Oh, the spin. Makes my head hurt.
When the fourth open-enrollment period begins Tuesday, most people who buy health insurance on the marketplaces set up through the Affordable Care Act will see little, if any, change in their monthly costs.
But the tens of thousands of people throughout the state who don’t qualify for federal subsidies — most of whom have already seen the cost of their health insurance jump in recent years — will be in for additional pain.
They will pay the full cost of double-digit premium increases. Several insurers, including at least four in the Milwaukee area, are raising premiums by more than 20%.
Do you see what they did there? They downplay the rate increase by saying that most people won’t be affected by it. Why won’t most people be affected by it? Because they receive federal subsidies to offset the premiums. And who pays for those subsidies? Why, federal taxpayers do, thanks for asking. And who are the federal taxpayers? All of us who don’t get subsidies for Obamacare and some of them too.
So we all get to pay for the massive Obamacare premium increases, but we aren’t supposed to be too concerned about that because the folks getting subsidies should be OK. 
And here’s the paragraph that tells you that the reporter simply regurgitated the spin from some Obamacare bureaucrat:
About 85% of the 224,208 people who bought health plans on the marketplace as of March 2016 were eligible for subsidies. The percentage may be higher now.
The first sentence is true. It is a fact and it duly reported as such. The second sentence is something that someone trying to minimize the impact of the increases would say. Yes, that percentage may be higher now. It may be lower. It may be about the same. Why even include that speculation if not to try to give the impression that even fewer people would be paying for the premium increases themselves?
But remember that massive premium increases because of Obamacare are a feature – not a bug. It is an intended consequence designed to push us to full socialized medicine as advocated by Clinton and the rest of the Left.
The alternative, arguably, would be to repeal the Affordable Care Act with nothing to replace it and leave 20 million people without health care and hope that they die before showing up to the hospital with an illness since the hospital will treat them and then pass on the costs to those paying for health insurance! What’s the sense here?
What is preferable? Repeal the ACA and let those without an employer providing insurance fend for themselves and continue to have the highest per capita cost for health care and about the 35th best quality of health care for our citizens? Or eliminate the profit engine of the health insurance industry and provide Medicare for all? It all depends…what’s more important, providing for the common good or providing for maximum profits for the insurance industry?
Far more people die waiting in line in rationed health care systems, like Canada and Britian, than anything prior to unaffordable care act here.
Liberals always forget their tremendous big government body count.
Oh the spin is right.
Lets start by debunking the use if the word “subsidies”.
Most people enrolled receive an advanced tax credit which offsets the premium cost. For example, any health insurance premiums paid out of pocket by an individual or family are tax deductible. The marketplace has a formula based on number of family members that calculates average cost of policies and what amount of those premiums are deductable. Instead of waiting for the deduction to be filed at the end of the year they apply the credit in advance. They also adjust, debit/credit, accounts if income increases or decreases based on year end tax filing. I do acknowledge those suffering from poverty are subsidized but they would be eligible for federal health insurance even if ACA didn’t exist.
“Far more people die waiting in line in rationed health care systems, like Canada and Britian, than anything prior to unaffordable care act here”.
A little proof of that statement?
Health care isn’t “rationed” in Canada (I don’t know about Britian (sic), that is just nonsense. My GP is a Canadian and is of the opinion that health care in the US would be cheaper and more efficient if we had a single payer system. He doesn’t agree with all of the facets of the Canadian system, but believes there is a lot to be saved in administrative cost under single payer.
Please allow me to clarify my last sentence in the above 12:14pm post. By federal health insurance I mean the federal/state health insurance program known as Medicaid. All those individuals and families suffering from poverty were, are and will still be eligible for Medicaid without ACA. So, the subsidies already existed and will continue even if ACA is repealed. Those who are now paying a percentage of their premiums and utilizing the tax credit are less of a burden, financially, to the system. Lets remember hospitals bill uninsured patients at the full rate not the cut rate that insurance pays. That full rate is ultimately passed on to the premiums of those carrying policies. Furthermore, it could be argued that a healthier population is a more productive, contributing population. Finally, no federal or state program is perfect. President Obama has admitted to flaws within the ACA but has been blocked at every turn by a hostile majority in Congress. Lets face it tweaking what already exists is far better then the nonexistent but “fantastic” plan offered by the “idiot”.