Has Obamacare improved health insurance?

Republicans have taken aim at struggling co-ops established under the A ordable Care Act – but are they the real problem?


Neal Biron, Account executive and compliance officer, United Business Insurance Agency:
“No – Obamacare actually discourages competition, in spite of all the rhetoric, due to the risk adjustment requirement. Also, plan benefits have been decimated by higher deductibles and higher out of- pocket costs. By not addressing the escalating cost of healthcare, we will pay higher premiums for less and less coverage. The combination of higher premiums and higher out-of-pocket costs keeps insurance unaffordable for way too many people, thus perpetuating the need for greater and greater subsidies to keep people insured, an ever-increasing tax burden. It’s about time we stopped making the consumer the primary bearer of the burdensome costs of supporting the healthcare industry.”



David S. Cluley, Vice chair, Media Relations Committee, National Association of Health Underwriters:
“Obamacare has improved access to health insurance for millions of previously uninsured people. Conversely, it made health insurance more difficult for people to afford with its additional mandates, high deductibles and increased taxation to subsidize ‘free’ services and make plans affordable for low-income families. The real problem is the cost of healthcare, which the Obamacare plan originally set out to reduce. However, midstream, that changed to health insurance reform after realizing that bigger government does not make healthcare cheaper. Instead of treating the disease (the cost of healthcare), only the obvious symptom (the cost of health insurance) was addressed.”



Mark Brown, Financial planner, Mark Brown & Associates:
“The answer depends on who you are. If you are poor, then you will have received free or subsidized healthcare. But the ‘healthcare’ has not improved. I would say a certain percentage of recipients aren’t even concerned about healthcare. They don’t know how it works. Let’s talk about everyone in the country renewing or applying for coverage in December for January of the new year. That’s a disaster. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois received applications in late November for a January effective date, and we didn’t receive those approvals until mid- to late February. In the meantime, [clients] are left wondering if they have coverage or not. Has Obamacare improved health insurance? I would say no.”