ObamaCare Forcing Americans Out of Their Health Plans

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Human Events:

Health care rationing could be the end result of ObamaCare, as smaller insurers are forced out of the market and as employers race for the exits amid rising costs stemming from the law.

“A lot of people are saying it’s cheaper to pay the penalty for not offering health insurance and to force their employees to go find their health insurance in the marketplace,” said Tennessee GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander. “The insurance in the marketplace is going to be more expensive than the insurance they have from their employer now because of the requirements of the ObamaCare law.

“It will lead to higher costs and to employees losing the insurance that they now have.”

ObamaCare’s features, such as the minimum-loss ratio, the ban on lifetime health coverage limits, eliminating annual caps on payments and preventing insurers from refusing to cover preexisting conditions, will require insurance companies to pay more money out, resulting in dramatically higher premiums.

Insurance industry executives have told Congress they anticipate that ObamaCare’s medical-loss ratio requirement of 80% in individual and group markets or 85% in large markets will have a dramatic impact on health care consumers, employers and health insurance plans.

The medical-loss ratio dictates how much private insurers need to spend on medical claims and how much can be spent on overhead costs such as payroll and advertising, and on the profit they can earn.

Insurance executives say the imposition of this provision of the law last January is already destabilizing the marketplace because insurers did not have enough time to make adjustments to comply.

“This is going to inhibit health plans’ abilities to invest in new innovations, technologies and types of programs and services that are necessary to transform the health care system,” said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).