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Monday, October 8, 2012

Did You Know?

Here are a few facts about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) gleaned from a Wall Street Journal article written by Heather Higgins and Hadley Heath:
  • Americans know that ObamaCare requires insurance companies to allow families to keep adult children up to age 26 on their parents' policy. They are less likely to know that the provision increased the average family premium—even for families that didn't add adult dependents—by $150-$450 in 2011.
  • The average family's health-insurance premiums are already up $1,300.
  • Young workers who buy their own insurance will see a 19%-30% increase in premiums as a result of ObamaCare.
  • Remember the 700,000 people whom the Congressional Budget Office predicted would make use of ObamaCare's federal high-risk program? Just 78,000 people have enrolled. As a result, each person in the program costs taxpayers millions of allocated dollars. Americans, when they hear this, know instinctively that there must be a better way to address the problem.
  • ObamaCare was sold as the solution to covering the 47 million uninsured in America, but 10 years after the law is implemented, 30 million Americans will still be uninsured. What problem, exactly, is ObamaCare solving again?
  • Americans are also generally familiar with Medicaid's problems, among them the refusal by many doctors to accept Medicaid patients. What most people don't know is that approximately 10 million of those who gain insurance under ObamaCare will just be dumped into the already cash-strapped Medicaid system.
There's a lot more information on the Health Reform law at this site. You read this stuff and you can understand why the GOP wants to rescind much of it. It looks like there was no more preparation put into it than was put into Mr. Obama's debate appearance Wednesday night.