Bait and Switch

Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute recounts the promises Obama and his administration made regarding Obamacare (remember when the use of that word by someone meant that person was racist?) and what will actually happen now that full implementation is looming.  Some of the major promises that will go unkept:

Rising health-care costs are already beginning to show up as higher premiums. California health insurers are proposing increases for some customers of 20% or more: 26% by Blue Cross, 22% by Aetna and 20% by Blue Shield. 

In New York, the Department of Financial Services has limited insurers to a 7.5% increase this year, better but still substantial. And, according to The Wall Street Journal, insurers are warning that premiums in the individual and small group markets could double in the next few years. While these are worst-case scenarios — and it would be unfair to attribute all the premium rise directly to ObamaCare — there is no doubt that the new health-care law will drive premiums up.

And:

In addition, ObamaCare requires all insurance plans to offer new and more expensive benefits. Remember President Obama’s promise that “If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period?” Well, a recent study of more than 11,000 plans on the individual market found that less than 2% of existing plans are fully in compliance with the law’s benefit requirements. While current plans are technically grandfathered in, allowing people to keep them for now, any change in the plans requires that their coverage be brought into compliance.

Finally:

The IRS recently estimated that in 2016, for a family of five, a policy available through the exchange would cost roughly $20,000. At the same time, the IRS has decided that subsidy eligibility will be based on whether one’s employer offers an “affordable” individual plan (meaning the premium is less than 9.5% of the worker’s income), whatever the cost of a family plan might be. As a result, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 3.9 million family dependents could be left unable to afford either employer-provided family coverage or insurance offered through an exchange.

Wow, what a shocker.