June, 2017, Part 3, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: A Senator's Disaster Review and The Bumbling Republicans

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

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 copays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

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

1) Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming recently did a nice job in an article he wrote for the Heritage Foundation where he outlined the “5 Ways Obamacare Proves That Government-Run Health Care Is A Disaster":

- Disaster #1 - Obama Care insurance policy costs continue to skyrocket even though Obama promised numerous times that American families could see up to a $2,500 decrease in their annual insurance costs. But Obama Care insurance premiums, on average, have increased 105% since the law went into effect in 2013, hardly the $2,500 annual decrease Obama and the Federal government promised.

But it is not just Obama Care policy premium costs that have risen since 2013. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that premiums for employer sponsored insurance plans have gone up, on average, $4,372 from 2010 to 2016. 

And Obama Care deductibles levels have also gone up substantially with Obama Care bronze policies’ deductibles now costing $6,092 and silver deductibles now costing $3,572. Thus, many Obama Care policy holders have policies that are useless to them since they cannot afford to pay the high deductibles before their insurance coverage kicks in.

- Disaster # 2 - While Obama claimed that Obama Care would increase competition and choice for insurance policies, the exact opposite has happened:

• Of the 23 health co-ops created by the law, 17 have already gone out of business and the remainder are under intense financial pressure. Their failure has cost taxpayers $2 billion.
• In 2017, about 70% of U.S. counties had access to only one or two Obama Care insurers and 2018 will likely be worse as more and more insurers pull out of the Obama Care marketplace due to unprofitability.

- Disaster # 3 - Although Obama promised dozens of times that if you like your current insurance policy, you could keep your current insurance policy, that was both a crude lie and crude joke. Probably 6-7 million Americans lost their insurance coverage and policies since the Obama Care legislation resulted in the policies held by those people to be illegal and thus, had to be terminated.

- Disaster # 4 - Obama constantly promised that those earning less than $250,000 would not be paying a single incremental dime in taxes as a result of the law. In reality, the country and most Americans will end up paying an incremental $800 billion in Obama Care taxes and fees over the next ten years. These increased tax burdens covered such a wide variety of categories including medical devices, prescription drug makers, and individual and employer tax mandates.

- Disaster # 5 - Medicaid was designed to serve the poor, sick, aged, and blind in our society. And it was designed poorly, disappointing both customers and doctors. Doctors get paid far less for serving Medicaid patients than other patients and as a result many doctors, likely higher quality doctors, do not serve the Medicaid market. The problem is infested with incompetence and criminal fraud which results in tens of billions of taxpayer dollars being wasted every year.

Which begs the question why Obama Care would now dump millions and millions of new people onto this decrepit and wasteful program, people who are not poor, sick, aged,or blind? So stupid, a program designed for one segment of people is now forced to support an entirely different segment of people, a program that was imploding before Obama Care even went into effect.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Obama Care will add $1 TRILLION of new Medicaid spending over the next decade, a TRILLION dollars being spent on a broken, corrupt, and ineffective program. Insanity.

A nice summary by the Senator on a law that is still the worst piece of legislation ever passed by Washington.

2) And while Washington Democrats and only Washington Democrats are responsible for the worst piece of legislation ever passed, Republicans are turning out to be not much more competent themselves. For many years, Republicans correctly complained about how bad Obama Care was and is. Thus, this is not a problem or an opportunity that suddenly cropped up for the Republicans.

One would have thought that once they had a chance to repeal the law, they would have been ready to go right out of the gate, that they would have written a replacement bill and that the skids were greased to pass it quickly. That they would have worked the issue long before they had to move on it. 

An alternative approach would have been to do nothing and let the Obama Care process collapse on its own, and thus blaming the Democrats. They then could have put forth their own replacement bill at that point.

Instead, the Republicans have done the worst thing possible: look like bumbling idiots as they rush at the last moment to try and pass a replacement, any replacement legislation that they seem to be writing hastily and on the run. Insanity.

It never ends, the unfolding disasters of Obama Care. More disasters to follow.

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.

