The hidden impact of Obamacare and the economy
Repealing the health care law is a top message in several Senate campaigns.
Sun Dec 22, 2013 6:19PM GMT
Jacqueline Leo, The Fiscal Times
Obamacare has delivered another sucker punch to the middle class. This time
its sticker shock.
Now that a few people can get past the tech problems of HealthCare.gov and
actually see the real cost of insurance plans available, they are finding
that Affordable Care is big hit to the family budget. And when the family
budget gets hit in the solar plexus, guess what happens to consumer spending
and the economy.
In California, policies for about 900,000 Californians are being canceled
because of Obamacares mandates and about two-third of these do not qualify
for subsidies, according to The Chicago Tribune. The resultthese folks will
be paying higher premiums.
In Alabama, premiums have doubled for some middle class families like
Courtney Long, a stay-at-home mother of four. She told WHNT News. Its
devastating. I started crying, said Long. I mean, we have worked so hard
to get out of credit card debt, get ahead on the car loan, transfer our
mortgage to a 15 from a 30 year mortgage
and for what?
In Tennessee, Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican, issued an analysis of a
White House report and found the following:
- Today, a 27-year-old man in Memphis can buy a plan for as low as $41 a
month. On the exchange, the lowest state average is $119 a month a 190
percent increase.
- Today, a 27-year-old woman in Nashville can also buy a plan for as low as
$58 a month. On the exchange, the lowest-priced plan in Nashville is $114 a
month a 97 percent increase. Even with a tax subsidy, that plan is $104 a
month, almost twice what she could pay today.
- Today, women in Nashville can choose from 30 insurance plans that cost
less than the administration says insurance plans on the exchange will cost,
even with the new tax subsidy.
- In Nashville, 105 insurance plans offered today will not be available in
the exchange.
In Washington State, Obamacare will increase the underlying cost of
individually purchased health insurance by 34-80 percent on average,
according to Forbes. The list goes on and on and includes Texas, Florida,
New York, Illinois, Georgia and North Carolina. But premiums are just the
beginning. The deductibles are outrageous, too.
A piece in Saturdays The New York Times tells the story of Doug and Ginger
Chapman, ages 55 and 54, a middle class couple sitting on the health care
cliff. Their annual income of around $100,000 a year makes them ineligible
for a subsidy in New Hampshire (if they earned under $94,000, it would cut
their costs by half). They have to replace their family insurance which
includes the two of them and their two sons. The premium cost alone, not
including any deductible is $1,000 a month, or 12 percent of their income.
The Times analysis found the following:
The cost of premiums for people who just miss qualifying for subsidies
rises rapidly for people in their 50s and 60s. In some places, prices can
quickly approach 20 percent of a persons income. Experts consider health
insurance unaffordable once it exceeds 10 percent of annual income. By that
measure, a 50-year-old making $50,000 a year, or just above the qualifying
limit for assistance, would find the cheapest available plan to be
unaffordable in more than 170 counties around the country, ranging from
Anchorage to Jackson, Miss.
The other group that gets disproportionately hit is the young, according to
Forbes. For a 40 year old, the 2013 average deductible was $4,045, and the
cost increased 29 percent to $309. For a 64-year-old man, the cost of a plan
with a $3,494 deductible increased 64 percent to $806.
The Real impact of Obamacare is yet to come
If even a fraction of the middle class and upper middle income earners
divert some of their discretionary dollars to pay for health care, it will
have a significant impact on consumer spending. What will that mean for the
economy? Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the nations
GDP, although experts say that number is likely to decline.
The top 20 percent of income earners account for about 40 percent of all
spending in the US. When you increase the costs of health care and the new
taxes associated with Obamacare, you can hear the wallets closing.
AHT/DB
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in
anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni
katika machafuko"
_______________________________________________
Ugandanet mailing list
Ugandanet@kym.net
http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet
UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/
All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/ugandanet@kym.net/
The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including
attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way.
---------------------------------------
