Even if you liked your plan, Obamacare will pick a plan for you

Finding out what’s in it: In order to prevent Obamacare enrolless from experiencing the rate hikes expected when they automatically renew their 2014 plans for 2015, the Obama administration is proposing that it instead choose cheaper plans for those that automatically renew, even if that new plan will change the available doctors and hospitals in their network.

So, you decide that the plan you had in 2014 was worth keeping in 2015 and thus allow that plan to automatically renew rather than spend another week trying to struggle through the badly designed and hack-prone Obamacare website. When you visit your doctor however you then discover that you actually didn’t renew that plan, the Obama administration picked a different plan for you, and your doctor is no longer a participant in your plan. You have to change doctors!

Isn’t wonderful how much the Obama administration cares?

The long working relationship between Obama and Gruber

Just in case you happen to see a press conference or speech in the next few weeks where you see Barack Obama denying knowing or ever working with Jon Gruber — the man who has been called the architect of Obamacare and of whom numerous videos have now been discovered where he contemptuously describes Americans as “stupid” while explaining how the Obama administration deliberately lied to get the law passed — watch this video below from a 2006 event.

Obama is simply a bald-faced liar in almost everything he does. Don’t be fooled by him anymore. He is dangerous, untrustworthy, and should no longer be supported by anyone, from the left or the right or by Republicans or Democrats.

Obamacare is forcing the closure of small rural hospitals nationwide

Finding out what’s in it: The regulations imposed by Obamacare have raised costs so much that dozens of small rural hospitals, generally serving poorer communities, have been forced to close.

Since the beginning of 2010, 43 rural hospitals — with a total of more than 1,500 beds — have closed, according to data from the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. The pace of closures has quickened: from 3 in 2010 to 13 in 2013, and 12 already this year. Georgia alone has lost five rural hospitals since 2012, and at least six more are teetering on the brink of collapse. Each of the state’s closed hospitals served about 10,000 people — a lot for remaining area hospitals to absorb.

The Affordable Care Act was designed to improve access to health care for all Americans and will give them another chance at getting health insurance during open enrollment starting this Saturday. But critics say the ACA is also accelerating the demise of rural outposts that cater to many of society’s most vulnerable. These hospitals treat some of the sickest and poorest patients — those least aware of how to stay healthy. Hospital officials contend that the law’s penalties for having to re-admit patients soon after they’re released are impossible to avoid and create a crushing burden.

The article also describes how the high cost converting all hospital records from paper to electronic, something that Obamacare requires, is also forcing the shut down of these hospitals.

More than 200 colleges slash work hours to avoid Obamacare

Finding out what’s in it: More than 200 colleges have capped student and faculty work hours below 30 hours per week to avoid the costs of Obamacare.

Those who have seen their paychecks shrink as a result of the Affordable Care Act include students who work on campus at restaurants, bookstores or gyms, teaching assistants, Residence Advisers, officer workers, student journalists, and a variety of other workers, such as part-time maintenance crews and groundskeepers. Educators’ work hours have also been cut due to the mandate, including part-time instructors and adjunct professors.

I guarantee that 70% or more of these individuals voted for Obama and the Democrats, as the political beliefs of the academic population is almost all partisan liberal. I wonder if they now have the intellectual honesty to assign blame for their woes to Obama and the Democrats .

More penalties from Obamacare

Finding out what’s in it: The Obamacare penalty for not having health insurance is about to triple.

Uninsured Americans who decide not to enroll will face a penalty of $325 per person, more than tripling the $95 penalty those who did not enroll had to pay the first time around. Children under the age of 18 will be fined $162.50. The maximum amount an uninsured family will be penalized is $975 under the flat-rate method. “The penalty is meant to incentivize people to get coverage,” Laura Adams, senior analyst of InsuranceQuotes.com, told CBS News. “This year, I think a lot of people are going to be in for a shock.”

Nor is this the end. According to how the law was written, the penalties will continue to rise in the coming years. Just in time for the next election in fact!

When the law first passed I had said that Obamacare was going to be an election millstone around the necks of Democrats for years, and that is definitely turning out to be true. Expect more Democratic election losses in future elections, unless they change course and join the Republicans in getting this law repealed.

