Fulfilling the prognostications of opponents of President Obama’s health care law, the cost of employer-based family health care plans has risen by 9 percent over the past year, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Kaiser’s report determines that the average cost of an annual premium for employer-based coverage is now $15,073. This amount is double the average premium in 2001 of $7,061. To make matters worse, while premium costs have risen by 9 percent over the last year, wages have only increased by 2 percent.

The implications for this steep increase are uncertain but alarming. As Kaiser CEO Drew Altman states in the New York Times, “The open question is whether that’s a one-time spike or the start of a period of higher increases.” Regardless, the timing of this increase could hardly be worse, as the economy is fighting stagnancy and high levels of unemployment. The Times also notes that many employers are avoiding hiring new employees because of the high costs of coverage.

While most of ObamaCare’s provisions are not activated until 2014, many are attributing this rise in cost to anticipation on the part of insurers and employers, creating market uncertainty similar to stocks dipping in apprehension of regulations. This uncertainty is crippling in a period which needs price stability urgently.

The argument that expenses will even out once the provisions take effect and the market stabilizes is a tenuous one. As long as expenses clearly outpace wage growth and employers are hesitant to hire, recovery will be suppressed. Moreover, escalating health care costs over the last decade have erased concurrent middle class growth wage growth. The specter of even more pronounced rising costs, as evidenced by Kaiser’s study, may not only keep the economy stagnant, but exacerbate the already fragile situation.

While the new health care law’s provisions have not yet fully taken effect, it is nonetheless already making a hugely detrimental impact on the economy. Increased regulations are leading insurers to raise costs, and in turn, employers are not hiring new workers, keeping American unemployment at historic levels.

The Department of Health and Human Services has unwittingly illuminated a key fallacy in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as noted by The American journal. The granting of waivers by HHS for certain insurance policies confirms the negative implications for health care costs if PPACA is not fully repealed.

Once PPACA is fully implemented in 2014, it will prohibit insurers from imposing annual limits on payments to individuals. HHS representatives say this regulation will improve employer-based “mini-med” plans, which they assert do not adequately cover employee health care. By removing a maximum amount on benefits, individuals ostensibly receive more extensive coverage.

Between 2011 and 2014, however, there is a transitional period when the ceiling on payments rises incrementally. In 2011, the annual limit per enrollee must be at least $750,000. In 2012, this amount increases to $1.25 million, and then to $2 million in 2013. Come 2014, the PPACA abolishes all limits on payouts for an individual’s care.

This transition is meant to assist insurance providers and employers in adjusting to the new stipulations. Despite this grace period, however, the HHS’s granting of 500 waivers for 2011 has exposed foundational flaws of PPACA. HHS granted waivers because the requirement would result in “large” increases in premiums or “significant” declines in access for health care coverage.

By exempting providers from the very regulations that it imposed, the Obama Administration is acknowledging that the regulations will strain the quality and affordability of insurance plans. Hoff and Calfee, in their The American journal article, make an acute realization in this regards.

“If waivers are necessary to keep 733 insurance plans in place now, think of what will be necessary in 2013, when the amount policies must cover in a year will be nearly three times that cost, or in 2014, when full-blown PPACA kicks in and insurers are prohibited from offering a policy without unlimited coverage.”

The unfortunate repercussion of increased costs to insurers will inevitably be higher unemployment.

From 2014, unable to limit contributions to employee health care plans, employers will release employees to meet financial demands. While they may apply for waivers, these only last for a year and only to prevent large premium increases or reductions in access to health coverage. Thus, the existence of waivers is unlikely to reduce the fallout.

The latest estimates, from the Congressional Budget Office, are that Obamacare will reduce employment by 800,000 people in its first ten years.

This may be the first time that the Obama administration have acknowledged PPACA’s pernicious effects, but may they continue to educate themselves on the reality of his bill.

