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Turns out the Affordable Care Act ain't so affordable after all. I can say, strictly from a business standpoint, Obamacare has been a failure. The ramifications of the mandates in this Act have made it disastrous in many cases for the employers and employees. In the past, I have been very careful to call it the Affordable Care Act because I didn't want to make it political. But apparently at this point, everyone is using the term Obamacare, so I will, too. For full disclosure, the Chamber felt the pain of the ACA as well. Previously, we provided our members with an association plan, and 1,000 businesses found great value in it. The ACA completely eliminated association plans and thus eliminated options for the majority of our members: the small mom-and-pop companies with just one or two employees. I can't tell you how hard it was to stop offering really good insurance with great rates and coverage to the small business community which makes up 85 percent of the Lehigh Valley market. This is a passionate debate for many people, but when I talk with business owners and employers responsible for health coverage for their employees, the message is loud and clear. Premiums and deductibles are skyrocketing! Insurance companies are leaving the market! This social agenda is unsustainable! New Time in a Bottle anti-aging serum delivers a deep concentration of powerful ingredients and boosts the power of your moisturizer for more visible results. See More Case in point, this very real Lehigh Valley business is one of many who shared frustrations regarding rising costs with less coverage. A company with 35 employees was able to keep their costs in line each year until 2011, when the rates really started to climb. They had a $500 deductible in 2011, and now they have a $3,000 deductible for 2017. During this time, their employees' rates have gone up 120 percent and the employer cost has gone up about the same. That is simply unsustainable! They had to go to a partially self-insured plan to keep the cost down. The 2017 ACA-compliant plans are about 50 percent higher than the rates they have today. Another shocking example, a small business with five employees dropped health coverage because the rates skyrocketed 70 percent. In 2016, the employees begged their employer to offer group coverage again because the rates in the individual marketplace went up 50 percent and there were only eight options in the WHOLE market, all high deductibles. These employees all make a normal salary, so they did not qualify for the subsidy and the salary increase they were using to pay for the coverage was long forgotten. The employer offered a small group plan this year but the rates are still 100 percent higher than when they left the group market and the deductibles are much higher. The employees are grateful to the employer to have access to the group plan again, as the individual rates were much worse. Now, what we are seeing is a lack of insurance options. Insurance companies like Humana are backing out of the Obamacare market in 2018. People will have coverage for 2017 but Humana states they cannot take part next year since it is an unstable risk pool. Then consider some states only have one or two insurance company options. We are lucky to live in Pennsylvania. Co-ops created under Obamacare are crumbling, reports state that out of 23 co-ops, at least 15 have gone under. The lack of economic competition and a forced market is strangling small business owners. Offering health insurance is a benefit, it is a perk to employees, but now it has become a financial burden. If anyone has a single example of rates and premiums coming down with the same benefit coverage, I would love to hear of it. Right now our administration and legislators are struggling with what to do after Obamacare. My focus and passion is on the growth and sustainability our Lehigh Valley businesses. Believe me, from my business point of view, they are screaming for help. Speaking of business, anyone notice that Dow Jones is up 2,000 points since November? Tony Iannelli is president and CEO of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce. His column appears weekly on the Business Cycle. He can be reached at tonyi@lehighvalleychamber.org. Read the original article here.