The left-wing Politico deserves credit for reporting what much of the media will not: the fallout yet to come from the rolling ObamaCare debacle. Politico covers the death spiral, sticker shock, and more. Conspicuously missing in Politico’s analysis, though, is the Obama administration’s own prediction that ObamaCare will potentially result in tens of millions of employer-based health plan cancellations.
Yes, you read that correctly; the Obama administration itself predicted in 2010 that “a majority of group health plans will have lost their grandfather status by the end 2013.” …
The DOJ cites the June 17, 2010, edition of the Federal Register, which acknowledges that within the first year of Obamacare’s employer mandate, the insurance plans offered by many employers will be canceled because their policies will not be grandfathered under the administration’s regulations.
“The Departments’ mid-range estimate is that 66 percent of small-employer plans and 45 percent of large-employer plans will relinquish their grandfather status by the end of 2013,” the Register says. “The low-end estimates are for 49 percent and 34 percent of small and large-employer plans, respectively, to have relinquished grandfather status, and the high-end estimates are 80 percent and 64 percent, respectively.”
In other words, the Obama administration itself expects that the misery currently roiling the individual market is going to happen to the employer-based or group plan market. If you like your employer-based insurance, there is a better chance than not that you are going to lose it.
So all this talk from Democrats, the media, and the White House that the cancelation fallout will be restricted to just 5% of the public simply isn’t true.
Millions of employer-based plans will be canceled because they do not meet the government’s standards for minimum coverage, which means that whatever alternative coverage the insurance provider offers will be more expensive. Some employers might choose to eat all of that extra cost. But many will either pass the cost on to their employees or choose not to provide insurance.
Millions, then, will not only get herded into the ObamaCare exchanges; they will also lose the benefit of their employer sharing the cost of their health insurance premiums.
The White House knows this. The Democrats know this. The media know this. But they also know that reporting on this possibility will justifiably spook the 95% who think they are safe — and that would almost certainly mean the end of ObamaCare.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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