Obamacare’s Fatal Flaw
The potentially fatal flaw in America's health-care reform is the same feature that appeals most to its supporters: the ability of those with a serious preexisting health condition to buy affordable insurance. That feature will encourage healthy people to become or remain uninsured until they have a costly medical diagnosis.
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CAMBRIDGE – Obamacare, officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is the health-insurance program enacted by US President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats over the unanimous opposition of congressional Republicans. It was designed to cover those Americans without private or public health insurance – about 15% of the US population.
Opponents of Obamacare have failed to stop it in the courts and, more recently, in Congress. The program was therefore formally launched on October 1. Although it has been hampered by a wide range of computer problems and other technical difficulties, the program is likely to be operating by sometime in 2014.
The big question is whether it will function as intended and survive permanently. There is a serious risk that it will not.
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