A third video of Obamacare’s creator found, insulting Americans

Finding out who wrote it: A third video of Obamacare’s architect, Jonathan Gruber, has been discovered in which he bluntly insults the American public.

“It’s a very clever, you know, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter,” Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said during a speech at the University of Rhode Island in November 2012. He was discussing what is known as the Cadillac tax and how it came into being.

Video has also been found where Gruber saying, “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass.” Other video shows him saying “the American people are too stupid to understand the difference” between various components of Obamacare.

Obamacare enrollments far below government predictions

Finding out what’s in it: The Obama administration admitted today that enrollments in Obamacare in 2015 will be 30 percent below their initial predictions.

Federal officials on Monday sought to lower expectations for upcoming enrollment in Obamacare, announcing that they now believe that only between 9 million and 9.9 million people will be enrolled in Affordable Care Act health insurance plans by the end of 2015. That is well below the 13 million people that the Congressional Budget Office has projected for Obamacare enrollment by the end of 2015. Open enrollment for 2015 plans resumes Saturday.
The new projection, more than 30 percent reduced from the CBO estimate, comes from the Health and Human Services Department, which oversees the Obamacare health reform program.

HHS also said it now appears that it will take longer—perhaps quite a bit longer—than 2017 to reach a “steady state” of 25 million Obamacare enrollees that CBO had been projecting for 2017 enrollment. The reduced projection is due to recent data showing “mixed evidence” about how quickly—and how dramatically—people will shift from employer-sponsored health insurance and non-Obamacare plans into insurance plans sold on government-run marketplaces such as HealthCare.gov, according to HHS. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted sentence once again illustrates how blatantly Obama was lying when he said, “If you like your plan you keep your plain. Period.” The goal was always to force people from the plans they had to government-run healthcare.

Speaking of lies, video from 2013 of the man who designed Obamacare for Obama shows that the Democrats knew they were lying when they described Obamacare in 2009 and 2010, and that they were doing so because they consider the American people “stupid.”

Of course, this story should surprise no one. Lying to the public has been the Democratic/leftwing method of operations since Bill Clinton arrived on the political scene. In fact, it amazes me that anyone is surprised by this.

A simple but powerful strategy for Congress against Obama

I’ve read a lot of analysis offering many ideas on what the Republican Congress should do to combat Obama in the next two years, but the best proposal I’ve read yet was posted as a comment to this website earlier today by mpthompson:

The best thing the Republicans can do would be to craft small, simple pieces of legislation that have the broad support of the American people (hmmmm,hmmmm border enforcement) and dare the Obama to veto. Do this week after week until it’s drilled into the electorates heads as to who is really the obstructionist.

Regarding Obamacare. Craft a one page amendment to the law that removes the mandate so that people can choose for themselves whether they want to participate (a pro-choice amendment so to speak). Then another amendment that removes the restrictions on they type of coverage a company can offer (another pro-choice amendment). Then let the public see the Dems for the big-government fascist they are.

There are a host of proposals that could fit this strategy. In addition to the ones suggested above, what about the approving the Keystone pipeline, cancelling the Obamacare medical tax, limiting the abuses of the IRS, limiting Obama’s travel expenses, and punishing the National Park Service for its partisan administration of the law during the Occupy movement and the government shutdown.

I am sure that my readers could think of many many more.

Update: It appears that the new Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), might be planning to follow this strategy, at least when it comes to Obamacare.

Cheap alternatives to Obamacare on the rise

Finding out what’s in it: The purchase of short-term health plans outside of Obamacare is sky-rocketing as citizens scramble to avoid the law’s high costs.

A fast-growing, short-term alternative to ObamaCare that allows customers to get cheap, one-year policies could put the government-subsidized plan into a death spiral. The plans, the only ones allowed for sale outside of ObamaCare exchanges, generally cost less than half of what similar ObamaCare policies cost, and are increasing in popularity as uninsured Americans learn they are required to get health coverage. The catch — that the policies only last for a year — is not much of a deterrent, given that customers can always sign up for ObamaCare if their short-term coverage is not renewed.

