Obamacare

While it is true that Obamacare offers benefits to certain Americans, such as low income families and some of those currently without health care insurance, the Act does more damage than good. For example, 25 million uninsured Americans will not suddenly be able to gain health insurance within the next year; this figure was set as a goal by the government for the span of the upcoming decade (The Washington Post). That being said, more Americans insured under the same health insurance company will only result in more problems - not only for those presently insured, but also for the doctors and hospitals across the nation. Obamacare does not lower the cost of health insurance for everyone. In fact, the "Affordable Care Act" does quite the opposite for those currently insured and for the younger generation, such as us 10 years from now, based on your source (Obamacare Facts Separated from Spin by Wendell Potter). One reason why our health care costs will gradually rise is due to the now legal necessity for insurance companies to cater to the greater demands of our Seniors, who now may not be legally dropped by the health insurance provider for over-pulling the pool of available health care funds. As the government forces insurance companies to grant health insurance to Seniors and those with pre-existing medical conditions, the insured and healthy Americans must absorb these costs by paying an increasingly high premium to their insurance companies. The main group of insured Americans who will see lower health insurance costs is Seniors, yet there is still an asterisk on this group for two reasons. One-quarter of our Seniors rely on Medicare Advantage, as of today. However, Obamacare makes major cuts to this private section of Medicare, so much so that half of these Seniors will not be able to keep this same coverage. Also, Seniors will be seeing more and more problems arising from their medications and health care. The Democratic solution to a faulty health care system was new taxes, such as $27 billion on drug companies and another $20 billion on medical device makers. This translates to higher future costs for medications and a greater difficulty in gaining access to quality health care for Seniors, supposedly benefiting from a reduced rate of health insurance. With a larger number of insured Americans comes more difficulties for doctors and hospitals. Obamacare's overhauled Medicaid program has added 18 million people since the ACA was passed. The average reimbursement to our doctors: 56% of the market rate for medical procedures. When private health insurance companies were left alone, doctors saw an average rate of around 70-72% of the market rate, which was large enough for doctors and hospitals to operate off of for decades. Now the government is only offering 56%, a figure that pushes private health care providers to consider banning patients with public health insurance. This increased regulation and decreased reimbursement is crippling our health care providers, who are already weak and dangerously low in numbers. Our country cannot afford to have 66% of doctors reject patients covered under brand new public health insurance. Lazo, Luz. "Left Behind: stories from Obamacare's 31 million uninsured." Washington Post. 8 September 2013. Politics. Web. "The Impact of Obamacare." Heritage Foundation-Leadership for America. 2013. Web. 16 October 2013.