February, 2017, Part 2, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Never Understanding Root Causes and Personal Tales Of Obama Care Woes

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.

Today we will focus on some of these root causes to show how they are the main drivers of our high healthcare costs, causes that Obama Care never addressed and which still stay unresolved:

1) A recent Center For Disease Control study found that booze is the second leading cause of death, and the attendant healthcare costs, in this country behind tobacco. In fact, according to the summarized results that appeared in the December 23-30, 2016 issue of The Week magazine:

• Since 2004, alcohol related deaths in this country are up 37%.
• Drinking now accounts for more overdoses and deaths than prescription painkillers and heroin combined.
• Other cited research shows that alcohol is a direct cause of at least seven different cancers and that the odds of getting those cancers is directly related to the volume of alcohol consumed.

So, excessive drinking can increase the chances of getting cancer and incurring the high medical costs to treat it, it can ruin livers and incurring the high medical costs to treat it, and can cause obesity and incurring the high medical costs to treat it. This is a public health issue that is driving up health care costs, by up to 37% in the past 13 years, it is not an insurance issue as Obama Care treated it.

2) It is no secret that this country has an obesity problem. More than two thirds of Americans are overweight and over one third are considered obese. Obesity causes all kinds of problems including heart disease and joint and bone issues, often requiring the high medical costs of knee, hip, and other joint replacements. 

However, a recent study in the same issue of The Week cited above showed that if Americans reduced their daily calorie intake by just 12%, health improvements could be dramatic. The study tracked a group of people over two years that had done just that: reduced their daily calorie consumption by 12%. On average, they lost 17 pounds, slept better, had better moods, and enhanced sex drives. In other words, their quality of life improved as did their health. Obama Care has had none of these intended effects, it is an insurance solution trying to resolve a public health issue.

3) That same issue of The Week cited a 900 person study that showed that if you exercise, your chances of keeping your brain young and reducing your chances of cancer, and reducing the associated costs of treatment, go up dramatically. Those people among the 900 test subjects that did little regular exercise “experienced cognitive decline equivalent to 10 more years of agin compared with their more active peers.” Additionally, the earlier that regular exercise began the better the chances of not experiencing the cognitive decline and the associated medical costs.

The article also cited another study that found that people that do the equivalent of walking two and a half hours per week have a lower chance of getting 13 different types of cancer and incurring the associated medical costs. Our ever escalating healthcare costs in this country are mostly a public health crisis, not an insurance crisis as Obama Care assumed.

4) According to another study from the Centers For Disease Control:

• Drug overdose deaths in this country have gone up by 33% in just the past five years with some states seeing overdose deaths jumping by over 100%. 
• The overdose increases are being driven by heroin and opioid overdoses.
• Florida saw a 22.7% increase in just one year from 2014 to 2015.
• New Hampshire, North Dakota, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maine saw their overdose rates jump over 100%.
• Over 52,000 Americans died in 2016 from drug overdoses.

And all of these overdoses, whether fatal or not, usually incur medical costs that would be unnecessary if we somehow found a way to reduce the addiction and agony associated with drug abuse, something that Obama Care never addressed. Another public health issue left unattended.

5) The above five root causes of our high health care costs, drinking, smoking, lack of exercise, drug abuse, and obesity are major causes of our high healthcare costs and none of them were adequately addressed by Obama Care. Even if Obama Care had a good insurance approach, which it did not, without turning off the public health spigot of bad health behavior, you will never drive down the costs of healthcare in this country.

However, there are also drivers of our high healthcare costs in this country that are not public health related. One of the most important root causes that is listed above and Obama Care never addressed is where does the money flow in our healthcare system, i.e. Obama Care never followed the money. If you do not know where the money is going, you have no idea on how to control the amount of money that is flowing. 

Consider the financials of our current healthcare situation in this country relative to the rest of the world as laid out in a recent Wall Street Journal article:

- The average per capita healthcare expenditure in this country in 2014 was $9,451, highest in the world.

- However despite spending so much money the U.S. average life span in this country for men is 76.9 years, which ranks only 25th in the world, and for U.S. women the average lifespan is 81.6 years, which ranks 27th in the world, i.e. we are spending a lot of money, more than any other country in the world, and not getting the top results one would expect by spending so much.

- When it comes to drug costs, U.S. citizens pay so much more for the same drug than the rest of the world:

• For a 28 day supply of the arthritis drug Humira, the average cost in the U.S. is $2,669 while the next most expensive country, Britain, pays an average of $1,362, half the cost.
• A 30 day supply of pain medicine OxyContin costs an average of $265 in the U.S. while the next most expensive country, Switzerland, pays only 95$.

- When it comes to diagnostic costs, U.S.citizens pay so much more for the same test than the rest of the world:

• The average cost of an MRI in the U.S. is $1,119 while the average cost in the next most expensive country, New Zealand, is $811.
• The average costs of a colonoscopy in the U.S. is $3,059, while the average costs in the next most expensive country, New Zealand, is $1,421.

- When it comes to procedures, U.S. citizens pay so much more for the same procedure than the rest of the world:

• Heart bypass surgery averages $76,318 in the U.S. while the cost in the next most expensive country, Switzerland, is a mere $34,224.
• A normal baby delivery in the U.S. costs an average of $10,808 while the average cost in the next most expensive country, Switzerland, is $7,751.

