Word that ObamaCare premiums will soar 25 % in the 39 states that operate off the federal healthcare.gov system is only the tip from the iceberg: The so-called Affordable Care Act is inflicting damage all over America's health-care sector – without any result in sight.
Just as critics warned from the beginning.
Premiums are rising in nearly all the states running their own exchanges, too. And if you receive other coverage, you're also paying: ObamaCare taxes non-exchange health plans to assist in paying for that subsidies that make its policies (somewhat) affordable. (It also cut many billions from Medicare.)
This, on top of the regulations that impact policies across America – boosting costs by mandating added coverage, whether you want it or not. The move forced insurers to cancel coverage for 6 million-plus people – even while many millions found that, no, they couldn't keep their doctor after all.
More, what the law states also pushed consolidation – penalizing doctors who stay in independent practice, rewarding hospitals that merge. All because the liberals who wrote what the law states saw such competition as destructive.
Oh, and the nonprofit “insurance cooperatives” created with many billions in federal funds have nearly all failed.
Still ahead: Budget crises in the states that accepted temporary federal bribes to massively expand their Medicaid rolls. More premium hikes on the exchanges, as always fewer healthy people sign up for coverage – prompting even lower enrollment, and more price hikes, inside a sharp “death spiral.”
The “Cadillac tax” will start working soon, too – therefore if your union has won great coverage of health in the bargaining table, that plan will pay a penalty to The government.
The legal challenges aren't done yet, either.
How did it arrived at this? Voter fury within the wake from the 2008 economic crisis gave Democrats huge majorities in Congress – and President Obama took the opportunity to chase a decades-old liberal dream, universal health insurance.
The law's fallen far lacking that goal, as it's faltered on almost every other front, because it never was really written to work, but assembled in the wish-lists of various left-wing wonks and ideologues – hastily stitched together and passed before the voters could stop it.
The Democrats didn't even blink when Massachusetts, of all states, elected a Republican to Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in a giant cry of “stop”: They passed the law before Scott Brown might take office.
Now ObamaCare is collapsing, and presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton vows to “fix” it with new spending and much more Washington control of the marketplace. If she's Democratic majorities in Congress, she'll keep that promise – and the madness will grow.
