Affordable Care Act Makes Care Less Affordable

It appears that the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, has been implemented and is being used by many Americans even while plagued by problems. The biggest problem is that it makes healthcare less affordable instead of more affordable.

President Obama made a lot of promises to get this bill passed in the House and Senate. America was told that Obamacare is not a tax, Americans with insurance can keep it and Obamacare will lower the deficit. These promises were all broken, but the broken promise that hurts the most is that healthcare would be affordable.

Healthcare suddenly a lot less affordable

By some estimates the cost of healthcare in America is jumping up an average of 41%. According to the Ohio Department of Insurance healthcare costs will be driven up 88% by Obamacare.

For some Americans the insurance premiums will triple or even quadruple. In short, the alarmist predictions coming from Washington over the last six years have proven to be true.

But increased premiums don't matter because of federal subsidies, right?

Supporters of Obamacare argue that the increased cost of healthcare does not matter because the federal government will provide subsidies to make the plans affordable. Those subsidies have not helped the millions of Americans who have already lost their healthcare insurance because they can no longer afford it. Federal subsidies have not helped the millions of Americans who are already paying higher premiums.

Even if federal subsidies are provided to help then they still will not help. The problem with helping hard-working Americans with federal subsidies is that the subsidies come from hard-working Americans in the form of increased tax burdens or from deficit spending that equates to an ever-increasing national debt that is already at fifteen trillion.

The interest payments for that fifteen-trillion-dollar debt also comes from the pockets of hard-working Americans. In effect, the damage caused by Obamacare is compounded again and again.

"If you like your insurance, you can keep it."

President Obama promised Americans that if they liked their insurance that it would be possible to keep it. While that is true for some, many cannot and have already had that insurance canceled. Those that have been able to keep their current insurance have seen the cost rise. For some that rising cost has made the insurance cost-prohibitive; they simply cannot afford to keep their current insurance.

Now that these Americans have been forced out of their insurance, they have no recourse but to sign up for new insurance through the Affordable Care Act, but there is no guarantee that the new insurance policy will actually be affordable. Many American families that had affordable healthcare can no longer afford it because of Obamacare.

On August 11th, 2009 President Obama had this to say:

If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.

"Absolutely not a tax increase"

President Obama promised America that his new healthcare law was not a tax. During all of the campaigning, town hall meetings and interviews, Obama sold this bill as "not a tax" and the American people believed him.

After the bill was passed and signed into law it was presented to the Supreme Court who determined that it was only legal if it were a tax. This isn't how the bill was sold to the American people and it is not what our Representatives and Senators voted for, but now the American people are stuck with more taxes that mean smaller paychecks and more entitlements that mean more national debt.

What is the Affordable Care Act and how does it work?

The Affordable Care Act is still a black box that nobody understands completely; only the ill effects can be seen. Nancy Pelosi made it clear that understanding the bill was unnecessary, but passing it was.

We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it . . .

Nobody can possibly understand Obamacare--not even President Obama. It is impossible. The Affordable Care Act Law is 381,517 words long and the regulations are a whopping 11,588,500 words!

Increased cost of healthcare not a surprise

President Obama knew perfectly well that the cost of health insurance would rise because of Obamacare. He was told by both Republicans and many Democrats. This catastrophic result was known of well in advance of the passing of the bill into law and long before it took effect on October 1st, 2013.

President Obama knew perfectly well that millions of American families would lose their healthcare coverage as a result of this obnoxious, unconstitutional law. That the law does not work and now needs to be repealed is no surprise either.

Playing God and experimenting with a nation

President Obama had this to say in response to attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act:

If it was as bad as they said it was gonna be then they could just go ahead and let it happen and everybody would hate it so much and then everybody'd vote to repeal it and that would be the end of it. So what is it that they're so scared about?

His proposal that America allow the law to take effect because bad laws can be repealed is terrible advice, but the American people are ready to listen. It does not work and we are ready to repeal it. This is what everybody was so scared about.

There are too many exemplars of successful healthcare implementations for Obamacare to be tolerated. The repeal of Obamacare will most likely involve replacing it with a healthcare system that has worked in other countries.

Ulysses S. Grant leaves us with the best quote for the long road ahead.

I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.