The train wreck called Obamacare just keeps getting worse. As 2015 unfolds, many people who enrolled in Obamacare are discovering the subsidies they received for Obamacare were not properly calculated. Now they will owe the federal government a lot of money.
The number of people renewing their Obamacare insurance is dropping. Millions of Americans are not insured now because they either cannot afford Obamcare complaint policies, refuse to obey the law or are unwilling to risk their private data with the Obamacare exchanges. Since the exchanges are not doing criminal background checks on their “navigators” and since Healthcare.gov is sharing personal data, a lot of real Americans don’t trust it.
Obamacare will probably receive a body blow later this year when the King v. Burwell decision is released. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering that case, which revolves around the plain language of the Obamacare statute. The statute says subsides are only available through state exchanges and not through the federal government.
Assuming the Supreme Court decides King v. Burwell the way most people think it will be, and the Republicans do not ride to Obamacare’s rescue, the failed program will be in danger of collapse.
While a complete repeal of Obamacare is unlikely as long as Barack Obama is in the White House, there is a better way to fight Obamacare.
In Michigan, a brilliant idea just became law.
Gov. Rick Snyder just signed a new law that says medical retainer agreements are not insurance.
What does this mean in plain, non-lawyer English?
Under the Michigan law, individuals and doctors may enter into retainer agreements. The customer pays the doctor a monthly retainer and in exchange for that, the customer gets access to a menu of routine services at no additional charge. These agreements, under Michigan law, do not constitute insurance therefore are not subject to all of the laws, rules and regulations that apply to insurance.
This is a great idea. For starters, it gets the insurance companies out of the way.
Insurance has been the greatest disaster for the health care industry in the last 50 years. With health insurance, insurance companies simply dictate the amount they will reimburse for specific procedures. This totally destroyed the free market in health care. Doctors don’t compete on price because they don’t have to.
Health insurance also has driven up the cost of health care. One estimate is that it takes 40 cents of every dollar spent just to manage the demands insurance companies put on doctors to code and file paperwork.
By eliminating insurance for primary care, the free market will kick in. Doctors will not only have lower overhead expenses for their office, they will compete on price.
Innovations, like the Michigan Medical Retainer law are the smart way to fight Obamacare.
Liberals love insurance because insurance destroys the free market. Liberals claim the goal of Obamacare was to provide affordable health care for everyone. By any measure, Obamacare has been a miserable failure.
America tried it the way the far left wanted it and it is no great shock that attempts to centrally plan an economy fail. It has failed here and it has failed everywhere it has been tried. The difference is, in a free market, doctors wait on patients. In a centrally planned economy, like Obamacare or a single payer system, patients wait on doctors. Often they wait weeks or months. Often they die waiting on basic treatment that could save their lives.
Obamacare must be destroyed. Anything less is not an option. But the only way Obamacare will ever be destroyed is if we replace it with free market alternatives, such as the Michigan Medical Retainer law.
The free market will do what Obamacare promised and can never do: Deliver affordable health care for everyone.
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