November,2016, Part 7,The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Democrats Bash Obama Care, Competiton Down, Costs Up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1) We have often pointed out that Obama promised that Obama Care would “bend the cost curve" of health care spending in this country, i.e. it would start to reverse the trend of ever increasing healthcare spending in this country. We have often pointed out how poorly this prediction worked out with premium and deductible levels on insurance policies, especially Obama Care policies, going higher and higher. 

But it is not just Obama Care policy costs that are increasing at alarmingly high rates. Consider a recent post by Sharyl Attkisson on the Twitchy website. She had been sent a letter from an American living in Georgia who had just been notified that their current, non-Obama Care health insurance policy would not be offered and available after December 31, 2016. The insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, offered to put the person on a new plan that would be available to him in 2016, a so-called bronze plan.

Here’s the problem though. The customer’s old plan cost him $711.83 a month to keep in effect. The replacement plan, one that is assumed to be comparable, will cost him a whopping $1,872.18 a month, an over $1,100 increase per MONTH in 2017. Thus, not only is Obama Care causing Obama Care insurance policy premiums to skyrocket, it has done nothing, at least in this one case, to prevent non-Obama Care policy costs from going through the roof. 

So much for Obama Care reducing Americans’ annual healthcare insurance costs by up to $2,500 a year. This poor person’s insurance costs are going up by $1,100 a month rather than going down up to $2,500 a year. Missed it by that much. Another Obama Care promise by Obama bites the dust.

A photo of the actual letter is below:

2) Robert Moffit, writing for the Heritage Foundation on November 4, 2016, outlined a bunch of other facts about the implosion of Obama Care in his article, "Obama Care Revealed as Masterpiece of Government’s Failed Central Planning:”

• Mr. Moffit correctly sums up how we got to where we are today with Obama Care: “Liberals in Congress meticulously designed the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges as powerful regulatory bodies. They defined the kinds of insurance plans, benefits, and medical treatments and procedures the plans must offer; set all of the insurance rules; determined the permissible premium and deductible levels; and organized the most complex and confusing premium subsidy program imaginable. So, federal government control was, and is, comprehensive. They planned it all.”
• And what did this overreaching government intrusion into our lives get us: “Americans have less consumer choice, less market competition, exploding insurance premiums, ridiculous deductibles, fewer doctors, a narrowing of provider networks—no, you can’t necessarily “keep” your doctor—and the looming prospect of ever bigger burdens on taxpayers.”
• In 2016, the Congressional Budget Office projected that 21 million Americans would get coverage via an Obama Care insurance policy: only 11 million signed up.
• The Obama administration is estimating that 13.8 million will sign up in 2017 but that would still more than 30% short of what was supposed to happen in 2016 and given the unpopularity of the whole process, that 13.8 million is likely very and overly optimistic.
• As we have pointed out many times before, it is not only the ever increasing premiums costs of Obama Care that are a burden but also the ever increasing deductible costs that mean while many more Americans have health insurance, they cannot afford to make use of it because of high deductibles: the average deductible for an Obama Care silver policy is $3,572 for a single person and $7,474 for a family while a bronze Obama Care customer faces a whopping $6,000 deductible for a single person and a $12,393 deductible for a family on average.
• And although about third quarters of Obama Care policy holders get a taxpayer subsidy to pay for their insurance, 40% of them are dissatisfied with the size of their premiums and 46% are dissatisfied with the size of their deductibles according to research done by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
• In 2017, 15 new insurance companies will start offering Obama Care policies but 83 insurers will be stopping their offerings of Obama Care policies.
• In 2017, it looks like about one in three counties (32.8%) across the country will have only one Obama Care insurer to choose from while another third or so (35.9%) will have only two insurers to choose from, totally killing the Obama promise that Obama Care would lead to more competition.

Fewer plans, less competition, higher deductibles, higher premiums, higher dissatisfaction, oh yeah, this is working out just fine. 

