Conservative skeptics eschew the theoretical idealism of liberalism for a simple reason: it doesn't work in real life.
Such is certainly the case with Obamacare. The data reveals that in many cases it actually leads employers to
drop healthcare coverage for employees, or to reduce employees' hours to avoid the healthcare insurance mandate. An
analysis of Obamacare enrollment data by Heritage experts
Edmund F. Haislmaier and
Drew Gonshorowski reveals that the failure to take into account basic market forces doomed Obamacare from the beginning:
"[A]lmost all the gains in individual coverage through the Obamacare exchanges were offset by reduced enrollment in employer-sponsored group coverage."
"[T]he biggest change in the private market during the six-month period was not the expansion in individual-market coverage, but the decline in fully insured employer group coverage. While enrollment in fully insured employer group coverage modestly increased—by just over 175,000 individuals—in Q4 2013, it dropped by nearly 4.2 million individuals in Q1 2014. The result was a net enrollment decrease of 4 million individuals for the combined six-month period.
In other words, Obamacare is sucking millions of employees out of their employer-provided healthcare plans. What happens then? Authors Haislmaier and Gonshorowski explain:
"The remaining 43 percent of the reduction can only be explained by employers’ discontinuing coverage for some or all of their workers or, in some cases, individuals losing access to such coverage due to employment changes. While it is not possible to determine the subsequent coverage status of individuals who lost group coverage, there are four possibilities: (1) some obtained replacement individual-market coverage (either on or off the exchanges); (2) some enrolled in Medicaid; (3) some enrolled in other coverage for which they are eligible (such as a plan offered by their new employer, a spouse’s plan, a parent’s policy, or Medicare); or (4) some became uninsured."
Bottom line result: Vast numbers of individuals either being shoved into government-subsidized insurance or losing insurance altogether. More power to the State, higher taxes to pay to prop up the State, less efficiency and less individual freedom. That formula may fit liberal theory, but as history has shown (Rome, communism, modern Europe), it is unsustainable in the long term.
