Quantum Windbag
Gold Member
- May 9, 2010
- 58,308
- 5,099
- 245
Gee, what a surprise. Offer people incentives to get government handouts, and people will sign up for the handouts.
Surprise! New Study Suggests That Obamacare Could Cost Much More Than Expected - Hit & Run : Reason.com
That's because the law will create big incentives for employers to drop worker health coverage so that employees can get health insurance through the law's insurance exchanges. Anyone who buys insurance through an exchange and has a household income between 133 and 400 percent of the poverty line is eligible for publicly funded subsidies. So if a lot more people than expected end up in the exchanges, that means a lot more subsidies and a much higher total cost for the law.
The study, published this week in the journal Health Affairs, estimates that some 37 million people would benefit from shifting out of employer coverage and into exchanges. What "benefit" means, in this case, is that those people would be better off getting cash from their employer instead of coverage, and then buying subsidized coverage on the exchanges.
If all 37 million people in this category were to switch into exchange-based coverage, it would result in a dramatic increase in the law's cost: about $132 billion annually in additional federal outlays, according to the study.
Surprise! New Study Suggests That Obamacare Could Cost Much More Than Expected - Hit & Run : Reason.com