October, 2014 Part 1 - The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care - More Americans to Lose Their Policies, But Insurance Companies Might Get Bailed Out and More

Over the past few years, but especially over the past fourteen months, we have had to devote more and more posts each month to the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. This legislation, without a doubt, is the worst piece of legislation ever passed, likely passed by the most inept and useless set of Washington politicians that this country has ever had to endure. The disasters from this law include at least the following downsides:

• It has and will continue to increase the national debt.
• It will leave tens of millions of Americans still uninsured ten years from now.
• It has restricted overall economic growth.
• It raised taxes on all Americans in dozens of ways.
• It has reduced the job growth rate in this country.
• It has turned many full time workers into part time workers or into unemployed workers.
• It has generally increased the cost of health insurance, both premiums and deductibles, over what was available in the insurance market before it was passed.
• The Constitution was violated any number of times when the Obama administration unilaterally and illegally changed components of the law without the permission of Congress or the American people.
• The American people were lied to over and over, directly by the President and Democrats in Congress, on the negative ramifications of the law.
• It has caused millions of American to lose access to the current insurance policies they had.
• It has caused millions of Americans to lose access to their preferred doctors, preferred hospitals, and in many cases, current medicine treatments.
• It has likely increased the volume of people visiting hospital emergency rooms.
• It has caused thousands of doctors to retire early or change professions in order to not deal with the bureaucracy and idiocy of the law.
• It has exposed the inability of the Federal government and various state governments to develop, launch, and operate any kind of successful program.
• It has exposed millions of Americans’ personal financial information to identity thieves.
• It never addressed, and thus, never resolved, the root causes of our escalating health care costs in this country.

I am sure that I omitted some of the negative ramifications of the legislation but you get the idea. To review past discussions of past disasters from Obama Care, enter ”the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care” in the search box above. To see what disasters have popped up over just the past month or so, read on:

1) An article in the Investors Business Daily that was written by Stephen Moore and published on October 1, 2014, highlighted the very real reality that insurance companies that took on Obama Care policies are likely going to receive taxpayer bailout funds as a result of the Obama Care legislation.

The bailout potential is legislation's controversial "risk corridor" program, which is supposed to provide financial "protection" against losses to insurers that sponsor exchange plans. The basis of the concept was to create a pool of funds from the profits of some insurers with ObamaCare plans to offset the losses of others. According to a 2013 analysis by the Society of Actuaries, the risk corridors program "provides a strong incentive for insurers to participate in the health insurance exchanges set up by the Affordable healthcare act.". 

In other words, the Federal government took a lot of the risk out of being an Obama Care policy provider. If a company screwed up its operations or financial results, they could always blame the legislation and get rewarded for not doing the job profitably.

Without these subsidized risk corridors and financial incentives to prop up the Obama Care plans, insurance companies will stop issuing Obama care plans and policies, and the entire program could be derailed.

Mr. Moore’s article goes on to compare this insanity to the insanity that was used to back up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the real estate industry, a back up plan that cost the American taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars. The Federal government guarantee on bad mortgages encouraged bad mortgages to be written by mortgage brokers since they could count on the government to make them whole on defaulted bad mortgages. 

The guarantee against losses on Obama Care enrollees encourages insurers to toss sound underwriting standards out the window, knowing that any bad policy decisions will be financially rewarded by the American taxpayer. Should be interesting to see how Obama and the Federal government try to spin this potential taxpayer hit where the lowly American taxpayer bails out big companies who are in cahoots with the Federal government. 

2) Casey B. Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, recently wrote a piece on how the Obama Care legislation is turning the country into a country of part time workers, based on analyses done by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He ponts out three specific reasons why the law is causing more part time jobs to be caused vs. full time jobs to be caused or retained:

• Obama Care carries an explicit tax on full-time work.
• Obama Care carries an implicit tax on full-time work for those who are ineligible for the Obama Care’s health insurance subsidies.
• Obama Care carries an implicit tax that links the amount of available subsidies to workers’ incomes.

Based on these three factors, the Mercatus analysis and research found that the law will eventually reduce weekly employment per person by about 3 percent—translating to roughly 4 million fewer full-time-equivalent workers. 

