Obamacare Rate Shock In California
Although I’ve been characterized as a rabid right winger on some topics, by my wife no less, when it comes to health care I’m pretty open minded and non-dogmatic. As recently as 2006 I had advocated for a single-payer system aka “socialized medicine” arguing that health care is similar a public good as fire and police protection. What changed my opinion was the government involvement in the economy in 2008-09 with the default nationalization of General Motors, AIG and a large swathe of the banking industry. While there may be good reason for government involvement in the health care industry, such involvement cannot be done in an environment whereby the government is expanding its reach in other areas. That’s why I have switched my viewpoint towards a more libertarian one whereby the federal government’s power is curtailed throughout society, and that includes in the health care industry.
But I am open to what works. Our son was born under socialized medicine in Japan, and I am familiar with its benefits and drawbacks first-hand. I remain at least in principle more accommodating to the idea than most libertarians and conservatives, as long as it works. We live in a medical system that is the most expensive in the world yet provides middling care, one that provides perverse incentives to participants that work against cost containment and better quality of care, and one with bureaucracies – that’s plural – which go beyond the Byzantine to the Kafkaesque. It’s a system that is loathed by anyone with “skin in the game,” from care givers to care receivers. It’s only the bureaucrats who delight in it and those who benefit monetarily and politically from the current regime. For most the system is collapsing, but slowly and painfully.
Obamacare makes the situation worse, which is why the conspiracy minded have viewed it as a morphine overdose that destroys the system and allows its replacement by socialized medicine. Honestly at this point, I’m not sure this would be a bad thing given what I’ve been seeing with Obamacare.
Last week Obamacare supporters were trumpeting cost containment. Evidently they grabbed their tin horns too quickly. It turns out that Californians, particularly the young and healthy that will be forced by law to buy insurance if its not provided by their employers, will face rate hikes as high as 146%. A catastrophic plan for a healthy 25 year old today costs roughly $92/month. After January 1, 2014 the same plan will double to $184/month. While an extra $92 isn’t a lot to me, I remember the time particularly when I was starting my career with a young family in my late 20’s when it was. That was a week’s worth of groceries back then. Perhaps today’s 20-somethings are wealthier than I was when I was their age, but given the job climate I doubt it.
Perhaps today’s 20-somethings are much more idealistic than I was back in the day and believe Obamacare will work for them, but it seems to me that it is the continued war on the young as the rates are meant to keep costs down for older and wealthier rate payers. When I was their age I went without health insurance; that is not an option for them today.
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