To review the previous discussions on Obama Care, enter “unfolding disaster” in the search box above. Below, we review the latest disasters that have arisen over the past month or so as Obama Care continues to be the disaster that keeps on giving:
1) Obama constantly harped that one of the main benefits of Obama Care would be that it would “bend the cost curve” and reduce at least the growth in healthcare costs in this country. In fact, he promised that some U.S. households would see up to $2,500 in annual reductions in health insurance premiums.
But now we are finding out that there NEVER were any cost reduction processes or mechanisms in the legislation. In 2009, Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist who is considered one of the primary architects of Obama Care, was quoted in a policy brief:
"…there are no cost controls in these proposals. Because this bill’s about coverage. Which is good!
Why should we hold 48 million uninsured people hostage to the fact that we don’t yet know how to control costs in a politically acceptable way? Let’s get the people covered and then let’s do cost control.”
In fact, according to Gruber, not only were there no cost controls built into the legislation, despite what the President proclaimed, the builders of Obama Care apparently had no idea how to reduce costs, again according to Gruber’s writings:
“The real substance of cost control is all about a single thing: telling patients they can’t have something they want. It’s about telling patients, ‘That surgery doesn’t do any good, so if you want it you have to pay the full cost.’”
So, more proof that the President now lied about cost controls, they never existed. But as we have pointed out many times in this blog, there is a way to reduce costs if you attack the root causes of our high health care costs in this country which include:
- Americans eat too much.
- American eat too much of the wrong kind of food.
- Americans do not exercise enough.
- Americans smoke too much.
- The American food chain is clogged with high fructose corn syrup, salt, sugar, and other bad ingredients.
2) Staying with the absence of health care cost reductions, back in October, 2014 U.S. News and World report reported on their website that the health care cost savings promised by the President never materialized for the average American. From the article entitled “Despite ObamaCare Promises, Health Costs Up:”
Americans who hold private health insurance spent more on medical services in 2013 even though they used fewer of them, says a new report from the Health Care Cost Institute.
The Health Care Cost and Utilization Report found that health care spending averaged $4,864 per enrollee in 2013, up $183 from the year before.
3) The legislation has suffered any number of negative court rulings with the largest one being the successful protest by the Hobby Lobby company against the requirement that they must provide certain types of contraceptives that were against their religious beliefs. Later this year there will likely be a Supreme Court ruling that could gut the entire Obama Care Federal government subsidy structure.
Before that happens, the legislation could suffer another defeat. According to a recent Reuters report, The U.S. Supreme Court revived the University of Notre Dame’s religious objections to the requirement for contraception coverage under President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. This ruling threw out a lower court decision in favor of the Obama administration.
The Court asked the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision against the South Bend, Indiana-based Roman Catholic university in light of the June 2014 Supreme Court ruling that allowed certain privately owned corporations to seek exemptions from the provision. More bad news for a bad piece of legislation.
4) It seems everything Obama Care touches falls apart or ends up screwing up Americans lives. Despite having years to get ready for the first tax season under Obama Care’s tax implications, the IRS could not get that right either. The IRS could not get the proper Obama Care IRS forms developed and available on time.
The Obama administration recently announced that 80,000 American tax filers have not yet been sent the right tax forms despite being less than one month away from the required April 15 income tax filing deadline. This does not include over 740,000 forms that have been recently sent out, forcing many tax filers to wait before filing their taxes. Just another source of stress and confusion from the worst piece of legislation and the worst rollout of any legislation ever.
5) Melissa Quinn, writing for the Heritage Foundation, recently outlined the horror show that an Nebraska woman lived through when she lost her healthcare coverage three times in a short time frame as a result of Obama Care. Pamela Weldin originally had a health care insurance policy with Humana, a policy that she had had for 15 years.
But as Obama Care’s rollout neared, Humana told her and many others that their policies were cancelled because Humana did not want anything to do with Nebraska and would not be selling insurance policies through the Federal government’s online exchange. Humana was just one of eight companies that did the same.
Starting in early 2014 she would be without health insurance and thus, decided to log on to the Federal government’s Obama Care exchange to buy another policy in late 2013. After much hassle and delays, she finally got an Obama Care policy two months after she started. The policy was classified as a platinum policy and it was with the CoOportunity Obama Care health insurance co-op effort. It cost her $307 a month.
