September, 2014 Bonus Post The Unfolding Disaster That is Obama Care: A Surprise Reason For Policy Cancellations, Losing Obama Crae Subsidies, and More

Note: we were hoping that yesterday’s post would be the last one needed for this month’s update on the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. However, from the time we posted the first update last week until yesterday, so many more disasters have arisen that we need this bonus post today to capture all that has happened in just the past month relative to Obama Care.

Over the past few years, but especially over the past thirteen 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.
• It has generally increase 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 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 a 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.

Let’s see what the latest fiascoes are and hopefully these will finish the update until next month:

1) According to reporting from The Hill, the Obama administration has recently announced that about 360,000 Americans may lost their Obama Care subsidies if those people cannot provide proof of their income level within the next two weeks.

Government offices will send final notices this week to these individuals who signed up for Obama Care with income levels that didn’t match government records. Failure to verify cuts off their subsidies, which in many cases is likely to cause these Obama Care insured people to also drop their insurance since it would have suddenly gotten much more expensive to carry it without the subsidies. Combine this information with the fact that Aetna has announced that 17% or so of its Obama Care customers have already dropped their insurance and other factors depressing Obama Care sign up totals and we see that this legislation’s successes are growing smaller and smaller.

2) A recent Forbes article written by a restaurant executive continues to verify what many experts have been saying about Obama Care from its inception: Obama Care is shifting restaurant workers, and workers in other industries, into part time jobs whether they want to or not.

Andrew Puzder is the CEO of CKE Restaurants, owner of the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's restaurant brands. The highlights of his Forbes article include the following points:

• A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll found support for the Obama care legislation languishing at 34% despite the millions and millions of dollars spent to hype its positive aspects, which turned out to be very few.
• Mr. Puzder, a seasoned restaurant operator stated in an October, 2013 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “[t]he evidence that Obamacare is having a negative impact on hiring is unequivocal, abundant and consistent with common sense.”
• He claims that government data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 54% of the jobs the economy created from February to August of 2014 were part time
• For some perspective, for the comparable February through August period in 2012 (prior to the contemplated effective date for Obama Care’s one year look back), 100% of the net jobs the economy added were full time. The number of part time jobs actually declined during that time frame
• The government reporting acknowledged in their job analysis that there has been “a statistically significant increase” in involuntary part time work in 2014 and that involuntary part time work is what “should be affected if employers are reducing workers hours to avoid employer mandate [Obama Care] penalties.”

Nothing different than what we have been saying for the past few years, this time said by someone actually in the industry and trying to cope with Obama Care. He does a nice summary job of how Obama Care is killing the financial opportunities of millions of Americans by forcing them to become part time workers, both within the restaurant industry and elsewhere:

“Obama Care mandates that employers offer employees working 30 or more hours per week health insurance coverage thereby increasing the cost of employees who work 30 or more hours per week relative to those working under 30 hours per week. Businesses are rationally responding to this clear economic incentive by creating more part time jobs. Make something less expensive and businesses will use more of it. Make something more expensive and businesses will use less of it. That was true with respect to the 40 hour work week and it’s true with respect to Obamacare’s 30 hour employer mandate cut off.

This is a problem Congress and the President can solve, reinvigorating full time job creation and economic growth. Passing the bipartisan Forty Hours is Full Time Act would do the job. However, Obama Care’s supporters must stop defending the law long enough to recognize there’s a problem.”

The fix is really that simple, go back to the traditional 40 hour work week definition, which means the Washington political class has no chance of implementing it.

3) The website, Bankrupting America, does a wonderful job tracking and describing the wasteful spending and incompetency of the Washington political class. According to the September 24, 2014 posting on their website, as reported by The Hill, “The government tracks its health care spending in an outdated records system that cannot easily respond to data requests such as salaries or public relations contracts in certain departments. Instead, officials rely on manually prepared spreadsheets that can take months to produce.”

“Manually prepared spreadsheets.” In these times of personal computers, networking, data base management, etc., the Federal government, which just spent hundreds of millions of dollars on Obama Care systems, prepares data via manual spreadsheets. Unbelievable. What were the hundreds of millions of data systems dollars spent on if those same systems cannot produce simple reports electronically?

4) We have previously discussed a big problem next year around tax time when many Obama Care policy holders may be faced with penalties and fees due to the fact that their income may have been too high when their Obama Care subsides were computed. Now, according to a recent USA Today article, we are getting an idea of how high those tax time surprise costs might be relative to Obama Care policies.

