A Gallup survey shows that instead of the promised increased access to medical care, Obamacare is causing middle class people to put off treatment. Sarah Hurtubise reports in the Daily Caller:

One in three Americans has put off seeking medical treatment in 2014 due to high costs, according to Gallup — the highest percentage since Gallup began asking the question in 2001. 

Thirty-three percent of Americans have delayed medical treatment for themselves or their families because of the costs they’d have to pay, according to the survey. (snip)  the number of people who can’t afford a trip to the doctor has actually risen three points since 2013, before most Obamacare provisions took effect.

The reason why is simple: in order to keep premiums low while subsidizing the poor and lower income people, deductibles have soared. This means that people have to pay cash for medical services that once were covered by insurance. And until they lay out thousands of dollars a year, they get no reimbursement for medical care. In effect, they are uninsured for all but major medical disasters.

Obamacare is penalizing the middle class, who are now receiving less care than before:

The hardest-hit: the middle-class. Americans with an annual household income of between $30,000 and $75,000 began delaying medical care over costs more in 2014, up to 38 percent in 2014 from 33 percent last year; among households that earn above $75,000, 28 percent delayed care this year, compared to just 17 percent last year.

But the poor are better off, and in fact deferring medical care less than the middle class:

The lowest-income section, some of whom can take part in Medicaid and who are more likely to qualify for significant premium and cost-sharing subsidies on an Obamacare exchange, are less likely to delay care this year. Now, 35 percent of those who earn under $30,000 a year are putting off seeking medical care, down from 43 percent last year.

Obamacare is a total disaster, inflicting far more harm than good, even for its supposed beneficiaries in the middle class. Only the poor, a group already served by Medicaid, are better off than before, but for those who seek to work their way to prosperity and dignity, Obamacare is harmful. Mnay people have to make do with 30 hours of work instead of 40. Amnestied illegal immigrants are exempt from the emplpyer mandate, so they are now far cheaper to hire than Americans or legal immigrants, for whom employers must provide Obamacare or pay a significant penalty tax.

More and more people are encountering the deductible shock and realizing that they are on their own for the first thousands of dollars of medical care they receive, except for certain favored procedures and goods, like contraception. They are going to get angrier an angrier as time passes. Chuck Schumer knew what he was doing when he tried to distance himself from the debacle. But momentum will build to revise and/or repeal this monument to the hubris of  the medical mandarins like Jonathan Gruber and their political enablers.