“Applications rose 30 percent compared to last year,” eHealthInsurance.com Enrollment Specialist Carrie McLean told FoxNews.com. Other providers said they also see rapid growth in the plans, which have a typical monthly premium of just over $100, compared to traditional plans that cost an average of $271.

The irony here is that when Obamacare caused the cancellation of hundreds of thousands if not millions of health plans that people liked, wanted, and could afford, Obama and the Democrats claimed that those plans were cheap and bad plans that those people shouldn’t have liked or purchased in the first place. The Democrats knew better, and because they cared, they passed Obamacare to force everyone off those plans. Now, because Obamacare plans are so expensive many simply can’t afford them, people are buying these short-term health plans, which are exactly like the kind of garbage health plans that the Democrats claimed Obamacare had eliminated.

Thank you Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. Your wisdom knows no bounds!

Note also that when government creates a situation where needed products or goods are no longer affordable, some form of black market in those products or goods is going to appear, no matter what. This is an example of that.

Doctors flee Obamacare

Finding out what’s in it: Because of low reimbursements, complex paperwork and regulations, and requirement that doctors treat patients even if they don’t pay for treatment, almost a quarter of a million doctors have opted out of Obamacare.

Remember, it was the Democratic Party and Barack Obama that gave us Obamacare, and only them. They got no help from anyone else, and actually were not interested in anyone else’s advice. They knew better, and the result has been this disaster. Remember this on election day.

Obamacare forces actors’ union to drop older members from healthplan

Finding out what’s in it: Actors’ Equity Association, the union for stage actors, is dumping its older members from its health insurance plan because of the rising costs of Obamacare.

I guarantee to you that more than 80 percent of the members of this union voted for Obama and support Democratic policies blindly. Now those policies are blind-siding them cruelly, as this quote from the article demonstrates:

“They keep saying there’s a comparable Obamacare option, but there’s not,” one actor said. “I won’t be able to afford to go to [my doctor] anymore.”

Will these liberal actors change their votes? I am pessimistic. From the late seventies to the mid-nineties I worked in the movie industry, and during that time I observed a strong hostility and close-mindedness among this community for any political ideas not labeled “Democratic.” They are the most partisan people I have ever met, and will probably carry that partisanship to their graves — which is likely to happen sooner now that Obamacare is there to “help” them.

Obamacare website easy to hack

It appears the wrong people can find out what’s in it: The Obamacare website, which has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions if not a billion dollars (depending on who you ask), turns out to be very easy to hack.

The website requires those enrolling for ObamaCare to supply their first and last name, home address, social security number and paying information — including credit card data. Lamar Smith, chair of the committee looking after the security of the website, said there had been hearings on the “lack of security” around the website. He told Fox News: “What we”ve discovered is that it seems to be easy to be hacked, the security is not secure.

It appears the site was hacked on July 8 but the hack wasn’t discovered until August 25. That gave the hackers almost two months to rummage through the personal files of Americans. How nice.

Obamacare causes AIDS drug prices to skyrocket

Finding out what’s in it: Because Obamacare has forced AIDS patients off their old health plans, their cost for drugs has skyrocketed.

I wonder how many of these patients, most of whom are gay and thus mostly liberal and supporters of the Democratic Party, will continue to vote Democratic. I wonder if they will finally begin to connect the dots, and realize that their loyalty to the Democratic Party might literally be killing them.

Heath insurance premiums skyrocketed because of Obamacare

Finding out what’s in it: A new study has confirmed that Obamacare caused dramatic cost increases in health insurance premiums in 2014.

Read the article. Its facts are indisputable and quite depressing. Obamacare is destroying the health insurance industry, which in turn will eventually destroy the health care industry.

Why anyone would vote for the people that gave us this law is beyond my comprehension. Unfortunately, millions are going to, and based on my analysis of the trends of recent polls, the Republicans might get a majority in the Senate but just barely. In a sane world (as used to happen in the past), this would instead have been a landslide election, the voters kicking the Democrats out of power and thus forcing that party to clean house and find better people to run as their candidates.

Sadly, too many Americans instead seem to be as disconnected from reality as their leaders, and increasingly choose party over reality and bankruptcy over competence when they vote.

