Finding out what’s in it: As happened last year, the premiums health insurance companies charge will go up as much as 51%, as declared in the twelve states where next year’s premiums have been proposed.
Obviously this is all the fault of the Republicans for not supporting Obamacare. The Democrats and Obama were helpless because of this opposition, forced to write the law all by themselves and then shove it down our throats.
Finding out what’s in it: Nearly half of the Obamacare exchanges that were set up by state governments are in financial trouble.
Many of the online exchanges are wrestling with surging costs, especially for balky technology and expensive customer-call centers — and tepid enrollment numbers. To ease the fiscal distress, officials are considering raising fees on insurers, sharing costs with other states and pressing state lawmakers for cash infusions. Some are weighing turning over part or all of their troubled marketplaces to the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, which is now working smoothly.
Note how the only solution suggested is to raise fees, which will end up raising the costs for consumers. These exchanges cost billions to set up, and even now do not have enough money to work right? I am not surprised, as they are a government monopoly, just like the entire Obamacare law, with no competition or incentive to do better. The result is increased cost of medical treatment, with no benefits for anyone.
Finding out what’s in it: Two thirds of taxpayers have had to repay a significant portion of the subsidies they received through Obamacare this year when it came time to do their taxes.
And it ain’t gonna get better, only worse.
But don’t worry, it is really the Republicans’ fault for not writing or voting or even conceiving of this Democratic Party law. The Democrats are perfectly innocent of any blame at all for writing it, forcing it through (against the wishes of a majority of the population), and doing so without even reading the damn bill in the first place. If we vote for more Democrats and more laws like this, things have just got to get better!
The law is such an inconvenient thing: The Supreme Court has thrown out another lower court decision that had favored the Obama administrations’ Obamacare contraceptive mandate imposed on Catholic businesses.
What is telling about this is that the Obama administration keeps fighting these cases, even though it is very clear from all its rulings that the Supreme Court has rejected the mandate as hostile to religious freedom. What they should do is sue the court for dismissal and stop trying to impose the mandate in all cases. But they don’t. This is not only a waste of resources, it indicates that Obama and his administration really don’t wish to follow the court rulings, and instead want to impose their will regardless. By fighting this case by case, they are hoping to wear down the religious.
In essence, the Obama administration is thus reveals itself hostile to the law itself.
Finding out what’s in it: A survey of businesses has found that employers have reduced employee work hours significantly to avoid Obamacare.
A new survey by the Society of Human Resource Management released Tuesday found about 14 percent of businesses have reduced part-time hours and another 6 percent plan to do so. Employers are reducing hours to avoid Obamacare’s employer mandate, which requires companies to provide health insurance to all workers that work 30 or more hours a week. In addition, 5 percent of companies already reduced or plan to reduce the total number of employees.
Believe me, this is only the start. Essentially, Obamacare makes it difficult if not impossible to make a profit.
Finding out what’s in it: A group of Democratic senators, all supporters of Obamacare, are now begging Obama to delay implementation of one aspect of the law they wrote and voted for.
In a letter exclusively obtained by The Daily Caller, Senate Democrats pleaded with Health and Human Services secretary Sylvia Matthews Burwell to delay an Obamacare rule change that puts companies with 51 to 100 employees in the costlier “small group” market instead of the “large group” market. The rule change, which will result in higher premiums for many companies, goes into effect in 2016. The letter was signed by Democratic Sens. Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Chris Coons, Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly and Jon Tester and independent Sen. Angus King, who caucuses with the Democrats.
Some of these Democrats were not in Congress when the law passed, but since then they have all voted against all Republican proposals to change or repeal the law, including proposals that wanted to do this very thing.
But they are Democrats! They are so very smart! And they care! It must be Bush’s fault Obamacare was passed!
Finding out what’s in it: Obamacare is costing small businesses thousands of dollars to fulfill its complex regulations that they didn’t have to spend beforehand.
The Affordable Care Act, which as of next Jan. 1 applies to all companies with 50 or more workers, requires owners to track staffers’ hours, absences and how much they spend on health insurance. Many small businesses don’t have the human resources departments or computer systems that large companies have, making it harder to handle the paperwork. On average, complying with the law costs small businesses more than $15,000 a year, according to a survey released a year ago by the National Small Business Association. “It’s a horrible hassle,” says Mete, managing partner of the Miami-based company.
