“It won’t work without Obamacare. It didn’t work for decades. If you’re an insurance company, why would you ever take on the risk of people with pre-existing conditions or remove lifetime maxes?” Boudreaux asked.
The Louisiana advisor also predicted Obamacare’s demise would create a ripple effect throughout the U.S. economy -- triggering bankruptcies and hurting small business creation. “We are all entrepreneurs who start our own firms, but if we can’t get health insurance, we’ll be forced to work for wirehouses,” Boudreaux said. “Later in life if my daughter wants to start a business, she’d be prevented if her pre-existing condition stops her from getting health insurance.”
Not all advisors, however, are against Obamacare’s demise. Mark G. Smith, president of Vision Wealth Planning, Glen Allen, Va., said he hopes the court decision fuels “a return to common-sense insurance solutions that are worked out in the free market. Who ever heard of an auto insurer being forced to cover a pre-existing crash? The same economics apply to human health, even if it is more important and more emotional,” said Smith, who has extensive investment and insurance experience and holds the CPA, CFP, Chartered Life Underwriter and Chartered Financial Consultant designations.
“If we want to provide health care to those who cannot afford it or for truly catastrophic events that exceed policy maximums, that should be properly funded through Medicaid with a high level of transparency,” Smith said. “This should be completely walled off from the insurance market, not all that different from how FEMA provides assistance to those who suffer devastating property loss.”
Some advisors hope the legal challenge creates more competition in the marketplace and lower premiums. Charles Weeks, founder of Barrister Wealth, Philadelphia, wants health insurers to be able to compete over state lines. When he moved his firm’s headquarters to Philadelphia from New Jersey several years back, Weeks said he went from having three New Jersey health insurance company products to choose from on the Obamacare exchange, to just one insurer on the exchange in Philadelphia.
“My annual deductible rose from $1,500 to $6,500 overnight for essentially the same health savings account (HAS),” Weeks said. “I’d like Obamacare to go away if it means competition over state lines, like when the auto insurance industry got to compete across state lines awhile back. With all the smart people we have in this country, there has to be a way to figure this out,” Weeks said.