What The Affordable Care Act Means To Montanan’s
In Montana, a state with just around one million people inside her majestic boarders the ACA is hitting hard and hitting fast. At least 26000 Montanans have lost coverage due to the laws rigid rules for insurers, but only 212 have been able to sigh up under the health care exchange. This is less than a one percent replacement rate, and that spells disaster for Montanans.
This is not the only problem that plagues Obamacare. The president’s recent decision to renege on his defining law, is causing chaos in the insurance industry while being misreported by news outlets and misinforming citizens alike. With news titles like Obama announces ‘keep your plan’ Obamacare fix from Yahoo news its easy to understand why Americans do not know what he is getting us into. Exactly what Obama said was that “Americans whose plans have been canceled can choose to re-enroll in the same kind of plan.” To bad that is only for a year, and only if your insurance provider restores the plan.
From what Montana Commissioner of Securities and Insurance Monica Lindeen says it seems unlikely that insurers in Montana and nation wide will decide to reopen those canceled plans due to several issues.
Lindeen said that if companies choose to revive the old plans, it could mean higher costs, not only for those on the plans, but for others in a company’s risk pool.
“Insurance companies have been operating under the assumption that everybody was going to be in the same pool,” Lindeen said. “Now, if they make the decision not to go ahead and cancel these policies, they will now then be bifurcating that risk pool, which means that there are probably going to be some higher costs for some consumers.”
Half the reason the government shut down last month was over the Affordable Care Act, and its failure to provide what it promised, less expensive insurance, and coverage for all. Obama’s recent attempt at a power grab by changing this law, something that is disputed he even has the power to do (he doesn’t) only shows how desperate he is to save face for himself, and the democratic party.
This set up I believe may work in Obama’s favor to further demonize insurance agencies and promote a single payer system. When insurers fail to offer plans they use to have after Obama gives them the go ahead, all of a sudden the fault leaves his shoulders, and there is no more burden for him to carry. Once people see how “evil’ these corporations are, our kind government will have no recourse other than to take control to insure equality.
There is this mentality among people who are following this issue, that the only direction we can go is forward. People call out republicans for wanting to repeal the ACA with out proposing a replacement. Because there are no replacement options on the table, and every one seems to ignore the obvious option of going back to what we had before, I really do believe a single payer system will quickly evolve as the popular option to Obama’s failed plan.
Call me crazy, but come back to this blog in 3 years and tell me I was wrong, I bet you won’t be able to.
TheSmallVoiceOfPolitics 