What is the Cost of Healthcare?

After the disastrous roll out of the president’s signature initiative of “Healthcare Reform” on October 1^st, the question that needs to be asked is has anyone calculated the real cost of healthcare? With all the delays, exceptions, and waivers has anyone re-calculated the real cost of healthcare reform.

Last month, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, commented, if current laws remained unchanged, Social Security and the federal government’s major health care programs would absorb a much larger share of the economy’s total output in the future than they have in the past.

This is worth noting as the Affordable Care or “ObamaCare” has seen more and more Americans being placed into the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare systems.  These programs where hardly solvent before and now with the potential to add millions more, will only exacerbate the insolvency of both programs.

The Congressional Budget Office stated, the projected increases would stem from three factors: the aging of the population; rising health care spending per beneficiary; and changes related to the Affordable Care Act, specifically the introduction of exchange subsidies and the expansion of Medicaid in many states.

We were repeatedly told since the passage of the Healthcare in 2010, that this law would reduce the cost of health care and would not add to the federal budget deficit. Unfortunately, last July, the president waved the Employer Mandate for one year and has given waivers and exemptions to various groups and entities.

The president commented that by offering support to purchase coverage in newly created marketplaces or Exchanges and expanding Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act will extend health coverage to 34 million Americans.

Again, the president used the moniker of a pledge that health care system reform would not to add to deficit, and begin reducing our federal debt over the long run.

Soon we will know if the numbers of individuals who signed up are what was expected to keep the Affordable HealthCare from bankrupting the system.  The system needs around 7 million young and healthy people to sign up, to be able to cover the elderly and the ill, and those most needing health care.

So far we have no idea what are the demographics of individuals who have signed up, who has enrolled or who has paid their first premiums; this is crucial in knowing if the Affordable Care Act will not overwhelm the system.

If the president doesn’t get the numbers that he stated, the question has to be asked, will the insurance companies get a bailout to keep them solvent.   A provision was written into the Affordable Care Act that states the insurance companies can be bailed out.  This would be very problematic and disastrous for Democrats in this year’s mid-term elections.

What is the real cost of health care?