Someone very close to me, one of the hardest working young men I know, is just now finding out what the “Affordable” Care Act will mean for him: the private plan he pays for, currently at $380 a month, will go to $580 a month, and he will receive fewer benefits and endure higher deductibles. He is twenty-three years old, married, with two infant daughters, and he has no idea how he will pay for it. This new premium, after all, ($580), is beginning to feel something like rent, or a mortgage — except that he will have far less to show for it: the peace of mind that comes from a health care system that can’t even build a website? Right.
But wait. He has another option. He can forego any more income, and he can join the ranks of the subsidized, at about $180 a month.
Since I have six children, and they have quite a few friends in similar predicaments, I can confidently say that millions of young couples across the country are facing the same reality: carry your own load, buy a private plan, or take Obama’s vow of poverty and “enjoy” the benefits of what, without doubt, is one of the most colossal redistribute tax schemes in American history.
If this monstrosity is not repealed, consider what that might mean a decade or two away — an entire generation of underemployed college graduates and their more entrepreneurial friends, as they age, will ponder this additional dilemma whenever they want to advance their careers or build their business: if I do too well, will I lose my healthcare subsidy? Isn’t the only other route a government job? Can I really afford to move too far up in this organization or build my own business? Isn’t this Steve Jobs style dreaming too expensive?
That may not mean anything to the child of Marxists who went from affirmative action full rides at major universities to community organizer to politician, (on the state tab his entire life), but it certainly means something to those of us who believe that private industry, particularly small business, is the great wealth generating engine of the republic.
Obamacare, in the last analysis, is far worse than just terrible health care.
It’s bad for the soul.