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http://www.reason.com
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December, 2015, Part 1, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Broken Pormises,Broken Economics, 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 health care 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 health care 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 health care 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 health care 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. Below we start with this month’s update of Obama Care, the worst piece of Washington legislation ever passed.

1) We have often pointed out that Obama Care is a disaster when it comes to employment and economic growth. A recent analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed that reality: “Some people would choose to work fewer hours; others would leave the labor force entirely or remain unemployed for longer than they otherwise would.” In total, the CBO estimates that the legislation will now shrink the total U.S. workforce by just under 1% because of the law or about 2 million full time jobs. 

Thus, the taxes, fines, and aspects of the legislation will cause Americans to make difficult financial decisions that will affect not only their own personal careers and identity but will also reduce the economic vitality and tax base of the country. Compare this dismal reality vs. what Obama Care supporters once promised:

• Nancy Pelosi stated confidently, and incorrectly in 2011, that: “Four million jobs will be created by the legislation when it is fully in effect.” Thus, she was only off by six million, the four million jobs that did not materialize and the two million jobs that will be destroyed by the law.
• In 2010, Pelosi said that Obama Care would create 400,000 jobs “almost immediately.”
• When those two idiotic forecasts turned out to be idiocy, Obama Care supporters tried to get out of forecasting business and weakly argued that Obama Care would give Americans more time to spend with their family since they would not be working as much. Pathetic.

Not only did the Obama Care cheerleaders get the whole unemployment/employment picture wrong, they also screwed up the following predictions:

• This law did not create jobs as Democrats promised.
• This law did not reduce emergency room visits as Democrats promised.
• This law did not “bend the cost curve” as Democrats promised.
• This law did not allow millions of Americans to keep their preferred doctors, hospitals,and health care plans as Democrats promised.
• This law did not deliver low cost health insurance plans to over 20 million uninsured Americans by 2016 as Democrats promised.
• This law did not result in enough younger and healthier Americans signing up for Obama Care policies as Democrats promised.
• This law did not set up two dozen vibrant health insurance co-ops across the country offering low cost/high quality health insurance coverage as Democrats promised. In fact, over half of the two dozen have already folded.

Despite these obvious and real failures, Hillary Clinton, the front runner to become the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee next year proclaimed that the law is "working." Not in this reality is it working, makes you wonder what color the sky is in Hillary’s world if she thinks that the myriad of Obama Care failures somehow constitutes “working.”

2) Over the past couple of months we have extensively reviewed how over half of the insurance co-ops that were set up across the country under Obama Care have already gone out of business because they were financial failures. These failures have probably resulted in over a $1 billion of taxpayer wealth that will never be recovered.

Recent news reports provide a quick review on how the New York co-op, the Health Republic Insurance of New York, was such a disaster:

• The Greater New York Hospital Association claims that the now defunct co-op still owes it at least $165 million.
• The Medical Society of New York says that 64% of its doctors in a 900 doctor survey say they are still owed money from the co-op.
• These problems are in addition to various criminal investigations of corruption and fraud that are ongoing in the state regarding this co-op’s operations.

Disaster is too mild an adjective to describe what went on with taxpayer money in New York.

3) Not to be mistaken with the co-ops, over a dozen states set up online state exchange websites where customers could go online and choose an insurance policy for themselves and their families from insurance companies that sold insurance through the Obama Care exchanges. Many of these state exchanges have already collapsed, with at least one collapsing before it signed up a single Obama Care customers.

Recently, Congressional hearings were convened which looked into the how the American taxpayer, via the Obama administration, spent hundreds of millions of dollars on state level exchanges that have already collapsed and have been abandoned. The hearings discussed a recent Government Accountability Office audit that found that none of the remaining state exchanges are “fully operational” despite five years of effort and $1.45 billion in information technology spending of taxpayer wealth.

Five years, $1.45 billion and NOT fully operational yet. Complete incompetence at every possible level.

More disasters every month including the findings today that the law is hurting economic growth, killing careers and job choices, has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars, and is still a mess after five years of pathetically trying to get it right. More disasters in the coming days.

October, 2015, Part 4, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Higher Prmiums, Higher Deducitbles, Fewer C0-OPs and Shutting Down Some Schools

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.

