Detailed analyses of the legislation was included in a series of posts put out in August, starting with the following post:
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/08/part-1-august-2013-obama-care-update.html
Please refer to them for an in-depth view of this disaster. Yesterday and today contain a series of quick updates of the continuing damage Obama Care is doing to the country.
1) The Obama Care health exchanges, places where uninsured American theoretically can go and purchase health car insurance, are supposed to be up and running by October 1. However, problems apparently abound due to the complexity of training, data systems, etc. Oregon has already determined that its website won’t be functional until at least mid-October. State officials in other states have said that they wish they had more time to implement the exchanges. There is also concern that the lax security on the state exchange websites could lead to instances of identity theft.
The Washington Post recently reported: “Some officials in charge of setting up the systems say that the tight deadlines have forced them to take shortcuts when it comes to testing and that some of the bells and whistles will not be ready.”
Given that three major components of the law have already been delayed, the employer mandate, subsidy verification requirements, and consumer-cost caps, it should not come as a surprise that another component is in such bad shape. Does not give one a lot of confidence that this is going to work anytime soon without major problems, the most dangerous of which is massive identify theft.
2) A recent Dallas Federal Reserve report and analysis that was focused on the Texas area showed that, probably as a result of Obama Care, the average employee work week collapsed at its fastest pace in 2 years (and the last 2 months have dropped the most in 3 years), smashing the work week back to its lowest level since October 2009. And if this is happening in Texas, the top job producing state in the whole country, imagine how work hours are being reduced for Americans in other areas with an even less robust economic situation.
3) Remember when the President declared, "if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan"? Certainly reassuring words at the time but certainly a lie today. Consider what is happening to over 100,000 New Jersey residents and their current health care plan, as explained in a recent article from the National Review:
The latest casualty of Obama Care may be a low-cost New Jersey health-care policy. Though President Obama promised “if you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period,” that will not be the case for approximately 106,000 New Jersey residents whose plans will disappear under the law.
Known as the “basic and essential,” or B&E, health-care plans, the policy costs as little as a few hundred dollars per month and is the choice of 71% of New Jersey residents on the individual insurance market. It provides minimum coverage for things such as doctor’s visits and procedures that do not involve a hospital stay. According to the Newark Star-Ledger, B&E policy holders will, under Obama Care, “be left with what may be a choice among pricey, pricier and priciest” plans.
Currently, the monthly plans go for $150 for a 25-year-old male or $1,100 for a family with parents in their 40s and, as Rutgers University’s Center for State Health Policy director Joel Cantor told the Star-Ledger, it would cost three or four times more for a standard policy under Obama Care on the individual market.
So what happened to the B&E plans? They don’t meet the regulations imposed by Obama Care because they do not cover services that the law will force every individual health-insurance plan to provide. The Star-Ledger reports that B&E customers who don’t qualify for a federal tax credit to purchase insurance “will see price increases” in the cost of their next plan.
Another Obama Care promise bites the dust and another 100,000 American lives are needlessly and dangerously upended.
4) The wonderful website, Bankrupting America, pointed out the five most devastating impacts of Obama Care in an article from August 21, 2013, the highlights of which include the following points:
- Americans Will Lose Their Health Insurance; Pay More. According to the Congressional Budget Office, about seven million Americans will lose their current health insurance as a result of the Obama Care. Healthy Americans will also likely see their premiums rise by two to three times as much on the individual insurance market.
- Businesses Won’t Expand; Employee Hours Will Be Cut. The mandate that requires employers to provider health insurance to their employees kicks in when a company has 50 or more full-time workers. The cut-off was put in the law so it would not be a burden on small businesses (a significant and worthy concern), but the mandate will also keep small businesses on the cusp of adding more than 50 employees from expanding. Businesses are dealing with the mandate by cutting current full-time employees’ hours back to the part-time level (30 hours). Schools in Florida have taken this action as have small businesses all over the country.
- Spouses, Children Dropped From Employer Insurance Plans. The Atlanta Business Chornicle reported recently that UPS planned to drop spouses from 15,000 employee health care plans as a result of Obama Care. These individuals are assumed to be eligible for health insurance elsewhere, but carrying several different providers will make health care decisions more complex – and potentially costly – for the average family.
- Fewer Choices. According to The Wall Street Journal, the insurance plans offered under Obama Care may severely restrict Americans’ choices of doctors and medical care. The newspaper reports a number of current health insurance plans in the Obama Care exchanges will likely have limited choices of doctors and hospitals in their networks.”
- Higher Prices For Younger Workers. Young, healthy Americans are going to pay higher insurance prices than if they had bought health insurance before Obama Care took effect.
Still not seeing how the positive aspects, assuming there are anything, within Obama Care are outweighing the devastating negatives that are being reported everywhere.
5) The Bankrupting America website used two examples to illustrate the points made above. According to a recent Associated Press report, about a year ago Teresa Hartnett was on the verge of expanding her small business. The company had hit $1 million in sales, and requests from clients were flowing in.
Ms. Hartnett had planned to transition from nearly 30 part time, freelancers to a full-time staff of 60 by 2014. Then, the reality of Obama Care began to become real. She realized she might not be able to afford to carry out her plan, based on the added financial burdens that Obama Care would place on her business expansion plans. The law undid all of Hartnett’s hard work, plans, and dreams: “At the end of that marathon of effort and sweat and stress, I’d face the impact of the ACA [Obama Care]. I decided against it.”
Given that there are over 20 million Americans that are either unemployed, too discouraged to look for work, or who are underemployed, isn’t a shame that Obama Care is preventing the evolution of this business from thirty part time freelancers into sixty full time, taxpaying, productive Americans?
6) Another illustrative example from Bankrupting America. According to The Hill: “Young people in Colorado will pay more to buy a bare-bones insurance plan under Obama Care … The average premium for a middle-of-the-road policy will roughly hold steady across the state, but premiums for the cheapest policies appear likely to rise. A 27-year-old non-smoker would pay $135 per month next year for the state’s cheapest catastrophic plan — the skimpiest level of coverage available through the healthcare law’s new insurance exchanges. That’s about 140 percent more than the cheapest policy on the market today.” Higher costs with less benefits and quality, a recipe for disaster.
That will do it for today, more bad news through at least tomorrow as Obama Care’s disease spreads across the land. If you are as disgusted with Washington politicians as most of America is, may we suggest you visit our term limits website and sign the petition to enforce term limits on all Washington politicians:
www.howmuchworseoculditget.com
Because, really, given what Obama Care is turning out to be and that it was written by most of the people still in office in Washington, how much worse could it be if we started over with a fresh set of elected representatives?
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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