Sunday, January 27, 2013

Look At What They Have Wrought

It's been interesting lately, reading about all the unintended consequences of Obamacare. Companies cutting back hours of employees so they'll not be required to buy health insurance is probably the lead story - even universities, the bastions of liberal thought, are not going to fund health care for many of their employees.

I do not thing the geniuses (genii???) thought this through, either.

What could potentially crash ObamaCare -- if the news gets out -- is the fact that it's much cheaper to pay the ObamaCare penalty than it is to pay for insurance, combined with the fact (which Politifact ignores) that ObamaCare removes the biggest incentive to purchase insurance -- the pre-existing condition clause.
Until now, people (like me) purchased and desperately held onto their health insurance out of the fear that if they got a cancer or heart attack, they could be bankrupted. Under ObamaCare, though, that incentive vanishes because insurance companies can no longer deny anyone over pre-existing conditions or increase premium costs based on the status of your personal health.
Here's the two plus two: Starting next year, you can wait until you’re sick to purchase health insurance. And if you do so, you cannot be denied or even charged a higher premium price. Here's the four: Because the ObamaCare penalty to be uninsured is much cheaper than purchasing insurance, why not do exactly that?
As I laid out in this piece, because ObamaCare allows me to game the system in this way, for the first time in over 25 years, I'm an uninsured-American. Going forward, my plan is to pay the annual penalty, which is ridiculously cheaper than insurance, and only purchase health insurance should I get sick.
As soon as the masses figure out this option under Obamacare -- that there's even less of an incentive to purchase health insurance than there was before ObamaCare passed -- that's how the system crashes.
For obvious reasons, neither the White House nor the media wants this information to become well known. They’re too invested in ObamaCare being part of the reason Obama's put on Mt. Rushmore. But it's bad law, Americans are not dumb, and I cannot think of anything more patriotic than to use civil disobedience as a way to bring the whole thing down.
Cry me a river. We have companies like Hobby Lobby who object to funding abortion because it conflicts with their religious beliefs. In fact, there are so many suits and the district courts are in conflict about the issue, it will probably require a Supreme Court decision to settle the mess.

Another little gem in The Affordable Care Act (yeah, right) that has slipped the attention of the liberal side of things is a rider meant to appease the NRA. It prevents health care providers from questioning patients about firearms in the home and then documenting the results - something the gun control advocates have been pushing for years. Of course if they did keep records, there would be no discrimination. None at all.

This whole mess has been nothing but a cluster from day one. In the first place, it's hardly going to be affordable. If our legislators can't muster the cojones for putting it out of our misery, perhaps it will collapse on it's own.

H/T Ace of Spades HQ

3 comments:

drjim said...

I noticed about a $65 hit in my first paycheck of the year, and I expect it will get worse and worse as they try and pay for this fiasco.

And I've already told my wife to say "No Guns" if ANY of her doctors ask about it.

jed said...

But didn't Teh 0ne decree, "Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes"?

Anyhoo, reading the language quoted, ACA says that it doesn't require disclosure. That ain't the same thing as prohibiting the asking.

Jeffro said...

And if they do ask, the answer is "nunya."