Aug 08 2013
ObamaCare: A Liberal Debacle For The Ages
As a small business owner – and joint head of a family of 6 – the disaster that is ObamaCare is truly stunning. As business owners we are lucky to have much more flexibility than most people. We decide on the price point we will spend as a company verses an employee (we are both of course). Which means, within limits, we decide how much comes out of pocket pre-tax and post-tax for everyone in the company. Since we pay both sides, we know the true cost and there is little benefit in moving the premium cost one way or the other. We lean towards keeping the cost on our side of the ledger, not our hard working employees. That may have to change.
Most Americans are not so lucky. Many will face higher premiums as their employers off load the ObamaCare price hikes onto them. Most Americans (us included) will lose our current insurance since it is easier for Insurance Providers to shift you to a new compliant policy than work out changes to your current policy (which in turn changes the price and you end up in the same place anyway). Instead of changing all the current policies to meet ObamaCare, it is easier and less risky (legally) to just move people to a common, approved policy.
Bottom line: we are all going to pay more and lose our policies. No doubt about it:
In Florida, for instance, officials constructed a hypothetical silver-level plan based on the offerings available today. Then they looked at how the cost of that plan compares to the average silver plan that will be available on the exchange. Florida found premiums will rise between 7.6% and 58.8%, depending on the insurer. The average increase would be 35%.
…
Ohio, meanwhile, said there would be an average increase of 41% by comparing a trade association’s report of premiums for all plans available today with the average premium expected on the exchange.
Indiana officials said prices would rise an average of 72%. But they were looking at the cost of providing care, not actual premiums.
Price pressures lead to one result: limiting services. And where do insurers and exchanges hope to cut costs? On the backs of the needy of course:
ObamaCare’s cost-cutting board — memorably called a “death panel” by Sarah Palin — is facing growing opposition from Democrats who say it will harm people on Medicare.
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A wave of vulnerable Democrats over the past three months has signed on to bills repealing the board’s powers, including Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Reps. Ron Barber (Ariz.), Ann Kirkpatrick (Ariz.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Elizabeth Esty (Conn.)
…
“The IPAB will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them,” Dean wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
“Getting rid of the IPAB is something Democrats and Republicans ought to agree on.”
Clearly the only path to save ObamaCare from financial implosion is to begin to pull back on services or let premiums skyrocket. Their is no magical healthcare fairy out there.
One of the ways premiums were kept low prior to ObamaCare was to charge people with expensive and persistent conditions higher premiums (to cover their higher costs of service). The rest of us were actually in a real insurance policy, where we were paying on the off chance we would incur a long term, costly condition. The expectation was most people spend most time dealing with short term issues, and then recover to good health to pay more premiums into the pot.
Insurance is like that. You buy car insurance to cover you against rare and occasional accidents, theft, etc. You don’t buy it on old cars to cover recurring, costly repairs as you slowly buy a new car one piece at a time (if you do, then you need to reassess what your doing).
ObamaCare is a joke. And if you want to know how bad a joke, even Congress won’t dare go near it:
Congress has won some partial relief for lawmakers and their staffs from the “Obamacare” health reforms that it passed and subjected itself to three years ago.
In a ruling issued on Wednesday, U.S. lawmakers and their staffs will continue to receive a federal contribution toward the health insurance that they must purchase through soon-to-open exchanges created by President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.
The decision by the Office of Personnel Management, with Obama’s blessing, will prevent the largely unintended loss of healthcare benefits for 535 members of the Senate and House of Representatives and thousands of Capitol Hill staff.
Emphasis mine on the BS. Unintended? Right….
So instead of fixing their mess, these morons simply exclude themselves indefinitely. Nice.
Supposedly this was to prevent a brain drain on Capitol Hill, but you first need some brains before that excuse will fly.
The average American is now left holding the bag of crap that is ObamaCare. Even small business is going to probably have to bail on Main Street:
Under the law, companies with 50 or more employees are required to provide affordable coverage for their workers. They also must offer health insurance to employees’ dependents, but don’t have to pay for it. And they aren’t required to offer insurance at all to employees’ spouses.
