Obamacare and Medicaid
In 2014, an expansion of Medicaid, with an increased cost burden for
taxpayers, is expected. This is according to the Kaiser Family
Foundation which has also projected Obamacare adding another twenty
million new
Medicaid dependents. It is estimated this expansion will add an average
of 13% in costs to state budgets in 2014 alone.
The health insurance premium "sticker shock" will
continue
in 2014 as the reality of higher premiums really hits home. Most
Americans, but especially the young and healthy, will have to come to
grips with health insurance premium increases anywhere between 50% and
150%. And, to make matters worse, employers will continue to cut
full time workers back to part time by reducing employees' hours per
week from forty to twenty-nine or less. This is being done to minimize the number of
employees qualifying for the expensive Obamacare compliant coverage.
Because businesses must pay more to purchase Obamacare compliant
plans, remaining employer based health insurance policies will have
higher out-of-pocket costs for employees, including higher copays and
deductibles.
While Medicaid expands, Medicare will be gutted. In 2014, Medicare patients will be forced to deal with several unwanted
changes:
- Increased premiums for supplemental policies
- Fewer types of Medicare supplement policies to choose from
- More cutbacks in Medicare-covered services
- Longer delays to see physicians, due to many physicians closing
their doors to Medicare patients because of the cuts in reimbursements
- Fewer cancer care specialists accepting Medicare patients
- Higher costs for hospital based cancer treatments–private offices
with lower costs will increasingly be closed due to reimbursement
cutbacks
- Approval of fewer hospital-based surgeries because Obamacare rules incentivize hospitals (are paid more by Medicare) to do fewer surgeries and procedures.
- Medicare patients who sign the Advance Beneficiary Notice (ABN),
which obligates them to pay for services Medicare does not cover, will
now have higher out of pocket costs when paying for these non covered
services.
- Patients over eighty are already finding reduced approvals for certain
procedures and medicines and this age based rationing is expected to
continue as the Medicare cuts increase over the next decade.
As of January 1, 2014, the Individual Mandate to purchase
Obamacare compliant health insurance is in effect. Along with the
mandate will come some of Obamacare's most serious issues: longer waits
to see a doctor, higher payments for fewer treatment options and the
deterioration of quality healthcare as doctors and hospitals go out of
business. In the health care sector, we’ll see government advance as the
quality and efficiency of the free market recedes.
But, it is not just the Obamacare minimum coverage mandates that have
caused health insurance premiums to soar. The new year will also bring
with it a flurry of new
taxes, with a
$1 trillion price tag. Not surprisingly, these will be passed on to consumers. From the New York Post:
"Most insurers aren't advertising the Obamacare taxes that are added
on to premiums, opting instead to discretely pass them on to customers
while quietly lobbying lawmakers for a break.
But one insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, laid
bare the taxes on its bills with a separate line item for 'Affordable
Care Act Fees and Taxes.'
The new taxes on one customer’s bill added up to $23.14 a month, or
$277.68 annually, according to Kaiser Health News. It boosted the
monthly premium from $322.26 to $345.40 for that individual."
And, the following is a list of the new Obamacare
taxes that Americans will be forced to pay through their health insurance premiums (via
United Liberty):
- A 2 percent levy on every health plan
- A $2 fee per policy that goes into a new medical-research trust fund called the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.
- Insurers pay a 3.5 percent user fee to sell medical plans on the HealthCare.Gov website.
- Americans also will pay hidden taxes, such as the 2.3 percent
medical device tax that will in turn inflate the cost of items such as
pacemakers, stents and prosthetic limbs.
- Those with high out of pocket medical expenses should also anticipate receiving smaller income-tax deductions.
- Though, currently Americans can deduct expenses that exceed 7.5
percent of their annual income, that threshold will jump to 10 percent
under ObamaCare.
- A new Medicare tax is on the horizon. Under ObamaCare, individual
tax filers earning more than $200,000 and families earning more than
$250,000 will pay an added 0.9 percent Medicare surtax on top of the
existing 1.45 percent Medicare payroll tax. They’ll also pay an extra
3.8 percent Medicare tax on unearned income, such as investment
dividends, rental income and capital gains.
Battles Over Extension of Unemployment Benefits, Minimum Wage, Debt Ceiling & Farm Bill
One of the first
matters
Congress will tackle in the new year is the extension of benefits for
the long term unemployed. These benefits expired on December 28th and
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has indicated he wants a vote on the
bill first thing when the Senate gets back. He also advocates an
increase in the minimum wage but its destiny in the House is uncertain.
