A survey of health insurance brokers suggests that health insurance rates are increasing at the fastest rate ever seen since these surveys began.

Finding out what’s in it: A survey of health insurance brokers suggests that health insurance rates are increasing at the fastest rate ever seen since these surveys began.

The average increases are in excess of 11% in the small group market and 12% in the individual market. Some state show increases 10 to 50 times that amount. The analysts conclude that the “increases are largely due to changes under the ACA.”

The analysts conducting the survey attribute the rate increases largely to a combination of four factors set in motion by Obamacare: Commercial underwriting restrictions, the age bands that don’t allow insurers to vary premiums between young and old beneficiaries based on the actual costs of providing the coverage, the new excise taxes being levied on insurance plans, and new benefit designs. [emphasis mine]

Obamacare rules have killed a New Jersey healthcare plan aimed at providing healthcare for children.

Finding out what’s in it: Obamacare rules have killed a New Jersey healthcare plan aimed at providing healthcare for children.

While the federal government was trumpeting the benefits of Obamacare to boost enrollment earlier this year, about 1,800 families in New Jersey were receiving letters telling them their children would be losing their health coverage last week. The Affordable Care Act — the federal law that mandates everyone have insurance — effectively killed FamilyCare Advantage, a low-cost option for kids in New Jersey created six years ago for parents who earned too much to qualify for Medicaid and other subsidized programs but too little to buy on a policy on their own. The state program was the first of its kind in the nation.

We have only just begun. The disaster that is Obamacare is going to continue bulldozing its way through the healthcare insurance industry, destroying everything it touches.

However, the two unintended positive consequences of this terrible law might be that 1) it will destroy the careers of many of the Democratic politicians who forced it on us. The Democratic Party has needed a house-cleaning for about two decades. Obamacare might finally give it to us. 2) The destruction of the healthcare industry as we have known it might actually be a good thing in the long run. It might return us to a system where the patient pays for the medical care, which will force prices down and get rid of the middleman insurance company.

Obama declares that “The debate about repealing Obamacare is over.”

Obama declares that “The debate about repealing Obamacare is over.”

Why does the left always want to shut down debate (“The science is settled!” “The debate is over.” “Deniers should be put in prison!”)?

Meanwhile, there is this story: Obamacare takes a life.

The story is heart-rending, and describes how the regulations imposed by Obamacare literally caused this man’s death. As his doctor said, “You can thank Mr. Obama for this.”

But the debates over! What business is it of this doctor or this dead man’s children to complain? The President has spoken. The discussion must now end!

A complete list of the Obama administration’s Obamacare.delays.

A complete list of the Obama administration’s Obamacare.delays — so far.

As the article quite correctly notes, “Despite all the Obama administration’s talk about Republicans ‘obstructing’ the health-care law, federal officials and Obamacare administrators have done far more damage to Obamacare by delaying some of its most central provisions.”

Worse, the delays have also done significant damage to the rule of law, since under the law the Obama administration had no right to make these delays in the first place.

The odious Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid.

The odious Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid.

And why are they odious? Because they have the nerve to attack a free American citizen for merely disagreeing with them publicly.

“But, senator, can’t we have a disagreement about how charity is funded without calling somebody un-American?” Scarborough countered. He continued to press Schumer to answer his question. “Do you think David Koch is un-American?”

Schumer finally said, “The commercials he runs are not part of the American mainstream. No two people [David Koch and his brother Charles] should have such a huge influence on our politics. That’s not First Amendment … I think the commercials he is running are against the American grain and un-American, yes …. I think what Harry Reid was saying was the actions are un-American. And they are, and they should change.”

I wonder if people quite appreciate how disgusting this all is. Here we have two Democratic senators labeling a private citizen as being “un-American” because that citizen is vocally advocating public policies they disagree with.

Can you imagine the media (and Hollywood) firestorm if Senator Ted Cruz went to the Senate floor and repeatedly accused, say, Jeffrey Katzenberg of being “un-American”–and Mike Lee echoed the charge?

But hey, they’re Democrats, so they must mean well! In fact, they must be so correct that the proper thing to do would be for us to put together a lynch mob and get these un-American Americans. How dare David Koch, or anyone, criticize a Democrat?

The road to hell

Back on December 31, 2013, I put up a post about a New York Times article in which it was reported that Americorps volunteers were losing their health insurance plans because of Obamacare, much to their chagrin.

In reading the article, the quote that stood out to me was this one from one volunteer named Sarah Sklaw.