Mike Shoop got a taste of what buying insurance will be like under the ACA when he shopped for a policy that will take effect Sept. 1. His insurer quoted premiums 8 percent higher than his current policy, and warned Shoop that he’d get an even larger increase a year from now. Shoop, who owns a debt collection company in Greeley, Colo., said he may have to cut back on insurance for his employees’ families if rates keep soaring.
[H/T Ed Morrissey at Hot Air]. We might have to do the same. We are in 5 year federal contracts, with rates fixed for each year. If premiums spike, we will have no choice. We can’t increase our revenues to cover insurance company costs. Sadly, at the end of this ladder of life is the employee. They are on the bottom rung.
Main Street America now has to pay for his/her family AND all those other people with expensive medical conditions. Welcome to the ugly truth of socialism. That is what ObamaCare was always going to be about – income redistribution.
But healthcare is a human right – right? How Americans have come to the point where people actually believe that health (care) is a human right is astonishingly depressing and disgusting. How Americans have come to believe that anything “Government” does must be better than private/free market is equally abominable. My situation is that I now find myself starting my own company and providing consulting services because companies prefer to engage professional services that way so that they don’t have to bear the additional burden of employing people. I am doing fine because I have a great resume and work in a highly sort after field. But when Obamacare really kicks in you’re going to see the poorly educated and lesser skilled suffer terribly. It’s always the poor that suffer first, the most and the longest. If it weren’t for food stamps we’d already be seeing long lines at soup kitchens. Sadly, this pathetic situation could go on for years, perhaps decades. People forget that the Great Depression only ended long after WWII ended. Decades of big Government means decades of economic hardship. It’s that simple.
sort – sought. Dang!
Check this out. Subsidies stop abruptly at 400% of the poverty level. If your Federal Adjusted Gross Income is $1 higher than that number you get $0. So a “15,000 policy for which you pay $7500 suddenly cost you the entire $15,000 if you get a $1 raise.
This is going to get people cheating, hiding income, quitting work, etc. Great incentive to grow the economy… NOT!
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/affordable-care-1-pay-hike-costs-middle-class-family-9355-hike-premiums
It is clear (and has been clear) we cannot afford this great debacle. It has raised havoc with employment figures and is impoverishing the low skilled in retail and food service by cutting their hours. If you look carefully at the employment numbers, we are cutting full time jobs and increasing part time jobs, all to avoid ObamaCare.
As AJ mentioned, we are seeing Democrats starting to run from parts of ObamaCare (like the IPAB), but soon that run will become a stampede. Aetna has pulled out of Maryland after Maryland arbitrarily reduce the price they can charge. Aetna simply refused to take losses to provide insurance. If you believe Aetna (and I do), then next year Maryland insurance prices will increase dramatically.
We now find out that the information required for the exchanges will result in a hacker’s paradise and will be ripe for identity theft. Obama is arbitrarily overriding black letter law, something which should be impeachable, but Congress does not seem to care. In the end, ObamaCare is a massive attack on our country and Constitution. We can only hope it fails before it completely destroys our system of government and our health care system.
anyone who criticizes Obamacare is a Racist. Harry Reid said so. (just today)
Reid says Obamacare just a step toward eventual single-payer system
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/aug/10/reid-says-obamacare-just-step-toward-eventual-sing/
“anyone who criticizes Obamacare is a Racist. Harry Reid said so.”
WWS, I have noticed that the only persons that consistently accuse others of being racist, are racists.
I’ve noticed the same thing myself, Redteam.
Leaping Lizards!
Living in England as I do, I buy private health insurance from BUPA who are sort of the best known private insurer over here and it costs about 3000 us dollars per year for me and my wife. That means we don’t have to use the state funded NHS if we have something serious.
Just for ducks, I entered a little bit of my details into the Californya exchange which will start working in 2014 but will give you a ball park quote today and they waid about 1400 dollars a blooming MONTH.
I don’t think I’ll go back and live there then.
Good thing I left when I did.
My wife and I are on Medicare and supplemental, it’s about $6000 a year total for us. I don’t expect that to change much, however, it will go up some.
