Why Obamacare Wasn’t Really Health Insurance?

The Republicans have finally fulfilled one of their campaign promises. They have repealed and replaced Obamacare. Although there are still a lot of steps that need to be completed before Obamacare is completely repealed, a Republican majority in both houses of the Senate guarantees that the process will end exactly as President Trump wants.

The problem is that media houses like CNN and ABC believe that this is a negative thing. They believe that Obamacare was a landmark piece of legislation created to ensure that even the poorest of the poor in the United States have access to healthcare.

Republicans, on the other hand, believe that Obamacare was a huge drain on the national resources. A lot of them claimed that Obamacare wasn’t even insurance! It was a massive welfare program that was masquerading as insurance.

In this article, we will have a closer look at how Obamacare violates some of the basic principles of insurance and is nothing except a giant welfare mechanism.

  • Pre- Existing Conditions: Insurance is a very complicated subject. However, the principles can be understood with commonsense. When we take out insurance, we are literally making a bet with the insurer. We keep renewing this bet by paying premiums that have been adjusted to reflect the current risk based on the current situation.

    No insurance company in their right mind would want to make losing bets. That is simply not financially viable and it is a recipe for disaster. This is why insurance companies should have the right to pick and choose their clients. They must have the right to refuse cover to people who they know will draw out more than they contribute.

    Insurance is about probability. However, people with pre-existing conditions are certainly going to need treatment. There is no uncertainty there. All Obamacare achieves is that it gets the healthy people to forcibly pay for the sick people.

    The Republican health care plan will leave the decision relating to pre-existing conditions up to the state governments.

    At the present moments, states are not likely to repeal these provisions with immediate effect. However, over the longer term preexisting conditions might not be covered for a certain period of time. This practice happens all over the world and there is no reason why America should be any different.

  • Routine Expenses: The cost of an annual medical checkup is not an uncertain event at all. Neither is the cost of pregnancy for a female of child bearing age. This is why no insurance company in their right mind would cover such expenses. They are certainly going to have out this money and so they would have to charge higher premiums to afford this.

    However, Obamacare mandated that these expenses be covered by the insurers. Since the insurers had no way to avoid these expenses, they have factored them into their premiums raising the costs for everybody.

  • Discrimination Is Fair: It needs to be understood that discrimination in an insurance market is fair. It is the only way that insurance companies can work. They cannot and should not collect equal premiums from people who are healthy as well as those who are sick.

    Any policy which prohibits discrimination in the insurance marketplace is impeding the functioning of these companies. That is exactly what Obamacare did as it tried to standardize premiums regardless of the health condition of the subject being insured.

Why Did People Tolerate Obamacare For So Long?

Obamacare is an economic disaster. However, it is a political masterpiece. The losses that accrue to people are fragmented and insignificant. However, the benefits that accrue are concentrated as well as significant. This means that while 100 people may not mind paying $10 extra on their premiums, the family that benefits from the above mentioned $1000 gains significantly.

People losing $10 do not have the time and energy to protest against the system. As a result, healthy people continue getting fleeced whereas the unhealthy ones get significant benefits.

Politicians benefit significantly because of the heroic image that they gain when insurance pays out thousands of dollars to a cancer patient or a person with some other terminal illness.

It is this positive public image built on welfare money that helped Obama get re-elected for a second term.

The bottom line is that people did not protest against Obamacare because the costs were insignificant. However, lately the costs have shot up terribly! Obamacare deductions are costing healthy individuals and families a lot of money. This is the reason that they now voted for Trump who promised to end this money drain.

Obamacare Raised The Cost of Healthcare

Obamacare brought everything under the purview of insurance. As such people started visiting the doctors more often for ailments they would have generally treated on their own. This has raised the doctors’ fees drastically.

Simply put, Obamacare has created more problems than it has solved. It is true that repealing the act will cause a lot of pain and hardships to some sick and poor people. However, repealing it would benefit the majority and that is what democracy is all about!


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The article is Written By “Prachi Juneja” and Reviewed By Management Study Guide Content Team. MSG Content Team comprises experienced Faculty Member, Professionals and Subject Matter Experts. We are a ISO 2001:2015 Certified Education Provider. To Know more, click on About Us. The use of this material is free for learning and education purpose. Please reference authorship of content used, including link(s) to ManagementStudyGuide.com and the content page url.


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