ACA Will Destroy the Family/Health Care

More news on how the Affordable Care Act will destroy the family and our health care system from National Center for Political Analysis.


NCPA
Richard Walker

Chief Operating Officer

Here's the most underreported story of the summer. When the Supreme Court ruled on the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) it inadvertently liberated millions of people who were going to be forced into Medicaid. Now they will have the opportunity to have private health insurance instead. What difference does that make? It could be the difference between life and death.

Study after study has found that patients on Medicaid have worse outcomes than patients with private insurance. With respect to cancer care, outcomes are much better if you have private insurance, but there does not seem to be much difference between Medicaid and being uninsured. In most places Medicaid patients have a terrible time finding doctors who will see them and facilities that will admit them. That's why so many of them turn to community health centers and the emergency rooms of safety net hospitals for basic medical care.

The subsidies in the private exchange, on the other hand, are incredibly generous. The most the family has to pay is 2% of their income. A family of three, struggling to get by on an income, say, of $25,000 a year, would pay $500 for an insurance plan that could be worth as much as $15,000! Further, the private plans in the exchange will pay providers about 50% higher fees that the rock bottom payments they would have gotten from Medicaid.

ObamaCare is still a Rube Goldberg contraption that desperately needs repealing and replacing. But in the interim, the Supreme Court has done a lot of families a big favor.