If Obamacare is fully implemented, 68 percent of Americans with private health insurance will not be able to keep their plan, according to health care economist Christopher Conover.<\/p>\n
Conover is a research scholar in the Center for Health Policy & Inequalities Research at Duke University and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. In an interview with The Daily Caller, he laid out what he estimates the consequences of Obamacare\u2019s implementation will ultimately be.<\/p>\n
\u201cBottom line: of the 189 million Americans with private health insurance coverage, I estimate that if Obamacare is fully implemented, at least 129 million (68 percent) will not be able to keep their previous health care plan either because they already have lost or will lose that coverage by the end of 2014,\u201d he said in an email. \u201dBut of these, \u2018only\u2019 the 18 to 50 million will literally lose coverage, i.e., have their plans entirely taken away. This includes 9.2-15.4 million in the non-group market and 9-35 million in the employer-based market. The rest will retain their old plans but have to pay higher rates for Obamacare-mandated bells and whistles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conover also says it is hard to imagine President Obama didn\u2019t know these statistics when he was flacking for his health care bill by promising Americans they could keep their health insurance if they liked it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf President Obama himself believed this the first time he said it, he was poorly advised,\u201d Conover said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is that he said it at least 24 times, most of which occurred after his own rule-writers had estimated that 49-80 percent of small employer plans would have lost their grandfather status by 2013, along with 34-64 percent of large employer plans. The same rule estimated that each year 40 to 67 percent of non-group plans not already grandfathered would lose their grandfather status. Given how extensively presidential statements \u2014 especially to a joint session of Congress \u2014 are vetted and fact-checked, it is pretty inconceivable that President Obama was not aware that he was engaged in some degree of truth-twisting.\u201d<\/p>\n