Good News For American Families

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about changes made to the current federal regulations regarding healthcare insurance.

The article reports:

Last Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced a finalized rule granting consumers greater access to affordable health insurance policies. Under the new rule, people will be allowed to purchase short-term, limited-duration health insurance plans for periods as long as 12 months. Currently, the maximum period allowed is only three months. Plans can be renewed after the 12-month period, but they cannot extend beyond 36 months.

Short-term health insurance plans are significantly cheaper than most Obamacare plans because they don’t include many of the costly essential health benefits mandated under federal law and because they are sold for a limited duration. These plans do not provide comprehensive coverage, but they are an excellent option for people who are relatively healthy but can’t afford to pay for an outrageously priced Obamacare plan.

This means that a family whose insured member is changing jobs or between jobs can get coverage at a reasonable price. The plans cannot extend for more than three years, but hopefully Congress will find its backbone and totally repeal ObamaCare by then.

The article further states that although premiums under ObamaCare have risen drastically, that is not the entire problem:

Premiums are not the most important cost to consider, however, because some people who purchase health plans through an Obamacare exchange receive large subsidies to help offset their plan’s high premiums. A much more important factor is the high cost of deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs. The average family enrolled in a Silver Plan will pay a maximum of $13,725 for out-of-pocket expenses, with Silver Plan deductibles increasing by 13 percent in just the past year alone.

Working families can’t afford to pay more than $13,000 to cover out-of-pocket expenses. In fact, health insurance this expensive is virtually useless.

The high costs associated with an Obamacare plan are a big reason why the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services predicts about 600,000 Americans will sign up for a new short-term health insurance plan next year. By 2022, CMS expects 1.6 million to be enrolled in a short-term plan.

The article concludes:

The healthcare system is failing, and has been for decades. Despite the promises made by former President Barack Obama and the congressional Democrats who passed Obamacare into law, the legislation has only made things worse. Congress needs to pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. But since that has yet to occur, the Trump administration is doing everything it can to help young people and working families gain affordable coverage. It’s great to finally have a presidential administration that’s truly committed to reducing health insurance costs rather than appeasing far-left activists in the Democratic Party.

True.

Another ObamaCare Promise Broken

The Daily Caller reported today that the limits on the out-of-pocket costs to consumers under ObamaCare will be delayed until 2015.  If this is such a great program, how come major parts of it keep getting delayed?

The article reports:

The limit on out-of-pocket expenses was not to have exceeded $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a family, however, the New York Times reports, federal officials placed a one-year delay on these caps providing insurers the ability to set their own limits in 2014.

The delay was noted on the Department of Labor’s website since February, however, as the Times notes, it went unnoticed until now.

…“We’ll place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because no one in America should go broke because they get sick,” Obama said in an August 2009 weekly address; a sentiment Obama repeated that September before a joint session of Congress, the Times reported.

The problem with putting caps on a person’s medical expenses is that someone has to pay those expenses. I don’t like the idea of people going bankrupt because of medical expenses, but I am not sure that is the federal government’s responsibility. I also wonder who will actually paying these expenses.

It seems as if there are a lot of unresolved problems and questions regarding ObamaCare. I am really uncomfortable with ObamaCare going forward when it seems to consist of delays, exceptions for the people who passed it and their staffs, and broken promises.

 

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