Can Obamacare be fixed?

It’s a good question now that it’s basically here to stay unless or until the repeal crowd wins majorities in the Senate and takes the White House. That means, for the next 3+ years, we’ll be dealing with this health care law causing more headaches, at this point, than remedies. According to the CBO, the health care law will end up costing taxpayers double the initial estimates projected by the Obama administration. Here is a summary of some of the problems coming to light in recent months and weeks.

Report from Fox News, on October 8, regarding the amount of health care costs increasing dramatically over the next 10 years:

… But now government actuaries have reached a different conclusion, finding that ObamaCare will actually increase health care spending by $621 billion over the next 10 years.

Doug Holtz-Eakin, the former head of the Congressional Budget Office, says, “now we’re seeing the official scorekeepers of health spending say ‘hey it’s going up, not down.’ That’s going to be a mark against the program no matter what.”

Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center says the actuaries “made it very clear in their projections that the health care law did not bend the cost curve down. It bent it up,” he says, adding, “there will be increase in national health spending associated with the implementation of the health care law.”

Analysts say there is no mystery about the increasing costs — that it’s all in the way the law was structured.

More from CBS News back in September:

New research from the Manhattan Institute estimates that insurance rates for young men will rise by 99 percent. Rates for younger women will rise between 55 percent to 62 percent, according to the right-leaning New York think tank.

The precise impact of the new health law is likely to vary markedly from state-to-state, however. That’s largely because different states have had different requirements for what had to be included in health insurance policies in the past. The Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, overrides these rules and sets a federal overlay that demands a wide array of mandatory coverages. The Manhattan Institute has drawn up an interactive map that may help forecast the rise in cost for individuals.

These differences mean men will get hammered in North Carolina with an average 305 percent rate hike, while women will suffer in Nebraska, paying an average of 237 percent more. For most people, subsidies in the law will not counteract the rate shock, says co-author of the study Avik Roy, a health care expert and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Some reports around the country of health insurance rates rising as a result of the Affordable Care Act:

Maine:
Obamacare costlier for Maine than most of U.S.

Michigan:
Michigan healthcare costs to jump 95% under Obamacare

Pennsylvania:
Mother Forced by Obamacare to Choose Between ‘New Health Plan or Putting Food on the Table’

Ohio:
Ohio insurance department claims Obamacare premium rates to rise 41 percent

Florida:
Florida says health insurance prices will spike; feds disagree

North Carolina:
Budget-busting health insurance increases

California:
Affordable Care Act driving some premiums up
Health insurance shoppers suffer sticker shock

Oregon:
Why your health insurance premium could increase under the Affordable Care Act

I could continue filling this post with stories from around the country of rising insurance premiums resulting from the Affordable Care Act but I think you get the point.

So, the question then becomes, what do we do about it? Will premium increases even out of the coming years or will they continue rising? Most of these stories don’t discuss the tremendous increases many consumers are experiencing in their deductibles, some tripling, even quadrupling coupled with a higher premium amount.

Then there is the fine if you don’t obtain coverage which starts at $95 this year and then doubles, triples and dramatically increases in the coming years.

What parts of the law can be changed, if any, to stem the rising premiums and actually provide affordable care? Should the subsidy threshold be lowered to give more people a break on these rising costs? What do you think might happen over the next 3 years if costs continue rising?