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Thursday, January 4, 2018

Righting an Obamacare Wrong

When Obamacare went into effect in 2014, about eight million people lost their health insurance plans despite Obama's famous promise that if you liked you health plan you could keep it.  Just about half of the people who lost their old coverage were individuals who previously got insurance through some sort of association or business/industry group.  I know all about this, as I was one of those who lost my insurance.  I had previously bought health insurance through the bar association (I'm a lawyer).  When Obamacare came in, I could not do that any longer since my law practice did not meet the new government-mandated requirements to be in the group.  I had to get an individual policy on the Obamacare exchanges at an increase in cost of roughly $3000 per year for a plan that was not as good as what I had previously.  It was a major problem with Obamacare that hit millions.  Today, however, the Department of Labor issued a new proposed regulation that will finally correct that mistake.  The government is loosening the definition of an "association" that can purchase a group plan for members.  It may sound technical, but it means that workers in small businesses that do not provide insurance will be able to get much lower cost policies than on the exchange.  It also means that self employed individuals with few or no employees will also be able to buy much less expensive group coverage through the association.  Once the regulation goes into effect, I would again be able to buy coverage through the bar association.

The estimate is that changing this law will allow roughly ten million currently uninsured people to get affordable coverage.  All it takes is to allow individuals to get creative in how they structure their health plans rather than using the previous Obamacare methodology of total government control.  The Obamacrats all think that Washington knows best and the American people cannot survive without the government.  As the Trump administration loosens some of the DC imposed restrictions, it allows for the improvement of health coverage by allowing freedom for individuals.

Most likely, this will get no coverage today in the mainstream media.  First, they could never talk about a move by Trump to get health insurance for up to ten million people left uninsured by their icon Obamacare.  That would be a slap at Obama and a positive story for Trump.  NEVER!  Second, they are all too busy talking about the latest nonsense that most people do not care about.  It doesn't matter.  Somehow, the news will get out.  This is a major gain for millions of ordinary Americans.

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