Obamacare Continues to Slide Into Oblivion

When given the chance, many Americans will dodge and
have dodged ObamaCare's rules and limits. And who can
blame them.

The Affordable Health Care Act's mandates and regulations
are a big driver of higher health care costs. Happily, there are
health care plans that are not in compliance with the ACA's
rules that are very persistent. These rules were, of course,
created for two bad purposes: to make our nation's health
care industry serve politically progressive political goals,
and to squelch and minimize opposition from people who,
through this legislation, lost the health coverage that they
were quite satisfied with.

ObamaCare then "grandfathered" plans that existed before
March 23, 2010, when the legislation became law, making
this alternate coverage still legal as long as these insurers
made no major changes, such as decreasing benefits for
the policyholders. Then, in 2013, other plans in force that
year also were granted a regulatory commutation, so when
people were scheduled to be booted off of their non-Obama-
Care plans the regime waved through renewals. An extension
allowed these "grandmothered" plans to remain until 2017.

These plans are not required to comply with ObamaCare's
lofty "essential benefits" coverage floor, and are not required
to obey tight price controls which limit how much premiums
can differ based on pre-existing medical conditions. So, four
years into this health coverage program, over 8 million people
are still in these "grandfathered" and "grandmothered" plans.
Most of these plans are non-ObamaCare compliant, with
a majority of thus insured reporting satisfaction with their
plans, as opposed to those satisfied with their ACA plans.

So what we have here are a great many people opting out of
ObamaCare when given the chance. President Trump and the
GOP Congress should, with alacrity, deregulate this mess en
route to full repeal, ensuring Americans will retain the right
to upgrade to more generous benefits, while the ACA-banned
cheaper plans will have their ban lifted. These measures would
be wonderful first steps along the path to restoring a market-
based health care system, the likes of which we Americans
once enjoyed and was the envy of the world.


MEM