Andrew Shurtleff/ZUMA Press/Newscom
A poll released last week by InsuranceQuotes reveals that 64 percent of the uninsured are uncertain whether they will purchase insurance coverage once Obamacare takes full effect next year.
This is not surprising, as Obamacare is projected to leave more people uninsured than it actually helps gain coverage. According to updated numbers from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), by 2023, Obamacare will still leave 31 million people without insurance (this number includes unauthorized immigrants), despite adding nearly $1.8 trillion in new federal spending.
Here’s what’s happening, as projected by the CBO, in 2023:
- Obamacare will add an estimated 13 million people into the failing and broken Medicaid program;
- 24 million people will obtain coverage through the law’s exchanges, 19 million of whom will have their coverage subsidized by the government;
- 7 million are expected to lose their current employer-sponsored coverage (breaking that firm presidential promise); and
- About 5 million people will no longer obtain their coverage in the non-group market.
Thus, when it’s all added up, the number of uninsured is reduced by only 25 million.
While those are the CBO’s official current projections, the crystal ball remains very cloudy on the future of Obamacare’s impact. At this point, it’s difficult to predict how individual actors will respond to Obamacare’s many complex interactions. As seen with the InsuranceQuotes poll, even the uninsured are uncertain about how and whether they’ll sign up for coverage.
But if the CBO’s coverage projections are accurate, the federal government will spend nearly $1.8 trillion on the Medicaid expansion and exchange subsidies alone, all the while making 32 million more people dependent on government for their health care.
Of course, spending money on new government entitlements when the existing entitlements are unsustainable and in desperate need of reform is absurd—especially given that we have a national debt at almost $17 trillion and annual trillion-dollar budget deficits.