And how are these small businesses paying for this? Either they have to raise prices, so that you the customer pay, or they
cut back on workers’ bonuses and raises. “[The employees] understand it didn’t emanate from us,” Patton says. “They’re just disappointed that $25,000 could have gone into a bonus pool.”
Obviously, it is Bush’s fault that this is happening! Who would dream of blaming the Democrats and Obama, even though they wrote this law and were the only ones who voted for it? If Bush hadn’t been President, they would never have done it! In fact, I am sure it is Reagan’s fault also!
Finding out what’s in it: A new CBO report has revealed that Obamacare will add $1.35 trillion to the federal government’s debt over the next decade.
Anyone want to bet me against me when I say that I have no doubt that this is an understatement? Also, the link above makes sure to include this juicy quote from President Obama, made in 2009 while he was selling Obamacare:
First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future. I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period. And to prove that I’m serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don’t materialize.
It seems that whenever Obama uses the word “period” to emphasize his position, he is signalling to everyone that either he hasn’t the faintest idea what he is talking about, or he is a bald-faced liar. Personally, I think it is both.
The law is such an inconvenient thing: The Supreme Court has thrown out a lower court ruling that had favored the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate under Obamacare.
What this ruling essentially does is announce to the courts, and the nation, that its decision in the Hobby Lobby case — where it was ruled that the mandate was unconstitutional and that the administration could not force Hobby Lobby to buy contraceptives for its employees — applies nationwide to all companies.
Finding out what’s in it: For the first time in 15 years, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina will lose money in 2015 due to Obamacare.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the state’s largest health insurer, said Friday that it posted its first financial loss in 15 years as a result of insuring high numbers of older and sicker people under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Chapel Hill organization signed up 257,704 people under the federal health care law, which requires insurers to provide coverage regardless of a customer’s health condition. New enrollees last year swelled Blue Cross’s covered membership to 3.91 million people, and boosted revenue by 25 percent to an all-time high of $8 billion.
But steep medical claims – for hip and knee replacements, heart procedures, specialty drugs and other costs – drove up medical claims from $5 billion in 2013 to $6.4 billion in 2014. Blue Cross also paid $156 million in ACA-related fees, a new cost for the company.
Federal subsidies under Obamacare are supposed to cover these loses, but then we must ask where is the bankrupt federal government going to get this money? In the end, someone is going to go bankrupt and we will all be worse off.
Finding out what’s in it: An H&R report has found that more than half of the poorest Obamacare enrollees face a tax liability of around $500 at tax time.
The report also found that the Obamacare penalty for not having insurance is now averaging about $172. This number however will go up in future years as the full penalty is phased in.
But isn’t Obamacare the “Affordable Care Act”, as Obama and the Democrats named it? It can’t cost us more. They said so! They promised!
The glitches keep coming! Because almost a million taxpayers were provided incorrect information by the Obamacare online system the Obama administration has announced that there will be delays in sending them their tax refunds, with many being forced to resubmit their tax returns.
The truth is that these kinds of screw-ups should be and will be routine in any system as complex and Rube Goldberg-like as Obamacare is.
Bur just keep reminding yourself: The Democrats continue to support this law in every way, refusing to consider any change under any condition.
The law is for little people: The Obama administration announced on Wednesday that it will delay for five months enforcing a part of Obamacare pertaining to small businesses.
It seems that under Obamacare businesses are no longer allowed to offer employees spending accounts which can be used cover a portion of the cost of buying individual health plans. (Another example of not being allowed to keep your plan, even if you like it. Period.) If they continue to offer these accounts they could get fined $100 per day per employee. If they don’t, their employees might find themselves without health insurance.
So, the Obama administration is not going to enforce another Obamacare provision for five more months, even though this law was Obama’s gift to the nation and was so perfect it wasn’t necessary to discuss its passage with anyone outside the Democratic Party. In fact, it was so perfect the Democrats themselves didn’t need to read the law before they voted for it!
Finding out what’s in it: Congressional Democrats are pleading with the Obama administration to create an illegal waiver of the Obamacare tax penalities for people who fail to obtain health insurance by this past weekend’s deadline.
Idiots. They have voted numerous times in lockstep for Obamacare, resisting all efforts to repeal or even amend it. Yet when the law they supported and forced upon us is finally about to take effect they suddenly discover they don’t like it?
