Women Living Under Obamacare

March 20, 2013

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National Democrats Support Legislation That Could Increase Health Insurance Premiums For Young Women Across the Country By As Much As 193% In 2014.  “The American Action Forum recently released a study revealing that the price of the lowest-cost health insurance coverage for a 30 year old single male nonsmoker is set to increase by 260 percent between 2013 and 2014. Our 30 year old subject is part of a group known as “young invincibles,” 18-35 year olds whose participation in the health insurance exchanges is necessary in order for the markets to function properly. As a follow-up we have applied the same methodology to a 30 year old single female nonsmoker purchasing the lowest-cost bronze level plan and the results – including an average increase of 193 percent – are just as shocking.” (Sam Cappellanti, “Women ‘Young Invincibles’ Not Immune to Premium Rate Increases,” American Action Forum, Oct. 22, 2013)

 

Democrats Supports Legislation That Could Leave Up To 500,000 Children Without Health Coverage And Cost Some Families Thousands Of Dollars.  “A so-called “family glitch” in the 2010 health care law threatens to cost some families thousands of dollars in health insurance costs and leave up to 500,000 children without coverage, insurance and health care analysts say.” (Kelly Kennedy, “‘Family glitch’ in health law could be painful,” USA TodaySept. 23, 2013

 

Democrats Supports Legislation That Could Cause Families To Lose Their Health Insurance Coverage.  “Dependents losing coverage. One of the perverse risks of Obamacare is that it could cause families who are relying on employer insurance to lose their coverage. Under the law, employers must offer affordable insurance to their employees; Washington will deem a policy unaffordable if an employee’s premium is more than 9.5 percent of his or her household income. This means that for a household income of $30,000, if the premium is more than $2,850, the coverage is considered unaffordable. Then the worker is eligible to go to the Exchanges for taxpayer-subsidized insurance. The only problem is that the subsidized insurance will be only for the worker and not for dependents. Families could lose coverage at work and be ineligible for subsidies in the Exchanges.” (“Obamacare: Wrong for Women,” The Galen Institute, Aug. 24, 2012)

 

Democrats Supports Legislation That Puts Health Insurance Coverage For Children And Dependents At Risk.  “Unintended consequences. One of the first provisions of Obamacare to be implemented requires employers that offer dependent coverage to allow children to stay on their parents’ policies up to age 26. But some families are finding that this has a dark side: Firms and other organizations are finding they can’t afford the added cost and are dropping dependent coverage altogether. Soon after the law passed, the 1199SEIU local of the Service Employees International Union announced that it was dropping dependent coverage: ‘. . . new federal health-care reform legislation requires plans with dependent coverage to expand that coverage up to age 26,’ Mitra Behroozi, executive director of benefits and pension funds, wrote in a letter to members. ‘Our limited resources are already stretched as far as possible, and meeting this new requirement would be financially impossible.’”

 

“Child-only policies vanishing. Children are most commonly insured along with their parents, but child-only policies have been available for families where the parents’ insurance doesn’t cover dependents. Under a provision of Obamacare that went into effect in 2010, insurers can no longer refuse to sell such a policy because of a preexisting condition. This means that parents or guardians could wait to purchase policies until their children got sick. In at least 17 states, insurers have pulled out of the child-only market, saying they would face “adverse selection” because the new rule destroys the basis for shared insurance against risk.” (“Obamacare: Wrong for Women,” The Galen Institute, Aug. 24, 2012)

 

Democrats Supports Legislation That Puts Women At Risk For Late Diagnosis Of Breast Cancer.  “The first month of the new health law’s rollout reveals an unexpected pattern in several states: a crush of people applying for an expansion of Medicaid and a trickle of sign-ups for private insurance.  This early imbalance — in some places, nine out of 10 enrollees are in Medicaid — has taken some experts by surprise. The Affordable Care Act, which expanded Medicaid to cover millions of the poorest Americans who couldn’t otherwise afford coverage, envisions a more even split with an expanded, robust private market.” (Sarah Kliff, “In first month, the vast majority of Obamacare sign-ups are in Medicaid,” The Washington Post, Oct. 31, 2013)

 

“Budget forecasters projected this summer that 9 million people would sign up for Medicaid in 2014, slightly more than the 7 million shoppers who would purchase private insurance plans.” (Sarah Kliff, “In first month, the vast majority of Obamacare sign-ups are in Medicaid,” The Washington Post, Oct. 31, 2013)

 

“To take one of many examples, a group of researchers at the American Cancer Society looked at 533,715 women with breast cancer, and asked: When those women were first diagnosed with breast cancer, were they diagnosed with early-stage or late-stage disease? And how did that correlate to their insurance status? That correlation matters, because if you already have late-stage cancer when the doctors first discover it, it’s much harder for you to receive curative treatment. Quite literally, the difference between being diagnosed with Stage I and Stage IV breast cancer is the difference between life and death.  Sadly, what the ACS researchers found was quite typical for the literature. Women without insurance were 2.4 times as likely to have late-stage breast cancer upon diagnosis than women with private insurance. But those on Medicaid performed even worse on this metric than did the uninsured; Medicaid patients were 2.5 times as likely to obtain a late-stage diagnosis as those on private insurance. And the authors adjusted their results for race, age, income, education, and geography, among other factors.”  (Avik Roy, “Why Health Insurance is Not the Same Thing as Health Care,” Forbes, Oct. 15, 2012)

 

Democrats Supports Legislation That Could Require Women To Divulge Their Personal Sexual History.  “‘Are you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?’ Be ready to answer those questions and more the next time you go to the doctor, whether it’s the dermatologist or the cardiologist and no matter if the questions are unrelated to why you’re seeking medical help. And you can thank the Obama health law.  ‘This is nasty business,’ says New York cardiologist Dr. Adam Budzikowski. He called the sex questions ‘insensitive, stupid and very intrusive.’ He couldn’t think of an occasion when a cardiologist would need such information — but he knows he’ll be pushed to ask for it. The president’s ‘reforms’ aim to turn doctors into government agents, pressuring them financially to ask questions they consider inappropriate and unnecessary, and to violate their Hippocratic Oath to keep patients’ records confidential.” (Betsy McCaughey, “Obamacare will question your sex life,” New York PostSept. 15, 2013)