Side Effects: Obamacare Adds to the Ranks of the Uninsured

Kathryn Nix / June 11, 2010

Imagine if Washington applied Obamacare’s regulatory approach to car sales. Forget choosing your ride based on your own needs and what you can afford. Instead, your wheels would be dictated by what Uncle Sam thought was best for you. For example, you might want—and be willing to pay for—a Mercedes, but Obamacare Motors would let you buy only a Daewoo.

That’s how Obamacare will affect choice in health care coverage. One provision bars insurance companies from putting a limit on how much they will pay in medical claims. This may sound like a consumer-friendly change, but in practice it threatens to abolish lower-cost coverage options.

Employers who can’t afford to offer their workers gold-plated Cadillac plans often provide limited-benefit plans that are quite adequate for the vast majority of consumers. Such policies are especially prevalent among part-time workers or those laboring in low-profit-margin retail or service sectors. (more…)