Shocker: ObamaCare to leave families with HIGHER insurance costs

On the heals of this prior post: ObamaCare: Healthcare costs still skyrocketing despite Obama's empty promises. Which was a follow-up to a post from March: Predictable: Democrat Evan Bayh that voted for ObamaCare admits it doesn't reduce health costs. Well... DUH! Of course it doesn't! Was never intended to. It was an unconstitutional power grab and nothing more. You cannot add some 30 million to the pool and claim to reduce cost. You cannot define children as being up to 26 years old, keep them on mom and dads insurance policy, and reduce cost. You cannot force insurance companies to cover people with preexisting conditions and reduce cost. And the list goes on and on. Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the minions told us it would indeed save cost. It was a fantasy at the outset at best. A bald-faced lie at worst. A video report:

Current news from Healthwatch via memeorandum: Healthcare law could leave families with high insurance costs

A major provision of the healthcare reform law designed to prevent businesses from dropping coverage for their workers could inadvertently leave families without access to subsidized health insurance.

The problem is a huge headache for the Obama administration and congressional Democrats, because it could leave families unable to buy affordable health insurance when the healthcare law requires that everyone be insured starting in 2014.

Some of the administration’s closest allies on healthcare reform warn this situation could dramatically undercut support for the law, which already is unpopular with many voters and contributed to Democrats losing the House in the 2010 midterm elections.

...At issue is a so-called “firewall” in the law that denies subsidies to workers whose employers offer quality, affordable coverage.

The firewall applies to plans with premiums that cost less than 9.5 percent of a worker’s income. If a worker has to dole out more than that amount to buy coverage, the employer coverage is considered unaffordable and the worker is eligible for subsidies to buy coverage on the new exchanges.

Initially, advocates thought the threshold also applied to family coverage. If premium costs paid to cover a worker’s family cost 20 percent of a worker’s income, for example, the worker and his or her family should be eligible for subsidies.

But in calculating the bill’s cost last year, Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) took the law to mean that employers and their families aren’t eligible for subsidies as long as the individual plan is affordable — regardless of the price of the family plan.

This means the costs to an employee for covering his or her family could be too high to afford for many working families.

Setting aside the fact that the SCOTUS must find this unconstitutional because if it does not we no longer have a Republic, the GOP shouldn't touch this thing at all. When the walls come falling down in 2014, they would be wise to point out that Democrats by themselves voted this absurdity in. More from  Michelle Malkin and The Powers That Be

I should also point this out once again: Medicare Official: Yeah - those claims that ObamaCare will save money are pure fantasy. The fact that Democrats gamed the CBO to get a score on ObamaCare that they wanted via gimmick - double counting of savings, 6 years of bennies for 10 years of taxes, the 'doctor fix,' etc - has been well known. After ObamaCare was shoved down our throats, the Medicare actuary testified that the law will increase healthcare costs even faster than if nothing at all had been done. Last year I had this: Government Admits Medical Costs Will Rise Under ObamaCare, Sebelius Threatens Insurers Who Criticize It, And Not Even Jon Stewart Is Buying The BS. The relevant quote:

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that insurance companies have proposed rate increases ranging from 1% to 9% nationwide that they attribute specifically to new health-law coverage mandates.

The relevant graphic: