Gordian Knot

Obamacare is a very complex administrative process to both understand and, as we have seen, to utilize. Therefore when one sees things there deteriorating, one cannot decide if these are fatal events ... or, if the administration can throw money at these maladies in order to keep the patient alive.

One thing that we do know is that the Affordable Care Act is turning out to be anything but affordable. Premiums next year are slated to increase 10.1%. And this is still before the employer mandate fully kicks in. This portion of this Gordian Knot of a law is expected to add fuel to the pyre upon which the American health-care consumer is being sacrificed. That is why this mandate has been repeatedly postponed by administrative fiat ... apparently trying to save the Democrat party from election defeat.

Most recently there have been two events that cast a pall on this MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber's convoluted monstrosity:

1) Over one half of the government health-care insurance co-ops have disappeared or are expected to disappear by year end due to massive cost overruns ... see: Fox News Story. These co-ops were set up under this law to the tune of two billion dollars of taxpayer loans ... much of which is now in jeopardy. These dissolutions have left tens of thousands of consumers now without coverage ... not a good situation for these poor souls this law was supposed to help.

2) Just this past week UnitedHealth Group, the largest health-care insurance provider in the United States ... and the one endorsed by AARP ... has indicated that it is questionable whether it can continue to insure consumers under Obamacare ... having seen a $425 million revenue shortfall over the last year ... see: USA Today. If UnitedHealth drops coverage, an additional hundreds of thousands of consumers will lose their health-care insurance ... and, if this is an indication of possible financial problems at the other large insurers, then Obamacare is indeed in deep sneakers. However this threat by UnitedHealth may just be a plea for a government bailout.

Clearly, if the federal government chooses to bailout these co-ops, UnitedHealth and others, then Obamacare looks very much like a single-payer health-care system ... the objective of this administration all along. See also Marco Rubio's comments on this looming possibility: Breitbart Article.