Sarah L. Sklaw, a 22-year-old Vista member from New York City, said: “I really support the Affordable Care Act, and I don’t want to be a naysayer. But it was surprising and frustrating to be told that our health coverage would not meet the law’s standards, especially because the Corporation for National and Community Service told us at orientation in August that we did not need to worry about the issue.”

My reaction? “In other words, she supported Obamacare, partly because she was told “if she liked her health plan, she could keep her health plan. Period.” She has now discovered that this was a lie and is angry. Who wudda thunk it?”

Last week Sarah Sklaw emailed me. She was very unhappy about my post because in her mind I misrepresented her feelings about the situation. This is her email:
» Read more

The timeline of Obamacare delays arbitrarily imposed by the Obama administration.

The timeline of Obamacare delays arbitrarily imposed by the Obama administration.

Practically all of these are illegal, as the law does not give the president the power to make these changes. Also, note the wide gap from July 2, 2013 to November 27, 2013, when no delay orders were issued. It was during this time period that Obama and the Democrats in Congress were refusing to negotiate with Republicans about a variety of proposed Republican delays to the law. The result of this refusal was the shutdown of the government in October. Had the Democrats been willing to negotiate then, these delays would at least have been legal, and there would not have been a shutdown.

The Obama administration has once again arbitrarily extended the deadline in Obamacare for obtaining health insurance.

The law is such an inconvenient thing: The Obama administration has once again arbitrarily extended the deadline in Obamacare for obtaining health insurance.

This same President, allied with the Democrats in Congress, refused any negotiations in October with Republicans about legally extending the deadline. Then, they were willing to shut the government down. Now, however, they delay things willy-nilly, like petty dictators. It seems childish, petulant, petty, foolish, and not very thoughtful.

But hey, Democrat voters, we gotta support them, through hell or high water, because they care!

The UK’s nationalized hospital system has routinely been using the fetal remains of dead babies for heating fuel.

Unspeakable: The UK’s nationalized hospital system has routinely been using the fetal remains of dead babies for heating fuel.

The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found. Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning foetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.

Last night the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which health minister Dr Dan Poulter branded ‘totally unacceptable.’

At least 15,500 foetal remains were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years alone, Channel 4’s Dispatches discovered.

When Jonathan Swift wrote A Modest Proposal in 1729, it was harsh satire. Now we find that, with Great Britain’s nationalized healthcare system, it has become reality. Quite horrifying.

Four reasons why the cost of heath insurance will go up again next year.

Finding out what’s in it: Four reasons why the cost of heath insurance will go up again next year.

These rate increases in 2015 will be on top of the higher rates people have been forced to pay in 2014 because of the advent of Obamacare. They are also all because of the existence of Obamacare itself.

Aren’t you glad the Democrats and President Obama have been willing to do almost anything to prevent any legal changes to the law?

“The malignancy that is really destroying this country is low-information people with high-profile power and/or influence.”

“The malignancy that is really destroying this country is low-information people with high-profile power and/or influence.”

You know, people who would lobby for, comment on, advocate for, or vote on laws like ObamaCare without any understanding of its real-world impact. Such felonies are then carried out by low-information bureaucratic microbes with the power to destroy lives and businesses with impunity, and a political and talking-head class with the access and sway to codify these common malfeasances. Destruction of private property and liberty – and these two concepts are not divisible – takes place in government cubicles every minute of every day across the country. And why not?

We have a low-information president, who has appointed a low-information cabinet, including the low-information secretary of health and human services who is applying a low-information health care law (one of many such laws) behind the big power of a low-morality Internal Revenue Service. The result of all of this low information in power is a low-liberty nation.

Read it all. The events that instigated this article are profound because they illustrate just how bankrupt the intellectual community of our country presently is.

In related news, global warming advocates are increasingly refusing to debate with global warming skeptics. This article also outlines the increasing effort to blackball anyone who expresses skepticism of human-caused global warming.

Fifty states of Obamacare victims.

Fifty states of Obamacare victims.

The video, embedded below the fold, excerpts news stories from all fifty states about the failures of Obamacare. It is short, but worth watching, as it provides a good fast summary of the innumerable stories that have appeared since the law’s failed roll out in October, showing that the failure is not confined to specific areas but is widespread, covers the entire nation, and involves a wide range of issues.

From the link:

Harry Reid thinks that 50 states of Obamacare cancellations, raised premiums, cut workers’ hours, fines and computer headaches are all lies.

» Read more

Obamacare worked so well some Senators want to do the same for the real estate industry.

Obamacare worked so well some Senators want to do the same thing for the real estate industry.