But that policy got cancelled which forced to go back through the horrific Federal government exchange process, finally getting a silver policy with CoOportunity for $165 a month. She was not happy with the process of the hassles: “Here you are, trying to do the right thing, trying to be responsible and have coverage and be diligent,” she said. “And still, I have all these problems and glitches and everything.”
However, her nightmare was not over. Why? Because it turned out the wonderful idea of Obama Care health co-ops was not that great of an idea after all. Most, if not all of the two dozen or so Obama Care co-ops, have faced severe financial strain. Co-Oportunity was in such dire straits that it had to be disbanded and dissolved. This forced Weldin to find yet another health insurance carrier, all within a matter of months. She ended up getting another silver policy but one that cost that was $70 more expensive a month than her previous silver policy.
What did she think of the whole Obama Care effort: “We have a president who said, If you like your plan, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep it. You will have choices,’” Weldin said. “All three things were an outright lie.”
No surprises here, lies and deceptions from day one.
6) Nancy Pelosi has already been a favorite topic of discussion in this blog. Her quotes are always so rich with inaneness and deceptions that they would be funny if they were not so tragic. And Obama Care has provided any number of Pelosi laughs (remember, “we have to pass the legislation to see what is in the legislation.”).
The following link has a classic Pelosi confused state of mind where she first claims that Jonathan Gruber was critical to writing and developing Obama Care and when things fall apart she denies even knowing what Gruber did. Priceless.
http://patriotupdate.com/2014/11/pelosi-lies-saying-doesnt-know-gruber/
7) We usually end these Obama Care dates with a sample of horror stories the legislation has caused Americans across the country. Our source for these sad tales is the website:
www.ourhealthcarestories.com
CHRIS, CALIFORNIA, From CBS Sacramento:
A Sonora mechanic is in so much pain that he can barely walk, but he can’t seem to find a doctor to fix his ailing back after he and his wife switched their insurance coverage through Covered California.
Chris Dunn reached out to CBS13 hoping we could get answers.
He needs his surgery yesterday. But instead of scheduling his date, he and his wife are navigating a confusing maze of doctors and insurance plans.
We get this coverage and go to the best doctor to fix Chris, and they tell us we’re out of network said his wife Tammy.
In January, they transitioned from an Anthem Blue Cross Plan over to Blue Cross Covered California. She says they had to switch to avoid the premium skyrocketing, but didn’t realize their provider network would be smaller.
DAVID, NORTH CAROLINA, From the Gaston Gazette:
American taxpayers are essentially paying $875 a month to help insure David Carpenter and his wife. He no longer wants or needs all of the money, which is going to the couple’s health insurance company in the form of a subsidy to help pay the premium. But after more than a month, Carpenter hasn’t been able to stop or cut the payments. And worse, the hiccup could cost him thousands in the long run. Even with the help of an insurance agent who has spent hours on the phone trying to work out the kink, Carpenter has mostly met dead ends. They see it as wearisome evidence of the potholes that still exist within Obamacare, which they say still doesn’t have adequate resources to deal with unanticipated problems. “It’s been real frustrating,” Carpenter said. “Nobody at the marketplace seems to have a clear answer for us. We just want to do what’s right. But it seems like it’s been kind of unfair.”
The ideal thing would be to terminate the joint Blue Cross Blue Shield policy, then start over with an individual plan for Sandra Carpenter, Sheffield said. Her husband could simply use his VA benefits. Sheffield said Blue Cross has been hesitant about making any such changes because the company representatives don’t believe they’re allowed to do that under Affordable Care Act rules. The Carpenters have been told there is no way to cancel the policy they signed up for.
MINH, WISCONSIN
In a shock to the system, the older staff in my office (folks over 59) have now found out their personal health insurance costs (even with the government contribution) have gone up 3-4 times what they were paying before.
Simply unacceptable.
MARGIE, NORTH DAKOTA
As if they have not stolen enough of our SS with obamacare my insurance has really hit me hard. I was paying $70.00 for my Diabetic Insulin every 90 days, now it costs me $800.00 every 90 days for the same product.
That will do it for this month’s unfolding disasters from Obama Care. Lies, stress, hassles, increased costs, no cost reductions, and more, just another month of unfolding disasters.
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