Should the ACA - Affordable Care Act or Obamacare be renamed the LACA - the LESS Affordable Care Act

1) Con must understand the difference between a premise and a demonstration. The premise is that the ACA will make healthcare less affordable. The demonstration is that it will raise my premium 1000%. 2) My healthcare premium did not increase from 1999 to 2013. The healthcare provider has now announced a 48% increase to the 2014 premium and the only expanded coverage is the removal of lifetime limits, and coverage for pre existing conditions. Additionally the provider is projecting a 1000% increase by 2017 over 2013. By any "rational standard" that makes health care LESS affordable, since I am not anticipating a commensurate 1000% increase in my income. 3) Con is "cherry picking" his data. An inspection of the first graph ( Cumulative ...1999 to 2012) clearly shows an increase in slope (or rate of increase) after passage of the ACA. The graph lumps pre and post ACA together. Since ACA was instituted in 2009, here are more accurate figures: http://ilovebenefits.healthcarebenefitsnetwork.com... Health plan cost trends 2005 " 2012 According to a new survey Aon Hewitt survey on health plan cost trends, overall national plan costs will increase to $10,475 in 2012: Overall Plan Cost Trends: National 2012: $10,475 2011: $9,792 2010: $9,111 2009: $8,527 2008: $8,044 2007: $7,586 2006: $7,206 2005: $6,677 increase 4 years 2005 to 2008 = 20.5% (prior to ACA) increase 4 years 2009 to 2012 = 30.2% (after ACA) The graph labeled exhibit 1 is also flawed, by including 2007-2009 data with post ACA costs. In other words the evidence of ACA caused increases are diluted by inclusion of pre ACA figures. If you look at Con's first graph you can see the years 2007 to 2009 were periods of lower rate of change which make the ACA look better than reality allows. http://www.forbes.com... How Obamacare Raises Healthcare Costs From Forbes 3.18.13 "Obamacare was hailed as not only a great piece of legislation but as a key tool to decrease the ever-rising cost of healthcare in the U.S. Unfortunately, the act almost certainly will have the opposite effect. Obamacare will increase healthcare costs significantly and will exacerbate many of the key cost drivers of healthcare. Obamacare (is) a tax on the people who heretofore paid for their own insurance. At no point in time is the insurance linked to outcomes, different ways to provide healthcare or any of the difficult policy issues we have discussed before: palliative care, entitlements of all the best care available, the lack of patient responsibility in their own health, etc. Additionally, the new system is going to have much more volume than expected. Why? A new citizenship group may appear at any time due to changes in immigration policy. Also, many workers are being put through the exchanges because their employers figure it is easier to pay the fine than to pay the bloated health insurance costs. This is problematic. There will not be enough doctors to accept these new patients. The cost of being a doctor is going up, not down. The insurance does little to compensate for this fact. Also, the cost required to subsidize the research needed to cure the illnesses we have is shrinking as the Medicare reimbursements get cut. Finally, the new insurance does not have enough margin for insurers or hospitals to help them cost shift in order to cover deficits in teaching or other needs to create new doctors and cures. Speaking of taxes, there is a new medical device tax, a flex account tax, a surtax on investment income, a "haircut" for medical itemized deductions, a payroll tax hike, and a few other sundry items. All told, these new Obamacare tax hikes started January 1, 2013 and should run about a net $1 trillion increase over the next decade. It is not at all clear that these taxes will cut spending on healthcare or even slow the growth. After all this effort about Obamacare, health costs are going to go up " more people being covered for more things with the hope that people currently with health insurance will help pay for the new people in health insurance. We can debate whether this is fair or not for a long time. The fact that it does very little to solve our exploding healthcare cost problem is not up for debate. It won"t." or Forbes 3.22.12 http://www.forbes.com... How Obamacare Dramatically Increases The Cost of Insurance for Young Workers "In 2009, during the height of the debate over Obamacare, the law"s architect, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, was all over the op-ed pages, talking about how the bill would reduce the cost of health insurance. "What we know for sure," he told Ezra Klein, "is that [the bill] will lower the cost of buying non-group health insurance." His words were trumpeted by the law"s advocates, and were critical to persuading skittish Democrats to vote for the bill. But it turns out that "for sure" doesn"t mean what you thought it did. Because, now, Gruber is quietly telling state governments that the law will significantly increase the cost of insurance. And it will especially do so for young Americans: the ones who most struggle to find affordable health coverage. Gruber now: Obamacare will increase premiums by 19-30 percent As states began the process of considering whether or not to set up the insurance exchanges mandated by the new health law, several retained Gruber as a consultant. In at least three cases"Wisconsin in August 2011, Minnesota in November 2011, and Colorado in January 2012"Gruber reported that premiums in the individual market would increase, not decrease, as a result of Obamacare. In Wisconsin, Gruber reported that people purchasing insurance for themselves on the individual market would see, on average, premium increases of 30 percent by 2016, relative to what would have happened in the absence of Obamacare. In Minnesota, the law would increase premiums by 29 percent over the same period. Colorado was the least worst off, with premiums under the law rising by only 19 percent. Some low-income individuals would benefit from Obamacare"s subsidies; for those individuals, the impact of these premium increases would be blunted. But if premium costs go up at a rate faster than people expect, taxpayers will be on the hook for billions upon billions of extra subsidies." Citing Kaiser at http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org... "Costs Of Employer Insurance Plans Surge in 2011 By Julie Appleby KHN Staff Writer SEP 27, 2011 Employers' spending on health coverage for workers spiked abruptly this year, with the average cost of a family plan rising by 9 percent, triple the growth seen in 2010. Family plan premiums hit $15,073 on average, while coverage for single employees grew 8 percent to $5,429, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust. (KHN is an editorially-independent program of the foundation.) Workers paid an average of $921 toward the premium of single coverage and $4,129 for family plans. The results mark a sharp departure from 2010, when the same survey found average family premiums up only 3 percent." I cannot "fire my provider" in the real world. The only way I could switch is if they stopped "providing". So there we have it. LESS AFFORDABLE SIMPLY MEANS COST INCREASES MORE THAN CPI, OR AT A FASTER RATE THAN BEFORE THE ACT, OR AT LEAST FASTER THAN MY INCOME INCREASES.