SBW

It has been said before, but one of the things this article points out is that obamacare was never about healthcare or insurance reform, it is about control.

The CEO of CKE Restaurants has seen it first hand.

From the Wall Street Journal

The Slow-Motion Implosion of ObamaCare

I see firsthand in my company why not enough people are signing up and premiums are rising.

By ANDY PUZDER
Nov. 1, 2015 5:31 p.m. ET

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced recently that she expects 10 million people to be enrolled in health-care coverage through ObamaCare’s exchanges by the end of next year. What she didn’t mention was that in March of last year the Congressional Budget Office predicted that 21 million people would be enrolled in 2016—more than double the new estimate.

The administration says the difference can be explained away: For instance, fewer companies dropped coverage than expected, thus fewer employees are migrating from employer-sponsored plans to the exchanges. “We haven’t seen much of a shift at all,” Richard Frank, a health and human services assistant secretary, told USA Today.

But the question isn’t where Americans are getting health insurance. It is whether ObamaCare will provide more Americans with affordable insurance for decades to come.

Supporters credit ObamaCare with helping nine million uninsured Americans find coverage in 2014. But a new paper from the Heritage Foundation, however, suggests that nearly all of the increase came from adding nearly nine million people to the Medicaid rolls.

In other words, ObamaCare expanded coverage in 2014 to the extent that it gave people free or nearly free insurance. That goal could have been accomplished without the Affordable Care Act. To justify its existence, ObamaCare must make affordable private insurance available to a broad cross-section of uninsured Americans who are ineligible for Medicaid.

But with fewer people buying insurance through the exchanges, the economics aren’t holding up. Ten of the 23 innovative health-insurance plans known as co-ops—established with $2.4 billion in ObamaCare loans—will be out of business by the end of 2015 because of weak balance sheets.

And while rates vary widely by state, the cost for private insurance through the exchanges is also increasing dramatically. An analysis by consulting firm Avalere Health released on Friday shows that some of the most popular insurance plans in the ObamaCare exchanges will experience double-digit premium hikes in 2016.

One problem is that nearly half of the 10.5 million uninsured people eligible for ObamaCare are between the ages of 18 and 34—and young people tend to be healthy and unwilling to pay for pricey coverage they don’t need.

But propping up ObamaCare requires this group’s subsidizing the medical costs of the aging and ill. So far, no luck. It makes sense for healthy young people to pay a penalty rather than purchase the insurance. And in 2015 that’s what 6.6 million people did, according to the IRS. Next year the minimum penalty increases to $695 or 2.5% of income above $10,000, whichever is greater. In many cases, that’s still much cheaper than insurance.

At our company, CKE Restaurants, we offer eligible employees ObamaCare-compliant coverage. We used federal guidelines and set our employee monthly contribution for the least expensive Bronze plan at $1,116 a year, or about 25% of the annual premium. The company pays the rest, and the deductible is $5,500. But even when next year’s higher penalty kicks in—2.5% of income above $10,000—an employee would need to earn more than $50,000 a year for the penalty to exceed the premium.

Then there is another problem: It is easy to avoid or limit exposure to the penalty with some simple tax planning, as there are 30 different exemptions (which 12 million people claimed last year) and the IRS collects the penalty by reducing an employee’s tax refund.

The uninsured also know they can receive medical care at the emergency room. And if they fall ill, they can always purchase insurance during the next enrollment period, because ObamaCare eliminated existing conditions as a justification for denying coverage.

Our employees are smart enough to figure this out. Of our company’s 5,453 eligible employees, only 420 enrolled. Our experience isn’t unique, according to press reports. A March survey by the consulting firm Mercer found “virtually no change between 2014 and 2015” in the average percentage of employees signed up for employer-sponsored health plans. Mercer found a 1.6% increase in the absolute number of enrolled employees, but that happened thanks to a growing workforce, not the law.

How have things changed under ObamaCare? Wealthy Americans continue to have health insurance, albeit at a higher price. But they can afford it. Many middle-class Americans are paying higher premiums they can hardly afford. And then millions more low-income Americans have heavily subsidized insurance or Medicaid coverage.

However, millions of other Americans who enjoyed good individual insurance before ObamaCare have found themselves forced out of affordable plans, with their new premiums rising rapidly. Other middle- and working-class Americans who were uninsured are still uninsured and paying the penalty or claiming an exemption. That isn’t affordable care. In many cases, it isn’t care at all.

Mr. Puzder is the chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants.

Penny MG Loc: Fresno, Texas

But yet the liberals still will not wake up and see how crappy obamacare is. I said all along that we didn't need a several thousand page plan to get more people insured but the more complicated the plan sounds the more impressed the low information v**ers are. There is nothing more affordable about getting healthcare now than there was 2 years ago. You can argue that yes, people got their insurance subsided by us "other taxpayers". But that is just a policy to call their own. When it comes to paying their deductible and co-pays, they still cannot afford it!!!

skylane5sp Loc: Puyallup, WA

We had to pass it to see what was in it...

stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid

SBW

Penny,

Liberals and democrats do not care about this country or healthcare for that matter. They care about control. Period. If the so called affordable care act were about the uninsured having healthcare or insurance reform then we could have just written a check to give the uninsured health care insurance. For free. It would have been much, much, much, much cheaper and we would not have destroyed the greatest healthcare system on earth. This can end no other way but badly. If you like the VA healthcare system then you will love obamacare once it is fully implemented.

