This document responds to questions that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have received regarding their estimates of the effects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In their original analysis of the impact of the legislation, CBO and JCT estimated that, on balance, the number of people obtaining coverage through their employer would be about 3 million lower in 2019 under the legislation than under prior law. As reflected in CBO’s latest baseline projections, the two agencies now anticipate that, because of the ACA, about 3 million to 5 million fewer people, on net, will obtain coverage through their employer each year from 2019 through 2022 than would have been the case under prior law.If the goal was to move Americans from private, employer health insurance to government coverage ("single payer"), then the Democrats should have been honest about that. But single payer has been such a disaster in Canada that they would never have passed it. I am more inclined to think that this was simple stupidity. We have, after all, a President who thinks that Columbus couldn't get his startup funded because the establishment thought the Earth was flat.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Congressional Budget Office: Millions Will Lose Employer Health Insurance
I am not thrilled with the current scheme that ties health insurance to your employer, but decoupling should be a conscious and well-thought policy. The Congressional Budget Office is now saying:
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When that bill of goods was being sold to us, I recall BHO and others saying that, "If you like your private health insurance, you can keep it."
ReplyDeleteThe unspoken weasel words were of course, "if it is still being offered."
The reason the only two choices were "Keep your old policy" and "take the government policy" is because the intent was to push everyone to the government policy by making it unprofitable and otherwise impossible for private insurers to remain in business.
My wife and I just finished the process of getting employerless health insurance (this is our second time, and first when I had employment). It's a long story why we're doing this...but I like the freedom of knowing I can change jobs, and not having to worry about transitions between health insurance companies.
ReplyDeleteEven so, it's a little stressful nonetheless. Indeed, we had to figure out what to do with my wife, who was denied health care coverage by two different plans! (We finally found one who would insure us, by giving us very high deductibles on the things that scared the other insurance companies.)
I'm inclined to think that if everyone looked into what it takes to self-insure, that there'd be a major swelling for change...of course, half of that swelling would demand less freedom via Government Run Insurance, while the other half would demand that government would get out of our lives.
(I know: in suggesting there'd be a half-and-half split between collectivism and freedom, I'm probably being way too optimistic. Too many people see the problems caused by Government, and immediately blame the "Free" Market!)
I think they did it on purpose.
ReplyDeleteI've got some background in the health insurance industry, and when I looked at this obamanation, I knew it would cause employers to drop coverage, forcing people into the moribund and unfair individual insurance market. Since many wouldn't be able to get policies (pre-existing conditions), they'd then demand the government to fix it - with single payer. That's the way we are headed.
[...] I knew it would cause employers to drop coverage, forcing people into the moribund and unfair individual insurance market.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was supposed to force people into the government regulated "health care exchanges" ... not that those will necessarily prove to be viable.