Yes, interesting how we all end focused on how much it will cost or how much it will go up without realizing that the other side of the equation is far worse. What will happen to the quality of the health care products and services when the Government imposes itself into the market across the entire United States? Obvious answer to those that know Government is not free market? Quality of services will go down and services will become scarce. The cost of health care will go up but the real damage to health care will occur through scarcity and lower quality. Even research and development will reduce in scale and scope. Meanwhile, the enormous Federal health (and other dept.) apparatus will generate endless studies, reports and statistical propaganda that fools the people into thinking that their care is so darn good that you shouldn’t expect Jesus himself to do better with his fallible miracle cures. Unless enough Americans begin to get back to first principles that big Government means helluva big screw ups, waste, fraud along with copious amounts of political favoritism, cronyism, skimming, insider trading and general skulduggery, then we’re all screwed.
Duo, you’re preaching to the choir. I am against everything to do with socializing medicine. I don’t expect the quality of care to get any better under any circumstances I see coming along. I am fairly well satisfied with the way things are now, but I’m sure changes for the worse are coming. There is not one thing that government is doing that couldn’t do better with private industry and corps. Just get the government out of their way.
The one place “Government Care” should not be considered is in the United States of America. We chose NOT to be subjects of our government, we chose to be free people who are in charge of it.
Piers Morgan was all butthurt last night, saying that the murder of an innocent (white) Australian this week “proves” the need for gun control.
In spite of the fact that the three murdering thugs got their weapons illegally, and since they were underage were already banned from owning or using weapons under current law. New laws are going to stop people who are already breaking existing laws? Brilliant logic there, Piers.
(Oh, but they were sweet little children, they weren’t even 18 yet! Let’s run pictures of how cute they looked at their 1st grade birthday party and tell ourselves they couldn’t possibly be murderers!!!)
The only thing this proved was that Zimmerman was Right.
If there’s thugs on the street or in the neighborhood around you, you need to be on the lookout and you need to be carrying.
And you need to be ready to use what you’re carrying, quick, or else you’ll end up like this poor Australian.
“As 15-year-old James Edwards and 16-year-old Chancey Luna are held in Duncan, Oklahoma after being charged with the first degree murder”
Oh, but they’re such sweet innocent CHILDREN!!! They couldn’t possibly do anything like murder a Grown Man, could they? Their Momma’s say they are sweet, sweet little boys, jes’ doin’ what little boys like that do!!!
Who could ever think they would need to Defend Themselves (GASP) against such sweet, innocent, little CHILDREN like this????
Tell ya what, let’s just give them 2 years detention in Juvie hall, let ’em go, and call it even, okay?
The similarities between Trayvon Martin and at least one of the Oklahoma murderers should be instructive. We can see now how dangerous a “little child”, steeped in grievance culture, can be.
There are indications that these killers felt they had been given permission to kill a white person in retaliation for Trayvon’s death. The race mongers-Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Eric Holder, and Barack Obama shouldn’t even be able to sleep at night.
Is Obama going to make a statement and tell us which one looks like the son he could have had?
Actually now it’d be more like “My 3 Sons”.
I’m sure he would look just like one of those 3.
Liberal Headline:
More White Racism on display in the arrest of a Sweet, Innocent little Child in Seattle:
Alternate Headline: Decorated Veteran survived Okinawa, but he could not survive today’s Black Thug culture:
“The second suspect in the beating death of an 88-year-old WWII veteran has been arrested.
Police say they arrested 16-year-old Kenan Adams-Kinard just after 3 a.m. on Monday morning in connection with the murder of Delbert Belton.
He was found in a basement apartment at 500 West Montgomery in Spokane and arrested without incident.
Police say good investigative work and follow up on dozens of tips help lead to the apprehension of the suspect.
Adams-Kinard was arrested on a First-Degree Robbery and First-Degree Murder warrant. Several other people with him have been arrested for rendering criminal assistance.”
But the thugs who killed him were unarmed! (Except with their fists) Who would dare say that anyone should think about responding to sweet, innocent little 16 year old children with deadly force???