June, 2016, Part 1, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care:Paying More and Getting Less and Sometimes,Getting Nothing

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements its rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
• Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
• Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
• Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
• Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
• Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

This week we will be reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington:

1) A June 8, 2016 article on the Patient Daily Reports website asked the very simple question: “Will Out-of-pocket Costs Under Obama Care Continue To Increase?” Before we answer this question, remember that Obama promised that the average American family would see up to a $2,500 annual reduction in their healthcare insurance costs. This is a promise he made multiple times, always in public with the cameras rolling.

According to a nationwide, state by state analysis by Patient Daily, an analysis that examined Obama Care Silver plans, Obama Care policyholders saw their out of pocket insurance costs increase substantially in 2015:

• Some states experienced out of pocket cost increases by over $1,000 - Washington ($1,064), Mississippi ($1,455), and Florida ($1,117).
• South Carolina ($872), Arizona ($866), and Louisiana ($772) Obama Care policyholders also experienced substantial out of pocket cost increases.
• These 2015 increases were just precursor to what is likely to continue to happen in 2017 since we already know that insurance rate hike requests are starting to come in with California asking for an average increase of 8% onits Obama Care policies and Texas rate hikes increases exceeding 50%.

Not really consistent with Obama’s plan to REDUCE annual health care costs by $2,500 when out of pocket costs have been going up for several years now and the 2017 view is not going to change that trend of continually increasing Obama Care policy costs.

2) The Washington Examiner recently reported on how Obama Care has been killing and muting job creation and job opportunities across the country since it was passed. Goldman Sachs bank economist Alec Phillips recently published a research summary where he stated that “the evidence suggests that the [Affordable Care Act/Obama Care] has at least modestly elevated involuntary part-time employment.” He estimates that at least a few hundred thousand workers have had their hours cut or been forced to take part time hours because of the Obama Care legislation.

The Examiner article explains why this is likely true, i.e. Obama Care is killing full time job opportunities: “Obamacare is thought to incentivize part-time work through several means. One is that employers with more than 50 full-time workers face penalties if they do not provide health insurance coverage, giving them a reason to cut hours or avoid hiring new workers if they are near the 50 employee level.”

So increasing costs and decreasing full time job opportunities, we are certainly off to a lousy start in the world of Obama Care.

3) Let’s go out to Colorado and see what is in store in that state for Obama Care policies in 2017, based on what insurance companies have been filing for their 2017 rates, according to the Washington Free Beacon:

• Overall, the state’s Obama Care policyholders will see “significant premium increases in their 2017 Obama Care policy costs."
• Overall, premiums in Colorado will go up an average of 20%, far beyond the overall inflation rate.
• Nearly 100,000 citizens will likely lose their Obama Care policies in 2017 according to the state’s Division of Insurance.
• Denver 9 News called the increases “historic” and that view was supported by a statement from the Department of Insurance: “For the individual [Obama Care policy]market in 2017, many companies have requested significant premium increases.” 
• Some Obama Care policyholders could see their costs go up as high as 40% while the average increase is still likely to be around 20%. 
• Rocky Mountain Health Plans HMO has requested a 34.6% increase and Colorado Shield has requested an increase of 36.33%, hardly the $2,500 annual reduction that Obama repeatedly promised.
• Four other insurance carries either will "not offer or will significantly cut back on individual Plans,” leaving about 100,000 policyholders without insurance coverage.
• All of which is making current Colorado Senator Michael Bennet look a little foolish when he promised back in 2009: “If you have coverage and you like it, you can keep it. If you have a doctor and you like him or her you should be able to keep them as well. We will not take those choices away from you.”
• Not only are costs going up but since Rocky Mountain Health Plans is pulling out of all Colorado counties except one, many areas and citizens throughout Colorado will be left with only one Obama Care company to choose from.

4) As we often do with Obama Carer disaster updates, we present actual stories of disaster from real live Americans on what Obama Care has done to shred their lives. The source of these real life stories is the website:

www.ourhealthcarestories.com

Take a listen to what Obama Care has done to their health and medical care:

SUSAN, WASHINGTON - I was happily going along with my jcpenney insurance when I retired from jcpenney, which was only $40 a month. I got a letter from my insurance stating it didn't follow the Obamacare guidelines (Health Care Authority) and they cancelled my policy. Now, I have to pay 4x that amount to get the catastrophic insurance (deductible of $5,000) before anything is covered, through the Health Care Authority.

JANETTE, CALIFORNIA - The chiropractor who expects her premiums to rise, the 60s-something company manager who has to pay for maternity coverage, the Simi Valley contractor and many others who make at least $46,000 a year -- they all pound away at the same rhythm.

They say the middle class is once again getting tattooed, this time by President Barack Obama's health care reform.

"However you look at it, the son of a gun lied to us," said Janette Ramsey, a Bakersfield business owner with a weekend home in Ventura. She's losing her current coverage and expects to pay $50 more a month for a policy with nearly double the deductible.

"I think it's an abomination," she said. "... I'm going to pay more and get 100 percent less."

STEVE, MICHIGAN - I lost my insurance through work because of it [Obama Care] and I no longer have insurance because I can't afford an extra 200 dollars a week, this is Insanity!

Pay more, get less or for 100,000 people in Colorado, get nothing. Just another day in the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. More disasters tomorrow.

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