ObamaCare: One-third of Americans hurt by health-care law

According to the most recent Rasmussen survey, one-third of Americans believe that the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare, has negatively affected them personally. But that is only part of the story. A scant 14 percent believe that the law has helped them. Sold as reducing the number of the insured and lowering health-care...

According to the most recent Rasmussen survey, one-third of Americans believe that the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare, has negatively affected them personally. But that is only part of the story.

A scant 14 percent believe that the law has helped them. Sold as reducing the number of the insured and lowering health-care costs, ObamaCare is nothing short of a policy disaster.

For evidence, one need look no further than the continued botched roll out of healthcare.gov, the slag heap of broken promises from “if you like your health insurance, you can keep it” to the idea that the law “will save the average family $2,500 per year,” the millions of policy cancellations to date and the tens of millions slated for 2014, and the increased premiums, dramatically higher deductibles and narrow networks of providers under the law. But rather than scrap this calamitous law, the Obama administration is all too willing to unilaterally pick and choose which parts of the law should be enforced – and when.

The White House is expected to soon announce an additional one-year delay that would allow insurers to continue to offer health-insurance policies that do not meet ObamaCare’s minimum coverage requirements. With the upcoming rash of cancellations in the individual market, some of which renewed for an additional year, a much larger onslaught of group policy cancellations is expected in 2014.

If carried out, this thinly veiled attempt to avoid cancellations before the fall mid-term elections is just more evidence of how the administration continues to put politics ahead of Americans’ best interests. Rather than grant a politically motivated extension of these policy cancellations, lawmakers should, at a minimum, move forward and swiftly support the proposed delay of the individual mandate, which will be up for a vote in the House of Representatives this week.

The administration’s continued implementation delays are a tacit admission that ObamaCare is a failure and that politics trump Americans’ well-being in the eyes of the Obama administration. It is time to scrap this calamitous law and face reality: ObamaCare is not affordable and is doing the opposite of its promised goals. It is time to go back to the drawing board to craft solutions that give individuals control over their health-care decisions and allow them to select options that best meet their own needs and preferences, rather than government knows best dictates.