55,000 Connecticut citizens to lose their health plans

Finding out what’s in it: Because of Obamacare, tens of thousands in Connecticut are expected to lose their health plans this year.

For about the past week or so, health insurance broker Stephen Hunt has been getting phone calls from unhappy clients. “They just keep building up and up and up and up and up,” Hunt said.

The calls are coming from clients who have been notified by their insurer that their policy expires at year’s end and most will have to purchase plans with much higher premiums and much higher deductibles, he said. “We’re not talking about a minor difference in premium. We’re talking about a mortgage payment difference in premium for a lot of people,” Hunt said.

How can this be? Obama and the Democratic Party promised us that under Obamacare, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. Period.” They couldn’t have been so stupid as to propose a law that would do exactly the opposite of what they promised, could they? They wouldn’t lie, would they?

Democrats oppose an ebola travel ban

Incompetence: Congressional Democrats have expressed strong opposition to any travel bans from ebola infected countries.

Remember, these are the same people who conceived, wrote, and passed Obamacare, without really reading it or even considering the concerns expressed by many people about the law (all of which have turned out to be true). Thus, it is not surprising they don’t have the brains now to recognize that a quarantine is exactly the right approach to handle ebola at this time, We have a very infectious disease that hasn’t yet broken out into the general populace which we can still keep confined to a small area, where we can more effectively fight it. A quarantine, enforced by a travel ban, will accomplish this.

But these Democrats care! So what they don’t have the ability to think? Let’s vote for them again!

40 to 63% increases in heath insurance premiums in Minnesota

Finding out what’s in it: The health insurance premiums for one major Minnesota health insurance company are expected to increase by 40 to 63 percent in 2015.

The insurer started informing brokers Tuesday about rates for individuals if they renew coverage with the company for next year, said Heidi Michaels, an agent with the Dyste Williams agency in Minneapolis. In the half dozen consumer scenarios she’s looked at, Michaels said she’s consistently seeing premium jumps in the neighborhood of 40 percent to 60 percent. Her analysis, however, did not take into account significant discounts that consumers could see by way of federal tax credits, depending on their income. “They’re going to get substantial rate increases,” Michaels said in an interview Wednesday. “I haven’t seen one below 40 percent.”

Letters with these rate increases will go out the end of October, just before election day. (The company has pulled out of the government exchange, which means they don’t have to keep their rates secret until after the election, as required by the Obama administration, the most transparent in history!)

However, these rate increases indicate strongly how high the rate increases will be across the board. They are going to be ungodly high, possibly so high no one will be able to afford them.

The silent Obamacare protest of doctors

Faced with Obamacare’s high costs and deadening bureaucracy, doctors are finding ways to opt out.

Physicians across the country are responding to this evolution — most recently in response to the Affordable Care Act — by shielding their practices from government interference. This comes in many forms: Rejecting new Medicare and Medicaid patients, transitioning to third-party-free practices and ditching small private practices for employed positions with ever-larger hospital-owned networks.

Incompetence is incompetence, and if you are so stupid as to write an unworkable law that conservatives rightly predicted would do exactly the opposite of what you want — raise costs instead of lowering them, shrink health coverage instead of widening it, corrupt health care instead of improving it — than no one should be surprised if you exhibit incompetence in other areas as well. For example, the incompetence demonstrated by President Obama and the Democratic Party by imposing Obamacare on us is now being illustrated again in how Obama is handling the arrival of ebola on American shores: badly, foolishly, and with nothing but failure as a result.

1 in 4 Americans can no longer afford to see their doctor

Finding out what’s in it: Because of the high cost and high deductibles of Obamacare-mandated health insurance plans, 25% of Americans now believe they can no longer afford healthcare.

That any of these Americans are even considering voting Democratic in any future election is shameful. They conceived it, they wrote it, and then they shoved it down our throats, in one of the most partisan maneuvers ever seen in these United States. Until the Democratic party moves to fix the problems caused by this monstrous law — mostly by repealing it — they do not deserve the support of anyone.

The Obamacare trifecta

A very detailed and accurate description of the disaster that is Obamacare. Key sentence:

Over the next couple of years, I will lose my doctor, I will lose my plan and my healthcare costs will increase.

