The Affordable Care Act is about to become much less so, writes Stephen Parente, a professor of health finance at the University of Minnesota, in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Wisconsin is about to get hit hard.

This isn’t because of the problems with Obamacare’s rollout. The problem lies in the way Obamacare is designed, Parente writes:

“In two years, the ACA's structural problems will lead to substantial premium increases. Once that happens, Wisconsinites likely will leave the insurance market in droves. They'll have little choice — they won't be able to afford health insurance because federal subsidies won't keep up with the rapid price increases. Within a decade, this could swell the ranks of the uninsured by nearly 11%.”

It isn’t just Wisconsin. Parente wrote about this last month in the Wall Street Journal, based on research he released this spring. Parente’s findings – using a peer-reviewed, government-funded economic model – show the number of people covered by employer insurance falling 9% over the next 10 years, those on individual plans falling 3%, while Medicaid enrollment shoots up 20% and the number of uninsured rises 11% nationally. As in Wisconsin, things begin going bad in 2017:

“Two big changes will occur that year: Insurance companies will no longer have access to ACA's ‘re-insurance’ and ‘risk corridor’ programs. The first item currently allows insurers to bill the government for the most expensive patients; the second one guarantees that the industry's losses will be subsidized by you. When these two programs end, the insurance industry won't have access to taxpayer money.

“That leaves Wisconsinites to pick up the tab. Without taxpayer money, insurers in the state will increase plan premiums to cover the sudden shortfall. They'll have no other choice — the other option is to go out of business.

“You might not have a choice, either. The data predicts that the average 2017 premiums for a bronze family plan may jump from $8,800 to $12,800 — an increase of 46%. Undoubtedly, this will be far too expensive for many people. No insurance may be the only financially sound option.

“This will cause a chain reaction in the insurance market. As people leave the exchanges, insurers will have fewer customers who can shoulder health care costs. Thus, for 2018, they'll have to raise prices again — which will only cause more people to leave. This cycle could repeat itself indefinitely.

“Employer health care coverage won't stem the losses. After 2016, many businesses will stop offering health insurance because it's also getting too expensive for them. I estimate that over 14 million people could lose employer coverage over the next decade.”

So more and more people will be forced to turn to the Obamacare “exchanges.” But they will find those growing more costly by the year, leading more people to simply pay the fine for going without insurance. The result?

The “Affordable Care Act” designers, Parente writes, “promised that it would make health care cheaper while providing universal health care. Instead, it will make health care unaffordable for many while leaving more Wisconsinites uninsured.”

We already know that this program with its Orwellian name has made people give up the idea of being insured, has increased, rather than decreased, the use of costly emergency rooms for routine care, has done less than predicted to help the uninsured, is narrowing people’s health care choices, and is making cancer patients lose access to life-saving drugs.

With a record like that in its so-far short life, it shouldn’t be surprising that it will lead to the opposite of what its backers promised.