Did Obamacare fulfill all the promises made, especially regarding cost to individuals and overall, no.
Did Obamacare greatly expand health insurance coverage, yes.
Do most Americans enrolled in an Obamacare exchange receive a hefty premium subsidy, yes.
Is that the way to manage costs and is it fair, not really.
However, the following “fact sheet” is misleading at best and looks at the health care issue from one narrow inaccurate perspective.
Keep in mind that out of 330 million Americans, only 21 million are enrolled in Obamacare – not counting Medicaid.
Increasing premiums, higher deductibles and life expectancy have nothing to do with Obamacare. Employers have been raising out of pocket costs for years, have restricted provider networks and raised employee premium sharing while most large employers are self-insured. All this has been going on without insurance company or government involvement.
To even mention life expectancy in the context of Obamacare is ludicrous and blatantly misleading.
The medical loss ratio cap did not limit profits, it limited the profit derived from premiums on insurance contracts. An efficient insurer could increase profits by enrolling more customers.
None of the following are the direct result of Obamacare
FACT SHEET|CENTER FOR A HEALTHY AMERICA
OBAMACARE AND THE AFFORDABILITY CRISIS IN HEALTHCARE
The Affordable Care Act, known as “Obamacare,” became law in 2010. President Obama promised the law would “reduce the costs of health care” and stated that “families will save on premiums.” After 14 years, the facts do not support these promises:
- Premiums have increased by 80%.
- From 2010 to 2023, the average premium for family coverage increased 80%, from just over $13,000 to nearly $24,000.
- Total healthcare costs for a family of four now exceed $30,000 per year—increasing from $18,000 per year when Obamacare was passed.
- Deductibles have increased over 50% since Obamacare was implemented in 2013.
OBAMACARE PUT GOVERNMENT & INSURANCE BUREAUCRATS IN CONTROL
- It is often harder to get the care you need than it was before Obamacare due in large part to more restrictive provider networks.
- Obamacare encouraged and caused healthcare monopolies.
- Obamacare imposed a cap on health insurance profits through the Medical Loss Ratio provision. To evade the cap, insurers bought pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacies, and doctors’ offices and now channel profits through those entities.
- The life expectancy of Americans is shorter than that of comparable developed countries.
At AFPI, we believe doctors and patients should be in control in order to have a healthy America.
Read the Center for a Healthy America’s full policy agenda at Pillar II | The America First Agenda.
America First Policy Institute
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
The ACA was about far more than just insuring the uninsured.
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BenefitJack, thanks for the good information.
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I wasn’t really attentive when Obamacare was rolled out because I was on Medicare by then. My understanding was that people wanted insurance without regard to preexisting conditions and affordability. I didn’t think that was going to work. After the dust settled, it appeared that expanding Medicaid was a big deal with the plan as well as subsidies for lower income levels. That was merely expansion of the welfare state. I admit my understanding is limited to that and could be faulty.
My big problem is if healthcare has been expanded to more people, why does the overall health of the people not seem any better and why is life expectancy dropping instead of increasing. I’m not suggesting this has anything to do with Obamacare but supposedly good health is the whole idea for the nation. What is wrong with our system or systems that we pay so much and the overall health of the people is not optimal?
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Health Reform added the Preexisting Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) starting in 2011. It ended in 2014 when the Marketplace/Exchange program started. At its zenith, only about 100,000 Americans were enrolled. The proponents of Health Reform estimated, in 2010, that there were as many as 7 – 10 million Americans who had a preexisting condition exclusion that the BIG BAD INSURANCE COMPANIES DENIED (OR WOULD DENY) COVERAGE. Supposedly, folks at HHS were worried that the $5 Billion Congress had allocated for the PCIP would be exhausted in 2011 if “only” 375,000 enrolled.
But, magically, because people had to pay a reasonable premium to enroll in that coverage … surprise, surprise, surprise, few did.
And, just like COBRA, those who enrolled were only those who could shift expenses far in excess of their premiums to taxpayers. Most states had annual deductibles falling within $1,000 to $2,999, with out-of-pocket limits at or near $5,950. Coverage limits were common but varied, both in terms of the benefits affected and the extent of the limits. Monthly premiums ranged considerably—from $240 in Utah to $1,048 in Alaska for a 50-year-old enrollee—and were generally lower in the federally run PCIP.
In 2011, total enrollment (including those in state insurance pools) was 48,879, where spending in excess of the premiums collected from the insureds was $618,327,670 – yes, that is $126,000+ more spending than premiums paid.
Talk about anti-selection!
The fact is that over 75% of Americans who were not insured for medical in 2010 had a more than adequate income to purchase coverage in the individual market and were not barred by some pre-existing condition – except in states like NY, NJ, WA, etc. that had all but destroyed their individual coverage marketplace with various state mandates.
See: https://www.opportunityinstitute.org/blog/post/why-health-reform-without-a-mandate-doesnt-work-lessons-from-washington-state/
Similarly, the lies also extended to so called medical bankruptcies as a justification for health reform – and those lies continue today where people still assert that over half of all personal bankruptcies are the result of unpaid medical bills. It just ain’t so.
Lots of lies.
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