October, 2015, Part 2, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care - Deductible Costs Up, Native Ameircans Get Screwed, and More

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 it 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 but with a big exception: 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 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.

For the next several days we will be reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington:

1) According to a report in the Washington Times on September 23, 2015, while the number of employer provided health plans has not declined as a result of Obama Care, many of the holders of those employer plans are seeing substantial increases in the level of their deductibles, that part of medical costs that the consumer has to pay for before their health insurance kicks in. Some of those annual increases are upwards of a $1,000.

The average deductible for employer provided insurance plans has more than tripled, from $303 in 2006 to $1,077 in 2015. Some experts think that this is one reason why employee wage growth has been so lousy the past few years. Employers have diverted wage increases into paying for higher insurance costs. This is part of the explanation of why wages have flattened. These deductibles have increased more than seven times the increase in wages. 

And this trend may get worse in 2016. Next year businesses with over 50 employees will have to provide health insurance to their employees which will likely continue to depress wage increases while continuing to mute job creation and economic growth.

2) A recent Kaiser Foundation study found that Obama Care’s 13% tax on so-called “Cadillac” health insurance policies has led many companies to terminate those plans, insurance plans that were very attractive to those companies’ employees. Thus, more Americans suffer as a result of Obama Care, losing access to their very attractive and robust health insurance plans, replaced with less attractive policies. How is that progress?

3) Melissa Quinn, writing for the Heritage Foundation on September 21, 2015, reported on another perversion from Obama Care that we have not covered previously. The logic here gets a little convoluted but the end result is another tragedy for a certain subset of American citizens.

When Obama Care was passed, it exempted individual Native Americans from the individual mandate, the requirement that an American would have to get themselves health insurance or pay a fine. However, the law did allow Native Americans to purchase individual insurance from the Obama Care Federal health insurance exchange if desired. These people would also be eligible for Obama Care subsidies to pay for their Obama Care policies if they qualified from an income perspective.

Now, here is where it gets crazy and insane. The Obama Care legislation did NOT exempt Native American tribal governments from the Obama Care employee mandate. Since many of the Native American tribes are also major employers within their regional area, they have to provide health insurance coverage for their employees that are mostly Native Americans. 

This creates two major problems:

1. Most of the tribes will have a very hard time affording health care insurance for their Native American employees and/or pay the Obama Care fines as required by the law. Thus, any policies they provide are likely to be bare bones and the least expensive required.
2. On an individual level, the law also requires that individuals with access to coverage independent of the exchange cannot get the subsidies available on the Federal Obama Care exchange.

As an example, consider the case of Rebecca Bishop. She is a member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe in Wyoming and is an employee at the Tribe’s Cee Nu Ku cafe. She has multiple pre-existing health issues.

She originally obtained an Obama Care insurance policy from the Federal exchange, The policy costs her $948 a month but the Federal subsidies provided under the law comes out to $815 a month, reducing her overall monthly insurance costs to $133 a month.

But she will likely have to give up that policy since the law requires her to be covered by her tribe’s employer provided policies at a cost that is likely to be higher than the $133 subsidized cost she pays now. Or she can keep her current policy and lose that $815 monthly subsidy. Talk about screwing around with people’s lives. Allow them to get decent insurance and then then force them to give it up because another provision of the same law screws them over.

4) As we often do with these unfolding disaster Obama Care posts, let’s end today’s discussion with the true stories of individual Americans and how the law is causing them tremendous amounts of stress and costs. These stories come from the website:

www.myhealthcarestory.com

Chelsea from Texas on February 5, 2015

Obamacare helped me in no way. I had to leave my apartment and move back in with my parents after the new health care reform took a toll on my job. I was once able to work 39 hours a week as a part time employee and i was comfortable with what i could afford. However, Obamacare changed the rules and all of the sudden my employer dropped my hours down to only 28 per week. This is a huge difference! Instead of helping me, all that Obamacare did was cut my pay dramatically. I should have known better than to think the government might actually be doing something for the good of the people.