On September 23, 2014, USA Today estimated that hundreds of thousands of Obama Care policy holders could be faced with surprise penalties of anywhere from $600 to over $2,500 for married couples. How many Obama Care policy holders will drop their polices when they realize that keeping them could cost them an additional $2,500 a year, or over $200 a month? 

Additionally, if they keep the newly expensive policy, how many fewer movies will they see, how many fewer restaurant meals will they eat, etc., in order to pay for higher insurance rates, further depressing economy activity and growth? 

5) As we have reported many times, reliable industry sources estimate that at least between five and six million Americans lost access to their current insurance policies directly as a result of Obama Care tenets. We had thought that the only reason that had happened was because some of those policies did not provide the required dozen or so health care services that Obama Care mandates.

For example, some policy holders may have had policies that did not cover maternity expenses since they were well past their child bearing age. Thus, they had a nice arrangement with their insurance company that got them out from under paying for insurance needs that they did not need. Those beneficial arrangements and policies were killed off by Obama Care.

However, we recently found out there is another reason why perfectly good insurance policies were needlessly terminated for 5-6 million Americans. The reason defies logical thinking and reasoning, it is that stupid. However, rather than have me try to explain this little factor in the cancellation of millions of policies, please access the following link from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University:

http://dailysignal.com/2014/09/22/lost-plan-obamacare-explained-3-minutes/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailydigest&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRons6TPZKXonjHpfsX56uUlXqK0lMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4DSsNmI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D

There is not logical reason or thought process why this incredibly idiotic requirement was put into the legislation. But again, not having logical reason or a logical thought process is pretty much on par with the Washington political class. It would all be so funny if it had not so negatively affected the millons of lives of Americans.

That will do it for today and this month. I am sure that we will address new disasters from Obama Care next month….especially since as this is being written we are seeing that another Federal government agency report has just been published which shows that the overall cost of Obama Care so far is actually orders of magnitude greater than any else this administration has admitted to. 

Let that be the teaser to being you back next month for this developing scandal and more.

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:

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http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

What's A Week Without Another Weekly Obama Care Calamity? Or Three?

Another week, another Obama Care calamity. Last Friday, we  reviewed the totality of the calamities from this horrid piece of legislation. But, another week, another calamity. In fact, this week we have a three calamities for the price of one:

- Calamity #1 - Let's start with the easiest one. Several months ago we reported and discussed the fact that within a year of passing the Obama Care legislation, the Health and Human Services Department within the Federal government had already allowed over 1,000 waivers to the early requirements of Obama Care. We made the case then, and still do, that this could not have been a well written and well researched piece of legislation if the government was issuing about three exemptions or waivers everyday to its requirements.

Well, its a few months later and recent news reports indicate that the number of exemptions being issued has not slowed down as some supporters of the legislation predicted it would. The news reports indicate that the number of company waivers and exemptions is fast approaching 1,500, keeping it on track for the same daily rate as of a few months ago. Again, how good is this piece of legislation if nearly 1,500 companies and other entities have already been exempted from its requirements, at least temporarily? If 1,500 exemptions have been granted, I cannot imagine the number that have been applied for in order to get out from under Obama Care's requirements.

- Calamity #2: About two years ago, Obama spoke to a joint meeting of Congress to press for the passage of Obama Care. During a particular part the President's speech, Congressman Joe Wilson  shouted out "You lie," an outburst that he quickly apologized for and an apology that was quickly and graciously accepted by the President. However, then Speaker of The House, Nancy Pelosi, was to have none of this apology business and prompted House Of Representative action against Wilson for his behavior.

However, it turns out that Wilson may have actually been right and Pelosi may have moved for sanctions against him under false pretenses. Wilson yelled out "you lie" when the President stated: "The reforms I am proposing would not apply to those what are here illegally." In other words, no part of Obama Care would use American taxpayer money to support the health care needs of illegal aliens in the country.

Turns out, this is not the case. Recent news reports and statements from Wilson's office assert that over $8 million of Obama Care funding, which is within a larger budget of a $28.8 million budget given to community health care centers, has been specially set aside to help seasonal and migrant farm workers. These heath care centers/clinics have been explicitly told not to ask for immigration status when serving these workers.