Over the past several days we have been reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington, a review that continues today:

1) According to a recent Associated press report, a Tennessee school district has been forced to close the doors to all of its schools because the financial burden for employee health insurance as a result of Obama Care cannot be met by the financial resources of that school district. Clay County, Tennessee Director Of Schools Jerry Strong stated that the school board based its closing decision because of budget issues related to Federal government Obama Care mandates.

Strong is quoted as saying that Obama Care was the "straw that broke the camel's back" and that "it has made it very difficult for us to have our employees properly covered and meet the mandates of the law." County Commissioner Parrish Wright stated that the county did have enough money to operate the three county schools until the end of the year but not much beyond and made the decision to shut down now.

The county already has the seventh highest property tax in the entire state but overall is a poor rural county so tax increases are unlikely to bailout the schools’ budget. As a result, 1,150 school kids in Tennessee are out of school until further notice, their education delayed because of another unique disaster as a result of Obama Care.

2) One other note from the state of Tennessee. The Washington Examiner article that discussed the closing of Clay County schools also mentioned that the state’s Obama Care co-op is also closing soon. This is the sixth Obama Care co-op to close or announce that it is going out of business out of the 23 that were formed as a result of the legislation. Since only one out of 23 have been profitable so far, it is probably a safe bet that the Tennessee Obama Care co-op will not be the last one to close.

4) Kate Scanlon, writing for the Heritage Foundation on October 13, 2015, discussed the reality that a lot of insurance companies that opted to offer Obama Care insurance policies lost money as a result of that decision. According to a recent analysis conducted by Brian Blase, who is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, insurers lost at least 12% on their Obama Care policies in 2014, an estimate that he labeled as conservative.

He based his analysis on the so-called risk corridor data that came out of the Obama administration. Risk corridors were set up to aid insurance companies who may have been unprofitable as a result of Obama Care in the first few years of its existence. The risk corridor program is a temporary program embedded in the law that required insurers whose premiums exceed expenses to pay a portion of those profits into the program. That money in turn is paid out to insurers whose expenses were higher than their premiums in order to minimize financial losses during the first three years of the law’s rollout.

According to Blases’ analysis:

• A whopping $7.9 billion was paid out to offset insurance companies’ losses.
• He concluded that insurance companies intentionally under priced their initial Obama Care policies in order to gain market share.
• This under pricing will require them to raise prices in the following years to offset their losses, especially when the risk corridor program vanishes and they are stuck with their own financials to deal with.
• Even worse than their underpricing is the reality that the insurers mix of customers included more older, sicker customers than expected with their expected enrollees of younger, healthier people to help pay for the other policyholders falling well below expectations.
• But the death spiral mode has now been set because as insurance companies raise their premiums and rates in the coming years, even more younger, healthier people will not sign up for these more and more expensive policies which will make the financial results even worse.

All of this goes back to our basic premise that Obama Care will fail and is failing because it never addressed the underlying root causes of our high healthcare costs, the root causes we listed above. Despite the creation of subsidizes, risk corridors, exchanges, fines, taxes, etc., nothing has changed relative to the real causes of healthcare costs. And that is why insurers are still losing money and raising insurance policy prices and premiums and now we see that kids are being denied schooling because of this horrendous law.

3) But it is just not insurance policy premiums that will be going up in the future for Obama Care policies. We have already discussed the fact that Obama Care policies might sometimes look good for monthly payments but that deductible levels, the amount a policyholder must personally pay before getting insurance policy financial support, has been going up also. Consider some facts pointed out in an October 16, 2015 article in The Week magazine:

• Health insurance deductibles have risen six times faster than wages since 2010, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
• The average deductible has gone up from $900 to $1,300 since 2010.
• The article predicts, probably accurately, that more and more employers will be moving their employees to high deductible plans and that the deductible levels will continue to grow in the coming years despite of, or because of, Obama Care.
• With the whopping 40% Obama Care tax hitting so-called Cadillac insurance plans in 2018, many employers that currently offer these excellent insurance policies will be dropping them also, to avoid the 40% tax, moving their employees insurance coverage to less attractive high deductible plans.
• Many Americans are coming face to face with sticker shock on these higher and higher deductible plans with a recent Consumer Survey poll showing that on out of three respondents saying that they received a medical bill that was much higher than they expected as a result of escalating deductibles.

