Right On: Obamacare mandates: Goodbye and good riddance

January 3, 2018 Utah Channel 3

OPINION — Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer says that ending Obamacare mandates will kick 13 million people off government health care.

So how many people will be kicked off? Exactly zero. That’s right, not one.

Obamacare’s bronze, silver, gold and platinum insurance policies all will be available for their previously announced premiums for those who want them. Ditto for Medicaid: No one loses eligibility.

Republicans ended the least popular aspect of Obamacare by getting rid of the penalty for those who choose not to buy health insurance.

All this may come as a shock to readers who get their news from the mainstream media or to policy wonks who follow Congressional Budget Office projections.

The CBO inexplicably projected that 5 million of the 13 million who supposedly will be kicked off are current Medicaid recipients. The Republican law says not one word about Medicaid. And since Medicaid is free to the recipient, why would anyone leave the program?

Democrats enacted the Obamacare mandate as a penalty to force younger, healthy people to buy health insurance with premiums set high enough to cover older people under age 65 and the chronically ill. Needless to say, these inflated premiums were a shock to the young and healthy.

For example, in 2016 the average Obamacare annual premium was $5,712 while in 2014 median health care spending was $702 per year. More than 6 million households decided that paying the penalty was a far better value.

Sen. Tim Scott said, “Eighty percent of the folks who are paying this tax are folks who live in a household under $50,000. If we’re talking about doing the right thing for the middle class, we’re talking about doing the right thing for hard-working Americans, here’s a good place to start cutting their taxes.”

Ironically, while running against Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries, Obama said that using an individual mandate to solve the problem of the uninsured would be like trying to cure homelessness by ordering people to buy a home.

But then again he’s the one who said if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.

Millions haven’t signed up for Obamacare in large part because both premiums and deductibles have risen year after year. Doctor networks are growing more restrictive as doctors refuse to accept low reimbursement rates.

Obamacare is becoming government-funded insurance for older people under age 65 and the infirm. As younger people opt out, premiums grow ever higher. That in turn encourages even more young people to drop out.

With mandates gone, Obamacare’s other flaws cry out for repeal and replace.

Obamacare enthusiasts proudly point to 23 million previously uninsured folks who gained coverage under the law. In 2018 about 8.8 million of them will buy health insurance on government-run insurance exchanges.

The other 14 million are now enrolled in Medicaid, government-paid medical coverage for the poor. Of these, about 10 million were newly eligible under the act while the other 4 million were eligible previously but enrolled as a result of Obamacare publicity.

So has expanded Medicaid made them healthier?

As reported in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, the so-called Oregon Experiment showed Medicaid “generated no significant improvements in measured physical health outcomes.” Its only accomplishments worth mention were increased diabetes detection and lower rates of depression.

Unsurprisingly, Medicaid did “increase the use of health care services … and reduce financial strain.” Free stuff usually does.

Like Medicaid, Obamacare insurance is required to include a variety of wellness and preventative care services, adding significantly to its cost. While prevention sounds like a good idea, as Oregon demonstrated it hasn’t improved overall health outcomes.

Oregon provided a second Obamacare data point: widespread abuse. Last year the state found that half the people receiving free Medicaid health care no longer qualified. Taking license by extrapolating that finding to the country at large, 7 million of Obamacare’s new Medicaid enrollees might no longer qualify.

Maybe that’s what Schumer meant when he said millions would be kicked off health care.

In a widely cited article, the Wall Street Journal reported that about 25 percent of Medicaid enrollees are prescribed opioids, a far higher rate than in the population at large. A significant amount is resold on the black market yielding a nice, off-the-books profit for Medicaid enrollees and feeding the nation’s opioid epidemic.

Enacting Obamacare, Democrats promised to bend the health care spending curve. They’ve kept that promise by bending it upward. Adjusted for inflation, national health care spending per capita rose 1.7 percent per year from 2003-10. From 2010-16, per capita costs rose 1.9 percent per year.

With Obamacare failing by most objective measures, let’s hope ending the mandate is Republican’s first step toward repeal and replace. If they fail and Democrats retake congressional majorities and the White House, we can expect single payer, government run health care.

History shows that Democrats’ knee-jerk answer to any failing program is always to increase government control and funding. When will they learn?

Howard Sierer is an opinion columnist for St. George News. The opinions stated in this article are his own and may not be representative of St. George News.

Email: hsierer@stgeorgeutah.com

Twitter: @STGnews