Obamacare death-spiral continues, as enrollment falls far short of target
The Obamacare death-spiral continues, as enrollment in the Obamacare exchanges is at less than half the initial forecasts. The CBO had predicted that 24 million people would have signed up by this year. Instead, as of March, only 11.1 million had done so.
Since before it was signed into law, we have known that Obamacare would only viable if large numbers of young, healthy, previously uninsured people signed up for plans on the Obamacare exchanges. Indeed, Obama and the Democrat Party conceded this point, which is why the Administration has spent so much money on advertising and on other means of encouraging people to sign up (and it is also why Obamacare levies harsh fines against people who don’t get insurance). Without large numbers of new, young, and healthy policyholders, the system cannot sustain the significantly increased expenses Obamacare imposes on the insurance industry.
Obama’s rosy predictions of 2009 and 2010 have run into a harsh wall of reality. Democrats promised that Obamacare would mean more insurance choices for the American people. In reality, most Americans won’t have much choice at all. A third of Americans will have just one single insurance option on the exchanges by 2017. Over half of Americans will have only two choices. Instead of offering more choices, as Obama promised, Obamacare is leaving most Americans with far fewer.
This is on top of the almost 6,000,000 Americans whose insurance policies were canceled as a result of Obamacare through 2015 (despite Obama’s promise that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it”).
Obama, for his part, is using the failure of his signature domestic policy as an excuse to renew his call for a government-run health insurance agency. Sadly predictable; to liberals, the answer for failed government is always more government.
