Count on many families being priced out of health insurance with the onslaught of Obamacare. Due to a mix-up in the Affordable Care Act, IRS regulations issued last Wednesday have failed to alleviate the problem leaving liberal backers disappointed and many American families left in the lurch.
Now some families simply cannot afford employer coverage being offered. With the financial Catch-22 they are in, there will not be any financial assistance available from the government to buy private health insurance on their own. How many people will be affected is unclear.
The White House claims they cannot fix the problem because of the way “Congress wrote the law.”
Huh?
As the administration backpedals blaming others for the mistake, they are attempting to soften the blow. What is their brilliant solution to the problem?
Any families unable to find affordable coverage will not face a tax penalty for remaining uninsured, the IRS rules said.
That’s it? No other help from the health care law that was supposed to be the answer to uninsured Americans?
In the biggest understatement derived from the mini crisis, Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, an advocacy group that supported the overhaul from its early days said, "This is a very significant problem, and we have urged that it be fixed. It is clear that the only way this can be fixed is through legislation and not the regulatory process."
There’s not much chance resolution is forthcoming from the Republican-led House that advocates the immediate repeal of the entire law altogether.
The family affordability situation is only one of many problems uncovered thus far as the law moves toward full implementation. Other problems are emerging by the day as the 2,400 page bill comes into sharper focus.
Government-subsidized private coverage through new healthcare marketplaces known as exchanges will begin October 1. That means a number of middle-class uninsured will be able to sign up for government-subsidized private coverage through new healthcare marketplaces. Coverage should be in place by the beginning of 2014, but a number of states hostile to the Obamacare law are refusing to do just that.
The lower-income Americans will be directed into the program's expanded safety net.
Is this all beginning to sound like a self-imposed depression-era law created out of desperation? Unfortunately it appears that is not the case with the Obamacare law as the country moves closer to what many feel is an unnecessary government intrusion that will blow up in their faces.
Yet the administration insists that through employers, government assistance or your own private plan this will be running smooth as silk in no time.
Just like the DMV and the post office.
But there’s more to this “blip in the road.” Estimates are being cited that close to 500,000 children could remain uninsured because of the oversight according to Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus, an advocacy group for children. As Lesley puts it, "The children's community is disappointed by the administration's decision to deny access to coverage for children based on a bogus definition of affordability."
It actually appears the dyke has burst and there aren’t enough fingers in Washington to plug the onslaught of Obamacare problems.
Ironically, Congress has already said the definition of “affordable coverage” is that which cannot cost more than 9.5 percent of a family’s income.
More irony prevails since people with coverage the law considers affordable cannot get subsidies to go into the new insurance markets. The purpose of that restriction was to prevent a stampede away from employer coverage.
If the employer begs off contributing to a family’s insurance premium, that family is out of luck altogether. If they cannot afford to pay the full premium on their own, they'd be locked out of the subsidies in the healthcare overhaul law. That is of course the case if the employer has not already cut his workforce to below 50 employees to avoid Obamacare altogether or placed many on their workforce at less than 40 hours per week – part-time employment to also avoid the Obamacare sting.
We are now entering the crucial phase of the law’s enactment and many critics are saying, “I told you so.”
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