Making a great campaign issue for 77-year-old President-elect Joe Biden, Democrats used 74-year-old President Donald Trump’s attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Ace [ACA] AKA Obmacare in the Supreme Court to steal votes from Republicans. Democrats used the potential Obamacare repeal to try to block Republicans from approving 48-year-old Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett from the Supreme Court, turns out a bogus issue because the Supreme Court shows no inclination to end former President Barack Obama’s signature legislation to provide health care to uninsured Americans. Whatever Republicans say about Obamacare—and its not good—it’s better than nothing. About 22 million U.S. citizens signed up on health care exchanges of which 12.3 million were Medicaid expansion or health care for the citizens meeting the poverty definition of 26,200 for a family of four.
Biden used the Obamacare issue successfully to drive voters away from Trump, even though the conservative-leaning Supreme Court [6-3] was never going to repeal Obamacare. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said it best, “Striking down Obamacre is not our job.” Since Obama signed the Affordable Care March 23, 2010, there were many misconceptions about the government-subsidized plan, not least of which was whether or not subscribers could keep their own doctors, hospitals and clinics. Before Democrats passed the ACA in the U.S. Senate Nov. 7, 2009, Obama told the public they could keep their own doctors. “If you like the plan you have, you can keep it. If you like the doctor you have, you’ll be able to keep your doctor. The only thing you’ll see are falling health care costs as our plan takes hold, “ Obama said June 6, 2009, offering the GOP lots of ammunition.
Obama didn’t have a clue in the beginning stages what the insurance industry would do to preserve profit margins, including, what eventually happened to the ACA, herding subscribers into Health Maintenance Organizations [HMOs.]. Insurance Industry executives went wild trying to figure out how to preserve profits when they were adding millions of subscribers with preexisting conditions, subscribers with ongoing medical conditions, considered a cost to health insurers. To show the utter hypocrisy of health insurers, they made an arbitrary industry-wide distinction between individual and group insurance. Obamacare essentially eliminated the industry’s distinction between individual and group insurance. Under Obamacare, all individuals must be insured, with no exclusions or increased premiums due to prior medical conditions. That distinction defined the difference between individual and group coverage.
Obamacare essentially offered everyone group insurance, insuring all subscribers with or without past or current medical conditions. Instead of accepting the ACA No. 1 principle or insuring everyone, the insurance industry defeated the intent of Obamacare to provide Preferred Provider Organization [PPO] coverage for all insured. Obama assumed that under his plan the insurance industry would allow subscribers to keep their plans and their doctors. When insurers got into the weeds of the ACA, they realized they’d add millions of sick people into the insurance pool, increasing the costs to health insurers. Insurers have no problem making profits with groups plans and they should have no problem making money with Obamacare. But greed drove health insurers to bailout of the Obamacare program, leaving only a handful of companies still offering Obamacare plans, driving up prices.
Biden promised during the campaign to fix Obamacare, requiring Congress to stop insurers from pulling out the program. Obamacare was supposed to work on a volume business to bring the price of premiums down. But with so many insurers pulling out of the ACA, it left the one’s remaining more pricey. To bring prices down, Congress must require all qualified health insurers to offer Obamcare plans, increasing competition and bringing down premiums. Congress must stop the insurance industry practice of herding Obamacare subscribers into HMOs, letting subscribers have the option of PPO insurance, where subscribers can choose their own doctors, hospitals and clinics. As it stands today, whether in commercial Obamacare plans or Medicaid expansion plans, insurers are forcing subscribers into tightly controlled HMOs, leaving the bulk of subscribers dissatisfied with their plans.
Instead of looking at Obamacare as a racial issue, Congress needs to fix the law that allows insurers to right to withdraw from participation. Letting insurers opt out of Obamacare has spiraled premium prices and herded subscribers into cost-saving HMO plans. When Obamacare first talked about his plan in 2009, he used the Postal Service as an example of a good federal plan on which to base Obamcare. But U.S. Postal Service insurance is a government paid PPO plan, unless postal workers opt for an HMO plan like Kaiser or Cigna. Most postal workers keep their PPO coverage, the same thing that should happen with Obamcare. Insurers make plenty of money with group insurance plans that insure subscribers with preexisting conditions. No U.S. health insurer should have the right to opt out of Obamacare to keep costs affordable, but, most importantly, to insurer that all subscribers have quality coverage.
