Obamacare at Four: Still a "Winner"?

March 23, 2014 Topic: Society Region: United States

Obamacare at Four: Still a "Winner"?

Fractures appear as Democrats begin to fear running in defense of the unpopular law in 2014.

Obamacare’s fourth anniversary is upon us. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi assured reporters “it’s a winner” for Democrats, but her testiness suggested otherwise.

“[I]t’s called the Affordable Care Act,” she corrected a reporter. “It’s called the Affordable Care Act.” And why? "Affordable. Affordable," she replied. "There's a reason. Affordable. Affordable. Affordable. Affordable. Affordable."

Except that in some parts of the country, premiums are expected to double. A report by eHealthinsurance found that premiums in the individual and family markets have already increased more, before factoring in taxpayer subsidies, since early 2013 than in the previous eight years combined.

The most common reason cited by people who have yet to purchase insurance under Obamacare, McKinsey & Company found in a marketing survey, is that they can’t afford the premiums. As many as four of five companies surveyed by Mercer LLC may raise deductibles on their employees to offset costs imposed by Obamacare regulations.

Pelosi’s
sparsely attended press conference may be to Obamacare as “Mission Accomplished” was to the Iraq war.="#.uysskflrxbu.twitter">="#.uysskflrxbu.twitter">

Anyone taking bets as to when she becomes speaker again?

The most obvious indication that something has gone wrong is that Republicans are running against Obamacare with the same intensity they were four years ago. In 2010, they retook the House. Despite needing a pickup of six seats, it’s not inconceivable they regain the Senate this November.

Behind closed doors, Democratic elected officials complain about Obamacare. One of its main architects, Sen. Max Baucus, has called its implementation a “train wreck” and declined to run for reelection this year. His Senate seat could fall to the Republicans.

At the beginning of the year, more people had insurance plans cancelled by Obamacare than signed up for private insurance under the exchanges. The administration has been forced to delay numerous provisions of the law and allow people to keep noncompliant insurance policies longer, though some states and insurers haven’t gone along with this administrative reprieve.

Things have improved somewhat since then, but the White House has taken to counting anyone who has selected an insurance plan as “enrolled” in Obamacare regardless of whether they’ve actually paid. They claim not to have any reliable figures about how many people haven’t paid, despite making six announcements about enrollment data.

Press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that major insurers “have placed that figure at 80 percent, give or take, depending on the insurer.” But if 20 percent or more haven’t paid, that means the administration’s enrollment figure of 5 million is off by at least 1 million, maybe more. Goldman Sachs is estimating that the administration will announce coverage for 5.5 million to 6 million people under Obamacare, but that only 4 million will have paid.

Surveys suggest that less than 30 percent of those obtaining private health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges were previously uninsured. McKinsey found that 27 percent had been uninsured, Goldman Sachs 25 percent.

Much, if not most, of the new coverage has come from the Medicaid expansion. Despite campaigns calling antiexpansion Republican governors killers, some research suggests that the substandard care Medicaid beneficiaries receive due to the program’s low physician reimbursement rates isn’t much of an improvement from being uninsured.

The Obama administration has made an increasingly desperate pitch to get healthy, young people to sign up for the insurance exchanges. They are relying on promises of free birth control and celebrity endorsements to close the sale. This approached worked well at turning out young voters in 2008 and 2012, but that was when the alternative was John McCain and Mitt Romney as president, not keeping the money that will need to be spent on premiums.

A certain balance between the young and healthy versus older and sick must be achieved for the exchanges to be viable. But even the latter may have trouble accessing quality care, such as the country’s elite cancer hospitals. “In all, only four of 19 nationally recognized comprehensive cancer centers that responded to AP’s survey said patients have access through all the insurance companies in their state exchange,” the New York Post reported.

Finally, the Congressional Budget Office has projected that Obamacare will cover fewer people at greater cost than originally expected, while creating incentives for workers to abandon the labor force.

So you might not keep your doctor, you might not keep your old health-insurance plan, you might not like or even be able to afford your new one, and you might not keep your job. If you complain about your situation under Obamacare, leading Democrats may call you a liar.

That sounds like a real winner, alright.

W. James Antle III is editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation and author of the new book Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?