You get the idea, the Journal article had other examples but the conclusion is always the same: we pay so much more for the exact same drugs, tests, and surgeries vs. other countries so where does all that extra money go? Drug companies? Doctors and surgeons? Malpractice insurance? Government regulation compliance? All of the above? Until you can “follow the money,” you have no idea how to make the entire healthcare process more cost efficient and fair. Obama Care never did any of that.

6) Let’s finish up today’s and this month’s Obama Care disaster review with some real life, personal disasters that Obama Care has caused many American families. As always, our source for this heartbreak is the website:

www.ourhealthcaresories.com

By not understanding and addressing the root causes of our high healthcare costs, this is the agony and stress that Obama Care is causing across the country:

YVETTE - MAINE: "The least expensive of the new federal healthcare options will cost her $14,400 a year."

ROBERT - FLORIDA: Not only is there less choice, higher costs and lost coverage, but it also means less pay. A lot of companies have been cutting their employees hours to 28 so then those people are only considered part-time workers and the company doesn't have to provide any coverage. Happened to my wife, Holly. she went from working 40+ hrs. a week and dropped down to 28 hrs. a week. So not only did she lose the company health plan but is making less money than she was. It's just a really bad Catch 22. So even if she wanted to she can't afford any decent coverage due to her cut in income. And, you gotta love this one, but if she doesn't get health insurance than she gets penalized by the Gov't for not having health insurance. Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

CAMILLE: “We are the Obama people,” said Camille Sweeney, a New York writer and member of the Authors Guild. Her insurance is being canceled, and she is dismayed that neither her pediatrician nor her general practitioner appears to be on the exchange plans. What to do has become a hot topic on Facebook and at dinner parties frequented by her fellow writers and artists.

M. - FLORIDA: Small biz owner w/no health ins. Started looking in Oct, 2013 at AHC, was very expensive. Tried creating an acct. over 2 months, no luck. March 2014 got rates from the AHC site, they looked REAL GOOD! Took 4 hours to create an acct. Finally got into choosing a plan, prices were triple from what the previous screen showed. Still cannot afford health insurance :( Best plan I found was $300 a month with $12,500.00 co pay, co insurance & deductible. In the websites OWN terminology that meant I pay $12,500 each year before ANY insurance pays (trust me, I checked & double checked on the AHC website for explanation.) Bottom line; still uninsured. Cannot afford AHC. Will self pay, much more affordable. So i'll pay the fine/fee/tax at the end of the year. And i'll keep paying my taxes so our Fed. gov. can GIVE FREE healthcare to someone else. Makes a lot of sense, NOT!

Higher premium costs, higher deductible costs, fewer working hours, more narrow networks, horrible computer systems, oh yeah, Obama Care is working out fine. More disasters next month.

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

October, 2015, Bonus Post, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Epic Co-op Failures

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.

A week ago or so we spend several days reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington. I had thought I would not do any more Obama Care stuff until next month but since last week a number disasters from the law have already popped so I decided to cover them today rather than wait until next month:

1) Benjamin Miller is an ordinary American who lives in Indiana. His plight and run-in with the IRA illustrates how inane and stupid the Obama Care legislation is relative to its personal insurance mandate. This part of the bill requires Americans to pay a fine via their IRS tax filings if they did not have health insurance coverage.

Before Obama Care was enacted, Mr. Miller was paying $398 a month for a health insurance plan that he was perfectly happy with. Once the legislation was enacted, the cost of his monthly health insurance premiums jumped over a thousand dollars to a whopping $1,400 month, a more than three fold increase. He decided that $1,400 was more than he could afford and thus, he dropped the insurance policy rather than pay an EXTRA $12,000 a year. 

So then the IRS got involved and send him a bill for $2,344 for not having health insurance coverage as required by Obama Care. He posted the IRS bill on Facebook to prove he was not being deceptive. Accompanying the Facebook post were his comments: “So I chose not to pay $1,400 a month so [I] got a nice little fine. Thanks Obama for the fine for not having insurance … Thanks for the Affordable Care Act. Thanks for making it so affordable!”

This insanity shows why the legislation is so horrible and so little thought was put into it. This American was going through life, very happy with an affordable health insurance plan that suited his needs. The Federal government comes along with Obama Care and says we know best, your insurance costs is going to go up three fold, increase more than a thousand dollars a month for basically the same coverage and if you do not do what we tell you, we will treat you as a criminal and fine you over $2,000, an number that will go up in the future if Mr. Miller does not get insurance coverage.

In either case, he pays an extra $12,000 a year for the same coverage or he pays over $2,000 for the Obama Care fine, that is thousands of dollars that are not being spent to grow the economy. Less dinners out, less movies, less disposable income. 

Is it any wonder the economic recovery that has transpired concurrently with the rollout of Obama Care is probably the weakest recovery ever? Mr. Miller’s saga is being repeated millions of times across the country as Obama Care has caused household insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays to skyrocket, putting more money in the coffers of insurance companies and the U.S. Treasury and taking it out of the economy.

