Care Act, would be the website? Yet, they already have more than a half a billion dollars in for something that doesn't work at all. Just imagine how much they will spend to fix it. Healthcare.gov, when fixed, will probably have cost the nation's taxpayers upwards of a billion dollars

That's the thing about Barry, before his election, the national conversation about budgets and deficits was always about "billions of dollars." Since January of 2009, it's all about "trillions of dollars." Now we are talking about websites in the "billions of dollars" category. That's Barry, always breaking new ground.

Yet, it is not over. America is holding all the cards. Republicans have always had a tendency of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but it's looking fairly safe they will play this one right.

The path forward, almost always begins by going in the wrong direction. There would have been no Ronald Reagan without Jimmy Carter. The Republicans need to find a new Reagan. Like the "Gipper," he will have to be a fighter and the gloves will have to come off, because ObamaCare has given Republicans the best opportunity to halt the progressive onslaught in a generation.

America, at last, will be listening.

Ronald Reagan gave us 25 years of prosperity and freedom. It's high time we fight to get that back. Before the last election, I told friends that if Barack Obama won reelection, his second term would destroy the Democratic Party and progressivism for a generation. By the end of his reign, Americans are going to be so tired and soured on Obama, his anointed successor will not stand a chance of becoming the nation's next president.

Barack Obama has become a leader who does not matter -- the stimulus was all Pelosi and ObamaCare was Pelosi and Harry Reid, et al. What idea was ever his? Can he point to one thing where he was deeply involved? He has been our golfing president. He is so incompetent and uninvolved that it is believable that he did not know the problems with healthcare.gov, the integral component of ObamaCare, a program he proudly put his name to.

Well...after the IRS targeting of political opponents, the NSA spying on everyone -- including the tapping of the German Chancellor's cell phone, the Fast and Furious dead, Solyndra and all the other crony capitalist backroom deals, the Pigford payouts, his $6 trillion addition to the national debt, the 13.6% U6 unemployment rate, the increase in food stamp and disability rolls, the Benghazi dead and the cover-up, the Syria embarrassment, the racial divisiveness, the doubling of the price of gasoline, and now, Healthcare.gov, people are starting to realize a thing or two about Mr. Hope and Change.

If you think people hate the website, wait until they get a load of ObamaCare itself. If I did not have such a visceral dislike for the man, I would almost feel sorry for him...it's going to be a long three plus years for Barack Obama.

Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal writes:

"Barack Obama may have spent a lifetime failing up, but eventually it's just failure. He has presided over five years of sickly economic growth, inadequate job creation, a doubling of the food stamp population and now this -- ObamaCare."

The Obama presidency is dead -- killed by Obama himself in a fit of vanity and hubris. With it, goes the entire progressive movement. It won't be long before people begin to understand what ObamaCare will cost them and how it will affect their healthcare. Avik Roy in Forbes Magazine estimates 93 million people will lose their current coverage.

It is altogether possible there will be more people uninsured in 2014 than there were uninsured in 2009 when the ACA passed on a purely partisan vote, promising universal coverage.

With every cancellation letter received, an angry American will remember Obama telling the nation repeatedly: "If you like your insurance plan, you will keep it."

Republicans, having made a futile stand in attempting to defund ObamaCare, have immunity. Barack owns this baby. They can spend most of the next year in the run-up to the midterm elections picking apart ObamaCare with impunity -- control of the Senate is within their grasp.

The shutdown of our government, while seemingly detrimental to Republicans in the short run, will be a blessing going forward. The MSM did conservatives a favor by making sure every American knew that the Republicans shut down the government in an attempt to defund ObamaCare. As the ACA touches the lives of every American and the anger builds, they will remember who tried to stop it.

The nail in the coffin of progressivism is ObamaCare. After all, it is a law that penalizes almost everyone, while simultaneously ruining the nation's healthcare system. So staggering will its failure be, and its failure is inevitable, Hillary Clinton may be forced to run in 2016 as a small-government conservative.

I agree with you ,except on one point . This might not be the end of Obama presidency . I heard he is looking at changing the 2 term limit for the presidency through his Controlled Senate puppets .
In my opion he will as a 2nd to last resort fill thos FEMA camps (800) of them up with us . U.S. citizens . And then sice it's rumored that he is arming HHS, FEMA (they bought over 2.5 billion rounds of ammunition ) actually deleting almost all the ammunition in the U.S. stores ! He is arming his Army!
Last resort he might declare Martial law and will be the
King of America , no need to be president !
Looks like he is setting this up as we speak , by replacing Old time Generals in the armed forces who are loyal to the constition and the U.S. people , with his hand picked puppets !
He has said that he would move us into a new world order
run by a world power (Like the U.N.) .
Remember who he was brought up with as a child ( the most moldable years of a child ) . Remember who he worked with and represented as a lawyer admited Under Ground Weathermen ( B.Ayres ) who has stated they didn't blow up enough Government places while in college !
Acorn ( found guilty of regstering fake people to vote for Obama and fined) they later filed bankrupcy ? Obama was their teacher in Chicago .

