Our New Healthcare Act: Winners and Losers

Winner: The Insurance Companies: There will be more of us who will be forced to buy coverage because the central provision of the new healthcare law mandates that ALL individuals be insured. The health insurers have already beaten the Obama administration’s feeble attempts to hold back rate increases by already raising rates. Insurance premiums will continue to increase. Watch insurance profits and large company prices rise dramatically in the face of the legislation! Larger companies will command slightly greater premiums than previously experienced, and demand lower prices from providers. The inability to underwrite will drive the smaller out of business because they cannot negotiate the same lower prices from the Providers.

Winner: The Large Healthcare Providers: With at least 40 million newly enrolled Americans in the program, healthcare companies will implement their auxiliary services without competitive bidding, additional regulations, or preventative measures to further protect the insured. The allocation of these subsidized services will be disproportionately shared between both the large institutions and the small practices will be forced into consolidation or die. These Consolidations will accelerate in order to fulfill the increased demand.

Politicians: Those self serving elected officials who conspired to vote for the healthcare law to their own exclusion of the law will be overwhelmingly voted out of office come this November (by their own party)! Almost 80% of Democrats want to dump the incumbents (some strangely for not forcing the “public option” through Congress) and only 36% of Republicans want to dump the incumbents. The Republicans will end up with a majority in congress and will repeal the present healthcare law. That is, if the conservative leaning Supreme Court doesn’t strike down the law in its entirety before the new congress is able too. There are now 14 lawsuits against the Federal Government by various state governments.

The American Public: The American public will be the biggest loser since they have been asked to underwrite the entire national curriculum on the chance that it might happen (I doubt it will ever happen). The government’s layers of yet to be established bureaucracy will diminish the quality of service. More doctors and professionals will retire early and fewer hospitals will be built. Service providers will capitalize on the situation by becoming opportunists as a result of the declining competition. Additionally, even with the repeal of the Act, insurers will cling to the higher rates they have established, and some of the new taxes will likely stay in place (even Republicans like to spend our money). Further, whatever bureaucracy gets built in the interim will stay and all of those “earmarks” all the deals that bought the votes to pass the bill will stay in place.

What does all of this translate to? More cost, more government, more regulation, less personal freedom to spend our own money.

Tags: Healthcare Legislation