So not only is Obama Care forcing higher monthly premiums, it is also forcing higher and higher deductibles. A long, long way from the Obama promise that the average American family would see upwards of a $2,500 DECREASE in their annual health insurance costs.

5) As we often to in these posts, let’s end this discussion with some real life horror stories from real life Americans who are suffering the consequences of the legislation. These horror stories are compiled by the website:

www.myhealthcarestorycom

Ben from Virginia on October 17, 2013

I am retired but not of age for medicare. Employer dropped retirement healthcare. I am type 2 diabetic, policy on exchange with prescription drugs equal to one I lost premiums went from 9600 to 14600, with deductible from 1500 to 6000, copay from 15 to 120. WHAT IS SO AFFORDABLE ABOUT THIS!!!!!!!!!

Gary from Minnesota on October 14, 2013

I am a 29 year old male with no children and I am used to about a 9% increase each year. No preexisting conditions or major medical problems. I only use it once every couple of years for a standard check-up and the premium went up 20% this time. Still not a huge jump like some will experience but it is just shy of a $30 a month increase or another $360 out of my pocket each year.

Kevin from Minnesota on October 11, 2013

I have a $9,000 deductible policy that would have been good until June 2014. With the affordable health care act that policy is canceled in Jan.2014, and replaced with a new one.

Because I turn 60 before that it causes the premium to almost double.

This will cause my insurance costs to go up by at least $1,386 due to the affordable health care act, it is probably more but this is what I can prove.

More unfolding disasters tomorrow.

August, 2015, Part 4, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Sandbagging Information, A Scandalous Nomination, and Personal Obama Care Horror Stories

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.

Today is the final day of four that we have taken to look at the latest disasters from Obama Care, including the gathering evidence that Obama Care policy holders are in for a big and ugly financial surprise in their 2016 costs along with some personal stories on how Obama Care is causing havoc with American families.

1) A quick follow up to a discussion from yesterday. At that time we discussed the precarious financial position of most of the Obama Care co-ops that were set up to provide low cost insurance to the uninsured and compete with the big insurance companies in geographic areas that did not have a lot of competition. Some of the co-ops are performing so poorly that the Federal government, via the Centers For Medicare and Medicaid, have placed several of the co-ops into a special risk category called “enhanced oversight.”

Given that the American taxpayer gave the co-ops about $2 billion to get established, much of which will never be paid back, it is our right as citizens to understand which co-ops are performing so poorly. Well, despite Obama's bold claim that he was going to operate the most transparent administration EVER, this same administration is stonewalling attempts to get the names of the co-ops getting special oversight attention because of their incompetence.

Despite a legitimate, non-burdensome request, heck the list of poor performing co-ops is only four names long, government spokesperson Aaron Albright has refused to divulge the names of these poorest performing co-ops as requested by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Instead, he suggested that the Daily Caller News Foundation file a Freedom of Information Act request to get the names. 

Given that the Obama administration has a proven track record of trying to derail, block and delay other Freedom Of Information Act requests, it could be years before the American public rightfully finds out which co-ops are performing so poorly. Which raises the natural suspicion: what is really going on behind the scenes in these poorly performing co-ops that the Obama administration wants to keep secret? Whatever the secrets are, you can be sure it is just another unfolding disaster from the worst piece of legislation ever written.

2) The following discussion is not directly related to Obama Care but it gives you a sense of the type of people involved in operating the government’s health care operations. The Daily Caller website recently ran an article discussing the story about Andy Slavitt, Obama’s choice to run Obama Care, Medicare, and Medicaid.

