http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/07/july-2013-obama-care-update-number-1.html
Throughout the past four days we have shown how Obama Care will increase and not decrease the costs of health care in this country, will see many Americans lose access to their current health insurance despite Obama’s promise that every American could keep their current plan if they wanted, how even Congressional Democrats are admitting how bad the legislation is, how the Federal government’s procedures and processes are either broken or not even developed yet, and how millions of Americans are losing both their health care insurance coverage and working hours from their companies. Bad news, sad news all around.
Fortunately, the following news items ends the bad news, at least for this month.
1) School officials in St. Augustine, Florida, as recently reported by a local news website, www.staugustine.con, have been wrestling with a new annual health insurance cost that has arisen from the Obama Care legislation. Despite having provided affordable and quality health care insurance over the years, Obama Care fees will add an estimated $428,000 to the annual schools system’s health care insurance costs for no reason.
According to the news report, school officials have been meeting every week in an attempt to find a way to budget for and pay for the additional $428,000 costs. Rather than meeting every week to find a way to deliver better education results, they are distracted by complying with a very bad piece of legislation. Disgraceful.
2) A critical piece of Obama Care is the so-called health insurance exchanges where Americans without health insurance can go and purchase individual health care insurance in a competitive marketplace. (never mind that IRS has already estimated that a typical family insurance plan will cost the average American family a whopping $20,000 a year). However, the data system infrastructure for these exchanges do not exist today and the government will need outside data system expert to make the exchanges possible.
Which is where it gets interesting, at least for the Washington D.C. exchange. Infosys, a company headquartered in India, recently announced that the District of Columbia has awarded the company a $49.5 million contract to Infosys Public Services, its U.S. subsidiary, to help develop D.C.’s exchange. Which raises the interesting question: will the American taxpayer stake of $49.5 million be paid to American data systems workers or will Infosys take the money and spend it on programmers over in India?
As of early July, 2013, Infosys had refused to tell where the work will be done, India or in the U.S. This secrecy inspired Computerworld Magazine to file a Freedom of Information Act request to see if it can learn whether the work will be outsourced to India or whether Infosys will bring inexpensive “green card” labor in from India into this country to perform the work.
Wouldn’t that be the ultimate insult? Millions of Americans are losing their jobs, losing working hours, and losing their health care insurance as a result of Obama Care while at the same time taxpayer money is being used to hire and pay foreign workers to do the necessary data system work on Obama Care?
3) A Gallup opinion survey that was taken between June 20-24, 2013 found that 46% of Americans who currently do not have health care insurance were not aware they would have to buy it once Obama Care hits full force in less than six months. If the whole legislation critically relies on almost all of the uninsured Americans buying insurance and almost half of them are not even aware they have to this late in the game, this is a disaster waiting to happen in January, 2014.
This is shaping up like the party host that set up a party but nobody came. Obama Care has to have people sign up for insurance but what happens if only the sick sign up? The party where no one shows up is a flop, a health insurance program where no one signs up is also a flop. Convincing 46% of a population to do something they have not done yet over the years and do not know today they have to do it is a Herculean task that is highly unlikely not to happen.
4) And why should this 46% sign up for health care and incur the cost that they have avoided for years? Remember, one part of Obama Care requires all insurance providers to accept customers even if they have pre-existing conditions. And the Obama Care fines for not carrying and paying for health care insurance are pretty minimal when compared to the actual cost of health care insurance (fines escalate to the following 2016 rates):
Less than $9,500 income = $0
$9,500 - $37,000 income = $695
$50,000 income = $1,000
$75,000 income = $1,600
$100,000 income = $2,250
$125,000 income = $2,900
$150,000 income = $3,500
$175,000 income = $4,100
$200,000 income = $4,700
Given that the IRS has already published annual cost estimates of $20,000 or so for a family insurance program, the IRS cannot impose these fines unless a taxpayer without insurance is due an income tax refund, and insurance carriers have to cover somebody even after they become sick, who in their right financial mind would pay tens of thousands of dollars a year when the penalty for not doing so is potentially only a few thousands dollars?
Who wrote this legislation? How stupid was their reasoning not to see this big hole logic hole right in the middle of the most critical part of the legislation? Unbelievable.
5) The Toledo News ran an article on Obama Care on June 24, 2013. At the state government level, it quoted the opinion of Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel: “Everywhere I hear, 'We don't like Obama Care. We don't like it because it kills jobs.' And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing full-time jobs go part-time. We're seeing part-time jobs go to no job.”
Not a pretty situation. The article also looked at Obama Care from a individual person’s perspective. Ohio resident Jeff Vernon stated that he needs to cut back his expenses as a result of Obama Care because his employer at the Scrambler Marie's restaurant has had to trim Mr. Vernon’s hours as a result of Obama Care. Otherwise, the restaurant owner would not be able to stay profitable. He said the owner tried to minimize the negative impact on all of the restaurant’s employees but cutting hours was the only viable business solution.
What does Mr. Vernon think about Obama Care: "A great job that I had was taken away from me. It was ripped right out of my hands. I wasn't doing great. This isn't a mansion [his current apartment], but I was doing okay." He estimates that when all is said and done, Obama Care will reduce his income about $400 a month. Sad, so very sad.
6) The latest unemployment rate was a so-so report at the top level. The unemployment rate stayed steady at 7.6%. The good news is that it did not go up, the bad news is that it is still unacceptably and historically high, four years after we exited the recession. But the really bad news, caused by Obama Care, was in the underlying numbers below the 7.6%:
- In June, the Federal government’s monthly household survey reported that part-time jobs soared by 360,000 to 28,059,000.
- This level of part time jobs an all time record high.
- Conversely and negatively, full time jobs went down 240,000.
- If you look at the entire 2013 job performance, a mere 130K full-time jobs have been added, offset by a whopping 557K part-time jobs.
That should do it for at least another month. However, a month form now I sincerely doubt we will be celebrating the successes and the reversal of this impending train wreck, the trend and the ability of the Federal government and the Washington political class to fix this mess does not give one any confidence.
May I suggest that if you have the opportunity to tell your Congressional representative to repeal this monstrosity, that you do it before its deadly tentacles reach you and your family, assuming they have not already ruined parts of your life and job so far.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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