2) One reason for doing this bonus post on the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care is that at the rate that Obama Care insurance co-ops are failing across the country, they might all be gone by next month. Recall what an Obama Care co-op is:

• A co-op is basically a state based, newly created private insurance company concept that was established via Obama Care.
• The legislation spent $2.4 billion to establish health insurance co-ops in 24 states across the country, supposedly offering affordable health insurance policies to those without insurance coverage.
• The purpose of the co-op was to provide a competitive market place in mostly rural areas where it was felt there would not be enough existing health insurance companies competing to drive down costs.

In our update last week we reported on how four of those co-ops, Iowa, Louisiana, Nevada, and New York had already gone bankrupt and out of business or had announced they were going out of business because of their failing financial situation.

Well, since then, according to writing by Melissa Quinn, writing for the Heritage Foundation, the number of failed co-ops is now up to six, more than 25% of all co-ops created with taxpayer money, with Kentucky and Tennessee joining the failure parade. Ms. Quinn’s article totalled up the damage and debris so far in Obama Care’s co-op world:

• Tennessee - $73,306,700 received from the American taxpayer, 31,109 people enrolled, cost per enrollment = $2,356
• Iowa - $145,312,100 received from the American taxpayer, 91,477 people enrolled, cost per enrollment = $1,588
• New York - $265,133,000 received from the American taxpayer, 209,136 people enrolled, cost per enrollment = $1,268
• Kentucky - $146,494,772 received from the American taxpayer, 51,655 people enrolled, cost per enrollment = $2,836
• Louisiana - $65,790,660 received from the American taxpayer, 16,322 people enrolled, cost per enrollment = $4,031
• Iowa - $65,925,396 received from the American taxpayer, 20,578 people enrolled, cost per enrollment = $3,204
• Total - $761,962,620 received from the American taxpayer, 420,277 people enrolled,cost per enrollment = $1,813

What a waste of money. Three quarters of a billion dollars wasted for no return. Pretty inefficient process when it costs about $2,000 to sign up a single customer on average. Pathetic execution.

Her article goes on to report more disturbing and depressing results about the co-ops, based on official government documents:

• More than 400,000 Americans now have to go out and somehow find new insurance coverage as a result of these six co-ops failing or face stiff fines like Mr. Miller got hit with.
• 23 out of the 24 original co-ops lost money in 2014.
• 13 of the co-ops signed up significantly fewer customers than forecasted.
• It is unknown if any of the Federal taxpayer money loaned to these failed co-ops would ever be recovered.

What an incredibly poorly thought through process. More than 25% failure rate already, over $700 million likely lost taxpayer wealth, and over 400,000 Americans having their lives inconvenienced and their health coverage endangered. Three disasters at one pop.

3) But since I came across the Heritage Foundation article above, I stumbled across even more bad news from the Obama Care co-op world. According to an article on the Daily Caller website on October 16, 2015, writer Richard Pollock reported that now seven of the co-ops have already closed or announced those closing in the near future. And more importantly, according to a recent report from the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general, the remaining co-ops are in deep financial trouble and the inspector general expects more to go out of business soon.

But to show you how quickly things are falling apart, just three days later, October 19, 2015, Richard Pollock, also writing for the Daily Caller reported on some startling new developments:

• According to various news reports and Congressional members, the Obama administration is hiding a secret list of 11 Obama Care insurance co-ops that they fear could be the next co-ops to go out of business in addition to the others that have already failed.
• And despite the constantly broken promise of being the “most transparent administration ever,” the Obama administration refuses to release the names of those co-ops in financial trouble despite calls from Congress and news journalists to do so.
• Even worse, Mr. Pollock claims that the number of failed co-ops is already up to eight, with five having tanked in the past three weeks.
• If correct, than nineteen out of the 24 co-ops are either financially dead or about to be financially dead, likely taking with them much of the $2.4 billion in taxpayer funds that they were staked to.
• The defunct or soon to be defunct co-ops will force almost half a million Americans to find a new source for health insurance.
• The secret 11 co-ops are on so-called “enhanced oversight” by the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), which manages the Obama Care program. 
• The 11 received formal letters from CMS demanding that they take urgent actions to avoid closing.
• Aaron Albright, chief CMS spokesman, said 11 co-ops “are either on a corrective action plan or enhanced oversight. We have not released the letters or names.” He gave no grounds for withholding the information from either the public or Congress.
• The CMS has so far ignored a formal request from members of Congress investigating the failure of the co-op program.
• Senator Charles Grassley, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, is not happy with the CMS stonewalling situation: “Since the public’s business generally ought to be public, CMS should have a good reason for not disclosing which co-ops are troubled.” 
• He was joined in criticism of the CMS’s lack of transparency by Congressman Adrian Smith: “It’s time for CMS to stop shielding these failures from the public and start identifying faltering co-ops. Taxpayers deserve more accountability and consumers deserve to know whether the insurance they are forced to buy will still exist at the end of next year.”

You can now see why we did this bonus piece. At the current rate, if we had waited until next month for our usual Obama Care disaster review, the entire co-op infrastructure could be gone. Never has so much failed in any piece of Washington legislation that was ever passed. Costs go up, co-ops go down, the unfolding disasters that are Obama Care.

