President Obama’s signature legislation, the “Affordable Care Act” or Obamacare takes another hit as those who were promised they could “Keep their plan” are finding out that’s just not the case. Highmark Inc, Pennsylvania’s largest insurers has announced this week they will be pulling out of the “health care marketplace” in 27 Counties in the state in 2017. This move will leave approximately 70% of those currently covered under their plans without health insurance come January.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune:
The insurer’s withdrawal from the counties contributes to a reduction in competition across Pennsylvania after insurers Aetna and UnitedHealthcare withdrew completely from the 2017 market in the state. Eleven Western Pennsylvania counties will have only one insurer on the marketplace for 2017, leaving consumers less protected from rate increases and limited plan choices.
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For the average person the costs alone have risen steadily since it’s inception, and this sentence appears to explain the mystery:
Insurance Commissioner Teresa Miller said she approved rate hikes averaging 50 percent for Highmark’s marketplace plans to prevent the insurer from abandoning the marketplace altogether.
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Highmark has previously sued the Federal Government in an attempt to recover losses that they claim topped $800 Million from just 2014 alone. Obama’s pet project has turned into the colossal failure, many predicted it would, now about 15% of citizens in Pennsylvania will join the ranks of the uninsured.
Repealing ObamaCare at the federal level would do much to relieve the pressure facing statewide market place providers, but that will require a Congress filled with enough Republicans to dismantle the law completely.
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- Discussion
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Pennsylvania’s Largest Insurer Pulling Out of ObamaCare in 27 Counties https://t.co/IxQAkv4nxs
— RedState (@RedState) November 5, 2016
This is a big story in western PA where I live. I have a friend who will be losing her coverage. Not sure what she’s going to do.
The whole idea behind Obamacare was to give the federal government still more power over our lives. It isn’t about healthcare or even health insurance. If it had been, our leaders only needed to eliminate barriers to competition between the insurance companies and institute meaningful tort reform to reduce the number of frivolous medical malpractice cases. But what our leaders really want is the ability to decide who lives and who dies via government run healthcare. Obamacare was designed to fail so people would be clamoring for the government to be make their healthcare decisions . They don’t realize the price they will pay once government has that power.
They don’t realize the price they will pay once government has that power.
They will know soon enough, with a single-payer system.
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