On Inauguration Day, the following president of the United States should suspend the penalty to be uninsured under ObamaCare.
President Obama promised his law provides a range of affordable health plans. In 2021, consumers will get neither choice nor affordability. In nearly a third of the nation, only one insurer will offer coverage – that's no choice whatsoever. And insurance costs are skyrocketing across the country.
ObamaCare is broken. Slapping ObamaCare refuseniks with hefty penalties (averaging almost $1,000) because of not signing up could be unfair, like enforcing a parking ticket when the meter's broken.
Consumers will be clobbered starting Nov. 1, the start of the open-enrollment period. They'll want to know what Mr . trump and Hillary Clinton intend to do about it. In swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Hampshire, premiums are rising 30 % and even up to 40 percent.
In many parts of Florida, another must-win state, consumers will be instructed to subscribe to the only insurer around or get hit using the penalty.
Giant insurers Aetna, UnitedHealth and Humana are quitting most ObamaCare exchanges after losing billions trying to sell the unpopular plans. Wherever only one insurer remains, all patients on ObamaCare is going to be funneled into that single remaining insurer's network of doctors, which makes it nearly impossible to obtain a doctor's appointment.
Worse, a number of these remaining insurers are primarily in the Medicaid business. ObamaCare will mean paying soaring premiums for Medicaid-level access to care. What a deal.
In Illinois, most ObamaCare premiums are going up a lot more than 50 % before subsidies. In Tennessee, it's 62 percent. Individuals earning a lot more than $48,000 or couples earning a lot more than $64,000 need to pay full freight.
It's highway robbery.
From the start, ObamaCare has made financial sense only for two groups: the very sick or those entitled to a totally free ride. This is exactly why more than 11 million people a year are opting to pay for penalties instead of buying insurance, as ObamaCare requires.
That is: More and more people are paying NOT to have it than are signing up for it.
Now, with premiums soaring and choices disappearing, much more people will say “no” to ObamaCare, predicts industry expert Robert Laszewski.
These people shouldn't get penalized. The same law that imposes the penalty promised them choice and affordability – and it is reneging on.
Does a president have the power to suspend the penalty? Yes. Only Congress can make or change law. I'm not suggesting the following president go rogue, like Obama himself did, changing the law 43 times without asking Congress. However the law's hardship exemptions provide the next president a legitimate opening. Stratospheric premiums and deductibles with no choice are hardships for sure.
Laszewski warns that dropping the penalty “would only make the system implode faster.” True, since the healthy and young is going to be under no pressure to cover a raw deal. But why should these people be sacrificed to prop up “the system”?
To the collapse from the ObamaCare plans, we should say: good riddance. Twenty million individuals have gained coverage under the ACA, however the lion's share are enrolled in
Medicaid, not during these private plans.
They cover for the most part about 8 million people who were previously uninsured – a small gain in contrast to hardship on the 11 million who pay the penalty and 5 million or so who had insurance they liked and were instructed to give it up to join ObamaCare instead.
ObamaCare architect Ezekiel Emanuel requires stiffer penalties on the uninsured. Princeton professor Uwe Reinhardt recommends the United States copy how Countries in europe crack down on the uninsured, including garnishing wages.
Yikes. Sounds like the tough approach Hillary Clinton took in 1993, when she proposed her failed health-care plan. (With no doubt what she'd repeat the process – compulsion.)
But Americans don't want to be Europeanized, plus they won't march in lockstep into an insurance scheme that takes away their choices. Let's hope the next president is listening.