The primary conclusion of their work is that Obama Care and its subsidy and tax structures create strong incentives to work less. It will create an environment that will put millions in a position in where working part time (29 hours or fewer, as defined by the ACA) will yield more disposable income than working their normal full-time schedule. Furthermore, it appears, based on their study, that women will be far more affected then men by this impact on full time employment.

Thus, another piece of freedom slips away. When government policy dictates whether or not you should work full time or part time, that is not a good policy. That choice should be left to the individual with government policy not having any influence on that freedom of choice.

3) David Hogberg’s writing has been referenced a number of times in this blog. Mr. Hogberg writes for Amy Ridenour’s National Center blog and specializes in health care and Obama care issues. His recent writing from October 10, 2014 took a look at how Obama Care was impacting health insurance coverage obtained from employers:

• His analysis was based on research work done by various branches of the Federal Reserve Board.
• The only piece of good news coming out of the research was that the percentage of businesses that are increasing the number of employees covered exceeds those that are covering fewer employees. 
• However, all of the other the other changes to employer plans was bad news for employees.
• The percentage of businesses that are increasing employee contributions, premiums, deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums and co-pays far exceed the percentage that are reducing them in every type of business. 
• As for range of services covered and size and breadth of the networks, the differences between the percentage of businesses that are reducing them versus increasing them aren’t as large, but they are still substantial.

So, costs are going up and quality is going down, offset by some increase in the number of employees covered. Not a good report card but not surprising, given all of the other analyses and realities we have reported about this heinous piece of legislation. Obama promised lower costs and higher quality care and like most Federal government endeavors, we got just the opposite: lower quality at higher cost.

4) All opinion polls about Obama Care show a strong majority of Americans who want the law radically changed or terminated altogether. Recent polling shows the same results with even Democratic voters more and more believing that this is a very bad piece of legislation:

• In May, only 6% of Democrats said Obama Care hurt them. But recent polling shows that 15% of Democrats polled said Obama Care hurt them.
• The poll found that only 27% of Democrats say Obama Care has helped them, a slight 4% increase since May. 
• Overall, more than one in five Democrats (21%) said in the long run Obama Care will “make things worse.”

Not a good sign when you core constituents are having growing doubts about the legislation. And that doubt could get larger by the November elections since in the next few weeks, insurance companies in thirteen states and DC are likely going to terminate hundreds of thousands of existing insurance policies as a result of Obama Care mandates that require these polices to fulfill extensive Obama Care requirements: “It looks like several hundred thousand people across the country will receive notices in the coming days and weeks,” said Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

In Virginia alone it is expected that 250,000 existing health policies on the chopping block…forcing people to seek alternative health care coverage in the middle of election season. And we already know what is likely to happen when these people look to buy Obama Care policies:

• Many of those forced out of their current plans and into Obama Care may not be able to keep their doctors or access their favored hospitals.
• They will likely face higher deductibles and out-of-pocket expense, making Obama Care an election issue on the eve of voting.

An other month and another set of disasters: perfectly good insurance policies getting cancelled for no good reason, businesses cutting back on insurance coverage for their employees, loss of freedom in deciding whether to work full time or part time, and other taxpayer bailout for big business highly likely. And we have just begun, more disasters tomorrow and the following days from the piece of legislation that never stops giving…bad news.

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

August, 2014 The Unfolding Disasters That is Obama Care, Part 3: Higher Costs, More Narrow In-Network Coverage, and Higher Unemployment levels

Every month since last August we have had to do multiple posts each month in order to keep up with the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. It is easily the worst piece of legislation ever passed by the Federal government under any previous Presidential administration. Runaway costs, dysfunctional or non functioning websites, high potential for identity theft, less coverage for more cost, cancelled insurance policies, etc., it was a failure in every way imaginable.

