Thursday, October 24, 2013

Obamacare: "As a 48 Year Old Male, I Am Personally Very Excited to Now Have Maternity Coverage"

Kathleen Sebelius Explains Obamacare About As Well As She Builds Websites
By Jeffrey Dorfman
To defend the Affordable Care Act, Kathleen Sebelius published an op-ed in the Wichita Eagle on Sunday, October 20, 2013. Because it was filled with so many questionable statements and a lot of poor economics, I am going to go through the entire editorial point by point and correct it. This may take a while, but the Affordable Care Act is going to impact the lives of every American (and a lot of non-Americans who live here) and will be one of the largest government programs ever created. It is worth a little time to examine all these details. Secretary Sebelius's statements are in italics; my responses are in ordinary text.
For the past 3 1/2 years, opponents of the Affordable Care Act have made misstatements about what would happen to families, to seniors, to employers and to health care costs as a result of the historic law. In spite of their predictions being so wrong, the attacks continue. So it's important to give a snapshot of what health benefits the law has already produced for Kansans and what the new health insurance marketplace means for qualified residents in the Sunflower State.


Okay, nice introduction. Now let's get to the meat of the argument.
Let's start with the 86 percent of Kansans who already have health coverage. Since March 2010, when the law was signed, 448,000 Kansas seniors on Medicare have benefited as costs have been held down in historic fashion - national cost growth has been constrained to the slowest rate in nearly 50 years. Furthermore, seniors now have an annual wellness visit and preventive care, such as cancer or cholesterol screenings, with no co-pays, as part of their new Medicare benefits under the ACA.
The Affordable Care Act had no effect on holding down Medicare costs, so that is not a benefit of the law. As to wellness visits and preventive care, that is now part of Medicare which means that taxpayers get to pay for it. Thus, while seniors may get a benefit, taxpayers get the bill. Kansas may have 448,000 seniors, but it has about 1.9 million taxpayers. Thus, this benefit is imposing a cost on four people for every one person that gets a benefit.

Read the rest here.

4 comments:

  1. The dysfunctional Obamacare web site is merely the overture. Wait until people experience the opera that follows!

    Assuming they can squander enough money getting the site fixed, then the vast majority of Americans are going to discover just how unaffordable this wealth redistribution scheme is - especially the young and healthy, whose participation will determine its success or failure.

    As with every policy this administration offers, the unspoken goal is to reward supporters, punish their adversaries, and buy votes. I think they miscalculated this time around.

    One of Obama's most stalwart voting blocs in the last two elections was under-30 crowd. How are these voters going to react when they realize they're paying 2x or 3x their previous premiums for coverage they neither want nor need?

    Are they going to pull the lever for Obama's successor knowing they're on the hook for other people's Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare? The sticker shock may cause them to finally put down the Kool-aid. Maybe they'll realize they're the suckers in this inter-generational Ponzi scheme.

    Debt slaves are unlikely to vote for their masters.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Getting to know the exact stipulations before signing in the dotted lines is a key parameter of zeroing on the insurance plan. http://www.121policy.com can help you in your quest.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A friend's grandson registered, but didn't buy yet. She said he is being threatened with a fine larger than the cost of the insurance if he doesn't purchase. The price of the insurance was more than he thought he could afford. If you register, you will be providing funds, one way or another.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "As a 48 Year Old Male, I Am Personally Very Excited to Now Have Maternity Coverage"

    I don't know man. I've been craving pickles lately, my nipples are sore and itch, and the damn rabbit died...

    Paul Krugman

    ReplyDelete