Democrats hope to retake the House of Representatives in next year’s elections. They won’t — and they’ll have themselves to blame, because 2014 is when ObamaCare kicks in.
With a vengeance.
The authors of the Obama health law postponed the pain until after the 2012 election. Some popular provisions went into effect immediately, such as allowing children to stay on their parent’s plan until age 26. And the White House granted 1,472 waivers to various companies and unions, exempting them from insurance reforms so they wouldn’t drop coverage for employees and members before the presidential contest.
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Kiss of death: ObamaCare’s disastrous impact means Nancy Pelosi, here being greeted by the president last year, won’t be speaker again soon.
Yet a majority of voters on Election Day still opposed the health law (though, obviously, it wasn’t the deciding issue in the presidential race). And opinion will only sour more as the law takes full force starting in January.
People in their 20s and 30s will be clobbered — their health-insurance premiums will double (or more), insurers report. Nineteen percent of the president’s 2012 voters came from this age group. The biggest problem: The Obama law forces insurers to charge young, healthy people more to cover the cost of insuring the middle-aged and those with pre-existing conditions.
Middle-aged folks will benefit somewhat from overcharging the young, but the law’s mandatory benefits package and its billions in new taxes on insurers will drive up costs enough that overall premiums for a family of five will start at $20,000 (before subsidies, if any). Oh — and that doesn’t count the penalty for each smoker, roughly $3,000 a head.
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