And those failures have continued to unfold every month, which is why we are going to take a few days now to cover what has happened just since last month’s updates. Before we do that, let’s do a quick reminder of where the program is from a numbers perspective:

• The Obama administration claimed that about 8 million Americans signed up for an Obama Care health care insurance plan during the initial sign up period.
• However, recent research from reputable sources found that it is likely that only between 80 and 90% of those who signed up actually followed through and paid for and bought a policy.
• If we take the midpoint of that range and assume only 85% followed through with payment, that 8 million sign up number is really only 6.8 million real policy holders.
• But other reputable research found that only about 57% of those who signed up for an Obama Care policy were previously uninsured, the other sign ups already had health insurance coverage and just churned out to an Obama Care policy.
• Thus, the actual number of INCREMENTAL Americans with health insurance via Obama Care is 57% of 6.8 million or around 3.9 million people.
• That means that 2.9 million Americans were not incremental insurance policy holders, they just churned from an existing policy into an Obama Care policy.
• Somewhere between 5 and 6 million people had their current health insurance policies cancelled as a result of Obama Care, policies that often were perfectly fine and acceptable to those carrying those policies.
• If we assume a best case view from the Obama Care perspective and assume all of the 2.9 million people who were not incremental to the Obama Care numbers came from this pool of 5-6 million people, than the net number of Americans who lost health insurance coverage as a result of Obama Care is between 2.1 and 3.1 million people (5 or 6 million less 2.9 million people).
• Thus, we have to take the 3.9 million people that were truly incremental because of Obama Care and subtract out either 2.1 or 3.1 million, ending up with a net gain in insured Americans of between 800 thousand and 1.8 million.
• Thus, after years of trying, billions and billions of dollars spent, we may have gotten incremental, expensive, and narrow insurance coverage to less than two million Americans.

Only in Washington can the nation spend billions and billions of dollars of taxpayer wealth and end up with a problem that is hardly any better than when before the program started. Insane.

That is where we stand today. Let’s take a look at what disasters have come to the surface since we last talked about Obama Care:

1) One revenue component of the Obama care legislation was to impose a 2.3% tax on all medical devices. At that time, reputable economists pointed out that like any tax, economic growth and vitality would be suppressed, resulting in fewer jobs in the industry, less Federal total income taxes from those fewer workers that worked in the industry, and likely not as much tax revenue as the Obama Care supporters expected.

Well, low and behold, that reality is finally sinking in. According to an August 20, 2014 piece on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce website:

• Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) recently stated: "Everything from this ill-conceived tax's structure to its implementation has been a disaster.”
• Why is it a disaster? For starters, while the IRS originally estimated it would receive between 9,000 and 15,600 forms to pay the tax in the second and third quarters of fiscal 2013, the IRS ended up receiving only 5,100 forms.
• Second, while the IRS expected to pull in $1.2 billion in the second and third quarters of 2013 from the device tax, according to the, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, took in just $913.4 million.
• And most insanely, the IRS Inspector General issued a report which says the IRS cannot figure out who should be paying the tax, four years after the legislation was passed. Pathetic.
• From a jobs perspective, a report from AdvaMed estimates that as many as 165,000 U.S. jobs have been lost because of the medical device tax. 
• Their report and research also found that research and development (R&D) has already been cut across the industry and more cuts are expected in the future, further depressing economic and job growth within the industry and nation.

Great, impose a tax, get less money than expected from the tax and kill thousands of jobs in the process. Could not do much worse unless you tried. And think about it. The $913.4 million is a gross number, you have to reduce that government revenue by the tax money lost because upwards of 165,000 mostly higher paying jobs were destroyed. 

If each one of those jobs resulted in about $5,500 in Federal income tax, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax being paid to the U.S. Treasury, not an unreasonable amount of money, than the Federal government broke even overall from a tax revenue perspective. The government broke even but I doubt that the 165,000 displaced workers would agree that it was the right thing to do. We end up with much ado about nothing except more heartbreak and hardship for average Americans with nothing in return.

2) An August 19, 2014 article from the Washington Free Beacon reviewed analysis work done by the Federal government which showed that American businesses were paying more to provide health insurance to their workers since Obama Care was passed. Remember, the President promised that health insurance costs would go down as a result of his legislation.

The analysis was done by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York which found that:

• A majority of businesses polled expect Obama Care to increase the cost of their employee health insurance coverage.
• The median of estimates from the survey put the expected increase at 10% in 2015. 
• This year‘s survey, vs. last year’s survey, found an even larger majority of companies this year cited Obama Care as the driving force behind the cost increases.
• These expect increased costs will likely be passed on to employees in the large majority of the companies included in the survey by charging each employee a higher monthly premium for coverage. The survey also found that businesses are coping with higher costs by charging higher deductibles, co-pays and out-of-pocket maximums. 
• Only a third of companies said they were not making changes to their health plans as a result of Obama Care.