According to the Daily Caller:

• Seven years ago, Slavitt was linked to a massive fraud scheme that eventually resulted in the largest settlement paid out by an insurance company.
• At that time, Slavitt was the CEO of a company called Ingenix, a healthcare analytics company.
• The New York state attorney general and the American Medical Association alleged that Ingenix supplied databases to insurance companies that intentionally and fraudulently calculated payments for out-of-network medical services provided to policyholders.
• The eventual settlement of the charges was $350 million. 
• The attorney general charged that Ingenix and UnitedHealth Group, which owned Ingenix at that time, “rigged” reimbursement rates that forced patients to overpay up to 30 percent for out-of-network doctors and hospitals.
• Additionally the attorney general claimed that Ingenix was running a “scheme” that sought “to defraud consumers by manipulating reimbursement rate. This involves fraud in the hundreds of millions of dollars, affecting thousands and thousands of families. Too many people have been hurt. It has to stop.”
• At that time, it was estimated that years of data manipulation by Ingenix affected as many as 110 million Americans — about one in three patients — who used doctors, labs or hospitals that were out of their insurance network.
• According to Senator Jay Rockefeller, who chaired a couple days of Congressional hearings on the scandal: “Everywhere experts have looked at this data, they have found what statisticians called a ‘downward skew’ in the numbers. For 10 years or even longer, this skewed data was used to stick consumers with billions of dollars that the insurance industry should have been paying.”

Despite all of this investigation by the New York attorney general, despite the massive settlement figure, despite the findings of a Senate investigation, Obama still named this guy to be in charge of Obama Care, Medicare, and Medicaid. Unbelievable insanity.

Many more details on this scandal and issue can be found at:

http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/02/obamas-top-healthcare-nominee-was-once-embroiled-in-medical-fraud-case/#ixzz3hlTjHXMF

3) One topic we never discussed relative to Obama Care in much depth is that now that Obama Care has been through two years or enrollments, what do those enrolled in Obama Care policies think about them? We have often reviewed how Obama Care requirements destroyed the preferred medical and healthcare arrangements of millions of Americans, i.e. the promise that if you like your prefered doctor, your insurance plan or your hospital was a bold face lie. However, what do those Obama Care policyholders think about their policies?

Well, now we know. A recent article in the Washington Times by Tom Howell, Jr. reviewed the survey findings by the Deloitte consulting company of Obama Care customers' degree of satisfaction with their Obama Care policies:

• The survey found that only 30% were satisfied with the health care coverage they were getting with their Obama Care policy.
• Only one in four surveyed were confident they could get healthcare when they needed it.
• Only 16% though they were financially prepared to handle future healthcare costs despite having an Obama Care insurance policy.
• In a classic understatement, Paul Lambdin, a director for Deloitte said: “Those are not high numbers.” 
• Fourteen percent of Obama Care health insurance exchange users said they were “not satisfied.” By comparison, those who have coverage through Medicare, Medicaid or plans through their employers had dissatisfaction rates in the single digits.
• Also, only 35% had a high level of confidence that the exchanges are providing good information.

Just another failure of a failed piece of legislation, unmet or unfulfilled customer expectations for the money they are paying.

4) In past discussions of Obama Care we have often included the personal and often tragic stories of American families that had their lives, their wallets, and healthcare disrupted by Obama Care. The source of those stories with the website:

www.ourhealthcarestories.com

But it turns out that this is not the only website collecting the heartbreaking stories from Americans relative to Obama Care. There is another website doing the same service called:

www.myhealthcarestory.com

So today and for this month, we will use this source to share with you some of the personal stories of the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care:

Mick - Mississippi: I was dropped from my wife’s insurance which I had been on for 10 years or more. They just came out and told us that all spouses would be dropped because of Obamacare. I had to get insurance through my company which added about $340 to our cost of insurance. Our premiums went up about 60%.

Laura - Texas: I am a truck driver and this past December I had to quit working due to my own health problems. I was driving for an owner operator so I didn’t have insurance in the first place. The first thing I thought I would do was to try and get on the county healthcare, but that was taking too long and they were wanting information that there was no way that I could provide. So, as much as I hated to, I thought I’d try to get on Obamacare. I needed health insurance bad. I could barely walk and was in a lot of pain. So, I went online and put in my info, and for me, not working with no income, the cheapest plan was almost $400! How is that suppose to help anyone? And the deductible/out-of-pocket was outrageous!

So how is this helping people that need insurance? It doesn’t!

