Is the Affordable Care Act Actually Affordable?

Obamacare fails to help uninsured Americans; the law’s taxes and fees will devastate economy

The Obamacare enrollment period has officially ended and the propaganda spewing from the White House insists that despite the initial disaster of a rollout the program has been a success. After all, they say, seven million Americans have enrolled on the healthcare website. Contrary to what the White House says, this seven million signup number is not at all worthy of a celebration.

 
The public has not been informed of any details about these new enrollees. We do not know how many have paid for their plan, how many were previously uninsured and if they are healthy or not.

 
National Review Online estimates that of the seven million people signed up only six million are expected to actually receive coverage due to many of the enrollees failure to pay for their plans. Surveys show that two thirds or less of new enrollees were previously uninsured. This leads to only two million previously uninsured people receiving insurance – a far cry from original goals of 19 million from the Congressional Budget Office.

 
Also, we do not know how many of these signups are part of the five million Americans that actually lost their insurance because of Obamacare. Oh wait, weren’t Americans promised that they could keep their insurance plans? The dishonesty of Obamacare aside, Health consultant Howard J. Peterson wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer that the first four years of Obamacare have only solved about 10% of the problem for the uninsured.

 
Even more disheartening than these low enrollment numbers is the negative impact this law will have on the economy. The Health Insurance Tax which is designed to generate revenue for the law is predicted to devastate the economy. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the costs of this tax will be passed on to consumers which will result in much higher healthcare costs.

 
The National Federation of Independent Businesses projects that the Health Insurance Tax will add $475 per year to the average individually purchased family policy. Small businesses will also take a hit with the cost of an employer provided family policy increasing by $6,800.

 
Small and medium sized businesses will be hit hardest by this tax and will most likely have to lay off workers to pay for the escalating costs of healthcare. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obamacare will cause the economy to lose an equivalent of 2.5 million workers.

 
Consider the $27.6 billion in revenue grossed by McDonalds last year. According to the Wall Street Journal, “this new tax on our health insurance is projected to drill a hole in our economy as big as MCdonalds in just eight years, with the overwhelming majority of the damage falling on already struggling small business.”

 
This law also blatantly undermines the American dream. America was founded on the principle of hard work to make a better life for yourself. However, with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, it will be cheaper for many workers to stay in lower paying jobs. Obamacare actually encourages Americans to stay poor and receive benefits to do so. As stated in a USA Today article, Americans will suddenly be asking themselves if they can actually afford their paycheck.

 
Many Obamacare supporters including White House chief economist Jason Furman call the shrinking labor force “liberating” for workers. Even more disgusting than the counterproductive effect of this law on the U.S. economy is the blatant disregard for the value of hard work. There is nothing “liberating” about encouraging people to avoid their grownup responsibility of participating in the workforce.

 
Overall, this “liberation” will devastate the U.S. economy. With less Americans working hard and benefiting the workforce, our economy will become less prosperous and less dynamic. Countries where citizens get paid based on the radical concept of productivity will surpass America in the efficiency of their production.

 
The question of who will have to pay for this joke of a program is actually quite simple. It is essential to the law’s functioning that the younger population pay for the brunt of new costs. Young, healthy Americans will be paying high premiums in order to subsidize older beneficiaries.

 
Given Obamacare’s low signup number and devastation to small businesses, the youngest generation of American’s and the economy as a whole, this law needs to be reconsidered. There are better alternatives to this mess of a law such as modifying public policy to make insurance more affordable that would avoid a giant blanket of crushing regulation from covering the country.