It's hard to believe, but it's been 6 years since Obama Care was introduced. There were many predictions of problems six years ago. And nearly all of them have come true: rising premiums, fewer choices, higher deductibles, policy cancellations, withdrawal of insurance carriers....on and on.
In 2016 there has been an exodus of many giant insurance companies, like Aetna, Humana, United Healthcare and, in some areas, Blue Cross and Blue Shield. The companies were losing billions of dollars and simply could not afford to stay in partnership with Obamacare.
In 2017, 36 percent of the exchange market rating regions will have only 1 participating insurance carrier. In some counties, there is no plan available.
The problem for the insurance companies was easily predicted. It's called adverse selection. There is no medical underwriting. Chronically and severely sick individuals pay the same price as healthy individuals. Severely ill and previously uninsurable persons buy Obamacare in droves, while healthy individuals avoid it whenever possible. Thus, Obamacare selects poor risks for the insurance companies, costing them billions. It's like inviting only homeowners whose houses will burn this year to buy insurance. Those whose houses will not burn don't need the insurance and avoid it. That's adverse selection and it's killing Obamacare.
Insurance companies have been forced to make drastic increases in premiums for individual policies in 2017, as they did in 2016. The average monthly premium in 2016 increased by $408 per month or $4,896 for the year. That's just the increase. There will be much larger premium increases for 2017.
A good example is Tennessee, where the state insurance commission has approved huge premium increases for the 3 participating insurers in 2017:
Blue Cross and Blue Shield will increase rates by 62 percent. That's in addition to the 36 percent increase in 2016--a whopping 98 percent increase in the last 2 years.
Cigna will increase rates 43.6 percent for 2017.
Humana will increase premiums by 44.3 percent in 2017.
Huge premium increases only tell part of the story. Insurance carriers are also attempting to cut losses by shifting much larger burdens onto their policyholders in the form of annual deductibles (the amount the policyholder must pay each year before the insurance company has to pay any benefit). The average Obamacare deductible for a silver plan in 2016 is more than $3,000. The average annual deductible for a bronze plan in 2016 is almost $6,000.
So, the cost of Obamacare is spiriling out of control. The total cost of the ill fated program for the period 2016 - 2025 is expected to be about $1.205 trillion. That is, by the way, more money than has ever existed on planet Earth. All the combined economies in the world have never printed that much money!
There are fewer and fewer choices in healthcare. We were told (remember?) that if we already had a great insurance plan that we liked, we could keep it. Turned out that was not true. The government called good health insurance plans "Cadillac plans" and taxed them out of existence. Why did they do that?
Because Obamacare needs universal participation. They need for younger, healthy Americans to pay into Obamacare without using its benefits. This helps pay the tremendous cost of the program. If Americans continue to have an option to keep good health insurance at a reasonable price, they would avoid Obamacare like the plague. Therefore, the administration had to force people out of their old plans and into Obamacare. Critics of Obamacare predicted that and were called liars. After it happened, we heard little about it.
What lies ahead for Obamacare? You don't need to be a prophet to make some surefire predictions: skyrocketing premiums each year, fewer insurance carriers, fewer choices in plans, higher and higher annual deductibles--and the collapse of Obamacare will be avoided only with massive federal spending and federal debt, which will hurt the entire national economy.
New Prediction for 2017. We have been almost 100 percent in our past predictions about Obama Care. Just go back and read our older posts. So, here is a prediction for 2017.....
Hillary Clinton will win the White House in a landslide. Remember that nationalized (socialized) healthcare was originally her brainchild when her husband was president. She will seize the massive failure of Obamacare as an opportunity. Since Obamacare will be financially failing and unpopular, even among Democrats, Hillary will take drastic action to reform it. She will do what she wanted to do in 1995. She will implement a single payer system. This will be easy to do for two reasons: the insurance companies are losing billions of dollars and want out, so they will not object to being rescued from the sinking ship. Second, there will no other choice. There will be so few insurance carriers left that the only way to offer health insurance is through a government sponsored single payer system. Thus, Hillary's goal that could not be achieved back in 1995 will be handed to her on a silver platter in 2017. Mark my words. I write this on 8/25/16, well before the November election. When it happens I will not claim any prophetic prowess because this is so predictable that even a child can see it coming.
Not that Hillary Clinton needs any encouragement, but Bernie Sanders, author of the Second Bolshevik Revolution, is pushing from behind the curtain. Sanders' Socialist give-me-something-for-nothing Revolution has been so popular during the 2016 campaign that Clinton will adopt his policies to galvinize support of his followers to win the White House. Welcome single payer socialized healthcare. Welcome to the Second Bolshevik Revolution.
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