We have yet to find any facet of American life or the American medical system where costs are actually going down as a result of Obama Care despite the lofty and deceitful promises that its supporters made several years ago.

3) Timothy Carney, writing for the Washington Examiner in an August 13, 2014 article came up with a crazy and dangerous potential financial disaster for his family as a result of Obama Care.

It seems that his wife is pregnant and they are expecting a child later this year. 

He has health care insurance coverage and was not too worried about the delivery expense since he had already fulfilled his annual $5,000 deducible for this year which meant that going forward through the birth process in the hospital, his insurance company would pick up 90% of the costs. He initially thought he was in good financial shape for the delivery of his child.

But wait a second. He had fulfilled the annual $5,000 deductible for “in network” medical expenses. As a result of Obama Care, his wife reminded him that the breadth and options on doctors and specialists within their network might be more narrow than before Obama Care, i.e. some of the doctors and specialists at the hospital they plan to have the delivery might not be in their network. He has a totally separate (and higher) deductible for out-of-network care, meaning that he could take a serious financial hit if they had to deal with any medical personnel not in their network. 

It turned out that some specialists in the hospital were in their policy’s network, some were out. Even worse, they could not request that only in network people serve their needs during child birth since only those specialists on duty when the birthing process began would be used in the baby’s delivery. Thus, the anesthesiologist might be out of their network, meaning they would have to pay the full cost. All because their policy had a very narrow choice of medical options, courtesy of Obama Care. More insanity.

That will do it for today and this month’s updates on the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. Narrow policy networks could mean higher costs for policy holders, higher business costs means higher costs for employees as businesses pass those higher, Obama Care-cost through to them, and lower employment as a result of the medical device tax which is generating lower tax revenue than expected. Failures across the board.

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

January, 2014 The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Part 3: Real Life Obama Care Disasters, Medicaid Increases Hospitals Visits, And Bronze Plans' Expensive Surprises

This is our third post this month in what has become a monthly series on the idiocy and unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. Millions of Americans have lost access to their preferred insurance policies, their preferred doctors, their preferred hospitals, and needed medicines, they have lost access to work hours and actually jobs,, the economy has suffered terribly, identity thieves are going crazy with glee, the national debt is going up faster, and a whole myriad of other threats and troubles have occurred as a result of this heinous piece of legislation.

Things are so bad that we are having a difficult time documenting and review all of the insanity. Over a six day period we will do our best to bring you the worst from Obama Care.

1) As we have discussed many times, there has been a lot of problems with Obama Care’s information systems processing and operations including the website where theoretically a person could easily sign up for an Obama Care insurance policy. The problems including the snafu that many people might think that they have health insurance via Obama care but the systems never properly processed the application and payment, leaving the person uninsured despite their belief that they are covered. 

And that reality is starting to come true. There are news reports starting to arise where people are going to the doctor or hospital and finding out that they are indeed NOT covered by an Obama Care insurance policy and either need to pay cash up front for the entire medical expense and fix the problem later or are walking out and not receiving the medical treatment they need because of the sticker shock of the price unadjusted for insurance. 

Regarding the top selling type of Obama Care plans, so-called Bronze plans, Kaiser Health News reports on the following developing problems:

• Newly issued Obama Care Bronze Plans may not pay a dime of a simple doctor costs until an annual deductible of $5,000 is met/paid for by the policy holder: “This could be the next shoe to drop, as people don’t realize that if they’re buying a bronze plan, they may have to pay $5,000 out of pocket before it contributes a penny,” said Carl McDonald, senior analyst with Citi Investment Research, speaking at a Washington, D.C., conference.
• Some health industry experts are concerned that some new Obama Care enrollees will be discouraged from seeing doctors if they have to pay the full charge, rather than simply a copayment. This would be the exact opposite behavior that Obama Care was supposed to be encouraging.
• First -time insurance buyers via Obama Care may not realize they’re on the hook for additional costs before insurance and benefits kick in, having chosen a plan based solely on the lower monthly premiums.
• In seven major U.S. cities, half of Obama Care’s bronze plans on require policyholders meet the entire deductible before insurers help with the cost of a simple doctor visit, according to an analysis by eHealthinsurance.com, a private online marketplace, for Kaiser Health News. 
• A typical office visit can run $65 to $85, while more complex visits can cost more.

