PricewaterhouseCoopers, a professional services firm created in a merger that destroyed several spaces and capital letters, has just issued their forecast for the future of America under ObamaCare. The Heritage Foundation provides a summary of the results. It's not pretty. The important thing to remember about ObamaCare is that the past two years have been its salad days. The really hideous damage is still on the way. Thousands of jobs destroyed, health care costs rising, rampant corruption through the waiver program... and it's just getting warmed up. This baby hasn't even popped out of first gear yet.
What does PricewaterhouseCoopers see ahead for us? Health care costs continue to rise at an accelerating pace, from a 7.5% increase in 2010 to 8.5% in 2012. As Heritage's Margot Crouch notes, this is the exact opposite of the promises made by President Obama.
But wait, that's not all! "Even steeper rises in the cost of private insurance are possible, due to ObamaCare's reductions in Medicare payment rates and its expansion of the Medicaid program," warns Crouch. That's because private parties have to make up the difference when those programs pay less.
The chief actuary of Medicare thinks "15 percent of hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies" will become unprofitable by 2019. What happens to unprofitable businesses again? I mean, after all the bailouts have been exhausted? What will the health care industry look like in eight years, when at least fifteen percent of the providers are gone?
The really awful news is PWC's projection of employer reaction to ObamaCare's crushing mandates. Their survey shows "nearly half of employers will drop their coverage, dumping employees into the government-run exchanges." Also, "four out of five employers will make changes to help cover new costs under ObamaCare, including raising premiums, deductibles, and co-payments."
So much for "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan." The tidal wave of people slamming into the federal exchanges will become a nuclear deficit explosion. We'll all be able to look back at the charlatans who claimed ObamaCare would be deficit-neutral, and the simpletons who believed them, and laugh through our tears.
If the Union hasn't completely come apart by 2014. At the rate things are going and if 2012 elections doesn't help, I can see some states saying FU and heading off again.