Top Senate Banking Committee members released plans this week to wind down mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and replace them with a complicated apparatus disturbingly similar to Obamacare. While the proposal by Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD), the chairman, and Mike Crapo (R-ID), the ranking member, was announced with great fanfare, it simply follows the outlines of another bipartisan bill, offered last year by Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Mark Warner (D-VA). The idea is to get rid of the two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that provide mortgage financing today for most American homes and replace them with a system of private lending with securities explicitly backed by the federal government.

In going through contortions to reinvent the housing finance system, the senators have avoided the obvious solution: keep the basic platform that has generally served American homeowners well but reform it to reduce risks. Instead, Johnson and the others have come up with a contraption that resembles the Affordable Care Act in its convolutions and its potential for unintended consequences.

“There’s no compassion in the Affordable Care Act.”

“There’s no compassion in the Affordable Care Act.”

From a pastor who has discovered at the last moment that the insurance under Obamacare did not cover his life-saving chemo treatments, putting him $50,000 in debt.

But since we know that this pastor is lying, according to Harry Reid, he must be ignored.

And then there’s this liar: Obamacare leaves Las Vegas man owing $407,000 in doctor bills.

What is Harry Reid going to do with all these liars hanging around making up stories about Obamacare?

One liberal pundit proposes that Democrats embrace Obamacare in the coming election campaign.

One liberal pundit proposes that Democrats embrace Obamacare in the coming election campaign.

Here’s a heretical idea. Rather than parsing the individual elements of the law, and trying to persuade voters on an à la carte basis, what about raising the stakes and defending the reform in its entirety as a historic effort to provide affordable health-care coverage to tens of millions of hard-working Americans who otherwise couldn’t afford it? Instead of shying away from the populist and redistributionist essence of the reform, which the White House and many Democrats in Congress have been doing since the start, it’s time to embrace it.

I hope they do it. For one thing, it would be refreshing to see Democrats actually campaigning honestly for once on what they actually believe in! For another, they would get creamed, because their fantasies about how wonderful Obamacare is have nothing to do with the horrible reality being experienced right now by millions of Americans.

A Health and Human Services official has resigned in disgust from his job monitoring research misconduct because of his frustration with the federal bureaucracy.

A Health and Human Services (HHS) official has resigned in disgust from his job monitoring research misconduct because of his frustration with the federal bureaucracy.

His resignation letter is brutal.

“[M]y role as ORI Director has been the very worst job I have ever had and it occupies up to 65% of my time,” he wrote. ”That part of the job is spent navigating the remarkably dysfunctional HHS bureaucracy to secure resources and, yes, get permission for ORI to serve the research community. I knew coming into this job about the bureaucratic limitations of the federal government, but I had no idea how stifling it would be.” According to Wright, activities that in his capacity as an academic administrator that took a day or two, took weeks and months in the federal government.

He then recounts some examples, such the inability to get approval to spend $35 and the inability to hire someone because there was “a secret priority list.”

But hey, don’t worry, we know that HHS will do so much better running the healthcare industry.

A major union charges in a new report that Obamacare will reduce wages, cut hours, and limit access to health insurance for the lower middle class.

Finding out what’s in it: A major union charges in a new report that Obamacare will reduce wages, cut hours, and limit access to health insurance for the lower middle class.

Union head Donald “D.” Taylor, in a note also being sent to Congress, demands changes and admits to being reluctant to bash a president his union supported. “Believe me; I enter this entire debate about the consequences of the ACA with a deep reluctance,” he wrote. “Unite Here was the first union to endorse then-Senator Obama. We support the addition of health care to millions of Americans. Yet facts are facts, and Obamacare will cost our members the equivalent of a significant pay cut to keep their hard-won benefits.”

In other words, he is a blind partisan fool. His partisanship is so strong that even now he is reluctant to attack the President or the Democrats for creating and forcing Obamacare on us. He also is so partisan that when they were writing the bill he accepted blindly what they were telling him and thus didn’t bother to read the law himself. Then again, he really didn’t have to read it, all he really had to do was listen to just a handful of conservative thinkers who were saying then that Obamacare would “reduce wages, cut hours, and limit access to health insurance.”

The most shameful part of this whole thing is that come the next election, this union chief and his union will almost certainly still back the Democrats blindly.

Connecticut seniors are in an uproar because their AARP health insurance plan was forced to sever ties with their hospital and doctors because of Obamacare.

Finding out what’s not in it: Connecticut seniors are in an uproar because their AARP health insurance plan was forced to sever ties with their hospital and doctors because of Obamacare.