Read it all, and remember that this disaster is coming to all of us in the coming years. Note also that just because the Obama administration is delaying the release of next year’s ballooning health insurance premiums until just after the election does not require us to be stupid and to make believe these increases aren’t going to happen. They are, because the design of Obamacare rations treatment, imposes unneeded costs on everyone, and stifles the free market (which is the best tool for keeping costs down).

And then there’s this: “Grim milestone: Semi-retired president plays 200th round of golf in office.”

Obamacare forces 13 states to cancel insurance plans

Finding out what’s in it: Thirteen states plus the District of Columbia are expected to force the cancellation of hundreds of thousands of health care policies just before the November elections because they are not in compliance with ObamaCare.

In coming weeks, 13 states and the District of Columbia plan to cancel such policies, which generally fall out of compliance with the Affordable Care Act because they don’t offer the level of coverage the law requires. Virginia will be hardest hit, with 250,000 policies expected to be canceled. And because federal law requires a 60-day notice of any plan changes, voters will be notified no later than November 1, right before the Nov. 4 midterms.Many of those forced out of their current plans and into ObamaCare may not be able to keep their doctors. They also could face higher deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses, making ObamaCare an election issue on the eve of voting.

But we all know none of this is possible because Obama promised us multiple times that “If you like your plan you get to keep your plan. Period.” And everything Obama and every Democrat says is always true!

IRS begins an audit of an anti-Obamacare filmmaker

Working for the Democratic Party: The IRS has begun an audit of an anti-Obamacare filmmaker, even as it proceeds with audits of other consevatives.

Logan Clements, producer of “Sick and Sicker: ObamaCare Canadian Style,” announced via press release Tuesday that he is being audited for the first time ever. The news comes one month after the conservative Breitbart News announced that it, too, was being audited and that the action was probably politically motivated. Mr. Clements‘ movie makes the case that Obamacare will eventually lead to socialized medicine like Canada.

Remember, Obama claimed there wasn’t a “smidgeon of corruption” surrounding the IRS. And of course, we all believe everything this Democratic politician says!

More health insurance cancellations due to Obamacare

Finding out what’s in it: A new report says that 50,000 people in seven states will have their health insurance plans cancelled in the next month.

This of course is only a small sampling. The disastrous ramifications of Obamacare have only just started.

I wonder if Obama has found out about this. Usually he has to read a newspaper to find out what happens in his administration, and this story is just breaking now.

Another court rules against Obamacare subsidies

Another federal court has ruled against an IRS decision to allow Obamacare subsidies in states with federal Obamacare exchanges.

This means that anyone who gets Obamacare using the federal exchange because their state did not set up its own exchange will not be legible for subsidies.

The court was also bluntly critical of the liberal judges who had written dissents trying to defend the IRS ruling, noting that

The role of this Court is to apply the statute as it is written – even if we think some other approach might ‘accor[d] with good policy.’” [Quoting a number of other decisions:] (“This Court has no roving license, in even ordinary cases of statutory interpretation, to disregard clear language simply on the view that . . . Congress ‘must have intended’ something broader.”) (“The power of executing the laws necessarily includes both authority and responsibility to resolve some questions left open by Congress that arise during the law’s administration. But it does not include a power to revise clear statutory terms that turn out not to work in practice.”).

This badly written law, forced down our throats by Obama and the Democratic Party, is going to do significant harm to many people now, because they will not get subsidies for their health insurance and the law itself forces the price for that health insurance to skyrocket to prices they cannot afford.

All the more reason to vote for Democrats in November, not because they have any brains or have demonstrated even the slightest ability to write laws, but merely because they care! All that other stuff is irrelevant!

Obamacare enrollment plunges

Finding out what’s in it: At congressional hearings yesterday health insurance experts described how the numbers of people actually enrolled and paying for Obamacare is dropping.

“They’ve deteriorated quite a bit, this was anticipated to some degree, but I think it’s exceeded expectations in some cases,” said Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. For instance, state officials in Florida say their enrollments are now 220,000 lower than the administration’s count in April, going from some 983,000 to just over 762,000, a drop of more than 20 percent. A state official said some may have been duplicate enrollments because of website problems on Healthcare.gov. The others, he said, just didn’t pay their premiums and lost their coverage, a problem insurance companies are also reporting.

