What To Expect From ObamaCare

Here is an important article from National Review's Rich Lowry about what we can expect from ObamaCare.

In 2006, Massachusetts enacted health-care legisation that has become known as RomneyCare, after then-governor and champion of the bill, Mitt Romney. President Obama has touted ObamaCare as an associate of RomneyCare. But what is happening in Massachusetts is a clear warning of what a mess ObamaCare can become.

There are some key similiarities between the two laws:

1. Mandates that individuals buy insurance
2. Fines on businesses that do not offer coverage
3. Heavy regulation of insurance exchanges
4. Large insurance subsidies
5. Medicaid expansion
6. Higher taxes and fees to pay for the legislation
7. Individuals can wait to purchase insurance until they are sick or want medical procedures.

Here's the problem: RomneyCare is imploding. And ObamaCare could likely do the same thing.

The Boston Globe reports, “Thousands of consumers are gaming Massachusetts’ 2006 health insurance law by buying insurance when they need to cover pricey medical care, such as fertility treatments and knee surgery, and then swiftly dropping coverage, a practice that insurance executives say is driving up costs for other people and small businesses.”

This activity, plus the other 'virtues' of RomneyCare, has lead to higher costs and premiums. Massachusetts now has the highest insurance premiums in the country. This has led Deval Patrick, the current governor, to order price controls. As a result, three of the four largest insurers in the state have stopped selling new health insurance policies. Because they cannot raise the price of premiums to cover higher costs associated with RomneyCare, these non-profit insurers may actually go out of business.

Is there any reason to believe this could not happen on a national scale with ObamaCare? I was listening to Rush Limbaugh yesterday morning, and he believes the President would be happy if insurance companies were driven out of the market by higher costs and premiums and price controls. It would leave one option: SINGLE PAYER, with Barack Obama and the feds as your lone provider of health insurance.

First Massachusetts, tomorrow the United States of America.