2018 Premium Increases Could be Final Death Knell for Obamacare

Health Wellness

Republicans have been promising to repeal Obamacare for over 7 years. While Obama was still squatting in the White House, House Republicans passed several bills that would have repealed Obamacare, but none of them ever made it through the Senate, let alone to Obama’s desk where it would certainly have been vetoed.

In the interim, one would have expected congressional Republicans to have been working on writing their own replacement for Obamacare, but they procrastinated until it was too late. Then they were rushed to throw something together and what they threw together looked like a rush job.

No one was more upset and frustrated with the failure of the Senate Republicans than President Donald Trump. One of his key campaign promises was to repeal and replace Obamacare and the Senate could do neither.

In one of his moments of frustration, Trump said that maybe Congress should do nothing and let Obamacare fail or collapse on itself. I also said that perhaps this would be the best thing to do, since Democrats were still so vehemently defending Obamacare.

Trump’s prediction may be on the verge of becoming reality with a recent announcement that a number of states are asking for double-digit rate hikes for 2018:

“State officials sounded the alarm Wednesday on Capitol Hill about skyrocketing ObamaCare premiums as insurers across the country propose double-digit rate hikes – renewing pressure on Congress to act.”

“Insurance commissioners and officials from Alaska, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Washington state all testified before a Senate committee on the 2018 premium hikes, which are being finalized over the next few weeks.”

“In Alaska, premiums have increased 203 percent since 2013, according to Lori Wing-Heier, the state’s director of the Division of Insurance.”

When Trump suggested that Congress do nothing and allow Obamacare to fail on its own, it outraged many people, especially Democrats who continued to claim that Obamacare was working.

The critics of Trump’s statement about Obamacare collapsing on itself fail to acknowledge that not nearly as many people signed up for Obamacare as was predicted by the CBO, the same group that predicted how many million would lose their coverage if the Senate version had passed. Even then, the majority of the people that signed up under Obamacare either used a federal subsidy (taxpayer money) to pay for their premiums or they signed up under the Medicaid expansion. They also failed to acknowledge that too few young healthy adults had signed up to offset the cost of the older and sicker people who did, forcing many insurance companies to cancel or stop offering Obamacare policies. They have also ignored the fact that since Obamacare took effect in 2014, many people have had to drop their policies because of annual double-digit premium increases.

To support these statements, consider the following:

May 25, 2015 – Healthcare Insurance Companies Asking to Raise Rates Up to 50% and More

June 10, 2015 – Hawaii’s Healthcare Exchange Bites the Dust

June 17, 2015 – Obamacare Hurting Hospitals Even In States with Expanded Medicaid

June 25, 2015 – Oregon Tells Insurance Companies to Raise Healthcare Premiums Higher than Requested

July 3, 2015 – Obamacare Starts Punishing Businesses Who Help Employees with Healthcare

August 8, 2015 – 367,000 Texans Losing Health Insurance Due to Obamacare

August 31, 2015 – New Obamacare Tax Starting Tomorrow to Cost Policy Holders Hundreds of Dollars

September 1, 2015 – Obamacare Forcing End of Health Savings Accounts

September 7, 2015 – 15 Million Seniors Facing 52% Increase in Medicare Premiums for 2016

September 28, 2015 – Employer Provided Family Health Insurance Increased 27% Since 2010

October 5, 2015 – 100,000 New Yorkers Lose Healthcare & Taxpayers on Hook for Nearly $2.5 Billion