3) One last review for today. The Heritage Foundation put together a short video of the seven times that Democrats correctly categorized Obama Care as a failure. Remember, not a single Republican voted for the Obama Care legislation since 1) they disagreed with it and 2) Obama and Pelosi in the House and Reid in the Senate made sure that the Republicans had no input to the legislation. This legislation is purely a Democratic Party creation so it is actually quite refreshing to hear their own bash it. That video can be accessed at:

http://dailysignal.com/2016/11/02/7-times-democrats-admitted-the-truth-about-obamacare/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWkRjeU1UVTBNRGN5WkRSbCIsInQiOiJOYmZGRjZyNERzZEdqbFFkM1IrNzVZbnpPRVNhc0NZaDNhXC8xWDM1TWJpR0JVK2Q2ekFnanlNZ3JDU3pcL2pPTVdMTFFKdHlSZjdUcHpxUVkrKzZvU0Q4REo4S3pNaDlCMFRtY1lwQ3RKV3JNPSJ9

You will hear Democrat Bill Clinton call Obama Care “the craziest thing in the world.” You will hear former Democratic U.S. Senator Max Baucus call it a “train wreck.” Diehard Democrat filmmaker Michael Moore called it “awful.” Democratic Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton who said that “the Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable." Oh, FYI, there will be 29 fewer Obama Care insurers in Minnesota next year.

But none of this should not be surprise to anyone if we venture back to another Democratic quote in the video, this one courtesy of then Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi: “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” A more stupid statement has never been uttered by any politician anywhere, at anytime. 

Which is why we are where we are today: the people that actually put this thing together had no clue what was in it. A clear dereliction of their Congressional duty, a dereliction that has resulted in the disaster nightmare we are living through today.

Unfortunately, there will be more Obama Care disasters 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:


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

November,2016, Part 4,The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Democrats Bash Obama Care, Competiton Down, Costs Up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1) We have often pointed out that Obama promised that Obama Care would “bend the cost” curve of health care spending in this country, i.e. it would start to reverse the trend of ever increasing healthcare spending in this country. We have often pointed out how poorly this prediction worked out with premium and deductible levels on insurance policies, especially Obama Care policies, going higher and higher. 

But it is not just Obama Care policy costs that are increasing at alarmingly high rates. Consider a recent post by Sharyl Attkisson on the Twitchy website. She had been sent a letter from an American living in Georgia who had just been notified that their current, non-Obama Care health insurance policy would not be offered and available after December 31, 2016. The insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, offered to put the person on a new plan that would be available to him in 2016, a so-called bronze plan.

Here’s the problem though. The customer’s old plan cost him $711.83 a month to keep in effect. The replacement plan, one that is assumed to be comparable, will cost him a whopping $1,872.18 a month, an over $1,100 increase per MONTH in 2017. Thus, not only is Obama Care causing Obama Care insurance policy premiums to skyrocket, it has done nothing, at least in this one case, to prevent non-Obama Care policy costs from going through the roof. 

So much for Obama Care reducing Americans’ annual healthcare insurance costs by up to $2,500 a year. This poor person’s insurance costs are going up by $1,100 a month rather than going down up to $2,500 a year. Missed it by that much. Another Obama Care promise by Obama bites the dust.

A photo of the actual letter is below:

2) Robert Moffit, writing for the Heritage Foundation on November 4, 2016, outlined a bunch of other facts about the implosion of Obama Care in his article, "Obama Care Revealed as Masterpiece of Government’s Failed Central Planning:”

• Mr. Moffit correctly sums up how we got to where we are today with Obama Care: “Liberals in Congress meticulously designed the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges as powerful regulatory bodies. They defined the kinds of insurance plans, benefits, and medical treatments and procedures the plans must offer; set all of the insurance rules; determined the permissible premium and deductible levels; and organized the most complex and confusing premium subsidy program imaginable. So, federal government control was, and is, comprehensive. They planned it all.”
• And what did this overreaching government intrusion into our lives get us: “Americans have less consumer choice, less market competition, exploding insurance premiums, ridiculous deductibles, fewer doctors, a narrowing of provider networks—no, you can’t necessarily “keep” your doctor—and the looming prospect of ever bigger burdens on taxpayers.”
• In 2016, the Congressional Budget Office projected that 21 million Americans would get coverage via an Obama Care insurance policy: only 11 million signed up.
• The Obama administration is estimating that 13.8 million will sign up in 2017 but that would still more than 30% short of what was supposed to happen in 2016 and given the unpopularity of the whole process, that 13.8 million is likely very and overly optimistic.
• As we have pointed out many times before, it is not only the ever increasing premiums costs of Obama Care that are a burden but also the ever increasing deductible costs that mean while many more Americans have health insurance, they cannot afford to make use of it because of high deductibles: the average deductible for an Obama Care silver policy is $3,572 for a single person and $7,474 for a family while a bronze Obama Care customer faces a whopping $6,000 deductible for a single person and a $12,393 deductible for a family on average.
• And although about third quarters of Obama Care policy holders get a taxpayer subsidy to pay for their insurance, 40% of them are dissatisfied with the size of their premiums and 46% are dissatisfied with the size of their deductibles according to research done by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
• In 2017, 15 new insurance companies will start offering Obama Care policies but 83 insurers will be stopping their offerings of Obama Care policies.
• In 2017, it looks like about one in three counties (32.8%) across the country will have only one Obama Care insurer to choose from while another third or so (35.9%) will have only two insurers to choose from, totally killing the Obama promise that Obama Care would lead to more competition.