If you think, as I do, that the President of the United States employing an outright, purposefully, egregious, deceitful LIE to the American people in a calculated effort to both get the PPACA passed and himself re-elected, rises to the level of High Crimes and Misdemeanors as outlined by our Founding Fathers in our Constitution, I hope you will continue reading and take appropriate action! High Crimes and Misdemeanors are the Constitutional grounds for the House of Representatives Impeaching a sitting President and sending the case to the Senate for sentencing after determining guilt. A guilty President will be removed from office and may be imprisoned, as I believe Obama should be, for the High Crimes and Misdemeanors in Office.

Knowing that 93,000,000 Americans would likely lose their insurance and more than 100,000,000 more would have their insurance cost increased by as much as 300%, while REPEATEDLY, 24 times to be precise, promising that EVERYONE could keep their insurance, "PERIOD," and save $2,500.00 on the cost of insurance annually, is the most egregious and costly set of LIES ever told by a sitting US President. Richard Nixon RESIGNED the Presidency over a much smaller, much more innocuous lie, that did not cost the American people trillions of dollars, as the Obama LIES about the PPACA will. Even many of Obama's Democrat supporters have freely admitted that the PPACA, Obama's Legacy Legislation," would never have passed without the BLATANT LIES about everyone being able to keep their insurance plan and save $2,500.00 a year on insurance costs.

More importantly, when taken together with the cover up about what was really going on in Benghazi, and the order to stand down that resulted in the murder of four American citizens by AL-Qaeda, which Obama was touting as having been destroyed when "HE killed Osama Bin Laden"; the outright LIES about the PPACA, all clearly and unquestionably resulted in Obama winning re-election. If the TRUTH about Benghazi and the PPACA were known by the American public at the same time that it was known by the Obama Administration, Mitt Romney would be President today, and America would be a very different country, on its way to healing from the damage done by Obama!

If you agree, please contact your Representatives and DEMAND that Obama be IMPEACHED sooner rather than later! Call your Senators and DEMAND that they find Obama GUILTY after he is IMPEACHED! Write letters to the editor of your paper in an effort to try convince more Americans about the TRUTH ABOUT OBAMA'S LIES!

I agree with you ,except on one point . This might not be the end of Obama presidency . I heard he is looking at changing the 2 term limit for the presidency through his Controlled Senate puppets .
In my opion he will as a 2nd to last resort fill thos FEMA camps (800) of them up with us . U.S. citizens . And then sice it's rumored that he is arming HHS, FEMA (they bought over 2.5 billion rounds of ammunition ) actually deleting almost all the ammunition in the U.S. stores ! He is arming his Army!
Last resort he might declare Martial law and will be the
King of America , no need to be president !
Looks like he is setting this up as we speak , by replacing Old time Generals in the armed forces who are loyal to the constition and the U.S. people , with his hand picked puppets !
He has said that he would move us into a new world order
run by a world power (Like the U.N.) .
Remember who he was brought up with as a child ( the most moldable years of a child ) . Remember who he worked with and represented as a lawyer admited Under Ground Weathermen ( B.Ayres ) who has stated they didn't blow up enough Government places while in college !
Acorn ( found guilty of regstering fake people to vote for Obama and fined) they later filed bankrupcy ? Obama was their teacher in Chicago .

If you think, as I do, that the President of the United States employing an outright, purposefully, egregious, deceitful LIE to the American people in a calculated effort to both get the PPACA passed and himself re-elected, rises to the level of High Crimes and Misdemeanors as outlined by our Founding Fathers in our Constitution, I hope you will continue reading and take appropriate action! High Crimes and Misdemeanors are the Constitutional grounds for the House of Representatives Impeaching a sitting President and sending the case to the Senate for sentencing after determining guilt. A guilty President will be removed from office and may be imprisoned, as I believe Obama should be, for the High Crimes and Misdemeanors in Office.

Knowing that 93,000,000 Americans would likely lose their insurance and more than 100,000,000 more would have their insurance cost increased by as much as 300%, while REPEATEDLY, 24 times to be precise, promising that EVERYONE could keep their insurance, "PERIOD," and save $2,500.00 on the cost of insurance annually, is the most egregious and costly set of LIES ever told by a sitting US President. Richard Nixon RESIGNED the Presidency over a much smaller, much more innocuous lie, that did not cost the American people trillions of dollars, as the Obama LIES about the PPACA will. Even many of Obama's Democrat supporters have freely admitted that the PPACA, Obama's Legacy Legislation," would never have passed without the BLATANT LIES about everyone being able to keep their insurance plan and save $2,500.00 a year on insurance costs.

More importantly, when taken together with the cover up about what was really going on in Benghazi, and the order to stand down that resulted in the murder of four American citizens by AL-Qaeda, which Obama was touting as having been destroyed when "HE killed Osama Bin Laden"; the outright LIES about the PPACA, all clearly and unquestionably resulted in Obama winning re-election. If the TRUTH about Benghazi and the PPACA were known by the American public at the same time that it was known by the Obama Administration, Mitt Romney would be President today, and America would be a very different country, on its way to healing from the damage done by Obama!

If you agree, please contact your Representatives and DEMAND that Obama be IMPEACHED sooner rather than later! Call your Senators and DEMAND that they find Obama GUILTY after he is IMPEACHED! Write letters to the editor of your paper in an effort to try convince more Americans about the TRUTH ABOUT OBAMA'S LIES!