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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June, 2015, Part 1, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Still Obese In America, Whopping Policy Cost Increases, and MOre Family Heartache Stoires

Every month for the past three years or so we have had to take time out and review the latest insanity and disasters from the Obama Care legislation. Long ago it only took a day or so to cover it all. But then the law starting taking effect and the “unfolding disaster that is Obama Care” made it impossible to contain the bad news, the heartache, the rising costs, and the stress put on American families to just a day or two.

To review the past discussions on this horrid piece of legislation, enter the term "unfolding disaster" in the search box above or just page through previous month's posts on the right side of this page and click on the various references to Obama Care. Very quickly, as your read the past posts, you will see that this is easily the worst piece of legislation ever passed by Washington.

Not only has it disrupted lives, stymied the economy, and increased healthcare costs in this country, it never addressed the various root causes of high healthcare costs. Thus, by never addressing some of the root causes listed below, the legislation has virtually no chance of actually reducing healthcare costs in this country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• The healthcare industry in this country needs serious tort reform.
• Federal government crop subsidies lead to our food chain being infested with unhealthy sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
• Current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, lose upwards of $100 billion a year to waste and criminal fraud, billions of dollars that could be used to reduce other healthcare costs in this country.
• Cross state line insurance competition needs to be made easier to do.
• The Obama effort never “followed the money” to actually map out where the high costs paid by Americans for healthcare actually end up.

Since Obama Care never addressed these root causes, we are still going to have those root causes resulting in higher and higher healthcare costs regardless of how well Obama Care is implemented. And since the prime objective of Obama Care was to reduce costs, the legislation will end up being a failure.

So with that gloomy set up, let’s see what Obama Care disasters unfolded in the past month or so.

1) According to a recent Gallup poll, the national obesity rate went up to 27.7% of all Americans in 2014, an increase from 27.1% in 2013. And more discouraging, this obesity rate is up from 25.5% in 2008. 

Why is this important and relative to Obama Care? It is quite well known and researched that obesity causes a whole host of health issues and related healthcare costs: diabetes, heart disease, joint problems, etc. If we eliminated the obesity problem in this country, the related healthcare costs would go away or at least be greatly reduced. If you reduce the demand for a product or service, in this case health care services to treat obesity impacts, you would reduce the costs. 

But as we see from Gallup’s results, the obesity problem is getting worse, not better, since Obama Care was enacted. So a primary root cause of our high healthcare costs has not been addressed by Obama Care, in fact, it is getting worse. And as obesity gets worse, the chances of reducing health care costs as they relate to heart disease, joint issues, and diabetes gets more and more expensive, regardless of how many people end up getting Medicaid or Obama Care insurance policies under the legislation.

As an FYI, Mississippi is the most obese state in the United States for the second year in a row, a whopping 35.2% rate, with Hawaii being the skinniest, according to the new Gallup poll.

As you can see, despite passage of the Obama Care law, the trend of this root cause is definitely going in the wrong direction.

2) A May 21, 2015 Washington Examiner article by Philip Klein reviewed the reality that Obama Care insurance policy rate hikes are likely to be in store for many policyholders: 

• Some of the larger insurance companies that provide health insurance policies under Obama Care recently filed their proposed rates for 2016 and many of them contain large rate hikes for their policy holders.
• Some of the increases actually exceed 40%.
• And these rate increases are coming down the road in 2016 despite the reality that the Federal government will still be subsidizing Obama Care policies through bailouts of the insurance companies through 2016. This raises the question of how much higher those policies will go in 2017 when those bailout support programs end.
• According to the article, after two years of Obama Care insurance experiences, insurance companies are finding that, “the pool of customers is older and sicker than originally projected, driving up medical costs. Meanwhile, federal help isn't what they anticipated.”
• CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the largest health insurer in Maryland, proposed an average increase of 30.4% for 2016.
• BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee asked for an average increase of 36.3%. 
• In South Dakota, Wellmark proposed a 42.9% average increase.
• In Oregon, Moda Health, which serves roughly half of the state's individual insurance market, is proposing to raise its rates by an average of 25.6%. Apparently, Moda's Obama Care policy costs for 2014, the first year of Obamacare's exchanges,exceeded its premiums by 61.5%, certainly not a formula for success and profitability.
• Industry experts quoted in the article agree that Obama Care policyholders tend to be older and sicker than expected, resulting in much higher costs than the administration or the insurance companies anticipated. The higher payout costs by the insurance companies end up driving higher premium costs for the Obama Care policy holders.
• According to the Obama administration, as of the second open-enrollment period ending this past February, just 28% of those who signed up for insurance came from the critical and healthier age 18 to 34 age group. 
• The administration had stated that at least 40% of the Obama Care enrollees had to come from that younger and healthier market segment for the Obama Care policies to be financially viable.
• The other critical number for viability is that the Congressional Budget Office forecasted that Obama Care needed to sign up 21 million customers by 2016. However, less than 11 million paying customers have signed up in the first two years, making the 21 million signups by the 2016 probably impossible to reach, further depressing financial viability. 
• CareFirst CEO Chet Burrell warned a Congressional hearing that "if this transitional protection [taxpayer bailouts] is not there, carriers will have to increase rates substantially (i.e. 20 percent or more beyond what they might otherwise file) to make sure that premiums adequately reflect expected costs – because there would be little protection if they do not."

