Obamacare goes from failure to failure. From John Graham at forbes.com:
Last week’s Congressional Budget Office’s Updated Budget Projections: 2016 to 2026 significantly reduced estimates of Obamacare’s benefits, relative to CBO’s estimates published in 2010, when the law was signed:
• In 2010, CBO estimated Obamacare would leave 22 million uninsured in 2016 through 2019. This month, CBO estimates Obamacare will leave 27 million uninsured through 2019 – an increase of almost one quarter.
• In 2010, CBO estimated Obamacare would leave 162 million with employer-based health benefits in 2016 through 2019. This month, CBO estimates Obamacare will leave only 155 million with employer-based plans. The number will decrease to 152 million in 2019.
• In 2010, CBO estimated Obamacare exchanges would enroll 21 million people in 2016, increasing to 24 million in 2019. This month, CBO estimates Obamacare’s exchanges will enroll only 13 million people this year, and 20 million in 2019.
• In 2010, CBO estimated Obamacare would result in 52 million Americans remaining or falling into dependency on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the welfare programs jointly funded by state and federal governments that subsidizes low-income households’ health care, in 2016. CBO estimated that figure would drop slightly to 51 million in 2019. This month, CBO estimates 68 million will be dependent on the program this year through 2019 – an increase of almost one third in the welfare caseload.
Many observers have recognized that Obamacare is a welfare program camouflaged as a reformed health insurance marketplace. CBO’s new estimate that Obamacare will actually leave five million more uninsured than initially estimated suggests even that camouflage is beginning to fail.
To continue reading: Obamacare’s Uninsured Up 5 Million, Medicaid Dependents Up 16 Million Since 2010 Estimate
I find it appalling that in the United States to be sick means to go bankrupt. The problems are just brought to the forefront with Obamacare, but the fix is way out of reach.
The fix is to end the “special status” of everything medical. Almost every aspect of medical care in America is illegal under the Sherman Act, but some animals on Animal Farm are more equal than others.
The problems that face the West (the USA in specific) are intractable if, for no other reason, there are simply too many people whose ox would be gored by reform. It is therefore impossible to have a politically palatable reform movement.
On the other hand, the very term “political reform” is a code for “we’re just doubleing down on screwing you all.” Political reform is a universal impossibility, identical to those in power intentionally relinquishing their position. Never has happened, never will happen.
The system has to collapse of its own accord, and the path ahead is always and everywhere a function of organic renewal.