Thus, was it a lie when the President stated two years ago that no part of Obama Care funding would be used for "those that are here illegally" or did the situation change and no one in the White House got around to updating the country on this change? In either case it looks like Wilson was right, although his venue and approach for pointing out this potential lie was not appropriate.

The Congressman makes a good point when discussing this calamity. The country is going broke, the country has a mountain of national debt, our limited funds need to be used to support Americans' health care needs, not the health care needs of illegal aliens. At the very least, Pelosi owes the Congressman an apology since the basis for forcing sanctions on Congressman Wilson was baseless.

- Calamity #3: Yesterday, over 409,000 Americans filed for first time unemployment claims, continuing a 400,000 weekly trend that seems to have been going on forever. Unemployment is still stuck around 9% or so. Recent testimony in front of Congress by Andy Puzder, the CEO of CKE restaurants (CKE operates or franchises almost 3,200 Carl's Jr. and Hardee restaurants around the world), described how some of the requirements of Obama Care is putting the brakes on his company's abilities to hire more unemployed Americans:

• Obama Care requires restaurants such as CKE's to post the caloric content of their food on menu boards in all of their restaurants. Puzder testified that this new requirement will cost $1.5 million to implement. He did not discuss how much it would cost to change the signage everytime the menu changed. This $1.5 million is about 17% of what CKE invested in new restaurants last year.
• Thus, as a result of this sign requirement, fewer restaurants will be opened and fewer new people will be hired since the mandatory expense of $1.5 million has to come from somewhere. The saddest part of this whole story is that this component of Obama Care is unlikely to have any positive impact on America. Market research that was carried out on people who ate at similar restaurants New York City after the city implemented the same menu board requirement found that very few people noticed the caloric signs, even fewer people read the signs, and even fewer people, a very, very small percentage, changed their eating habits as a result of the signs.

Conclusion: needless expense for no benefit, expense that could have been used to grow the business and the economy while reducing unemployment. According to Mr. Puzder's testimony: "The money to comply with the AVA (Obama Care) must come from somewhere. We use our revenue to pay our bills and expenses, to pay down our debt, and we reinvest what's left in our business. That's how we create jobs." The obvious conclusion: less to reinvest means fewer jobs created.

His views are consistent with others in the food industry. Scott Womack, who operates a company that owns 12 IHOP restaurants in Indiana and Ohio, testified that the legislation will have dramatically negative effects on his business. By the beginning of 2014, he believes that he will have to provide health insurance coverage for all of his full time employees.

Given the relatively thin business margins in the food industry, he does not know how he will be able to comply. He estimates the cost of complying will be 50 percent greater than his company's earnings. Even if he finds a way to comply with these additional costs, it will certainly hinder his ability to expand, adding new restaurants, hiring more people, paying contractors and builders to construct his new restaurants, pay advertising people to promote his new locations, and purchasing products to serve at his new locations. Many of these latter functions provide employment beyond his direct hiring of people for his company.

Adding insult to injury, Puzder and Womack have not been able to obtain waivers to Obama Care requirements while their competitors, McDonalds and Jack-In-The-Box have received waivers. Not only is Obama Care adding a heavy cost burden to their operations, it is unfairly tilting the competitive playing field by providing a large cost advantage to their competitors. Thus, Obama Care supporters can not even make the claim that all parts of America and the businesses within America will be playing under the same rules under Obama Care. Pathetic.

It might justify all of these calamities if Obama Care had a chance at working. However, more times then I care to remember, we have gone through the myriad of reasons in this blog why this legislation is doomed to failure. The writers and supporters never understood the root causes of our escalating health care costs and without understanding those root causes, our political class has virtually no chance of solving the problem.

Obama tried to solve a public health crisis (i.e. Americans eat too much, Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, Americans smoke too much, Americans on average are getting older), a legal crisis (our health care industry needs signficant tort reform and a lack of competition crisis (our health care industry needs to allow cross state lines competition between health care insurers), by developing a huge, expensive, cumbersome and unfair monstrosity that deals with virtually none of these root causes/crises. As a result, we see restaurants cutting back on expansion and hiring, large companies (e.g. AT&T, John Deere, and others looking to eliminate their health insurance programs because Obama Care makes it less expensive to NOT offer health care than to offer it), and the national debt exploding under Obama Care because of its poor planning and understanding of the problem.

Groucho Marx said it best many decades ago when explaining how Obama Care came into being: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies." I could not have said it better when it comes to this legislative disaster. I can hardly wait to see what falls apart next week.






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 http://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.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/