On the final weekend before the deadline to sign up for health insurance, the Obamacare website had a serious technical problem that prevented some people from completing their enrollment.
After you read the description below of the problem, I dare you to tell me you that we are now better off with this law:
Some people trying to get coverage hadn’t been able to get their income information electronically verified. That’s crucial because the amount of financial assistance to help pay premiums is based on people’s income.
The health care law offers health insurance to people who don’t have coverage on the job. More than 8 in 10 of those who apply qualify for help. Without it, most can’t afford the coverage. The IRS handles income verification for the HealthCare.gov website. In a statement, Hill said the problem was due to issues with “external verification sources.”
The glitch seemed to affect people with new applications. People who previously submitted their income details — but hadn’t completed the final step of picking a plan — were still able to do so.
This is a wonderful example of finding out what’s in it. The law makes the process of getting health insurance so difficult and complex, with so many different hands in the process, that it is literally impossible for problems and “glitches” (oh how I hate the bureaucratic word) not to happen. Either something is going to go wrong, or you will have to wait forever to get everyone to agree to the process.
But don’t worry. That it doesn’t work is irrelevant. It was the good intentions of Obama and the Democrats that really matter. Who cares if their ideas are stupid, unworkable, or foolish? They care!
Finding out what’s in it: Because of required Obamacare regulations and taxes on their union health plans, the unions representing workers at 29 west coast commercial ports are now threatening to strike and shut the ports down.
Obamacare imposes a 40 percent tax on health benefits deemed too generous by the government. Health benefits exceeding $10,200 a year in value for individuals or $27,500 for families are defined as “Cadillac” plans and are subject to the tax. Health benefits for longshoremen exceed $40,000 per employee, meaning the union would be served an enormous tax bill when the penalty is imposed in 2018. The longshoremen’s contract expired in July, 2014 and contract talks have stalled, in large part, over whether workers or employers will pay the new Obamacare tax.
But hey, these unions voted for and continue to support the Democratic Party without question, even as the Democratic Party continues to block any repeal or changes to Obamacare. To these union leaders, it all must be Bush’s fault!
Finding out what’s in it: Staples has implemented a strict policy that requires its workers to work less than 25 hours per week or be fired in order to avoid Obamacare.
The company claims this policy has been in place for years, but I suspect this is not quite true. What is true is that Obamacare has significantly crippled American industry by imposing such oppressive costs and regulations on growing businesses that businesses have been forced to stop growing in order to survive.
But don’t worry. Just days ago the Democrats in Congress stood firm and once again voted in unison in favor of keeping Obamacare the law of the land. No repeals of any kind if they have they way!
Finding out what’s in it: The Obamacare website allows the personal data of users to be gathered by commercial advertising companies like Google, Twitter, and Yahoo.
I should add that this is only a minor invasion of privacy. Much worse is the federal government’s insistence that your actual medical record, required on Obamacare to be digitized, shall be made available to scientists for research purposes, without asking your permission.
Finding out what’s in it: The Obama administration is considering issuing more waivers to Obamacare in order to avoid a backlash for enforcing the law.
Timothy S. Jost, an expert on health law at the Washington and Lee University School of Law who supports the Affordable Care Act, said: “It will be very easy to find people who are unhappy with the new tax obligations — people who have to pay a penalty, who have to wait forever to get through to somebody at the I.R.S. or have to pay back a lot of money because of overpayments of premium tax credits.”
That the Obama administration has no legal authority to simply waive portions of the law is a fact that seems to escape the notice of the administration, the experts quoted in the article, and the reporter himself. Who cares if the law is abandoned if they can back up this unlawful President in his effort to save himself and his Democratic Party from the disaster they forced upon us all?
Finding out what’s in it: A new study has found that small businesses are increasingly not offering health insurance to their employees since Obamacare went into effect.
The survey, conducted by Assistant Professor of Economics Leslie Muller, focused on companies that have fewer than 50 employees. Companies of that size are not mandated by the ACA to offer insurance to employees. “Small firms have faced, traditionally faced, higher costs so they’ve been strapped for a while. That doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the ACA it just has to do with the fact that health care costs have been raising it’s been particularly hard on the small firms,” Muller said.
The Survey found that of small businesses that offered health insurance over the past two years, only 40 percent plan to offer insurance in 2015 and only 28 percent in 2016.