Typically, when the FDA recommends to revoke the license of a drug for distribution, such a decision is founded on concrete evidence of dangerous or adverse side effects to the user. In the case of Avastin, however, this decision was rendered on less compelling grounds. Avastin, when taken in conjunction with chemotherapy, has been shown in studies to slow the growth of cancer by up to 5.5 months in women with metastatic (Stage IV) breast cancer. Although a study cited by the FDA panel indicates that Avastin is not consistently effective and may lead to side effects, this is no different than many other approved drugs on the market.

This is tantamount to taking options off of the table for women battling breast cancer and their families. If a drug is safe, then the consumers (the patients) should be the ones to decide whether or not to purchase it. In accordance with the FDA’s initial decision, however, women who want to continue to use Avastin will have a significantly harder time procuring the drug at affordable rates if it is moved to off-label.

This decision comes on the heels of another FDA panel recommendation to limit the amount of mammograms and Pap smears taken by women, which Vitter contested in a bipartisan effort with Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md). Vitter’s advocacy for consumer choice in the health care market is heartening to Americans contesting the intrusion of government agencies into our lives.

As explained by the Times, the new regulations will interfere with the right of citizens to retain their current level of health insurance supposedly protected by ObamaCare’s ‘grandfather’ clause. Because ObamaCare stipulates a minimum standard of health coverage per person, many individuals or small businesses which may make alterations to their coverage plans run the risk of losing their exemption under the new health care act. This runs contrary to the wishes of most businesses, which, according to the Times, want to “keep their existing health plans intact with a minimum of changes.”

According to the administration’s own economic analysis, almost half of employer-sponsored plans would see these changes by 2013. The government is drastically overstepping its Constitutional boundaries and interfering in intrastate commerce, forcing private businesses to abide by government-mandated standards of health insurance. Where in the Constitution does the federal government have the enumerated power to tell a private, intrastate business that it must purchase a certain amount of coverage?

Furthermore, Cato expounds that these regulations are not just principally wrong, but will have a damaging impact on businesses and individuals. Cato cites the studies of health economists as finding that forced employer contributions invariably lead to employers deducting from employees’ overall compensation package or lowering their wages to recompense for the difference. In addition, Cato’s Michael Cannon concludes that, “Health premiums, which were going to keep rising anyway, will rise even higher as a result of ObamaCare. If employers or consumers try to cope with those rising premiums by paring back the amount of coverage they purchase, they lose their “grandfather” protections, and ObamaCare forces them to purchase even more coverage. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

Our state government has an opportunity to take an important step in staving off the Federal government’s attempts to both usurp autonomy from the states as well as to impede individual liberty of choice.

Rep. Talbot’s bill doesn’t aim to repeal Obama’s health care act, only those elements which violate the Constitutional reach of the government, namely the individual mandate. Louisiana can be one of the states standing up to the encroachment of Washington and protecting our right to make individual choices pertinent to our health and welfare. Contact your legislators and let them know you want this inalienable right to remain untrammeled.

Would you like to read an excessively optimistic view on health care reform? Sen. Mary Landrieu’s op-ed highlights what she believes to be the greatest ObamaCare achievements, praising the full coverage of Louisiana’s children, young adults, and seniors.

Claiming that “congress has finally delivered meaningful health care coverage to all Americans,” Sen. Landrieu argues that the new reform will “save businesses thousands of dollars each year which will allow businesses to potentially increase wages or hire more employees.”

But Sen. Landrieu is overly confident – and even deceptive – because she is neglecting important facts behind the new health care reform: its costs. As Michael Cannon from the Cato Institute points out:

“Obama’s plan [aka: ObamaCare] would vastly increase the size and scope of the federal government, and increase our already record federal deficit”

The Congressional Budget Office estimated costs to be around $940 billion, but this projection takes into account only the costs to expand current health insurance coverage. Considering other unavoidable spending provisions, the costs would amount to around $1.2 trillion. And that is a conservative estimate. Further, the new health care reform will force nearly all Americans to purchase health insurance, set price controls on the private health insurance industry, and increase the federal deficit by providing more than $1 trillion in subsidies.

Sure, Landrieu is right to claim that these reforms will extend coverage to more children, seniors, and sick individuals. Unfortunately she fails to acknowledge that this will not be sustainable in the long run.