Thursday, June 6, 2013

This Week's Stories in the Dystopia of Government Healthcare

In 2012, the White House estimated that the first year of PPACA subsidies would cost $15.5 billion. The next year, it rose to $21.5 billion. This year, the estimated cost was roughly $32 billion. Don't you wish you had that kind of leeway in your budget?

California's state government has committed to a pension fund for teachers and has ginned up a phony surplus by underpaying into that fund.

Smokers cost employers $5,816 more than non-smokers.

California has decided to make it illegal to charge smokers more for healthcare even though ObamaCare encourages it.

US healthcare is not free market healthcare, but instead, is riddled with market failures. It is a combination of Crony Capitalism and socialism: an agreement among Big Pharma, Big Hospital, Big Insurance, Big Specialists and Big Government. (And more here.)

The IRS assumes that the cheapest (bronze) ObamaCare family plan will cost $20,000 a year in 2016.

Two-thirds of Americans who currently lack health insurance don't know yet if they will bother to fill out the 20-60 pages for the three gov't agencies by Jan 1 as ObamaCare requires for new coverage.

The IRS has already hired 1,024 new bureaucrats to collect fines and taxes for ObamaCare and this year they seek to hire 1,954 more. That is 2,978 new bureaucrats to collect 18 new taxes, fees and fines.