Fewer plans, less competition, higher deductibles, higher premiums, higher dissatisfaction, oh yeah, this is working out just fine. 

3) One last review for today. The Heritage Foundation put together a short video of the seven times that Democrats correctly categorized Obama Care as a failure. Remember, not a single Republican voted for the Obama Care legislation since 1) they disagreed with it and 2) Obama and Pelosi in the House and Reid in the Senate made sure that the Republicans had no input to the legislation. This legislation is purely a Democratic Party creation so it is actually quite refreshing to hear their own bash it. That video can be accessed at:

http://dailysignal.com/2016/11/02/7-times-democrats-admitted-the-truth-about-obamacare/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWkRjeU1UVTBNRGN5WkRSbCIsInQiOiJOYmZGRjZyNERzZEdqbFFkM1IrNzVZbnpPRVNhc0NZaDNhXC8xWDM1TWJpR0JVK2Q2ekFnanlNZ3JDU3pcL2pPTVdMTFFKdHlSZjdUcHpxUVkrKzZvU0Q4REo4S3pNaDlCMFRtY1lwQ3RKV3JNPSJ9

You will hear Democrat Bill Clinton call Obama Care “the craziest thing in the world.” You will hear former Democratic U.S. Senator Max Baucus call it a “train wreck.” Diehard Democrat filmmaker Michael Moore called it “awful.” Democratic Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton who said that “the Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable." Oh, FYI, there will be 29 fewer Obama Care insurers in Minnesota next year.

But none of this should not be surprise to anyone if we venture back to another Democratic quote in the video, this one courtesy of then Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi: “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” A more stupid statement has never been uttered by any politician anywhere, at anytime. 

Which is why we are where we are today: the people that actually put this thing together had no clue what was in it. A clear dereliction of their Congressional duty, a dereliction that has resulted in the disaster nightmare we are living through today.

Unfortunately, there will be more Obama Care disasters 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:


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

April, 2016, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Congressional Corruption, Chicago's Financial Death Spiral and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane, corrupt, and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

Let’s get started with the latest insanity from today’s American politicians:

1) Whatever you think of Donald Trump’s Presidential run, he does seem to have pissed off everyone in political power in the country. Republican and Democratic power brokers alike seem to be doing everything they can to prevent Trump from becoming President. Which may mean that Trump is a good thing, that he is actually getting close to exposing and attacking the institutional corruption that currently exists in the country today.

Liberty First News recently gave an idea of how insane the whole situation has gotten. Republican affiliated power brokers have already spent over half a BILLION dollars in trying to stop Trump mania, according to a report and analysis from the Center of Public Integrity. According to Carrie Levine from the Center for Public Integrity: “So far, donors have funneled more than $520 million collectively into campaigns and outside groups supporting Republican presidential candidates who have now dropped out — and the primaries are far from over. Only U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Trump remain in the Republican presidential primary, and they’re aggressively courting those who once wrote checks to their opponents. But some GOP megadonors with millions of dollars to spend haven’t selected a new date to the presidential dance. Others are on the arms of their second and third choices."

Half a billion dollars spent and nothing to show for it. How insane have our political processes become that half a billion dollars have gone down the drain and the country is no better off, our politics are still juvenile and useless. No additional drug addicts have been treated, no additional hungry Americans have been fed, no additional homeless Americans have gotten shelter, etc. A bunch of advertising agencies and political consultants are richer but that is it. Such bad priorities.