John Boehner is reportedly willing to extend unemployment insurance but
is asking for some spending reduction in return.
The farm bill is still pending resolution on how much in the way of cuts to make to food stamps.
The
debt ceiling
confrontation will occur most likely in March, but potentially as late
as early June or as early as February and word has it that Republicans
won't budge on not raising the ceiling without some concessions from
Democrats. Obama, however, has insisted he will not negotiate on the
debt ceiling.
Immigration Reform
Harry Reid believes John Boehner will negotiate on comprehensive
immigration reform, despite Boehner’s declarations to the contrary.
Reid has
said
that Boehner’s antagonism against Tea Party groups has bolstered his
confidence that he will not have to break up the Senate immigration bill
and negotiate a series of piecemeal reforms with the House. The Senate
bill consists of more than 1,200 pages and the most controversial
element of it is a provision granting a pathway to citizenship for
millions of illegal immigrants.
Additionally, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has organized a group of
conservatives who pledge to vote against any immigration reform bill.
Even Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a co-sponsor of the Senate bill, has
backed away from calls to go to conference with the comprehensive
measure. "At this point, the most realistic way to make progress on
immigration would be through a series of individual bills," Rubio
spokesman Alex Conant said in October.
Elections 2014 & 16
The GOP needs pick up six seats to gain control of the upper chamber. According to
The Hill:
"That's a tall order, but history and the map in 2014 is on the GOP’s
side. It's likely that most Democrats in red states, most notably Sen.
Mark Pryor (Ark.), will distance themselves from Obama in 2014. Still,
the most closely watched race will be Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell’s (R-Ky.) effort to win a sixth term.
Democrats in the House say they can win back the lower chamber, but
that is unlikely. They need to win seventeen seats, meaning there will have to
be a Democratic wave come November. The wave might begun to form during
the government shutdown, but it hit a wall with the botched ObamaCare
implementation.”
Also, Democrats will need to gain seventeen House seats in order to retake that chamber, a prospect that is fraught with
obstacles. Due to redistricting, there are far fewer swing seats than in past years and then there's the liability of Obamacare.
In 2016, Clinton is expected to run and is also expected to be the
prohibitive favorite to win the 2016 Democratic nomination. The
Republican field is likely to be crowded and may include senators such
as Sens. Ted Cruz (TX), Rand Paul(KY), Marco Rubio (FL), Rob Portman
(OH) John Thune (SD) and Kelly Ayotte (NH). Chris Christie and Scott
Walker are two other possible candidates.
The NSA
Two competing
bills
to revamp the NSA and the continuing updates coming from Edward Snowden
are helping Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) attract co-sponsors for their
expansive legislation. However, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Sen. Dianne
Feinstein (D-CA), who head the House and Senate Intelligence panels,
have argued that the threat of terrorism is on the rise and necessitates
NSA intelligence activities and should not be dismantled.
Iran
The tentative, yet controversial, deal Obama and Secretary of State
John Kerry brokered has been criticized by both Republicans and
Democrats. Some lawmakers, such as Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), want to
pass additional Iran sanctions, but the White House has vowed to veto
such a bill. Also, representatives from Iran and the P5+1 group of world
powers have chosen
January 20 to begin implementing the Geneva deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Afghanistan
The Hill
reports: "Obama has repeatedly said that U.S. troops will leave
Afghanistan by the end of 2014, but it remains to be seen what the U.S.
presence will be there beyond that. The U.S. has had an uneasy
relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and a security deal for
2015 still has not been signed."
Incandescent Light Bulb Ban
Lastly, as of the first day of the new year the manufacture and import of sixty and forty watt incandescent light bulbs will be
illegal
in the US. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) was
one of the first matters Democrats took up on retaking the House in the
2006 elections and was signed into law by President George W. Bush in
2007.
The EISA mandated a elimination of the Edison bulb, to be replaced by
the more costly, but ostensibly more energy efficient, compact
fluorescent bulbs (CFL). Consumers complaints regarding CFLs include
bulbs lacking brightness no matter what the rating, a warm up time in
order to reach full brilliance and the breakage and cleanup issues
created by the presence of mercury in CFLs. For instance, the Times of
London reported that, "large numbers of Chinese workers have been
poisoned by mercury" as many CFLs are manufactured in China.
The mercury in one bulb, for
example,
is enough to contaminate up to 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe
drinking levels. According to a British study, CFLs are "a fire hazard
that could burn down your home."
And, as
Daniel Sobiesky, in a Business Insider editorial points out, "as the new bulbs were so beneficial consumers had to be forced to use them."
Welcome to 2014.
