Were You Mislead On Cost of Obamacare | Californians May Have 30% Hike in Healthcare Premiums

While we may not hear all of the following on the liberal main stream media, fittingly, this week ended as it began with even more stories about how President Obama’s 3 year old unpopular health care law will lead to higher premiums and higher health care costs, contrary to everything Democrats said before they passed it.

The Hill reports today, “Premiums on California's individual health insurance market will rise an average of 30 percent as a result of President Obama's healthcare law, a new study predicts. The state agency that will implement the law, Covered California, said premium increases are most likely to hit middle-income people who do not receive healthcare coverage through their employers. The figures released Thursday come the same week Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius conceded that healthcare reform could cause some premiums to rise.”

At Hot Air, Mary Katherine Ham noted CNN’s segment examining a new study from the Society of Actuaries that found, as CNN’s Briana Keilar explained, “estimates insurance companies will pay on average 32% more for claims on individual insurance plans because of Obamacare. Some states fare worse: The report says California will see a 62% increase by 2017; Wisconsin and Ohio and 80% increase. Those costs, the report, says, will be passed on to consumers.”

MKH adds, “If CNN cared to look beyond the one Society of Actuaries study it allows the White House to trash as insurance-industry aligned, they’d find plenty of studies from the government itself that show overall health care costs rising, individual premiums rising, and costs higher over the next 10 years than they would have been without passing ObamaCare. That last is an important point because the administration loves to blame quickly rising premiums on evil insurance companies or the fact that they were already rising before ObamaCare. The fact is, the trajectory has changed, especially in the individual market, because of ObamaCare. Insuring more people and mandating more comprehensive coverage makes insurance more expensive. This was obvious to anyone who cared to think about it before the law was passed, but anyone who cared to point it out was called a dirty liar by the bill’s proponents.”

She emphasizes, “The pitch for the bill was that we would get more coverage for more people, AND premiums would go down, AND the health care cost curve would bend down for the government, AND it wouldn’t add a dime to the deficit, AND everyone who liked their insurance would be able to keep it. None of those things is true except for possibly more coverage for more people, and the jury remains out on that, even.”

The AP summarized things in an understated way in its story on the Society of Actuaries report: “Obama has promised that the new law will bring costs down. That seems a stretch now.”

The AP adds "A new study finds that insurance companies will have to pay out an average of 32 percent more for medical claims under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.  … the overwhelming majority [of states] will see double-digit increases in their individual health insurance markets, where people purchase coverage directly from insurers. The disparities are striking. By 2017, the estimated increase would be 62 percent for California, about 80 percent for Ohio, more than 20 percent for Florida and 67 percent for Maryland."

• OHIO: "Medical claims costs in Ohio could jump an average 81 percent for individual policy holders by 2017 under the federal health care law . . ."
• CALIFORNIA: "Medical claims costs filed by individual policy holders could rise as much as 62 percent over the next four years in California under the Affordable Care Act
• KENTUCKY: "A new study says costs of medical claims would rise an average of 34 percent for individuals in Kentucky next year under the Affordable Care Act.
• "Some Americans could see their insurance bills double next year as the health care overhaul law expands coverage to millions of people. The nation's big health insurers say they expect premiums — or the cost for insurance coverage — to rise from 20 to 100 percent for millions of people due to changes that will occur when key provisions of the Affordable Care Act roll out in January 2014."
• "Young people who currently have low-cost coverage may see some of the biggest hikes."

In the issue of young people, Politico reports, "The federal health care law could nearly triple premiums for some young and healthy men . . . the premium for a relatively bare-bones policy for a 27-year-old male nonsmoker on the individual market would be nearly 190 percent higher."

The truth is now revealing that the former words of President Obama were less than true. It would have been a different story if he had said that he didn't know the impact. But instead he pushed the Affordable Health Care act with the following repeated false remarks

• THEN-SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): "I have made a solemn pledge that I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will … cut the cost of a typical family's premiums by up to $2500 a year. That's not simply a matter of policy or ideology - it's a moral commitment." (Sen. Obama, Remarks To United Church Of Christ Synod, 6/24/07)
• PRESIDENT OBAMA: "Families will save on their premiums." (President Obama, Remarks After Meeting With Senate Democrats, 12/15/09)
  PRESIDENT OBAMA:  "Your employer, it's estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent … which means they could give you a raise." ("Will Health Care Bill Lower Premiums?" AP, 3/17/10)
• OBAMA: "All this is going to lower premiums. It's going to make healthcare more affordable." (President Obama, Remarks, 9/22/10)
• OBAMA: "This law will lower premiums." (President Obama, Remarks To 'Families USA,' 1/28/11)

Mr. Obama claimed or even wished for these these outcomes but the facts prove this dangerous experiment in massive National healthcare to be destructive to America and its citizens. We were warned by the Canadians but failed to listen.

This is why Republicans and hopefully concerned Democrats will work to repeal and replace this bad law. Yesterday, the ARRA News addressed a National Journal article by Chris Frates which addressed, “The Secret Republican Plan to Repeal 'Obamacare' And why the fight is far from over.” Not really much of a secret, but in fact an ongoing plan to role back a devastating program to America and its citizens.

If democrats fail to aid in this effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, they are proving that their agenda is not that of the people but of a status presidency that can rule without impunity costing Americans both its prosperity and its freedoms. While the media is now starting to report that the reality of Obamacare is nothing like the sales pitch that Democrats gave to get it passed. But, the question remains,  will fantasy or reality rule the hearts of the elected leadership in Washington, D.C.? We sure cannot afford the cost associated with its past fantasies.

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