Unaffordable care act

WASHINGTON, June 30, 2013 — As it stands now, Americans are mandated to purchase health care beginning in 2014.

"Mandated" means consumers do not have an option. If consumers elect not to purchase health care, the government will levy fines against them.

Next year, any American who is uninsured will have to pay $95, or 1 percent of your annual salary if you make more than $9,500 in the year. If you earn $50,000 you will pay a $500 penalty if you do not enroll in a health insurance plan.

Run the numbers, as the Associated Press recently did. A worker making $21,000 annually could have to fork over up to $1,995 in premiums under the 9.5 percent figure, almost twice the current average. This is “affordable”?


Nothing like this has ever been mandated in the history of the U.S. The Affordable Health Care Act is a personal tax on living.

How one chooses health care, practices health care, the ideals, the levels of responsibility, the applications of health care are personal and private.

If you chose to engage in healthy practices, do not have to see a doctor, do not take medications, do not set foot in a hospital, how is the Affordable Health Care Act affordable?

Health insurance for a 20 year old will start at about $72 a month in Washington, D.C., and $117 a month in California, for minimal coverage. Add that to your rent, school loans, food, transportation, you are going to have a very tough time making ends meet.

If you make anything less than $86,000 in Washington, D.C., or less than $140,00 in California, your cheapest health insurance would cost you $864 a year in Washington and $1,400 in California. The 1 percent penalty on an $80,000 salary would be $800.

You are not done paying. You must pay a deductible before the insurance company begins paying your medical bills. This is a very smart business for insurance companies. Now the government will follow suit. The least expensive Washington plan has a $6,000 deductible. So, you are paying $800 a year plus up to $6,000 for medical services. How again is this affordable?

Isn't health insurance all about guaranteeing payment for medical providers anyway?

Just how do you get young people to get excited about Obama’s health insurance program? Government grants. Let’s spend taxpayer dollars to promote this type of socialistic insurance to young people and then get them to foot the bill.

The Los Angeles school system reportedly plans to use a state grant to promote ObamaCare, to teach students to become “messengers” for the law. This is just one of $37 million in state grants announced in May by Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange. Of that, $990,000 was awarded to The Los Angeles Unified School District. One objective of the grant: “teens trained to be messengers to family members” to educating the adults they know about ObamaCare.

They are going to pay kids to promote this thing. They don’t know about it, don’t have it, and soon will not be able to afford it.

The governmental involvement and intrusion in the delicate lives of people will continue. The Affordable Health Care Act, like every other government program, will not be affordable. Not one government program hasn't mushroomed out of control and soon run out of money.

People, especially young people, will not be able to afford it. The government will not be able to afford it. Worse, this program will allow politicians, lobbyists, corporations, insurance companies, and governmental agencies a wide door into your life.

Another unintended consequence of the law: It’s pushing employers to cut hours for their workers. Why? Because employers can avoid penalties by moving workers to part-time jobs. So instead of adding more full-time employees, employers are going in the opposite direction. That’s hardly a strong signal to an economy that is still in a fragile recovery.

How concerned is the administration? “There has been a lot of conjecture about what people might do or could do, but this hasn’t actually happened yet,” White House senior communications adviser Tara McGuinness said. “The gap between sky-is-falling predictions about the health law and what is happening is very wide.”

To the contrary, employers both private and public have already been taking a hard look at the law — and planning accordingly. “It’ll likely affect the number of people we can hire,” Five Guys owner John Rigos said earlier this year. “It’ll probably have to reduce the staff to some degree, and again, focus on building smaller, stronger teams, rather than being as aggressive in opening up new stores and creating new jobs.” Multiply that across an economy, and you’ve got trouble.

“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi once said of Obamacare. It’s proving to be quite an alarming process of discovery.