Yet Another Way Obamacare Could Implode
From the Billings Gazette comes word this week that Montana is seeking additional federal dollars to fund its Obamacare high-risk pool – not because the pool has enrolled more individuals than projected, but because those individuals have encountered higher-than-expected costs. What was most interesting however was a paragraph buried at the end of the article:
Lucas Hamilton, spokesman for state Auditor Monica Lindeen, whose office oversees the pool, said it has served more than the 290 people currently covered. Some have qualified for the subsidized coverage, bought it, used its benefits and then stopped paying for the coverage.
In other words, many high-risk patients in Montana have “gamed” the system to obtain – and pay for – insurance coverage only when they most need it. Which raises an obvious question: If high-risk patients – the “sickest of the sick” – will game the system to pay insurance premiums only when they need care, why won’t all Americans do the same when Obamacare’s mandate goes into effect in 2014?
The answer is obvious: Americans WILL game the system – and premiums will rise as a result. Data from multiple insurance companies have confirmed this fact in areas already under an individual mandate. And even Obamacare supporters have admitted that the mandate lacks real teeth (even as conservatives are rightly concerned about the constitutional precedent of requiring individuals to buy a product for the first time ever). It’s one more way in which Obamacare represents a massive house of cards, one which jeopardizes both the American health care system and our fiscal future.