If you were marauding at the mall last week, you may have missed yet another full-scale federal retreat from Obamacare, that massive lump of coal in the stockings of millions of Americans. If you were out and about Monday, you may have missed, yes, one more last-minute delay for this increasingly wobbly law.
The retreat: Just days before the deadline for people to choose coverage to begin Jan. 1, the administration announced that millions of people whose individual policies had been canceled because of Obamacare could qualify for a “hardship exemption.” Note that the hardship is … conditions created by Obamacare itself.
That means those people could buy lower-cost catastrophic insurance coverage, which had been mainly reserved for those under 30. Or they could … do nothing. That is, they could choose not to buy coverage and, by administration fiat, not face the penalties the law dictates. In other words: Bye-bye, individual mandate.
Is that the final major change as Obamacare lurches toward the starting line of coverage? Who knows? There are still eight days to go before Jan. 1. The administration is in full backpedal, arbitrarily repealing its own law under intense political pressure. On Monday — just hours before the putative application deadline — came word that federal officials will fudge the deadline and allow people an extra day to enroll for coverage beginning Jan. 1.
No big surprise. Last week National Review Online counted at least 14 “unilateral” administration changes to Obamacare made without consulting Congress. A partial rewind: The White House granted businesses a pass on providing employees with insurance or paying a fine. It cut a sweet deal for Congress and its members so they wouldn’t have to dig deeper to pay for health insurance. It told states they could allow insurers to extend canceled individual insurance policies into 2014. It loosened deadlines for people to apply for coverage. And on and on.
But every time the administration changes something big or small, it creates winners and losers. The losers, understandably, are furious. Expect to hear more from them as the 2014 general election approaches, with its rich possibilities for revenge.
The expanded hardship exemption, for instance, “opened a major can of worms,” wrote analyst James Capretta on the Weekly Standard blog. “The administration said for months that the mandate would not be waived for anyone, even those with canceled policies, and it vowed a veto of any delay legislation coming out of Congress. Now the rules have been changed, and some families who have committed to pay thousands of dollars in insurance premiums will feel very personally betrayed by an untrustworthy administration.”
They join millions of others who are reeling from massive premium increases under this onerous law.
Over the weekend, The New York Times reported on the staggering cost of premiums for people who fall just short of qualifying for subsidies because their income is slightly too high. In more than 170 counties around the country, a 50-year-old making $50,000 a year — just above the qualifying limit for subsidy assistance — “would find the cheapest available plan to be unaffordable,” the newspaper reported. In some places, prices can quickly approach 20 percent of a person’s income — double what experts consider affordable health care.
For instance: “A 60-year-old living in Polk County, in northwestern Wisconsin, and earning $50,000 a year … would have to spend more than 19 percent of his income, or $9,801 annually, to buy one of the cheapest plans available there,” the Times reported. “A person earning $45,000 would qualify for subsidies and would pay about 5 percent of his income, or $2,228.”
No wonder support for Obamacare has collapsed, dropping 5 percentage points in less than a month to a record low, according to a new CNN/ORC International poll released Monday. Only 35 percent of Americans support the law, compared to 40 percent in late November. Just 16 percent of respondents say they think their family will be better off when most of the law takes effect in 2014. Sixty-three percent believe their health care costs will rise under the law.
Many Americans who think they’ve enrolled in a plan will greet the new year unsure about whether they’re really covered or if the computer ate their applications. Many of those who do buy coverage will face higher premiums and huge deductibles. They may not be able to see the doctors or go to the hospitals of their choice.
This is the reality of Obamacare.
This is why the law is teetering.
