A Contrast To My Husband’s Attitude Toward Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act (ACA)

By Nancy Manring

I do not like Obamacare for the following reasons:

1) I believe that insurance companies should be able to tailor their premiums to the actual cost of insuring various demographic groups. For instance, before Obamacare came into existence, single women had to pay more money for health insurance. That was because women use more medical services, and they cost more to insure. For that reason, they should have to pay more for their insurance. People with preexisting conditions are another group that is particularly difficult for insurance companies to insure. In order to insure these expensive patients, insurance companies must have some mechanism for covering them. It is unfair for the majority of insured people to cover the costs of these very expensive patients. However, this might be an area where special government funding could be a beneficial idea. The government already does this with patients who have chronic kidney failure under the Medicare program.

2) I believe that if Medicare-like insurance is provided to people at little or no cost, they will use medical services more and will, therefore, cost more money to insure. If they had more personal responsibility for their health care costs, they would use health services less.

3) The ACA provides people the option of avoiding the purchase of health insurance if they are willing to pay a nominal penalty. That way, they can buy health insurance when they get sick and drop their coverage when they are well, again. This will increase the cost of providing health care to them by a large amount.

4) If the ACA acts like socialized medicine in Great Britain and Canada, health services will be overwhelmed by increased demand. Waiting times and postponed surgery schedules will delay treatment significantly and cause long lines for care in emergency rooms and urgent care facilities.

5) The ACA does not address tort reform, a problem that is causing lots of trouble with frivolous lawsuits and expensive lawyer fees. If that problem, alone were addressed in a much simpler bill, I believe that health care costs would be impacted very favorably.

6) Most important is the fact that ACA encroaches on freedom of religion. ACA insists that Catholic employers must give their employees access to free birth control, which is against the teaching of the Catholic Church. No matter who pays for the birth control, the Church or other insurance companies ACA is eroding on church teachings. When will other churches and other religious teachings be eroded?

7) Although abortion isn’t explicitly mentioned in the healthcare bill, it is implicitly mentioned under women’ healthcare. Who would think that abortions will not be paid for under a bill authored by such an anti-reproductive, pro-abortion minded president such as we have now.

8) I do believe in the function of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, an agency that is being created by the ACA. This board is the rationing part of the ACA. I believe that this board will decrease implementation of useless, expensive, medical and surgical procedures that are driving up health care costs. Many of these procedures are undertaken at the end of life in old people when the prospect for significant length of life is gone, anyway. But this rationing can be done other ways than through a federal healthcare law.

I think this country can rid itself of this healthcare bill in 2 ways. The Supreme Court can cripple it by refusing to uphold the mandate on insurance for everyone, and/or we can elect Santorum for president. Romney says he will repeal the healthcare law, but I think that is merely a campaign promise. Santorum is running for president mainly because he wants to repeal the healthcare law. It is in his heart.