Paula from Texas on January 20, 2015

My husband and I are in our 50’s and in good health. We own our own business and have individual health insurance. The policy we had before ObamaCare was a HSA catastrophic plan through BCBS. Our deductible was $10,000 for the family. Our new policy through BCBS has more than doubled and our deductible is $6000/individual and $12700/family with the new policy.

Mike from Georgia on January 6, 2015

Post COBRA purchased an individual plan for 2014 at a reasonable rate. (No preexisting conditions.) The new ACA compliant plan is about 300% higher. They said they do not offer any non-compliant plans. I understand there are only a couple of holes in the law. 1. Specific disease / malady insurance you can buy. Cheap but risky i.e. if you buy heart disease ins. and have gall bladder problems you’re not covered. 2. Short Term insurance – This I did purchase. It’s not great, coverage is only for 6 months and renewal is not guaranteed. There is no coverage for immunizations, and other important exclusions but it covers most of what I want. Provider is HCC. (Find on e-health insurance dot com.)

Note: Supposedly short term insurance is there for temporarily unemployed or a bridge to medicare. Both apply to me but I cannot imagine if, for example, you’re 50 and you’ve got 15 years to medicare that would be tough to bridge. Also, I’m single if you have a typical family of 4 I cannot see how you could afford a 300% increase in premium.

Subsidies- I don’t want, need nor feel I should be forced to receive a subsidy for something that should be affordable in a free market. Pray the powers that be trash, delete, repeal or whatever it takes to rid us of the not so Affordable Care Act!

That will it for today but more disasters tomorrow. Today, besides individual stories of Obama Care disasters, we learned that policy deductibles continue to rise, workers are losing access to their favored Cadillac health insurance policies due to Obama Care’s 13% tax on those policies, and Native American tribes and individuals are getting screwed in a very unique way.

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Sinkhole States vs. Sunshine States - You Decide

In a previous post, within our ongoing “by the numbers theme,” we explored a bunch of numbers as they applied to ten states. Five of those states were nicknamed “Sinkhole States” since they were being overcome with state government debt that was turning the states’ finances and the financial future of those state residents into sinkholes.

The second set of five states were nicknamed ‘Sunshine States” since their state government had either a budget surplus or a very small, manageable debt load that wouldn’t be a financial burden to future residents of those states. Thus, while the first five states were mostly likely to get lost in a sink hole of debt within the fifty states, the Sunshine States were mostly likely to be basking in sunshine, given their better fiscal skills.

We extended that distinction in that post to look at other numbers of those ten states including maximum state income tax rates, unemployment rates, and buying power of residents within each state. Our findings were often dramatic and indicative of what government should do and not do:

• Sinkhole states had much higher debt levels than Sunshine states.
• Tax rates in Sinkhole states were higher.
• Unemployment levels were higher in Sinkhole states.
• Consumer buying power was less in Sinkhole states.

Thus, Sunshine state residents enjoyed lower taxes, lower unemployment, more buying power and a financial future that was not weighted down with debt. In other words, most people, from a financial perspective, would likely chose to live in a Sunshine state than a Sinkhole state.

All of those numbers and analyses can be accessed at the following post:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/09/september-2014-by-numbers-part-1.html

Since that post, we came across some more data that shows how much better it is to live in a state with lower taxes, lower debt, better purchasing power, and a brighter future. A recent Gallup poll asked state residents to rate whether their state was the worst state to live in and whether it was the best state to live in. The results were quite interesting and consistent:

Sinkhole States - home state is the worst state to live in:

1. Connecticut - 17% of state residents say it is the worst state to live in (rank = 2)
2. Illinois - 25% of state residents say it is the worst state to live in (rank = 1)
3. New Jersey - 10% of state residents say it is the worst state to live in (rank = 7)
4. Massachusetts - 6% of state residents say it is the worst state to live in (rank = 15)
5. Hawaii - 4% of state residents say it is the worst state to live in (rank = 23)

Average - 16.8%, Rank Average - 9.6

Sunshine States - home state is the worst to live in:

1. Alaska - 4% of state residents say it is the worst state to live in (rank = 22)
2. North Dakota - 2% of state residents say it is the worst state to live in (rank = 42)
3. Wyoming - 1% of state residents say it is the worst state to live in (rank = 46)
4. Utah - 2% of state residents say it is the worst state to live in (rank = 40)
5. South Dakota - 3% of state residents say it is the worst state to live in (rank = 29)

Average - 2.4%, Rank - 35.8

Comments:

• Sinkhole states on average were seven times more likely to rate their state as the worst state to live in vs. Sunshine states.
• Sinkhole states ranking as far as having the worst state to live in was about four times worst rank wise vs. Sunshine states.
• Four out of five Sunshine state residents were far more optimistic about their states than all of the Sinkhole states.
• The worst Sinkhole state, Illinois, had residents that were more than ten times more pessimistic about living in their state than the average of the Sunshine states.

You get idea. Sinkhole state residents are far more likely to hate living in their states than those people living in Sunshine states. Could it be that Sunshine states have lower taxes, lower debt levels, lower unemployment levels, and higher purchasing power? 

In that same poll, Gallup also reversed the question and asked state residents if their state was the best state to live in.

Sinkhole States - home state is the best state to live in:

1. Connecticut - 31% of state residents say it is the best state to live in (rank = 41)
2. Illinois - 19% of state residents say it is the best state to live in (rank = 49)
3. New Jersey - 28% of state residents say it is the best state to live in (rank = 44)
4. Massachusetts - 46% of state residents say it is the best state to live in (rank = 24)
5. Hawaii - 68% of state residents say it is the worst state to live in (rank = 6)

Average - 38.9%, Rank Average - 32.8

Sunshine States - home state is the best state to live in:

1. Alaska - 77.0% of state residents say it is the best state to live in (rank = 2)
2. North Dakota -66% of state residents say it is the best state to live in (rank = 8)
3. Wyoming - 69% of state residents say it is the best state to live in (rank = 4)
4. Utah - 70% of state residents say it is the best state to live in (rank = 3)
5. South Dakota - 57% of state residents say it is the best state to live in (rank = 14)

Average - 67.8%, Rank - 6.2

Comments:

• The Sunshine states were among the top states, among all states, where state residents feel their state is the best place to live, placing four of the five Sunshine states in the top eight best states to live in.
• The Sinkhole states were among the bottom states where state residents feel their state is the best place to live, placing three states in the bottom six best states to live in.
• Residents in Sunshine states were almost twice as likely to think their states were the best places to live vs. the Sinkhole states.

Different numbers, same result. People like living in Sunshine states much more than living in Sinkhole states. Could it be that having less of a state tax burden, less of a state income tax burden, better purchasing power, and lower unemployment is what makes for happy state residents?

And if that is true, why would politicians not strive to provide those conditions for their state residents since it is what apparently makes them happiest? And taking the analogy a step further, why wouldn’t Washington strive to do the same thing? Lower taxes, lower debt, lower unemployment, and better purchasing power? 

But that is the exact opposite of what Washington has done over the past few years:

• National debt, and the burden it places on all Americans today and in future generations, has skyrocketed as a result of out of control Washington spending.
• Taxes have gone up across a wide spectrum of taxes and rates, much of which has been driven by the many, many new taxes and increased tax rates caused by Obama care.
• Despite what the Federal government says, Americans purchasing power has dropped dramatically over the past few years with food prices going up substantially and the price of a gallon of gas up over 70% since 2009.
• And while the unemployment rate has come down somewhat from the depths of the Great Recession, there are still about 17 million Americans who are unemployed or under employed, indicating that high unemployment is still a large and persistent problem.

Thus, the numbers show that the Washington political class is utilizing the same political strategies and policies of Sinkhole states, higher debt, higher unemployment, higher taxes, lower consumer purchasing power, and applying it to the national levels. The numbers do not lie.

The question we face is whether we want to continue abiding by Sinkhole policies or make a fresh start and start looking at Sunshine policies. The numbers indicate the latter while we have allowed our politicians to pursue the former. One option to start down a Sunshine path is to impose term limits on all current Sinkhole era politicians. Until they are changed, the sunshine we will see is whatever gets to the bottom of the sinkhole that we find ourselves in today.

