Obamacare Screw-up Leaves A Half-Million Kids Without Coverage

Here we go again! Another speed bump in the government takeover of America's heath system.
This time the bill will cost some families thousands of dollars in additional health insurance costs and leave up to a half-million kids without coverage.  The geniuses in the Democratic caucus who rushed through the bill without reading it forgot that some people actually have families.

The way the bill works is if one's company offers them heath coverage which costs >9.5% of their household income they cannot get the subsidized coverage through the healthcare exchanges.  What our paternalistic progressives in congress didn't put in the bill was that the 9.5% refers to coverage of the entire family. So if a company offers insurance costing >9.5% of a worker's household income, but that coverage is only for the individual employee and doesn't include the worker's spouse and family---well--they cannot get subsidized help through the state health exchanges.

That can make a huge difference; the Kaiser Family Foundation said an average plan for an individual is about $5,600, but it goes up to $15,700 for families. Most employers help out with those costs, but not all.

"We saw this two-and-a-half years ago and thought, 'Has anyone else noticed this?'" said Kosali Simon, a professor of public affairs at Indiana University who specializes in health economics. "Everyone said, 'No, no. You must be wrong.' But we weren't, and that's going to leave a lot of people out."

Its not that the families can't go the exchanges but they can't get the subsides. And since the President's signature legislation has driven up healthcare costs, these families have an increased burden on their income (along with the higher taxes and energy costs this administration has caused).

Don't count on this Democratic Party snafu getting fixed.  Once the bill gets opened up for this fix  it gets opened up for the GOP to make other changes in the bill (like killing it). No this screw-up stays in Obamacare just like all the others---as a tribute to state-ism and Democratic party members of congress without the ability or the sense of responsibility to read (and think through) a bill before they vote on it.