3) All along, the Obama administration has promised that costs across all facets of the healthcare industry in this country would go down. For example, the President boldly claimed that American families would see their annual health insurance costs go down upwards of $2,500. A we see above and from other posts, that is not happening, costs are going up and going up quickly, not down.

But what about other costs in other parts of the industry, are those costs going down as promised? Probably not, at least according to an article written by Sarah Ferris on May 27, 2015 for The Hill. According to her research, the overhead costs for the entire domestic healthcare industry will be $270 billion higher over the next decade compared to what would have happened if Obama Care had not been passed. 

The $270 billion is in new, incremental overhead costs for both private and government insurance programs. These whopping increases in overhead costs are likely to happen despite some provisions in Obama Care what was supposed to DECREASE overhead costs. 

So under Obama Care, premium costs are going UP for policyholders, deductible costs are going UP for policyholders, payout costs are going UP for insurance companies, and overhead costs are going UP for insurance companies and government healthcare programs. All because of a new law, Obama Care, that was supposed to LOWER costs. Typical Washington effort, getting the exact opposite results than what were intended and promised.

4) We usually finish up each of our Obama Care unfolding disaster posts with real life examples of how this legislation has damaged the health care situations of typical Americans. Our source for these true life stories is the website:

www.ourhealthcarestoires.com

ANDREA - NEBRASKA

Reporter: Insurance companies cancelled millions on peoples' polices because those policies did not meet the new Obamacare requirements. We did find an Omaha family who did not lose theirs, but will pay a lot more.

Reporter: She currently pays about $440 a month, but starting January 1st her rates will increase to $726. In the letter, Blue Cross and Blue Shield stated that her current plan didn't meet the Affordable Care Act standards.

Andrea: Now we have inpatient substance abuse care.. Now we have maternity. I already made the choice that I'm done, I have two children, and I'm done with my family.

MICHAEL - GEORGIA

From Dawson News:

[Michael] Boyette, 28, is married, has one child and another on the way.

The Boyettes have insurance through the state through his wife's job. Under the new law, his family's insurance premium has gone up $190 a month, from $350 to $540.

"We have less coverage than before at a higher out-of-pocket expense," Boyette said. "One company, three choices, that was it. This was not what [President Barack Obama] assured me and many others."

ROSE- PENNSYLVANIA

I cannot believe what has happened to my health insurance at work. Last year it cost me about 85.00 a month with 80% coverage. This year it doubled! I now pay 171.00 and for less coverage, as with a very high deductible! When I went to the Doctors just recently, they paid only 0.896 cents. Last year they covered the cost at 80%, so I do not know how they calculate or what my deductible is! I have to get blood work done, sure it will cost a lot more this year! When I called my benefits office they claim it's because of the new laws. Tried to cancel my insurance due to the fact I can not afford to pay them, and they claim company policy I can not unless I have a different insurance or leave the job. Why shouldn't I be able to get rid of something I can not afford?

That will do it for today. A root cause of high healthcare costs, obesity, getting worse, despite the passage of Obama Care, premium costs going up substantially for 2016, incremental overhead costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and more heartache at the household level. Worst peice of Washington legislation ever passed, hands down.

More unfolding disasters tomorrow and beyond.


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

May, 2015, Part 2,The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Cowardness In Congress,Beating the Obama Care System and More

Every month for the past few years we have had to dedicate multiple posts every month to the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. It is without a doubt the worse piece of legislation ever passed passed by Washington, as one can see from our dozens of posts and the hundreds of mini-disasters we have discussed in each of those posts.

The legislation has increased insurance costs, stifled the economy, caused millions of people to lose access to their preferred doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies, increased the national debt, and exposed the many lies and intentional deceptions of this President and his political allies. It is a piece of legislation that has no chance of accomplishing its supposed goal of reducing healthcare costs in this country since it never understood nor addressed the underlying root causes of our high healthcare costs. These root causes include,m but are not limited to:

• Americans eat too much overall and too much of the wrong types of food.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• Washington laws and regulation encourage additives such as high fructose corn syrup to infest our food supply.
• The medical industry is in urgent need of tort reform.
• Current laws and regulations discourage cross state border insurance company competition.
• Federal healthcare programs today are infested with criminal activity that wastes upwards of a $100 billion a year.
• The Obama administration never “followed the money” to find out where the waste and over charging was in the entire medical industry.

Without understanding and alleviating these root causes, it makes no difference how many people get Obama Care insurance policies, the costs will keep going up and care will keep going down.

So with this quick background, let’s take a look at what Obama Care disasters have popped up in the past month or so, something we started with yesterday’s post:

1) In order for the Obama Care financials to pan out, about 40% of its customers were expected to be in the younger age brackets, aged 18 to 34 years of age, (i.e. the “young invincibles”). The reason is that younger people tend to be healthier and need less health care. Thus, the plan was for these younger policyholders to help pay for the expected higher medical costs of older policy holders. If that percentage is too low then the Obama Care population would skew older and less healthy, making the financials blow up and the costs to the insurance companies be higher than expected or wanted.

And so far, after the second open enrollment period, the financial expectation relative to the average age of Obama Care enrollees is not looking good. The age profile for the second round of enrollment shows that the young invincibles make up about 28% of Obama policy holders, about the same percentage as the first year.