You can help us start climbing out of the sinkhole by joining the term limits effort at:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

Because, really how much worse could it get if we changed out every Washington politician. From the bottom of a sinkhole, the way only is up.

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

September, 2014 By the Numbers, Part 1: Sinkhole States Vs. Sunshine states

On a semi-regular basis we do a series under the theme, “By the numbers.” In this series we look at the latest statistics, trends, and facts that are going on in this country, usually focusing on how the American political class, via their ineptness at doing anything right, is constantly screwing up our lives, our economy, and our democracy, based strictly on the reality of the numbers at that time.

I once worked for a boss whose favorite saying was: "There is nothing more devastating to an opinion than the correct number.” Politicians do not like to deal with numbers, it messes up their political message and spin as they try to create a different, false reality in our minds. However, the numbers are the numbers and the reality of our lives, numbers devastate opinions.

A famous NFL football coach once said you are only as good as your record. You might think you have a great, talented team with excellent coaching but if you have a losing record, than the reality is that you do not have either a talented team of excellent coaching, the numbers, unlike politicians, do not lie.

More importantly, you cannot expect to resolve an issue or make life better and easier for Americans if you do not have the right, correct numbers to tell us where we are within the reality of those issues. For example, claiming the economy is doing great, even though almost twenty million Americans are still looking for good employment, does not allow you to focus on that twenty million number. The false claim forces you to waste time and resources trying to create the false impression that the economy is doing well. It diverts attention and problem resolving resources and attention to the lie and not reality.

So let’s take a few days and go “by the numbers” to see where America’s reality truly is today.

1) It is no secret that the Washington political class has brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy. Its outlandish and wasteful spending habits has given rise to an unbelievable $18 TRILLION national debt. This is equivalent to a debt burden of about $56,000 for every man, woman and child living in the country today.

But state level politicians have also done a pretty good job in certain states running up very high debt levels, levels that will have to be paid at some point in time by the residents in those states. The Heritage Foundation recently took a look at some numbers that were put together by the Truth In Accounting organization which looked at state government debt burdens across the country:

• Truth In Accounting is a Chicago based non-profit that developed a measurement/set of numbers that calculated the amount of money each taxpayer in their state would have to pay to eliminate the financial debt hole the state government has gotten itself into.
• Taxpayer burden was estimated by determining each taxpayer’s share of state debt after setting aside capital-related debt and assets, leaving primarily unpaid pension and retirement health promises.
• Their report identified the so-called “Sinkhole States,” these are states that will put the highest debt burden on their states' residents.
• The states with the worst debt numbers according to their analysis are Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Hawaii with Connecticut being the worst and Hawaii being the fifth worst.
• The analysis also identified the best states, the so-called Sunshine states from a debt load perspective.
• These best states start with Alaska being the most debt burden free or who have no debt followed by North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah and South Dakota.
• In other words, Sinkhole States have substantial unfunded pension liabilities to be paid by future taxpayers while Sunshine states, states with taxpayer surplus or littke debt, fund pension costs and other state costs during the year employees earn the benefits, and the money is set aside for that year.
• Connecticut has an overall budget shortfall of $61.4 billion, which breaks down to $48,100 per taxpayer.
• Thus, the state debt level debt burden for Connecticut residents is almost equivalent to the amount of money those residents would owe the Federal government to pay off the Federal debt.,
• Truth in Accounting concluded from their analysis that most of Connecticut’s state employee retirement benefits have been promised but not funded.
• At the other end of the spectrum, Alaska was found to be in the best financial shape with a budget surplus of $13.5 billion, or $46,900 per taxpayer. Thus, Alaska has enough money to pay state employees’ retirement benefits and other outstanding bills with currently saved funds, placing no debt burden on future residents.
• The report concludes very simply that states like Alaska and other Sunshine states are in good financial shape because the legislators and governors have only promised citizens and employees what they can afford to deliver. 

