Rising Cost Of Health Care
In my opinion, the most challenging issues in healthcare today are the rising costs of health insurance premiums that do not cover much or have high deductibles that are too high for many people to pay. While it is wonderful that millions of people, who were uninsured or had pre-existing conditions, gained health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act, it is not wonderful that health insurance has become unaffordable for millions of other people. According to the New York Times, an estimated 28 million Americans remain uninsured and preliminary data shows that about 5.6 million people opted to pay a tax penalty rather than buy health insurance in 2015. In addition, in 2017, health care premiums rose by 25% across the nation. The
explanation for this is higher than expected costs that insurance companies had to pay for patients that were sickly signing up, the lack of enrollment by those who were healthy, and major insurance companies such as United Healthcare, Aetna, Blue Cross, and Humana withdrawing from covering many states in the 2017 Obamacare exchanges. In fact, Humana has announced that they are dropping out of all ACA exchanges in 2018. This has left some people with only one option for an insurance carrier on the Obamacare website and premiums that are skyrocketing through the roof. The constructors of Obamacare say the largest reason Obamacare is not being effective, is the penalty for not enrolling is too low. What they fail to see, is that people cannot sign up for insurance, when they only have two pennies in their pocketbook. A higher penalty will not change that. Next, these same constructors constantly take pride in saying the numbers of uninsured have fallen to 10% since the signing of Obamacare. They feel this is a positive note. However, since it is a mandate, I would think more people would follow it. Why are 10% of the people still uninsured? What does that tell you? Our failed system is still broken. Lastly, there is not much hope that President Trump will offer any better solutions than Obama did, but debating whether he will or not, will not help us much, will it? All we can do is pray that President Trump does. Indeed, health insurance is the most challenging issue in health care today.
explanation for this is higher than expected costs that insurance companies had to pay for patients that were sickly signing up, the lack of enrollment by those who were healthy, and major insurance companies such as United Healthcare, Aetna, Blue Cross, and Humana withdrawing from covering many states in the 2017 Obamacare exchanges. In fact, Humana has announced that they are dropping out of all ACA exchanges in 2018. This has left some people with only one option for an insurance carrier on the Obamacare website and premiums that are skyrocketing through the roof. The constructors of Obamacare say the largest reason Obamacare is not being effective, is the penalty for not enrolling is too low. What they fail to see, is that people cannot sign up for insurance, when they only have two pennies in their pocketbook. A higher penalty will not change that. Next, these same constructors constantly take pride in saying the numbers of uninsured have fallen to 10% since the signing of Obamacare. They feel this is a positive note. However, since it is a mandate, I would think more people would follow it. Why are 10% of the people still uninsured? What does that tell you? Our failed system is still broken. Lastly, there is not much hope that President Trump will offer any better solutions than Obama did, but debating whether he will or not, will not help us much, will it? All we can do is pray that President Trump does. Indeed, health insurance is the most challenging issue in health care today.