This low percentage of younger customers could eventually lead to a death spiral of cost increases for Obama Care policies: the insurance companies holding these policies realize that they are paying out more in insurance costs than expected which requires them to raise policy prices which turns off even more younger people which causes the Obama Care poll to be comprised of even older, sicker people which increases healthcare costs… 

And if you combine the reality that in 2017 the Federal subsidy programs being paid to insurance companies to keep Obama Care policy costs low go away, then the costs of this badly planned legislation will sky rocket and cause the entire operation to implode. All because the root causes were never addressed and remedied which led to a fatally flawed economic model.

2) Simple economic theory says that the more you have of a product or service the lower the prices will be due to increased competition. Unfortunately, when it comes to small, rural hospitals, Obama Care is causing there to be less medical services available which is likely to drive up costs. According to a recent Associated Press report, small, rural hospitals across the country are closing down due to financial stress:

• For example, after 45 years of providing health care in rural western Missouri, Sac-Osage Hospital is being sold piece by piece.
• Ceiling tiles are going for 25 cents, the room doors for an average of less than $4 each, the patient beds for $250 apiece. Soon, the remnants of the hospital that long symbolized the lifeblood of Osceola, population 923, will be torn to the ground.
• A total of 50 similar rural hospitals have closed since 2010 with the trend accelerating with more closures in the past two years than the past ten years combined. Wasn’t it Obama Care that came into existence a little over two years ago?
• The AP report found that upwards of another 283 rural hospitals could be shut down in the near future and that 35% of all rural hospitals are now operating at a financial loss.
• Many of these hospitals rely on Federal government payments to cover Medicaid and Medicare costs and thus, according to the AP report, “Hospitals that rely heavily on those government programs have been particularly hard hit by Federal budget cuts and provisions in the 2010 federal health care law that reduced charity care reimbursements and changed other payment criteria.”

Did Obama Care cause all of the problems forcing the closing of rural hospitals? No, but 1) it did contribute to the financial distress and 2) it did not help the situation either, leaving millions of Americans without good medical options within their geographic and financial price range. In other words, even if you have health insurance via Obama Care, does you no good if you cannot get health care.

3) If you did not have health insurance coverage in 2014, when you filed your Federal income taxes you were supposed to pay a penalty for not having coverage. The strategy for having the penalty was to force people to get Obama Care health insurance if they did not have any coverage to begin with and imposing a financial burden by the writers of the legislation seemed like a nice, vindictive way to force people to do something they might not want to do, i.e. make them criminals.

But the website, www.townhall.com, found a way and strategy to avoid paying for high priced, poor quality Obama Care policies, still protect yourself from a devastating illness, and how to game the Obama Care system to satisfy your needs with minimal costs. Their approach is really quite ingenious and totally legal and it leverages the Obama Care tenet that no one can be denied Obama Care insurance because of a pre-existing condition.

Rather than having me try to explain the process, go to the following link to find out how to outsmart Obama Care, stay legal, and save a lot of money in the process, an approach that seems particularly attractive to younger people

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations/2013/12/23/how-to-get-real-and-affordable-health-insurance-without-obamacare-n1767438/page/full

4) Stephen Moore, recently writing for the Heritage Foundation did a nice job of reviewing the history of cancer treatment and the current status of cancer treatment in this country. His writings can be accessed at:

http://dailysignal.com/author/stephen-moore/

He makes a convincing case that of all the factors hindering the search for cancer cures, Obama Care might be the biggest factor inhibiting advances in cancer treatment:

“Finally, the greatest setback for cancer research and wonder treatments in modern times is Obamacare. That dismal law puts new taxes on the next generation of life-saving drugs, vaccines and medical devices. It may be the dumbest tax in history. Mr. President, if you want more of something, you don’t raise taxes on it, you cut them. Repealing these taxes is one small step Washington could take to accelerate the race for the cure and save millions of lives each year. What are we waiting for?”

Causing companies and researchers to divert capital away from research and development to cover Obama Care taxes is a viable line of reasoning, especially since the law itself has such low potential for doing any good and the potential for developing anti-cancer treatments is so much higher with so much large positive societal impact.

5) One last disaster for this month. Today, a Senate committee voted against getting rid of one ofthe largest injustices of Obama Care. As the law is written, Federal employees, from sitting Congressional people to lowly Congressional staffers were supposed to get their health insurance via Obama Care individual policies, much like millions of other Americans and suffer the same consequences of such a move as millions of other Americans.

But Congress, cowards as they are, convinced the Obama administration to exempt them and all Federal workers from such high cost nonsense and illegally allowed them to get lower cost, taxpayer subsidized health insurance through, of all things, the Washington D.C. small business Obama Care exchange. A petition to right this wrong reads as follows and provides more details:

No Washington Exemption from Obamacare!
Send Letters to Congress : 60,177 Letters Sent So Far

When the Democrats were rushing the health care law through Congress before most of them even knew what was in it, Republicans insisted on language requiring members of Congress and their staff to go into the new health care exchanges, to experience the same thing millions of Americans would experience and create a strong incentive, therefore, for them to make sure the system works.

Like many Americans being dumped into Obamacare exchanges, members of Congress and their staff stood to lose their employer contributions - in this case, the generous financing of their health benefits by taxpayers that they had before the law passed and took it away.