2) As we have always tried to point out, it is not only the Washington political class that is screwed up and which screws up our lives. Consider how the local political class in Chicago has screwed up the lives of Chicago residents and the city’s future financial demise:

• Fitch Ratings recently downgraded Chicago’s credit rating, moving it closer to “junk” bond status.
• This latest crisis was the result of the state Supreme Court voiding a recent law that tried to boost the two of the city’s pension funds.
• Fitch warned that the city’s credit rating could be further reduced since there is an absence of "a realistic plan that puts the pension funds on an affordable path toward solvency."
• Fitch stated that it believes the state Supreme Court ruling forces the city to continue to fund future promised pension benefits even if the pension funds become insolvent.
• Even worse, the Moody’s rating service has already rated Chicago bonds as junk.
• In total, the city’s four pension plans have a whopping $20 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.
• The city officials warned that two of the pension funds would run out of money within 10 to 13 years.

As the city credit ratings go down, the cost of interest on city bonds goes up which forces the city to raise taxes which drives citizens and businesses out of the city which reduces tax revenue as interest rate costs are going up, and the death spiral is underway. Thus, local politicians from the third largest city in the country also cannot manage a budget, much like their counterparts in Washington who are on track to run up a $20 TRILLION national debt liability in the near future. Insanely incompetent.

3) But not only are our politicians incompetent but they are often criminals. Remember how a Virginia Congressman had so much cash from his criminal activities that he had to store his cash in his freezer? How about the former New Orleans mayor who went to jail for kickbacks and shake downs? And how about the many former Illinois governors that have served jail times for their corruption? 

And now we have another potential crooked politician. Two weeks ago, the House Ethics Committee voted to open an investigation into possible ethical and criminal behavior by current Congresswoman Corrine Brown. Details of the shady behavior include the following:

• There are allegations that the Congresswoman “improperly solicited charitable donations” from a charity that was not actually a charity.
• The so-called charity never obtained official tax exempt status and never filed state or federal income taxes.
• But the so-called charity still raised about $800,000 in donations but in four years issued one $1,000 scholarship.
• Allegedly, an official of the charity withdrew over $140,000 from the charity which were then used for events hosted by or in honor of an unnamed public official, i.e. Congresswoman Brown.
• The Justice Department is now involved in the investigation, never a good sign for an alleged law breaker.

Now, while the Congresswoman is presumed innocent until proven guilty, when a Congressional panel and the Justice Department are investigating you, it cannot be good. And given the political class track record on being criminals and law breakers, it would not be a surprise if Congresswoman Brown was just continuing the tradition of Washington corruption.

4) We have often said that the appearance of a conflict of interest is just as bad as a real conflict of interest. Such is the case that is developing between Hillary Clinton’s crimes, attorney general Loretta Lynch, and this conflict of interest situation. As most people should know, the FBI is investigating a myriad of potential crimes that have been committed by Hillary and Bill Clinton:

• Loretta Lynch will have the final say in whether or not Hillary is indicted, assuming that the FBI recommends an indictment based on their extensive investigation.
• But Lynch used to work for the Washington based international law firm of Hogan & Hartson from 2002 through 2010.
• She was a litigation partner at the firm.
• But one of the firm’s partners was the tax lawyer who filed tax returns for Bill and Hillary Clinton starting in 2004.
• Additionally, the law firm filed a patent trademark request for the Denver-based MX Logic company in 2004, the same MX Logic firm that developed the email encryption program used to manage Hillary’s private and illegal private email system.
• Experts have previously stated that employees of MX Logic could have access to the all of the emails that went through her illegal server.
• Bill Clinton helped Lynch get appointed to her two terms as a U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Thus, Lynch owes an important phase of her life to Bill Clinton, the wife of the very person, Hillary Clinton, that she gets to decide whether or not to indict based on the FBI’s findings and who also was indirectly involved via MX Logic with the very materials that will be part of any indictment. This is all either the appearance of or actual conflict of interest and the honorable and ethical thing for Lynch to do is recuse herself from these proceedings. 

But honorable and ethical behavior is extinct in Washington so you can be sure that this insult to America will likely prove the old saying from Woodrow Wilson: 

An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.

Want to bet that the “invisible empire” will find a way to protect itself and that the cronies of Washington will allow the insanity of Hilary’s lawlessness to go unpenalized? Insane and so true, unfortunately.

So we are off to another depressing phase of political class insanity. Conflict of interest in Hillary’s world, more Congressional corruption and greed, Chicago’s financial death spiral, and wasting wealth on pointless political farces. Just gettin started, more insanity 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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w