The goals that President Barack Obama spelled out for his signature healthcare overhaul are nowhere near being achieved five years into its lifespan — time enough to recognize, as most Americans do, that the law needs to be scrapped and replaced, says a health policy analyst and writer.
"The American people are not happy on this birthday," Sally Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner on
Newsmax TV on Monday.
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Pipes said the Affordable Care Act, which turned 5 on Monday, has meant rising premiums for policyholders, fewer choices in insurer-shrunken networks of medical providers, new Medicaid enrollees struggling to find doctors at all, and a ballooning of the country's healthcare tab.
The primary Obamacare goals of universal coverage and lowered costs are unreachable under the existing plan, said Pipes.
"The Congressional Budget Office has said by 2025, 25 million Americans will still be uninsured," she said. "The president wanted a healthcare bill that cost $900 billion over 10 years. The CBO costed it out at $940 billion. Now, the gross cost is about $1.7 trillion from 2015 to 2024.
"Are those things that the American people would want to celebrate?" she said. "The president did not achieve, and will not achieve, what he's promised the American people."
While the percentage of people counted as uninsured has fallen, the picture is more complicated, said Pipes
"The administration has come out and said about 8.8 million people, as of the beginning of March, are now covered under HealthCare.gov," she said, "But it's also being pointed out that about 20 percent of those people … will probably not pay the premium."
Among an estimated 11 million new Medicaid enrollees, "we're finding increasingly that people on Medicaid cannot find a doctor," said Pipes. "So, we've seen emergency room use go up, which is expensive, which the president promised would not happen."
"If you can't find a doctor and you have coverage, but you can't get a doctor, what does that mean?" she said. "It means we're headed down a path to rationed care and lack of access with long waiting lists."
Pipes called it "an unhappy birthday party" for the Affordable Care Act, adding that clear majorities in polls want the law, with its mix of mandates and penalties, either repealed or replaced.
"Now that the Republicans say that they have a plan … which would of course allow
people who have been receiving subsidies to have a transition period — which is a good thing — we need to repeal and replace the whole law," she said, "getting rid of the employer mandate, individual mandate, getting rid of the tax advantage that people who have employer-based coverage get.
"This can be done," said Pipes, "but we have to be resolute in pushing that this is the best so that Americans can achieve affordable, accessible, quality care for all."
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