John - California: We are in a small town with only one medical clinic. Wife retired as City Employee. City paid, as part of retirement benefits, our health insurance premium as well as a retirement check. Note: Health insurance premium is greater than retirement paycheck. December 2014, at an all-retirees meeting, City announced that increase in premiums due to Obamacare was more than city could handle and city would send us a check, we add to it, then pay our own health insurance. Insurance saw us as new enrollees, wanted 2 months premiums in advance. We paid 2 months, then city said they worked it out where city would pay towards our premium directly, we just pay the difference. Not enough to say that we are just prepaid, Insurance company said they wanted the difference sent in AGAIN, while they investigate the double payment. Now we get no retirement check, as that check didn’t cover the premium, we must come up with difference, and we are prepaid now 4 months, we cannot get a refund for the overpayment, and when wife went to doctor in Feb, we learned that our doctor no longer takes Blue Shield, because of Obamacare, and they will give no refund for our overpayment, and we have no insurance and we are a family not happy with Mr Obama. Thank you for giving me a platform to vent! In fairness, we are covered by health insurance, just not by any doctors that we know or who are in our geographic area.

Laurie - New Mexico: To begin with, I hardly make any money. I am a freelance writer, and that was my choice, so I don’t blame anyone for how little I make.

However, I also believe in personal responsibility. So, I had my own insurance through Blue Cross/Blue Shield. It was not always easy, but I always kept up my $120 a month payment. I only went to the doctor once a year, for my annual exam. Because it was an annual, it was paid for–I didn’t even have a copay. The insurance also paid for most of my prescription for the generic brand of Zoloft, which I need to handle depression and OCD.

Then I had my insurance taken away–apparently it wasn’t good enough for Obama, even though it suited me fine. Out of curiosity I went on the “exchange.” My premium would go up, but not by much–fine. However, the deductible would go up to $4,000! (Or $6,000, depending on which site I looked on.) The worst part–this insurance would pay for NOTHING until I met that deductible–no drugs, no annual, nothing. In essence I would be paying for all of my doctor’s visits, all of my prescriptions, AND insurance every month–what is the point of that??

Again, I have always hated this whole idea, so I felt slimey even trying this, but I went into the exchange to see how much of a subsidy I would get. It told me to go on Medicaid! So here we are. They have taken someone who is totally independent and tried to turn her into someone who is dependent on the taxpayer.

I do not have any insurance at all now. I hate to whine and complain, but the Zoloft generic is running out, and I can certainly tell the difference in how I handle things every day! The great irony, and what makes me the most mad, is the very idea that the government takes away my insurance, and next year I will be fined because I don’t have insurance!!!

Mike - Texas: I am a 60 year old single white male, non-smoker in excellent health. My employer-United AirLines, Houston, TX.

Prior to January 1st 2014 (and for the previous 10 years), I had a “Build Your Own Plan” policy with “0” Deductable and 100% coverage-no Out Of Pocket.

January 1st, 2014, (to “align” our corporate plans more with the Affordable Health Care options being offered), my premiums doubled and I have a 10% Co-Pay, even though I have NEVER used the plan or had a hospitalization.

Chelsea - Texas: 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.

But wait! Arlene from Minnesota had this good news relative to Obama Care: I went from $500.00 per month premium for $5000.00 deductible under Minnesota Comp to $442.00 premium per month for a $2000.00 deductible and no copay after the deductible is filled with MNSure. MNSure took patience to work through. It isn’t perfect but I have to say Thank You President Obama and Governor Dayton.

I am willing to look at other options, but I haven’t seen any.

So Arlene saw her insurance payments and deductible levels go down as a result of Obama Care. That is great news. But Chelsea, Mike, Laurie, John, Laura, and Mick saw high increases in their premiums and deductibles or had their lives complicated and endangered b y Obama Care. So despite Arlene's success story, the overwhelming number of people from both websites cited above have had very bad Obama Care experiences. It is truly an ever unfolding disaster.

That will do it for this month. Failed exchanges, failed co-ops, rising costs for premiums and deductibles, etc., one disaster after another. And you can be sure we will be back this time next month to continue this sad, sad saga.

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