It didn’t have to be that way. The major problem with Obamacare is that the wrong people worked on it. Instead of the politicians and their flunkies, or staff members, trying to create something about which they know absolutely nothing about except that they have to keep their constituents happy, the problem should have been worked on by those who at least know something about the subject matter, the Actuarial Community. But no, the egos of most of the politicians are as big as all outdoors and there is no way that they would concede this or any other complicated matter to the experts.
The term Actuarial Community does not mean the insurance companies because they have only one factor driving them, profits. Actuarial Community refers to those professionals who actually work in the insurance industry be it health insurance or life insurance wherein they develop the premium rates as well as the necessary reserves to make sure that whatever the benefits are, the system remains basically sound. Premium increases for health insurance that is watched over by the various states, but not so with Obamacare, are hard to come by and are approved only after it has been shown conclusively that they are absolutely necessary.
Whatever system is developed to replace Obamacare, it should employ the KISS method, which means, Keep It Simple Stupid. But that is not what politicians do. Case in point, Obamacare. And it is not always necessary to re-invent the wheel as most politicians have tried to do.
Although not everyone is covered by it, everyone has heard of Medicare. Who is covered by Medicare? Anyone who is age 65 and over or is disabled. Obamacare, or perhaps it will now be referred to as Trumpcare, it really makes no difference, as long as there is at least one viable replacement on the table before the mess that our administration has created is sent to the junk heap.
Imagine Obamacare being simply replaced with Medicare by making it available to all ages and forgetting about the myriad of health policies being offered by the insurance companies. There would of course still be a need for supplemental policies to pick up the slack where Medicare left off. This is where the insurance companies should come in. An actuarial study by actuaries should be completed so that we would know if and exactly how it could be made to work. If we did this we could probably incorporate all of the medical services currently made available to our veterans by the Veteran’s Administration and most likely save billions in the process. We could also get after the Medicare fraud industry, for real, and save at least seventy five billion per year.
This type of coverage is referred to by some as a single payor plan. I’m sure that your elected officials have heard of this term. Why don’t you ask them to look into it.