News headlines usually make problems seem worse than they are. News outlets gain eyeballs believing “if it bleeds, it leads.” However, the warning that “20 million face health insurance sticker shock” is fact, not hyperbole. If anything, it understates the real issue: that the ACA cannot work, that it is making healthcare worse not better, and should be repealed.
Democrats seek to justify their ransom demands to stop the shutdown, by claiming that Americans must be protected from 30 percent increases in the cost of ACA health insurance premiums by extending ACA subsidies. These subsidies were set to expire by the Democrats.
Who has to pay the estimated $350 billion for extension of ACA subsidies? American taxpayers, more accurately future taxpayers as we don’t have the money and thus, the spending will have to be added to the bloated national debt of $37 trillion.
What do premium payers get for this huge increase in ACA spending? More timely care? More choices of physicians or facilities? New, innovative medical miracles or better drugs? None of the above.
What We the Patients have gotten from Obamacare is longer maximum wait times to see a doctor, such as 132 days’ wait in a 2022 study. Even a one-month delay in cancer diagnosis significantly increases mortality. Imagine what a four-month wait will do.
No imagination is necessary. There is data. Death-by-queue – Americans dying while waiting in line (a queue) for care – has been documented in two government insurance programs: Medicaid and the VA system. When we spend more money on government insurance, we get the opposite of what we want. We get death instead of health and life.
Obamacare – the ACA –is fundamentally flawed in design. The rise in premium rates without a corresponding increase in value received proves that there are no free market forces at work. In any functioning market, spending more gets more of what the consumer considers value. That is true only when individuals are spending their own money.
When people expend OPM (other people’s money) as is true in all government-run, i.e., socialist, healthcare schemes such as the ACA, spending will go up while quality of service and products goes down. This is known as the seesaw effect, and is a constant feature of all centrally controlled marketplaces, like the ACA, and the now-defunct U.S.S.R.
The free preventative care plan in the ACA is another example. Taxpayers paid billions to insurance companies for this benefit, which was touted to save money by making or keeping people healthy. First, the service was rarely used but always paid for. Second, millions of phantom enrollees fraudulently expended billions of taxpayer dollars.
Recall the promises made for the ACA. They were never realized. “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” was not consistent with health plans’ narrow provider panels. You got whatever doctor signed up with that plan and had openings. Many did not. In fact, nearly one third of U.S. doctors refuse to accept new Medicaid patients. So what good is having insurance?
“The average family will save $2500” seems like a cruel joke when Americans are facing a 30 percent increase in already unaffordable insurance premiums.
Finally, consider the reason for these subsidies. When former President Biden locked down the nation, tens of millions lost their jobs and therefore lost employer-supported health insurance. To compensate for the misguided lockdown, the Biden administration expanded Medicaid eligibility and provided “enhanced” subsidies for ACA insurance. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at least 60 percent of those locked out of work have returned and are again eligible for employer-supported health insurance. Yet millions of healthy workers remain in Medicaid or continue to receive ACA subsidies.
Clearly the subsidies are being abused and are a waste of taxpayer dollars. Nonetheless, Democrats have shut down the government saying extending the subsidies is a hill they’re willing to die on.
The only people who are dying are We the People.
The solution, politically frightening to Republicans and anathema to Democrats, is not merely to allow the subsidies to sunset but to repeal the ACA entirely. President Obama’s namesake legislation was flawed in concept, implemented expending $1.76 trillion we didn’t have, and is now demanding more money we don’t have, spending that will produce no benefit to We the Patients.
It is time to face facts. Repeal the ACA before more Americans die-by-queue and more trillions of dollars are added to the debt our children will have to pay.
Deane Waldman, MD, MBA, is professor emeritus of pediatrics, pathology, and decision science; former director of the Center for Healthcare Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation; and former director of the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange. His latest book, Empower PATIENTS – Two Doctors’ Cure for Healthcare will be released by Thanksgiving. Follow him on X @DrDeaneW or visit deanewaldman.com.
