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, sugar, 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.
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 copays 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.
As we often do each month, we finish our latest discussions about the unfolding disasters of Obama Care with real life stories and tragedies of real life America families. Higher premiums, higher deductibles, more narrow networks, etc. The source of these heartbreaking stories and realities can be found at:
www.ourhealthcarestories.com
RON, MONTANA: Ron Cole, Montana Peterbilt Controller, doesn’t see the benefits outlined in the PPACA. "I see it as increasing costs than more than helping from an employer's standpoint,” says Cole. With new provisions from the IRS taking effect in 2014, including a ban on pre-existing condition exclusions, Montana Peterbilt isn’t sure it will keep offering health care, if costs rise. "All that stuff is going to cost money and all that is going to drive up the insurance costs and it may get to where it’s going to price insurance companies out of the market,” says Cole.
STACIE. GEORGIA: From Kaiser Health News:
Even some people who qualify for federal assistance, such as Stacie Brown, owner of a pottery shop, are balking. The cheapest "bronze" plan for Brown, her husband and son would cost the family $300 a month but not begin paying medical bills until they exceeded the $6,300 individual deductible. The cheapest silver plan would cost $508 a month but not start paying until a $3,000 individual deductible was met. Her son's pediatrician was not in any of the networks and that was the one medical service she felt sure her family would use.
Brown ultimately bought a $256-a-month Assurant Health plan for her son, sold outside the marketplace, which covers his pediatrician and unlimited office visits. She and her husband have decided to forgo coverage for themselves, even though they may face a tax penalty of $700.
"I can’t afford the affordable health care," she said. "I don't know anyone in this area who can afford it, and I do pretty well in life."
ROBERT, TEXAS:” Policies bought before the law was passed were “grandfathered in” and can remain in place, she said.
But that apparently doesn’t lock in the cost of premiums or deductibles, said Robert Kecseg, an investment adviser in Lewisville. Kecseg, 61, said he bought a plan before Obamacare took effect. But the insurer that provided the coverage went out of business.
When he went to buy new insurance, he found that the cost was much higher. He had paid an annual $10,000 deductible before 2012. Now he pays double.
“It’s pretty spectacular,” he said.
The Kecsegs also faced a medical emergency this year that proved expensive, he said. In May, he suffered facial paralysis and had to be rushed to a hospital during a family reunion in Las Vegas. The emergency room care cost more than $3,000, he said.
“We’re paying it off over time,” he said.
Kecseg says, for example, that his wife is being charged for birth control. “My wife says she’s had her uterus removed, so we’re not really likely to have need for that,” he said. “But we’re going to pay for it.”
JOHN, PENNSYLVANIA: I pay for my family's insurance and had a plan that fit the family well. $2,500 deductible and $533 a month. Last year, I tried really hard to get on the Obamacare site and after probably 10 hours of trying finally got a quote. The results weren't good. $1433 a MONTH for bronze coverage with a $5000 deductible. I continued with my $533 a month plan this year because I renewed it last December, but just got a letter saying my plan could not be renewed. I'm now facing coverage that will likely cost almost 3X as much with a deductible twice as big. How is this affordable coverage? The President's promise of being able to "keep your plan" is just not true for me and never has been. I continue to be happy with my pre-Obama plan but bureaucrats claim to know what's best for me and my family. I strongly disagree.
FRED, CALIFORNIA: I am self-employed and had a modest but workable policy for my wife and two kids paying $350 a month or $4200 a year. The best we found this year under Obamacare was a Cigna policy at $1200 a month with a huge deductible. I have a small business and don't qualify for any subsidies [As if I would want them], so our premium went from $4200 to $14,400 or an increase of 342%, hardly affordable. So, we're part of a medical sharing program and we're paying the FIRST $5000 of our own medical expenses.
We've been knocked in the teeth by OBAMACARE.............not to mention the loss of freedom and the government coercion.
CAROLYN, KANSAS - CBS News has confirmed millions nationwide will be losing their current insurance coverage. That's because it doesn't meet the new minimum requirements under the Affordable Care Act. There could be thousands of Kansans in that total.
The letters started going out last month, telling Kansans their insurance policies will be discontinued at the end of the year.
"I'm self-employed," said Carolyn Perry. She runs a day care out of her home. "So I need the coverage cause anything can happen at any given time."
She's among those the Affordable Care Act was meant to help."But the premium that I'm paying now is twice as much as what it was when I first started paying it," she said. Perry buys her own health insurance. So far, she's keeping it.
The top line numbers of Obama Care have all been a disaster. But it is the personal stress and burdens on real Americans which really drives home the many unfolding disasters of Obama Care.
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:
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