We are really, really screwed as American taxpayers when you look at the debt numbers around the country. We have allowed the American political class to overspend what the country could afford. At some point, probably pretty soon, this debt bomb is going to explode at either a state level or the national level with devastating downside effects. The numbers do not lie, even if politicians do.

2) But maybe things have started to explode already. Let’s take the Truth In Accounting analysis to a few different levels and see how the numbers compare. 

Let’s stay with the Sinkhole and Sunshine states identified above and look at the current unemployment rates in each state:

Sinkhole States:

• Connecticut - 6.6%
• Illinois - 6.8%
• New Jersey - 6.5%
• Massachusetts - 5.6%
• Hawaii - 4.4%

Sunshine States: 

• Alaska - 6.5%
• North Dakota - 2.8%
• Wyoming - 4.4%
• Utah - 3.6%
• South Dakota - 3.7%

Thus, unemployment levels in four out of five Sunshine States are well below the national average (6.1%) while the Sinkhole States have three states out of five above the national average. Could it be that there is a direct relationship between out of control state government spending and the financial health of that state. i.e. the bigger the debt burden the higher the unemployment rate? Possibly, based on these unemployment numbers and realities so let’s explore this hypothesis further.

3) A recent number analysis by the Tax Foundation looked at the relative value of $100 across the country. A state level value of over $100 would mean that the buying power of residents in that state have more buying power relative to a $100 benchmark. A state who had a value under $100 would be getting less value for their money.

Let’s see what the value of $100 is both the Sinkhole states and the Sunshine states:

Sinkhole States:

• Connecticut - $91.41
• Illinois - $99.40
• New Jersey - $87.64
• Massachusetts - $93.28
• Hawaii - $85.32

Sunshine States: 

• Alaska - $93.37
• North Dakota - $110.62
• Wyoming - $103.73
• Utah - $103.31
• South Dakota - $113.38

A few observations:

• State residents in all five Sinkhole states get less than the national value for their $100, with some of them getting far less than $100 worth.
• Four out of five states in the Sunshine states get more than the national value for their $100, with some of them getting far more value than the national average.

Now the numbers are getting interesting. Sunshine states, the lower debt burden states, have lower unemployment and get better value for their money than Sinkhole states. Could it be that high debt levels stymie economic growth and well being? Let’s look at another set of numbers.

4) One could make the case that taxation levels would logically be higher in Sunshine states since they must have collected more money in taxes than Sinkhole states in order to keep government debt levels low. However, that would be a very wrong assumption to make if we look at the top state income tax rates in each of the states:

Sinkhole States:

• Connecticut - 6.7%
• Illinois - 5.0%
• New Jersey - 8.97%
• Massachusetts - 5.2%
• Hawaii - 11.0%

Sunshine States: 

• Alaska - 0.0%
• North Dakota - 3.22%
• Wyoming - 0.0%
• Utah - 5.0%
• South Dakota - 0.0%

A few observations:

• The top state income tax rates in Sunshine states are at or far below the top state income tax rates in Sinkhole states.
• Three of the top Sunshine states do not even have a state income tax.

Thus, the exact opposite is true from our hypothesis above: the states with the highest debt burdens have accomplished this even though they also have the highest tax burden. Amazing way to get less value for your money, high tax AND high debt.

The numbers do not lie. It appears that government entities that tax at higher and higher levels run up more debt, have worse economic growth and unemployment numbers and create an economic environment that gets state residents less value for their money.

These state levels results could be used to postulate why the national economy has been so anemic since the recession. The Federal government has incurred record amounts of debt while raising taxes only to see stubbornly high unemployment and a withering of the purchase power of households and Americans.

Maybe the Washington political class should take the advice that the character George Constanza did in a Seinfeld episode where he did the exact opposite of what his instincts told him do. Rather than running up debt and raising taxes, which has accomplished nothing from an economic perspective, why not curb debt and wasteful spending and reduce taxes? The Sunshine state numbers prove that they got it right and the Federal government is nothing more than a pathetic character in a TV sitcom.....or a bigger version of the Sinkhole states.

More depressing numbers 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