Thus, people are going to see higher monthly premiums, higher deductible levels, and delays in seeing any benefit of their Obama Care policy until they have paid out thousands of dollars in their own cash for any medical care. How does this reduce the cost of medical care int his country, an severely broken promise of the President?

2) Consider the following recent video news headlines regarding Obama Care and the human stories behind the numbers and agony of Obama Care‘s failures:

New York Woman’s Medical Care Delayed And Insurance Cancelled Due To ObamaCare Broken Promises

WWLP-MA: New ObamaCare Taxes Are Bringing Higher Costs To Massachusetts Residents

Faces of Obamacare WBOY-WV: 18,000 West Virginians Forced To Enroll In ObamaCare Again Due To Website Glitch

Oregon Mom Can’t Afford Health Coverage From ObamaCare

ObamaCare’s Taxes Are Hiking Costs For Small Business Owners

The actual videos of their heartbreaking stories can be accessed at:

http://obamacosts.gop.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=obamacosts

3) A Washington Examiner article from January 3, 2014 pointed out the next likely huge failure of Obama Care. One of the original Obama Care promises was that the legislation would reduce the amount of visits, time, and costs for medical treatments that go through hospital emergency rooms. The faulty reasoning is that if previously uninsured Americans now had health insurance via Medicaid, they would be much less likely to us emergency rooms.

But if the writers had done their homework and a little research beforehand, they would have realized how inane this assumption would turn out to be:

• According to the article and a just-released results of a new study published in the Journal Science, based on 10,000 low-income residents in Oregon newly covered by Medicaid, emergency room visits were actually 40% higher than those with no insurance at all and no access to Medicaid.
• Supposedly, a big driver of our high expenditures in ever increasing health care costs has been due to those people without insurance going to emergency rooms.
• According to this study, increased ER visits as result of expanded Medicaid coverage increased spending by $120 per covered individual.

The article points out that several factors could be at work here.

• Being covered by Medicaid does not necessarily increase the chances of getting personal care in a private office since many doctors do not accept Medicaid patients and the related payment schedules. Thus, this may be another Obama Care example of people having healthy care insurance but who cannot get health care medical attention.
• Another factor might be that behavior is driven by cultural experience. Anyone who understands the culture of low-income Americans who do not have experience with health insurance, knows that these are not communities where health care is associated with private physician visits. It is associated with emergency rooms and hospitals.
• It may well be that as more lower-income individuals get under the Medicaid umbrella, they simply feel even more comfortable doing what they always have done — going to the emergency room.

Thus, rather than putting the fire out, i.e. reducing the costs and visits associated with hospital emergency rooms, Obama Care may actually be throwing gas on the fire by adding to the emergency room usage crisis. Just another bad, unintended consequence of a bad piece of legislation.

4) Let’s look at another real life example of how Obama Care is crushing Americans finances and health care insruance coverage using an NBC news report about a car delaership in Michigan, a classic American small business that President Obama was likely referring to in this quote from june 22, 2010: 

“This law will cut costs and make coverage more affordable for families and small businesses.“

In reality, at least for the Michigan car dealership, not so much, just another broken Obama promise. Highlights of the NBC story include the following points:

• The car dealership had its current employee health insurance policy canceled directly as a result of the Obama Care legislation, a policy and benefit the dealership had provided to its employees for 35 years.
• The car dealership owner decide at that point to give every employee a lump sum payment of $2,400 to each employee so they could individually purchase insurance. On their own. This increase his business costs from the previous year under the old insurance policy, rebutting the President’s assertion that Obama Care would reduce small business costs.
• These additional costs prevent him, like any other business owner, from expanding his business, hiring more employees, taking better care, financially, of current employees, all actions that would help grow the economy.
• As a further courtesy and help to his employees, he brought in a professional insurance broker to help his employees get on a group health insurance plan.
• The best group plan that the broker could develop did benefit a small minority of the dealership’s employees by getting them lower costs.
• However, for the vast majority if employees, relative to the previous plan that Obama Care killed off, deductibles are rising from $1,125 to $3,000, out of pocket costs went from $2,250 to $6,350, family deductibles jump from $6,000 to $12,700.
• During a company meeting to discuss employee benefits and health insurance, one employee asked: “How is this helping the average American that works 40 to 50 hours a week? How are we supposed to live?”
• Another employee is quote in the piece stating: “There’s nothing wrong with trying to help people, but there’s a better way. This isn’t the way.”

