Fix Health Care Policy

On January 21, 2009, Barack Obama stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and, in his inaugural address, pledged to America that he would “wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” What he did wield, of course, was a 2,000-page bill known as Obamacare. More than a year on, we now know that health care costs are soaring, and the President’s signature legislation is to blame.

Most Americans know that medicine is getting more expensive, but a new survey puts a shocking sticker price on the rapid increase. The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust report that between 2010 and 2011, family premiums increased by 9 percent and for individual premiums by 8 percent. According to the survey, “The average premium for single coverage in 2011 is $452 per month or $5,429 per year … The average premium for family coverage is $1,256 per month or $15,073 per year.”

What’s driving those costs? In large part, Obamacare. According to Kaiser Family Foundation CEO Drew Altman, the President’s health care legislation was responsible for approximately 20 percent of the increase in premiums. Heritage’s Kathryn Nix explains what parts of Obamacare are to blame:

(Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: family coverage, health care costs, individual coverage, ObamaCare, premiums, sticker shock

Two unions are on strike against Verizon Communications in protest of proposed company policies that the unions themselves helped bring about. The new Obamacare law, which both unions supported, dramatically hikes the cost of Verizon’s employee health care plan. Efforts to pass some of that cost on to employees have sparked outrage.

Verizon’s health care plan is what President Obama commonly referred to as a “Cadillac plan” – expensive and luxurious – during his push to get health care legislation through Congress. The new law will levy a 40 percent tax on all health care plans with individual coverage worth more than $10,200 and family coverage worth more than $24,000. (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: Cadillac Plans, individual coverage, ObamaCare, repeal the law, unions, Verizon Communications

The effects of Obamacare are getting weirder with each passing month. Now, new requirements created by the law are causing some insurers to consider no longer offering “child-only” policies to avoid having to raise rates.

Most children are covered by parents’ employer-provided insurance or by government programs. But some parents buy individual health insurance coverage just for their kids. Starting next year, Obamacare prohibits insurers and employer plans imposing any pre-existing condition exclusions on children and requires them to accept all applications for children who qualify for coverage under their plans (so-called “guaranteed issue”). Those provisions could have serious and unintended consequences for children, as well as others. (more…)

Tags: children, employer-provided insurance, individual coverage, ObamaCare, pre-existing conditions, Side Effects