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prescription for


disaster STILL


CELEBRATING Leading House Democrats including John Dingle (at


podium), Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Crowley (to his left) stage an event in honor of the third anniversary of passage of the Aff ordable Care Act.


Millions to Be Priced Out of Obamacare


T


The Patient Protection and Aff ordable Care Act will send costs soaring — in unexpected ways. BY JIM MEYERS


here’s no telling just how high the tab will be for Obamacare once all its provi- sions are fully implemented,


but one thing is certain: The number will be staggering. All of those provisions in the volu-


minous 2,000-page Patient Protec- tion and Aff ordable Care Act won’t be in place until 2020, but paperwork costs alone have already risen to $30.8 billion, according to The American Action Forum, a Washington-based advocacy group. More importantly, going forward, the forum estimates


8 NEWSMAX | MAY 2013


that more than 55,000 employees working 2,000 hours per year will be needed to process all the red tape asso- ciated with Obamacare. Another report, this one from the


INCREASE IN MEDICAL CLAIM


PAYOUTS


Society of Actuaries, predicts that insurance companies will have to pay out an average of 32 per- cent more for medical claims under the bill, and those costs can be


32%


passed along to consumers in the form of higher health insurance premiums. An exhaustive study by three con- gressional committees found that


President Barack Obama’s signature legislation could increase premiums by more than 200 percent for a vari- ety of reasons, rendering healthcare insurance “unaff ordable” to many Americans — alienating the program’s stated purpose. The healthcare advocacy group


Families USA warns that unless tax credits are extended to cover more households, some 2 to 4 million people will be aff ected. In Florida alone, the legislature’s


decision not to expand Medicaid could leave 1.8 million without health- care coverage. One of the largest


price tags for Obam- acare will be the expansion of Med- icaid in the states, which could cost $434 billion over the decade of 2010-2019, according to the Congressional Bud- get Offi ce. But other costs abound, the Con- gressional Budget Offi ce reports. The following outline the myriad costs and fees associated with the Patient Pro- tection and Aff ordable Care Act.


$434 THIS DECADE


BILLION


TO EXPAND MEDICAID


P.6,7: CHRISTOPHER GREGORY/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX / P.8: MORTAR AND PESTLE/ISTOCK PHOTOS / SIGNING ANNIVERSARY/CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES


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