Robert Laszewski, of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, said, “I’ve talked to a number of insurance companies around the industry and they’re indicating that they’re down as low as 70 percent of the original enrollments they had.”

We must remember that the original announced numbers were far lower than had been hoped for to begin with. Now we are finding that even those who did enroll decided at some point that the coverage imposed on them by the law wasn’t worth the money and stopped paying for it.

But the Democrats care. They want to help. So what they their efforts are at best ineffectual and at worst destructive. We’ve got to vote for them anyway!

Obamacare forces Alaskan doctors to close their practices.

Finding out what’s in it: “It is an unsustainable system.”

“Within the last month, Fairbanks has lost three other much respected physicians for the same or similar reasons,” Dr. Wennen wrote. ”I am not the first and certainly will not be the last of the exodus of physicians from active practice because of all of this.” Dr. Wennen is far from alone in his stark opposition to the health-care law. A recent survey from the Physicians Foundation found that 46 percent of doctors in the U.S. would give Obamacare a “D” or an “F,” the Washington Examiner reported.

But the Democrats care. They want to help. They aren’t mean like those Republicans and tea party conservatives, who simply predicted that these kinds of disasters would happen if Obamacare was passed.

The disasters are happening, and the people to blame for it are the Democrats in Congress and in the White House that pushed this monstrous law through without any negotiation or discussion. Think about that when you vote in November.

Obamacare to cut tax refunds in April

Finding out what’s in it: After comparing the annual income and the amount of health credits received, the IRS is expected to take the tax refunds from a significant number of Americans who it determines received an overpayment of credits.

Your solution? You have to be able to predict with complete accuracy exactly how much you will earn. This of course is impossible for people like me, who is a freelancer, or for owners of businesses that depend upon sales to determine their income. Such people haven’t the slightest idea what their income will be from year to year.

Also, if you read the article above I dare you to then tell me Obamacare hasn’t made everyone’s lives more complicated. Just trying to figure out what this whole issue is about glazes the mind. Trying to figure out how to avoid a mine buried in Obamacare itself is practically impossible.

But remember, the Democrats and Obama care. That’s all that matters, even if that caring bankrupts us all.

Ohio teachers threaten strike because they are being switched to Obamacare

Finding out what’s in it: Teachers in Reynoldsburg, Ohio have announced that they will go on strike rather than accept a school contract offer that takes them off employer health insurance and forces them onto Obamacare.

The school board says it wants to give cash payments to teachers to buy their own health insurance on the “new state insurance market.” Ohio did not set up a state exchange which means teachers would need to purchase their insurance through the federal exchange under this plan.

That federal exchange is Obamacare.

The comments at the link are entertaining, as they all recognize the irony of this story: These teachers and this union almost certainly supported Obamacare and Obama. They did it brainlessly, for partisan reasons, without considering for one second the real life consequences of the law their Democratic lords were writing and passing, consequences that conservatives desperately tried to explain to them. Now they have to live with it, and they don’t like it.

The sad part of this, however, is that you can safely rely on them to still vote Democrat in the next election. If you are brainless once, what will make you have a brain later?

The disaster and ensuing coverup of the Obamacare website

New reports reveal significant corruption in the Obama administration’s botched effort to create the Obamacare website.

The Government Office of Accountability released a report earlier this week detailing the security flaws in the site, but a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released yesterday is even more damning. Titled, “Behind the Curtain of the HealthCare.gov Rollout,” the report fingers the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversaw the development of the site, and its parent Department of Health and Human Services.

“Officials at CMS and HHS refused to admit to the public that the website was not on track to launch without significant functionality problems and substantial security risks,” the report says. “There is also evidence that the Administration, to this day, is continuing its efforts to shield ongoing problems with the website from public view.” Emphasis mine]

The evidence includes emails that show Obamacare officials more interested in keeping their problems from leaking to the press than working to fix them. To me, that demonstrates both a coverup and incompetence.

But hey, this must all be the fault of George Bush! We have got to vote Democratic so that they can do more of this for us!

1 4 5 6 7 8 30