RixPix Loc: Miami, Florida

The closer the ACA act comes to failing the closer we are to a single-payer system and the obliteration of the mercenary medical system we now enjoy.

Penny MG Loc: Fresno, Texas

Extraordinarily stupid..... Like signing a contract before you read it.....

SBW

Wrong. You would love for everyone to have VA care, wouldn't you?

You would not know a single payer system if it bit you in the ass.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

There you go with that mercenary. What is wrong with any for profit industry. You could refer to any worker as a mercenary, in that he works for money. I don't know how you fed your family, but I bet you got paid in some manner. Or perhaps you refused the money and gave your labor away, out of the goodness of your heart. For most of my career I worked as a commisioned sales rep. If I didn't perform I didn't eat. I was damned good I what I did. You want a single payer medical system. You mean you want a Government run ststem. Take a look at the VA medical medical system. We already have a single payer system--The VA. Have you ever been in a VA hospital, I have worked in every VA hospital in the NY metro area. Trust me on this- sub-standard doesn't even begin to describe them. You want congress in charge of health care? They can't even get out of their own way. If you love single payer so much why do you still live here? I have a suggestion for you. The next time any one in your family gets ill why don't you refuse to be treated by the meecenary medical system. Refuse medication made by those evil drug outfits. After all if you avail yourself of the mercenary medical system you woul be a terrible hypocrite. Do you have electricity, do you drive a car, all those outfits have mercenary workers. Next time you need gas for that car, you better have your own oil well and your own refinery so that you do not patronize all those mercenary industries.

SBW

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Well put.

These l*****t clowns want every U.S. citizen to be treated in the very same despicable way we treat our veterans in regards to healthcare. They will not rest until that happens. They conveniently omit or forget that in doing so they are destroying the greatest healthcare system that ever existed. They want a "single payer" system. 99+% of them have NO idea what a single payer system looks like or how it operates. These i***ts need to be very careful what they ask for.

Again, you like the VA healthcare we have today? Then you will love a single payers system.

Checkmate Loc: Southern California

Rixie Pixie is just a low info 'v**er' who believes everything that Pelosi and Reid told him to do and believe and that doesn't even compare to what he believes and follows from the POS in the the WH.

green Loc: 22.1749611,-159.646704,20

isn't medicare essentially a successful single-payer system?

SBW

Nope. In a true single payer system the government runs/manages the healthcare system. At the extreme or "ideal" implementation the healthcare professionals (doctors and nurses for those that live in Hawaii) are employed either directly or indirectly by the government. Now there is a bright idea.

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

skylane5sp:We had to pass it to see what was in it...

stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid


PennyMG: Extraordinarily stupid..... Like signing a contract before you read it…..


Nagy: All significant Congressional bills are of enormous length. Much of that -though I am not certain how much- is unrelated riders Congressmen unscrupulously tack onto them. Nevertheless, the relevant part of the text is itself of ridiculous length.

I thought they were read by various staffers. Can you two give me a brief list of the major surprises in the Affordable Care Bill?

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

It is not Affordable, is that brief enough.

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

Penny MG: But yet the liberals still will not wake up and see how crappy obamacare is. I said all along that we didn't need a several thousand page plan to get more people insured but the more complicated the plan sounds the more impressed the low information v**ers are. There is nothing more affordable about getting healthcare now than there was 2 years ago. You can argue that yes, people got their insurance subsided by us "other taxpayers". But that is just a policy to call their own. When it comes to paying their deductible and co-pays, they still cannot afford it!!!

Nagy: No mater how long I stay out of these UHH debates, Penny MG will continue tone Penny MG. It is not true that making a bill excessively lengthy is a "liberal" -more about liberals later- ploy. It is the usual modus operandi of everyone in Congress. The USA PATRIOT Act, for example, whose bill was proposed by Republicans, is also the size of a telephone directory of a major city.

Now for the matter of liberalism: Either you have no ida what that means, Penny, or use the term with calculated deception. There are precious few liberals in Congress, since beginning with Ronald Reagan, the very word has been afflicted with a negative connotation.

In fact, the public political dialogue is between the right and the far right. The Democrats are certainly not liberals. They are bankrolled by much the same corporate interests as the Republicans, and serve those interests, not those of the people. Liberals, in fact serve the needs of the people. That is why their very name had to be blackened; to keep their platform out of public dialogue.

Liberals ideas include socialized medicine, legally required real vacation time, instead of the miserly two weeks that corporate American grudgingly gives fewer and fewer people; a generous amount of paid maternity leave; college for our young men and women at public expense; the removal for safety reasons, of firearms from civilian hands. and all sorts of other programs that all decent countries already have, or are in the process of acquiring. If any of this were even brought up in national politics, Democrats and Republicans would label the person who proposed them a socialist -an even dirtier term than liberal- or a c*******t, say it is impossible to do here, and return to their rapacious, elitist policies.

When you call Democrats liberals, Dr. PennyMG, you are unwittingly helping shift the language rightward in order totally to silence a real liberal agenda. The right has done a great job in programming you to be one of its dupes.