Why ObamaCare Hurts Everyone

Today on The Heritage Foundation’s blog, The Foundry, Chris Jacobs makes the case for why ObamaCare hurts everyone, whether you get insurance from your employer, it’s subsidized, you buy it on your own or you’re a senior on Medicare.  As stories of cancelled policies emerge after the President’s “if you like your plan you can keep it” lie, ObamaCare defenders now claim that those losing their plans only represent 3% of cases.  However, Jacobs explains how ObamaCare affects everyone.

If You Have Insurance Through an Employer: The Administration claims that employer-provided coverage is not changing under Obamacare–even as it brags that Obamacare is providing better benefits to those with employer plans. Those “better benefits” are not free, however. One recent survey from consultants at Mercer found that half of large employers believe Obamacare will raise health costs by at least 2 percent next year. With the average employer plan costing more than $16,000 per family, even a 2 percent increase amounts to hundreds of dollars in added costs for employers and families every year–for “benefits” they may not have wanted to purchase absent a government order.

If You Buy Insurance Yourself: As many Americans have found in recent weeks, the odds are that those who previously purchased their own health plan will not be able to keep it. Some experts have predicted that as many as 16 million individuals could fall into this category. Individuals whose insurance has been canceled will have to buy Obamacare-compliant insurance. As a result, they may face substantially higher premiums for insurance coverage that provides a smaller network of doctors and hospitals.

If You Qualify for Subsidized Insurance: Defenders of the law would argue that these individuals are clear “winners” under Obamacare. But many of these Americans may use taxpayer subsidies to buy insurance coverage they don’t need or want–because the federal government has forced them to, and/or because Washington bureaucrats have taken away their existing plan. What’s more, the nearly $1.8 trillion in spending on exchange plans and for Medicaid will create a significant new burden for future generations of taxpayers.

If You Are a Senior Citizen on Medicare: Obamacare will affect seniors as well–because, as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) famously said in 2011, Democrats “took half a trillion dollars out of Medicare in [Obamacare]” to fund the law’s new entitlements. The Administration’s non-partisan actuary concluded that the law’s unsustainable spending reductions to Medicare could cause 15 percent of hospitals to become unprofitable by 2019, and 40 percent to become unprofitable by 2050–which could have a significant impact on beneficiaries’ access to care.