But unlike all of the other Americans in that situation, Congress had access to President Obama to personally intervene on their behalf. And he did, with an OPM rule allowing them to avoid the costs of being dumped into Obamacare exchanges. That's wrong.

And because there is no mechanism for employer contributions in the regular exchange, Congress also filed false documents claiming the House and Senate each have less than 50 employees to sign up as "small businesses," even though over 13,700 employees have in fact signed up. That's fraud.

Tell Congress: "Support Chairman Vitter’s effort to end Washington’s Exemption from Obamacare!"

If you believe that the law should be followed by those that actually wrote it and that this special financial favor be disposed off, please go to the following link to take action:

http://action.americancommitment.org/11464/no-washington-exemption-from-obamacare/

So, let’s review today’s disasters:

• The Obama Care policy holder mixed is badly skewed to older and sicker patients, likely leading to an eventual death spiral of rising costs.
• Healthcare coverage is decreasing in rural America, something not anticipated by Obama Care and probably made worse by Obama Care, as rural hospitals are closing rapidly.
• There is a low cost, legal way to beat Obama Care and still have healthcare coverage.
• The biggest obstacle to new treatments for cancer could be Obama Care itself.
• Congress took the cowardly way out and continues to disobey the law it wrote relative to health insurance for Federal workers.

Obama Care, the law that keeps on failing, month after month after month.

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

April, 2015, Part 4, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Personla Horror Stories, Cowardly Senators,and More

This is the fourth and final update to our continuing monthly series, "the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This has been such a horrid piece of legislation that for years now we have had to dedicate multiple posts each month to the fiascoes that continue to emanate from this law. The first post in this month’s update can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2015/04/aporil-2015-part-1-unfolding-disaster.html

And unfortunately, I am sure we will be back same time next month with more disasters and hardships from the legislation that keeps on giving….bad news to America.

1) I got a kick out of a recent article from the Washington Examiner as it applies to Obama Care:

• Apparently, six Democratic senators and one independent but Democratically leaning Senator recently have asked the Department of Health and Human Services to a postpone a new Obama Care rule.
• Keeping in mind that every Democrat in the Senate originally voted to enact Obama Care, these seven Senators are now scared that a new regulation from the law would likely force small businesses in their states and the country to pay more for employee health insurance under Obama Care. 
• The Senators warn that if the administration goes ahead with the change it would be "particularly harmful and disruptive" to small businesses: "They [small businesses]could experience higher premiums, less flexibility, and new barriers to coverage. We therefore encourage you to delay the effective date in the definition change for two years so the market can more smoothly transition to the new rules," the Senators wrote in the March 12 letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell.
• The Senators noted in the letter that the administration has delayed implementing other aspects of Obama Care.

A few simple observations:

• Maybe if they had actually read the law before they all voted to enact it they would have realized the hardship they would be causing small business owners, a hardship they now recognize that probably has something to do with their next reelection campaign.
• They correctly point out that the Obama administration has already illegally and un-Constitutionally changed aspects of the bill many, many times so what harm is one more illegal action for the administration to take to satisfy their needs?

More pathetic and cowardly leadership from the Washington political class. These requirements have been in place for five years, ever since you signed off on them with your vote, too late now to cry wolf.

2) I tripped over the following video tape recently even though it occurred over a year ago at the height of the Obama Care rollout disgrace. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, was being interviewed on TV in Oklahoma and was talking about how great Obama Care was, When the interviewer mentions that 64% of Oklahoma citizens were against the legislation, she totally zones out, unable to comprehend that the law was that much despised. She literally is at a loss for words. and this was the person responsible for the rollout of the entire operation, so clueless:

http://downtrend.com/brian-carey/a-masterpiece-hhs-secretary-kathleen-sebelius-rendered-speechless-when-she-hears-that-obamacare-is-unpopular-in-oklahoma

3) Some people inside and outside of the administration have recently been trying to convince us that Obama Care was really not that bad after all. After all, they claim, over 11 million people now have health care insurance as a result of Obama Care but fail to mention that upwards of 7 million LOST insurance as a result of Obama Care. Also, the law made it illegal NOT to have health insurance, likely forcing some people to get health insurance out of fear, not desire.

They point out that health care costs have not risen as quickly under Obama Care but fail to mention that Obama Care was supposed to REDUCE healthcare costs, not just slow the rise of costs. They also fail to mention that the slowdown started well before Obama Care was implemented.

Rather than having me go through and rebut all of their shallow and in some cases incorrect assertions, I will refer to you to the following article from the Townhall website that does a much better and much more thorough job of rebutting all claims that Obama Care was anything but a disaster:

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2015/02/26/actually-obamacare-is-proving-its-critics-right-n1962172?utm_source=thfbp&utm_medium=fbpage&utm_campaign=thupdate

4) Let's finish this post and this month’s update with some real stories of real Americans and how the law has punished and distressed their lives and their family’s lives. While reading their heartbreaks, keep in mind how Obama’s promises have not panned out at all:

• Costs for these Americans have gone up, not down as promised.
• Americans have lost access to their preferred doctors and hospitals, something that was promised not to happen.
• Americans have lost access to their preferred insurance plans, plans that fit their needs and financial resources, something that was promised would not happen.
• Americans have lost working hours, leaving them with both less pay and still no health insurance, something that was promised would not happen.

