The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, was signed into law on March 23, 2010 by President Barack Obama. The intent of this legislation was to provide all American citizens with healthcare and to improve the overall quality of the healthcare system in the United States. Unfortunately, the cost to implement and maintain ObamaCare will prove to be too costly for the American people. The main funding for this legislation will come from increased taxes on higher earning individuals and businesses, fees levied on various healthcare businesses, and penalties for those who choose not to purchase health insurance .
Our fragile economy will not be able to withstand the implementation of legislation that will be funded at the expense of those who cannot afford to purchase insurance or the very businesses that provide healthcare. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found in their studies that one of the largest disadvantages of the ObamaCare legislation was the very reason it was enacted. New patients will flood doctor offices and hospitals and receive preventative care and testing that they had never received before.
There will be an increase in wait times for physicians and hospitals and quality will decline because of the sense of urgency to see all patients. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects an overall shortage of around 100,000 patient care physicians and around 50,000 primary care physicians by 2020. There will not be a sufficient supply of physicians to serve the new patients as demand for healthcare rises faster than the supply of healthcare professionals.
The large increase in new patients along with patients that were previously denied coverage due to preexisting conditions will directly lead to higher net medical spending, which will increase insurance premiums for everyone. Insurance companies are for-profit. If they are paying out more money for services rendered, you can guarantee insurance premiums will rise so they can continue to turn a large profit. ObamaCare tries to address the increase in premiums by enacting an 80/20 rule that demands 80% of all premiums paid must be spent on healthcare or “improvements to care”.
If more than 20% of premium dollars are spent on administration or kept for profit, the insurance company must provide a rebate to their customers. The issue is with the vague “improvements to care” category. Healthcare insurers are currently fighting with the government about what constitutes “improvements to care. ” The more they can get crammed in that category, the less they have to take out of the 20% allowed for administration and profits. As I mentioned before, one of the main funding sources for the ObamaCare legislation is in the form of fees levied on various healthcare businesses.
These businesses are the pharmaceutical manufacturers of name-brand drugs, manufacturers of medical equipment, and health insurance companies that offer “Cadillac” plans, which are higher premium plans with better coverage. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report that this legislation will impose billions of dollars in annual fees and taxes for these businesses, which will, in turn, be passed on to consumers in the form of higher drug costs, insurance premiums, and unaffordable medical devices. If the businesses in question cannot successfully pass on the increases to the consumers, they will go out of business.
Either way, the American people lose. They will pay higher costs for the services they are used to receiving from these businesses and there is the possibility that they will have a reduced number of businesses that provide those services to choose from. The ObamaCare legislation does not guarantee affordable healthcare – it only guarantees access to basic health insurance . Another negative aspect to the ObamaCare legislation is the penalty tax assessed on those individuals and businesses that do not purchase health insurance.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that around four million individuals will pay the tax rather than purchase insurance. They also estimate that between three to five million individuals will lose their company-sponsored healthcare because it will be more cost-effective to pay the penalty than to purchase health insurance for their employees. There is the potential for up to nine million people to be uninsured if they choose not to purchase coverage, either for individual reasons or because their employer dropped coverage.
Granted, that is a reduction in the 32 million that do not have access to healthcare before the legislation is enacted, but they are not currently penalized for not carrying insurance. The penalty could make an already dire financial situation worse. The “cons” of the ObamaCare legislation outweigh the “pros” in our current economic situation. This legislation is not financially viable and will be detrimental to individuals and businesses through the taxes and penalties it places on those that are not in compliance.
Health insurance premiums will skyrocket, pharmaceutical drug prices will increase, medical device prices will increase, and to add insult to injury, if an individual chooses not to purchase health insurance at the newly increased premiums, they will be financially penalized. Some Americans will only be able to pay the premiums of the health insurance; most will not be able to afford the drugs prescribed or the medical devices recommended by their physicians due to the increased taxes and fees on these industries. Yes, it will provide access to insurance to those that previously did not meet the insurance companies’ qualifications.
Yes, it will demand that healthcare insurance companies improve the quality of the services they provide. But these things come at a price, and ObamaCare has no way to limit how high that price will go.
Works Cited Amadeo, Kimberly.What is Obamacare? 9 September 2013. 17 September 2013. . Kliff, Sarah. The Washington Post. 18 July 2013. Blog. 17 September 2013. . ObamaCare: Pros and Cons of ObamaCare. n. d. 17 September 2013. . ProCon. org. Are the March 2010 federal health care reform laws good for America? 1 September 2010. 17 September 2013. . Wikipedia. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. n. d. 17 September 2013. .