Friday, August 23, 2013

NPR: Obamacare Will Force Millions to Change Health Insurance Coverage or Give It Up

NPR reports that Obamacare will force millions of people to change their health care insurance contrary to President Obama's promise that "if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan".

NPR focuses on the need for millions of Americans to upgrade their current health insurance coverage and pay considerably more per month. But the end of NPR's report hints that millions of people who cannot afford significantly higher health care costs may be forced to completely drop insurance coverage and pay the minimal penalty instead.

In California (which has about 12% of the nation's population), 2 million people buy their own insurance. Of those, 1.3 million will not meet the standards to get a tax subsidy and will have to choose whether to pay lots more per month for health care or give up health care insurance entirely and pay a small fine.

Add the millions of people buying their own insurance in the rest of the nation to California's 1.3 million, and you have the specter of millions of Americans actually losing health care coverage under Obamacare.

H/T Byron York

3 comments:

MAX Redline said...

If you're young and relatively healthy (or even old and relatively healthy), why on earth would you buy health insurance when you can just pay the added tax?

Oh, right...you get a credit for buying insurance. But you don't get the credit if you buy it on your own; to qualify for a credit, you must purchase coverage through a qualified Obamacare Exchange.

Whee.

T. D. said...

Max, you've been warning about this from the get-go. I thought it was amusing that NPR is finally figuring it out. I didn't know about the credit/qualified exchange part.

Thanks for your good posts and information on this.

MAX Redline said...

With so many changes and exemptions coming fast and furious, TD, it's difficult to stay atop this thing. Obumbler seems to change it around at will. First, Congress and their staffers were going to be subject to Obamacare, but Obumbler has since decreed that taxpayers will pick up 75% of health coverage costs for both...and my insurer has promised to make it easy to stay with them, but then I did some digging and found that the income tax credit will be available to those who purchase through a qualified exchange; meaning that if I want to stay with my insurer and claim the credit, I have to drop my current plan with them and purchase a similar plan with them through "Cover Oregon" - our qualified exchange.

Every week there's another hoop that emerges. It's enough to tick off the Good Humor man (and I've never been confused with him).