There has to be a better way, truer words about Obama Care have never been spoken. The original TV piece that NBC aired can be accessed at:

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/01/106283-video-watch-obamacare-actually-affecting-small-businesses-employees/

This is what happens when inept politicians that do not understand the root causes of a problem pass a piece of legislation that most did not read which was written by insurance company interests and which runs a mind boggling two thousands plus pages long. Americans and their families suffering, economic growth being stunted, and the original problems made worse, not better. The trifecta of incompetence that unfortunately, continues tomorrow.

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

December, 2013, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care Update, Part 2: Insurance But No Medicine, More Identity Theft Problems, The Nullify Crusade and More

Yesterday, was the first in what promises to be a long series of posts that document and analyze the latest fiascos being spawned out of the Obama Care legislation. It seems that every day another bombshell disaster is uncovered, caused by a piece of legislation that the Washington class did not read, did not understand, and probably did not write, delegating that job to lobbyists and insurance companies.

We also learned that many Americans, even if they have Obama Care health insurance coverage, will not be able to see the doctor they want to see and use or will not have access to some of the finest hospitals in the country. In order to reduce costs as much as possible, the legislation allows insurance companies to restrict insurance coverage to less costly and quite possibly less quality doctors and hospitals. We also learned that many, many doctors are voluntarily not joining Obama Care exchanges or are retiring early to avoid the hassles of Obama Care.

The bad news continues today:

1) The National Journal recently reported on a investigative report done by station KSTP, a Minnesota ABC station. They found that many state-run ObamaCcare health-care exchanges are vulnerable to a certain type of Wi-Fi hacker attack that enables computer hackers to intercept usernames and passwords.

The findings come from a Mr. Mark Lanterman, the CEO and chief technology officer of Computer Forensic Services. His company ran simulated hacker attacks for KSTP. They found that state-run Obama Care exchanges in Minnesota, Hawaii, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Maryland, and the District of Columbia are vulnerable to hackers and identity theft criminal elements, just one other serious worry when it comes to the failed legislation known as Obama Care. 

2) First, millions of Americans found out that they could not keep their current insurance policy as promised by the President. Then many Americans found out that they would not be able to keep their favorite doctors in an Obama Care world. Then the found out that they might not get access to their favorite hospitals in an Obama Care world.

Now, according to a recent report in Forbes, they may not be able to keep getting access to their needed medicines in an Obama Care world. Apparently, in an attempt to keep health insurance costs down, many of the Obama Care health insurance policies are not carrying the full array of medicines that current policies are carrying: 

• “If you like your medicines, you may not be able to keep them under Obamacare,” health policy analyst Scott Gottlieb wrote in a Forbes column. “Health plans are cheapening their drug formularies – just like they cheapened their networks of doctors. That’s how they’re paying for the benefits that President Obama promised, everything from free contraception to a leveling of premiums between older (and typically costlier) beneficiaries, and younger consumers.”
• And even if the health insurance company carrying the Obama Care policy does agree to pay for certain drugs, you may have to opt for a higher costing policy like the Obama care silver level policies to get your medicines paid for. If you only have the cheapest, bronze levels policies you may still be shut out of the drug you need.
• Apparently, you can appeal your case to the Federal government if a needed drug is not covered by your policy, but according to Forbes, that appeal process can take years. During that time, you can either go without the drug or pay for it yourself. If your appeal fails, you are on the hook for 100% of the medicine’s cost.
• As an added insult, if a person has to pay for a drug not covered by their Obama Care insurance policy, that cost does not even help reduce their deductibles or out of pocket limits.

Just another example of the adage where the operation was a success (i.e. the person was able to get health insurance coverage) but the patient died (i.e. their policy did not pay for the medicine that person needed to stay alive). Pathetic piece of legislation.

3) On December 9, 2013, CBS Morning News reported on another troubling aspect of Obama Care, first reported by the Wall Street Journal: skyrocketing deductible levels, that level at which a insurance policy holder has to pay 100% of medical costs up to that deductible level before getting financial help from their Obama Care insurance policy. 

