Top 10 facts every Illinoisan should know about ObamaCare and Medicaid

The Affordable Care Act, or ACA, commonly known as ObamaCare, is a train wreck. For many, since ObamaCare was enacted the cost of coverage has dramatically increased and will continue to do so. People aren’t enrolling in ObamaCare at the rate the Obama administration predicted – by a long shot. And many are finding out...

The Affordable Care Act, or ACA, commonly known as ObamaCare, is a train wreck. For many, since ObamaCare was enacted the cost of coverage has dramatically increased and will continue to do so. People aren’t enrolling in ObamaCare at the rate the Obama administration predicted – by a long shot. And many are finding out that they can’t keep their insurance or their doctor.

And for all the damage the ACA has caused, there is little reason to believe that it will actually expand health care access and affordability. Today, the majority of Americans prefer the flawed health care system that we had prior the ACA.

Here are some important facts every Illinoisan should know about ObamaCare and Medicaid:

1.  “If you like your health insurance, you can’t necessarily keep it.” Bureaucrats in the Obama administration wrote regulations that deemed millions of policies as substandard. These regulations were intended to throw large numbers into the ObamaCare exchanges.

2. Many of the reported ObamaCare “enrollees” were actually already insured before ObamaCare cancelled their policies. When you account for all of the individuals who had their policies canceled as a direct result of ObamaCare, as well as those who would have been eligible for Medicaid before the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, it is possibly that ObamaCare has done little to actually expand coverage to the previously uninsured.

3. The ACA has provisions to bailout insurers that lose money in the ObamaCare health care exchanges. Americans could be on the hook for $47 billion.

4.  Work hours in Illinois have dropped since ObamaCare was signed into law. ObamaCare is likely to cost more jobs and work hours in an already-frail economy. The evidence from Illinois shows that employers, particularly those with the lowest wage and lowest average hours, have been dramatically cutting labor hours since 2011. This trend is highly suggestive and points to employers cutting employees’ hours to avoid ObamaCare’s harshest penalties.

5.  ObamaCare enrollments are falling far short of the Obama administration’s stated goals. The low enrollment level spells trouble for ObamaCare. Premiums are likely to skyrocket even higher in 2015 without a much larger share young people in the ObamaCare exchanges.

6. According to the state’s own auditor, state workers consistently failed to verify eligibility under the Medicaid program. Continued waste, fraud and abuse in the program were the impetus for hiring a contractor to verify program eligibility.

But instead of saving taxpayers $350 million by using a private contractor to verify Medicaid eligibility, the state is now hiring 500 new government workers to do the job.

7.  Even though the ACA requires members of Congress to enroll in ObamaCare, they have managed to avoid the ObamaCare experience almost entirely. Apparently, many members are perfectly comfortable living by a different set of rules than the people they supposedly represent.

• Despite the law’s failure on so many levels, some lawmakers in Springfield would still like to further expand ObamaCare’s reach into the state.
• That is why we are asking Illinoisans to sign our “You First” petition. The petition calls on state lawmakers who continue to support ObamaCare to forgo their generous, taxpayer-funded health insurance benefits and voluntarily enter the ObamaCare exchange.

8. Contrary to popular belief, ObamaCare was never designed to dramatically expand private health care coverage; it has always been a massive Medicaid expansion scheme.

9. ObamaCare threatens to run roughshod over Americans’ most personal financial and health care information. There will always be vulnerabilities in any system, but the federal government failed to take the same security steps that any Fortune 500 company would take to protect your most sensitive information.

10. It is time for the Obama administration to #ComeClean on ObamaCare enrollment numbers. Instead of counting people who have actually paid for a plan, the administration is counting anyone who put a plan in his shopping cart, but has not necessarily paid, as being enrolled.