Obamacare got you scared?

ROBERT HAYDEN, DC PhD, FICC :::

As the new year begins, new portions of Obamacare are being enacted.  New taxes, fines, and penalties await like predators in the night.  The law has been illegally and unconstitutionally modified by the President 14 times in executive orders, making it more challenging just to understand the current version.

With all the misleading statements, loss of health coverage among innocent bystanders, surprises, a disastrous and incompetent rollout, and “unintended consequences,” it is hard to know what to expect.  You may be entering the new year with some anxieties about Obamacare.  Your diagnosis?  You may be “Obamascared.”

You already know that the Healthcare.gov is scandalously flawed.  You have heard that even if you can get through to enroll, your privacy is at serious risk, as the vulnerability to hackers is significant.

Your alternative to the web site is a paper enrollment process.  The government contracted this with $1.2 billion to the American wing of a British company, SERCO, which is under indictment for massive fraud in England for submitting false health care claims.  Yes, our government contracted with known criminals to handle your paper application process.  SERCO claims there is a “firewall” between the two wings, so we can completely trust the other side of the company.   I feel safer already.

If you need help with all this, you can contact a “Navigator” to help you through the morass of regulations and rules.  The Navigator program is a part of Obamacare that is funded with a few hundred million tax dollars paid to the remnants of ACORN and even Planned Parenthood.  The Navigators have questionable screening, and you may have heard that felons are not excluded from employment.  This person will have all of your personal health information, your income, your address, your date of birth, etc.  How “Obamascared” are you now?

You’ve been told from a highly placed source that “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”  Polls show this to be completely false.  In California, 70 percent of physicians say they will not take Obamacare policies.  In New York, 77 percent say “no” or “not sure.”

What about Georgia?  A representative of the National Association of Health Underwriters in Duluth pointed out that exchange premiums are 80-100 percent higher.  The Humana exchange has only one hospital for Obamacare patients in the entire state.  There will be no exchange hospital for you if you live in Gwinnette county, where most of a million live.  Georgia doctors will not likely participate in any larger percentage than the national averages with such uncertainties and financial disincentives.

Meanwhile, the law is after you, especially if you are a young, healthy person with a history of low utilization of health services, a so-called “invincible.”  The success of Obamacare depends on getting you to enroll at greatly inflated premiums for policies that include coverage for things you neither want nor need.  The money you will be forced to spend is intended to provide for someone else.  If you do not enroll, you will face a tax or fine, depending on the political agenda of the observer.  Your deductible will be high enough that you likely will not be able to use the policy if you need it, assuming you can find a provider.

What can you do?  Personally, I cannot see any advantage of Obamacare over being uninsured.  Why should you pay 80-100 percent more for something you probably can’t use?  Put that money away into an interest-bearing vehicle and insure yourself.  You can avoid the tax/fine by structuring your taxes such that you owe a small amount at the end of the year.  Just pay the taxes you owe and subtract the Obamacare fine.  Simply don’t pay it.  The law does not allow them to take it from you unless you have a tax refund, in which case it will be deducted from your overpayment.

Your best course of action if you are one of the “invincibles” might be to eat sensibly, exercise, get some rest, and find a health care provider you like and trust.  Pay cash.  Stay out of the government system, and make the IRS wonder and worry about where you are.   Wait for this system to implode, as it must for inviolable actuarial reasons, and see what shakes out.  Taking control of your situation may make you less “Obamascared” for 2014.

For this and other columns by Dr. Bob, visit http://www.IrisCityChiro.com.