So many promises broken, so many lies fulfilled, so many lives disrupted:

ROGER - IDAHO: I have three sons, two have their own business's, a third is a commercial helicopter pilot. The two self employed lost their insurance because they couldn't afford the premiums any longer( about 800 dollars a month for one with a wife and three young children, the other son just had a child and for whatever reason the premiums are close to the same.) The son who is a pilot, and is just getting out in the world after finishing all his flight training and won't make any big money for a while. They had a child in January. His wife teaches so for the moment they have coverage on her and the baby, but can't afford my son right now. Soon they may have to move with his job and at that time they will all be out of insurance altogether. My wife and I are retired, and the most we could afford is a 15,000 dollar deductible.

ROBERT - TEXAS: Policies bought before the law was passed were “grandfathered in” and can remain in place, she said.

But that apparently doesn’t lock in the cost of premiums or deductibles, said Robert Kecseg, an investment adviser in Lewisville. Kecseg, 61, said he bought a plan before Obamacare took effect. But the insurer that provided the coverage went out of business.

When he went to buy new insurance, he found that the cost was much higher. He had paid an annual $10,000 deductible before 2012. Now he pays double.

“It’s pretty spectacular,” he said.

The Kecsegs also faced a medical emergency this year that proved expensive, he said. In May, he suffered facial paralysis and had to be rushed to a hospital during a family reunion in Las Vegas. The emergency room care cost more than $3,000, he said.

“We’re paying it off over time,” he said.

“My wife says she’s had her uterus removed, so we’re not really likely to have need for that,” he said. “But we’re going to pay for it.”

GUNTHAR - FLORIDA: I have been told by my employer that I can expect an increase in my contribution of about 200 a pay check. My wife is having her policy changed and her contribution is going up as well and also we are mad my neighbor who carpools with me he lost his from work and went from 40 hours a week to 25 as well as a cut in pay so he has less hours less money and now no health coverage he plans on just paying the fine. how is this law helping us?

VALENTINA - CALIFORNIA: By most people's standards, Valentina Holroyd is in excellent health. She works out six to seven days a week and competes in triathlons with a group of equally high-energy friends. She participates in 10 to 12 races a year and has made it to the podium on several occasions. She struggles with the usual joint problems associated with an active lifestyle, but otherwise she is healthy.

Holroyd supported the Affordable Care Act when it was passed in 2009. The moderate Democrat hoped it would help people with pre-existing conditions -- such as her husband -- get access to insurance, and would allow people who could not afford insurance before to find plans within their reach.

She found an affordable insurance plan through Kaiser Permanente in 2012 that met her budget and provided appropriate coverage for her family's needs.

Everything changed in October, when Holroyd was notified by her insurer that her plan could not be renewed in 2014. The comparable plans offered to Holroyd featured a 29% increase in premiums and higher co-pays, as well as significantly higher prescription costs.

Holroyd expected to pay more under the new law, but the new estimates exceeded her expectations.

"We're savvy," she told CNN, "but we had no idea that the premiums were going to be what they are."

After the president's announcement, Holroyd was hopeful she'd be able to keep her policy after all. But the information that she was able to get over the next few days was cryptic at best.

Kaiser Permanente said only that it would review the announcement and that "If federal and state governments intend to change the health care coverage rules and the composition of federal and state marketplaces in 2014, we hope those changes will be done thoughtfully and with all stakeholders involved, to obtain the best outcome."

Holroyd anxiously waited for more definitive news, but the answer wasn't what she wanted to hear.

At the end of November, Covered California's board of directors -- the group that runs California's health insurance exchange -- unanimously rejected the administration's proposal.

"So, in a nutshell," Holroyd said in an e-mail, "we are now, once again, being forced into a lower coverage plan, for more money."

She vehemently rejects the idea that her policy is inadequate because it doesn't meet the Affordable Care Act's minimum criteria. She insists that it provides better coverage for many of the things she counts on, such as chiropractic and eye care. "My current plan is not junk," she said.

MARIA - FLORIDA: I and my husband are on Medicare

We also live on a fixed income

Between higher premiums for supplemental insurance, RX insurance and now having to pay for generic medications, we are spending $ 250.00 Per month more than last year

We were told this was not going to be passed on to seniors.

Lies, lies and more lies

I know when I vote in Nov this is going to help me with my decision

MARGARET - NEW YORK: After four brain operations, Margaret Figueroa thought she was prepared for anything — until she ran into ObamaCare. . . .

Margaret Figueroa has a neurological disorder, and after enrolling in a new EmblemHealth insurance program in February as required under the Affordable Care Act, but eventually her pharmacists said her name wasn’t in their system and her doctors weren't included in her plan. 

Says Margaret: “Now I have to find a whole new set of doctors. The doctors I had were familiar with my condition. I’ve had my neurologist for years. You want to stay with someone who’s been in your brain and knows what’s going on.”

A patient can’t get medication without a prescription from a doctor. She takes numerous medications every day, including morphine. 

As always, these Obama Care horror stories come from the following website:

www.ourhealthcarestories.com

That will do it for this month. Hypocritical Senators, clueless Federal executives, suffering Americans, and as always, more lies, broken promises, and half truths.

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