AARP was a big supporter of Obamacare. A majority of these blue-state seniors probably voted for Obama as well.I wonder if they will now wake up and change their support now, or remain blind followers of a disastrous policy.

According to two surveys a large majority of the previously uninsured are uninterested in signing up for Obamacare.

Finding out what’s in it: According to two surveys a large majority of the previously uninsured are uninterested in signing up for Obamacare.

You can read one of the surveys here.

The main reason they are rejecting Obamacare is cost or “affordability challenges,” as the report so euphemistically call it. (See page 5 on the second link above). The simple fact is that the reason most of these people didn’t have health insurance before is because it didn’t make economic sense for them to buy it. Most are probably young and don’t need to visit a doctor very often. Why pay for insurance in that case? And since Obamacare has significantly raised the cost of insurance, these people have even less economic reason now to sign up.

Thousands of union workers in Las Vegas might go on strike because of the increased costs of healthcare, imposed on them by Obamacare.

Finding out what’s in it: Thousands of union workers in Las Vegas might go on strike because of the increased costs of healthcare, imposed on them by Obamacare.

On Feb. 20, thousands of housekeepers, porters, cooks, cocktail servers, and others represented by Nevada’s largest union, the Culinary Union Local 226, voted to end a contract extension the workers agreed to last summer. The union wants to maintain its current benefits — including health care coverage at no cost to workers, pensions, and guaranteed 40-hour workweeks.

Rising health care costs due to provisions in the Affordable Care Act could put those benefits in jeopardy, the union says.

I bet that most of these workers voted for Obama and Harry Reid. I also bet that most of them will continue to do so, despite the obvious policy failures imposed on them by these Democratic politicians.

After six months of trying and failing to cancel an unwanted Obamacare health insurance plan, a Florida man is now considering shutting his bank account to prevent the plan from automatically withdrawing money from his account.

Finding out what’s in it: After six months of trying and failing to cancel an unwanted Obamacare health insurance plan, a Florida man is now considering shutting his bank account to prevent the plan from automatically withdrawing money from his account.

Remember, the Democrats in Congress and President Obama refused to negotiate any changes to Obamacare in October, thereby forcing the government shutdown. They also were the only ones to vote for Obamacare. These facts must not be forgotten come November.

Harry Reid insists that “all” of the Obamacare horror stories “are untrue.”

Modern American intellectualism: Harry Reid insists in a speech on the Senate floor that the Obamacare horror stories being reported daily “are all untrue.”

He then attacks the sick patients themselves for telling these stories, calling them liars.

I call this modern American intellectualism because it jibs with the typical level of open-mindedness seen in modern intellectuals when it comes to climate science and any data that throws doubt on the theory of global warming.

A district that the Democrats won by a big margin in 2013 voted as strongly for a Republican in a special local election on Monday.

I wonder if this means anything: A district that the Democrats won by a big margin in 2013 voted big for a Republican in a special local election on Monday.

The Democrat in this district loudly ran in support of Obamacare. He not only lost bad, the Republican came with a hair of winning the most liberal urban areas in Norfolk City.

A report released by the Obama administration on Monday estimates that health insurance premiums for small and medium business will rise significantly in 2014 because of Obamacare.

Finding out what’s in it: A report released by the Obama administration on Monday estimates that health insurance premiums for small and medium business will rise significantly in 2014 because of Obamacare.

The report claims that about one third of these businesses will see a decrease in cost, but the article points out that this is likely a very big overstatement and that the increases will likely be much higher than predicted. Based on history, we have every reason to believe this pessimistic prediction and dismiss the hopeful prediction of the Obama administration.

A Democratic Congressmen threatens the loss of the FCC license of television stations which air an ad criticizing his vote in favor of Obamacare.

Leftwing fascism: A Democratic Congressmen threatens the loss of the FCC license of television stations which air an ad criticizing his vote in favor of Obamacare.

Then Rep. Gary Peters, who is the running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, went all-in Friday, having his lawyers send a letter to a Michigan television station citing the Post in demanding that AFP provide more evidence that Obamacare is as terrible as it really is. Mr. Peters’ lawyers wrote that “Unlike federal candidates, independent political organizations” — and by extension, Ms. Boonstra — don’t have a “right to command use of broadcast facilities.” They clinched with a threat that airing the ad could “be cause for the loss of a station’s license.”

More here.

Other that supporting a law that is causing great anxiety and pain and financial loss to millions of innocent Americans, now this Democrat is also out to squelch freedom of speech. What’s not to like?

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