The uncomfortable pauses that came along with President Barack Obama’s apology to the millions of Americans who lost their health insurance last month were in no way an adequate commiseration for the problems they faced then and are still facing now.
In the president’s address to the nation on Thursday, Nov. 7, Obama stated, “I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me.”
Well, nearly 52 million Americans either have already lost or will lose their health care. But at least President Obama said he was sorry.
It has been nearly a month since Obama apologized for, and promised a fix to, the Obamacare website; but we have seen neither a sign that it is heading in the right direction nor a sufficiently repentant president, as he continues to defend the problem that he created.
On Nov. 30, 2013, after the self-imposed deadline to fix the problem came and went, the American people are still in desperate need of a reliable solution that the president just simply doesn’t have.
Ever since the Affordable Care Act website went public on Oct. 1, 2013, it has been a clear representation of the mess of a health care system we have in our country.
Two months ago, on Oct. 1, had the website not been a complete disaster, the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, would have begun to improve the health care system we have in place.
Obamacare is intended to lower the general cost of health care per family per month, strengthen and broaden its coverage and require every American to purchase a health insurance plan by March 31, 2014, or pay a fine.
But, unfortunately, none of those goals is coming to fruition; premiums have been exponentially increasing, and still, millions of Americans are without health insurance at all.
These recent problems could have easily been prevented had the website been properly designed, checked and tested before its reveal to the public; importantly, Obamacare in general could have been more positively received by the American people. But because of its initial problems, Americans have little confidence in the legislation.
In a Forbes article from Nov. 2, the Society of Actuaries projected the change in health insurance prices, by state, as seen with the switch to Obamacare. According to Forbes, “Only in New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey would the premiums decline slightly for people with individual coverage.” Meanwhile, the rest of the country could be hit with increases as high as 81 percent.
It comes as no surprise that, like the distribution of wealth in our country, the middle of the country could be faced with the highest increase in premiums on average, whereas, according to the Society of Actuaries, the northeast will see its highest increase in New Hampshire with 37 percent.
Of course, these numbers are just predictions, but with the malfunctions we have seen thus far, such increases are looking more likely than not.
Now, with the Democrats and President Obama’s administration under much scrutiny, the main point Obama has been trying to contend is that the Obamacare website should not be indicative of Obamacare as a whole.
President Obama still believes that with time and effort, the website will run smoothly, and the United States will see the change in health care that we have been hoping for.
But these glitches prove nothing more than Obamacare’s failure, both that of the website and the plan itself.