Affordable Care Act health insurance may not be all that affordable anymore
CHAMBERSBURG – Reports have that people using the Affordable Care Act for health insurance could be facing huge cost increases.
Pennie is the Pennsylvania platform that administers subscriptions to the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare – each state has their own system.
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM pointed out, “We get subsidies. So the Affordable Care Act is so affordable that we need to have subsidies. So Affordable Care Act, so affordable that we have to go to the government to get subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM added, “They’ve been contributing all along.”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “There have been federal subsidies to the tune of $500 million a year that are artificially lowering the cost of these premiums. Pennie issued a press release earlier in the week because there are hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians that are subscribing to Obamacare programs, and they’re paying very low premiums, and it’s very good insurance. But Penny is pointing out that those subsidies are set to expire at the end of next year, and reading between the lines, of course, I think some of this is with Trump coming into office and a Republican Congress, it’s very unlikely these subsidies are going to get renewed. When the subsidies go away, the average rate for an Obamacare subscriber, the average is going to go up more than 81% and they’re also pointing out, depending on the plan you’re on and your income, there are some people that could see their premiums increase three, four and even five times. So they’re giving the public plenty of warning, you’re in for a shock to your budget next year at this time, when it’s renewal season, because if you’re going to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars more a month, you need to start planning now for that.”
Jansen said, “Those tax credits that the government was giving us for this. But we’ve got to understand, this is essentially socialized medicine. That’s what this put into the whole system and just like socialized medicine tried out in every country, it ends up this way. It ends up with rationing of care, because you have too many people just taking too many resources, especially when you give people stuff for free, which everybody at a certain income level and lower gets the Medicaid version, which is essentially free health care. Then, just because it’s human nature, not because they’re horrible people, when you have something for free, you over utilize it. Then there’s the people who in the working as you keep moving up the scale, who have to pay more and more and more, which, of course, seems affordable at first, but then as those resources get used and used and everything gets more expensive, then guess what? You have to keep raising the amounts that all those people have to pay. So everybody working ends up trying to subsidize the people who are not having to pay anything and we end up with this horrible system.”
Ryan added, “I talked to a business owner the other day who said, okay, I’d have to pay $3,000 a month for him and his wife, and then $7,000 is the deductible, and that’s now. That’s not even taking into consideration what he’s facing in the future.”
Barkdoll said, “Do you know right now in Pennsylvania for a family medical plan through, say, Highmark, they’re one of the main providers in this area, the premiums are pushing $30,000. This would be for a married couple and then one or more children on the plan. It’s simply not sustainable for the employer or the employee. The dilemma on this Obamacare, again, going back to 2017 remember when Trump took over and you had super control of the Congress, Republicans controlled the House and the Senate, many of them ran on platforms they were going to eliminate Obamacare. Of course, that did not happen. I don’t know what the Republicans may do next year, because there’s still a lot of sentiment, people would like to get rid of it, but the dilemma they have is, if you look at the subscribers and the maps, Obamacare is very popular in a lot of very red states. Think of places like Kentucky and Mississippi and Alabama, West Virginia. It’s a lot of these deep red states where the citizens are really, whatever you want to call it, benefiting or taking advantage of this program and there’s where I think Trump and the Republicans have a dilemma on how to handle this next year.”
Jansen suggested, “They need to let people know this was going to go up whether I took office or not. It’s not like Biden could have kept this going either. The problem is it’s just like Social Security. Once you have people getting used to that government handout, doesn’t matter whether you’re red or blue, it’s very hard to give that up and everything’s been adjusted to how much people get paid, and everything else gets adjusted to that. Then we end up in this ridiculous situation where, no matter how much you might intellectually believe, yeah, this shouldn’t be this way, but if you’re getting that benefit, is very hard to give up.”
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