Key findings of the CBS report and Journal report include:

• The average deductible level in Obama Care insurance policies is $5,081 a year. In other words, after paying monthly deductibles for the privilege of having an Obama Care policy, you then have to pay at least another $5,000 before seeing any benefit from that policy.
• The Wall Street Journal article detailed how the analysis from HealthPocket Inc., a company that compares health-insurance plans for consumers, analyzed the health care plans in 34 out of the 36 states that haven't set up their own exchanges under the Obama Care legislation. 
• Their report also proved that the $5081 average cost is "42% higher than the average deductible of $3,589 for an individually purchased plan in 2013 before much of the federal law took effect."
• The Wall Street Journal writers also noted how "'cost-sharing' subsidies to help pay deductibles are available to people who earn up to 2.5 times the poverty level....[but] the cost-sharing subsidies for deductibles don't apply to the bronze policies."

Think about a young kid/college grad just starting out in their career. He or she cannot afford a higher priced Obama care plan, they have to struggle with a so-called bronze plan, likely not being able to afford anything above bronze. Not only are the monthly premiums a strain on their budget but now they will get no help in covering their deductible costs which are now 42% higher going forward under Obama Care than they were prior to Obama Care. How does that make sense?

Makes no sense except for the fact that Obama Care was set up to screw the younger generation so that they pay more to subsidize older folks who do not have health care insurance and to pay for Obama Care mandated elements of health insurance, e.g. contraception and pre natal care, for many people that have absolutely no need for such coverage. 

4) An interesting effort is gaining steam in South Carolina’s state government. Lawmakers in South Carolina are pressing forward with state government legislation that would eliminate Obama Care in the state. The “South Carolina Freedom of Health Care Protection Act” was introduced in April and passed in the state’s House of Representatives by a 65-34 vote in June. The pending legislation is expected to head to the state Senate around Jan.14 where if it is passed, it would then go Republican Governor Nikki Haley to be signed into law.

Central to the pending legislation is a prohibition of state agencies, employees, officers and employees from implementing any part of Obama Care. The bill would outlaw state health-care exchanges and would instead issue tax deductions to individuals instead of the tax penalties they would face for not complying with the ACA. 

I am not a legal scholar so I have no idea if this attempt to “nullify“ Obama Care, which I understand has some standing and chance of success within the tenets of the Constitution, will succeed. However, the state politicians in South Carolina recognize what a lousy piece of legislation this truly is, how it is negatively affecting every aspect Americans’ health care lives, and are willing to take this unprecedented effort to shield their constituents from the negative fallout of Obama Care.

Which raises an interesting issue for both the short term Obama Care issue and the longer term central government format:

• What if the 35 states or so who said no to Obama Care state run exchanges do the same nullify thing and simply ignore Obama Care’s requirements and tenets? 
• And what if the courts uphold the states’ rights to actually nullify Federal law? 
• Does the law then collapse from the non-participation of two thirds of the country? 
• Longer term, can the states then begin to pick and choose what Federal laws they want to obey or not obey? What if the Federal government imposes draconian and un-Constitutional gun control laws on the land? Can the states then nullify that Federal law?

Fascinating scenarios, all because the Washington political class put together a historically pathetic and severely deficient piece of legislation. A piece of legislation that may lead to a state rights Constitutional crisis. 

Enough for today. What depressing lessons did we learn today about Obama Care:

1. It is still an identity thief’s paradise since industry experts have proven that many of the state Obama Care exchanges can be easily attacked via Wi-Fi networks.
2. It is now obvious that while one can get health care insurance via Obama Care, there is an increasing probability under Obama Care that your new insurance will not pay for certain, usually expensive, life saving drugs you or your family might need.
3. A Wall Street Journal analysis has shown that even if you can afford Obama Care health insurance, you may not be able to afford the additional high deductible levels that Obama Care insurance policies come with, negating the monthly premium payments you are paying.
4. The bill is so bad that at least one state is taking the unprecedented move to go down the “nullify” road to totally block Obama Care’s implementation in its state, a move likely to spread to other states. eventually end up in the courts and likely to create a Constitutional crisis in the country.

Wow, identify theft crisis, Constitutional crisis, high deductible crisis, and lack of medicine coverage crisis. Yeah, this is not going to end well or neatly. More Obama Care crises tomorrow.

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