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ObamaCare Disasters Just Beginning...

Mike

Well-known member
Top Ten Obamacare Disasters to Come: The Disastrous Rollout is Just the Beginning
National Review | 10/23/2013 | Grace-Marie Turner



President Obama’s Monday Rose Garden speech replayed the same talking points he has been using for more than three years about Obamacare, while also offering old-tech suggestions, such as telephone hotlines and paper applications, to work around the law’s disastrous website.



But enrollment in Obamacare insurance ultimately does depend upon the website’s problems’ being fixed, because the information gathered via phone calls and paper applications must be entered into massive federal government databases to check eligibility. A delay of the individual tax penalties will be inevitable if the site isn’t fixed soon; you can’t penalize people if they can’t enroll.



But eventually, software can be fixed. Obamacare’s epic policy flaws can’t.



The problems increasingly are going to be up close and personal, as people see for themselves the impact it has on their lives and pocketbooks. The top ten debacles to come:



1. Deductible shock: When consumers finally do get onto the Healthcare.gov website, they are in for a new kind of sticker shock. Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute has exposed the high cost of Obamacare premiums — the next price shock will be the whopping cost of the deductibles.



A Chicago Tribune analysis showed that 21 of the 22 lowest-priced plans offered for Cook County residents on the Illinois exchange have annual deductibles of more than $4,000 for an individual and $8,000 for family coverage. (Deductibles are the money consumers must spend on health care before most insurance benefits kick in.)



This policy design is a direct result of the law’s instructions about the percentage of average health costs that insurance must cover (60 percent for Bronze, up to 90 percent for Platinum plans). The result: Americans who choose the relatively lower monthly premiums, probably in part to avoid rate shock, will be faced with huge deductibles.



2. Will people pay? When people see they have to pay several hundred dollars a month for a plan with this huge deductible, will they pay the premiums? Many will find it hard to fit the cost into already-strained family budgets.



The Congressional Budget Office expects 7 million people to enroll in health insurance through the exchanges by 2014, and it needs about 2.7 million of them to be “young healthies” who will enroll, and pay premiums that are higher than their age or health status would warrant because of the law’s regulations. Enough Americans may enroll, but will they keep up with their premiums month after month? A key date will be April 1, when people who enroll by December will be dropped from their plans if they haven’t paid the premiums. If they default, they will be forced to pay the penalty.



3. Attracting the sickest: Sicker Americans, with high health costs, are the ones most determined to get through the Healthcare.gov website to enroll. If they dominate enrollment, premiums will have to rise in 2015, discouraging even more young healthies from applying in the future. The industry calls this a “death spiral.”



We’ve already seen a preview: People enrolled in the temporary high-risk pools created under the health law have cost an average of about $28,994 a year, so much more than expected that the pool ran out of money and closed enrollment almost a year early.



4. Less expensive plans vanish: Many people just want to stay with their current plan — as the president repeatedly promised they could. But Kaiser Health News reports that thousands of people are being notified their current insurance is being cancelled because the policies don’t comply with Obamacare’s benefit mandates. Just a sample:




Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people — about half of its individual business in the state. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent.



But the cancellation notices, which began arriving in August, have shocked many consumers in light of President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their plans if they liked them. “I don’t feel like I need to change, but I have to,” said Jeff Learned, a television editor in Los Angeles, who must find a new plan for his teenage daughter who has a health condition that has required multiple surgeries.



5. Families lose out: Obamacare’s subsidies will mean that the federal tax code’s existing marriage penalty will get much bigger for certain Americans, especially older, middle-income couples. Families will have to reckon with the fact that remaining married could cost them $10,000 a year or more because single people with lower incomes qualify for bigger subsidies.



6. Repaying subsidies: It’s going to be very important to accurately indicate annual income on one’s insurance application. Those who understate income, either because their situation changes or they reported inaccurate information, and therefore get a larger subsidy than they are entitled to will be required to repay the excess, possibly amounting to thousands of dollars.



7. Public health-care costs are going to explode. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where actuaries make calculations about the trajectory of public health expenditures, have this to say:




In 2014 the implementation of provisions of the Affordable Care Act related to major coverage expansions is expected to accelerate health spending growth to 6.1 percent. Through the remainder of the projection period . . . this rate of growth is sustained as a result of improved economic conditions and an aging population’s increased demand for health care.



Following this 2014 cliff, they expect that — under optimistic assumptions about the law’s cost-saving provisions — Obamacare will modestly increase the rate of health-care cost inflation, which is set to wreck the federal budget already.



So much for the president’s promise to “bend the cost curve.” It’s bending the wrong way.



8. More jobs lost: The Obama administration delayed for a year reporting requirements for the mandate that companies provide health insurance for their employees. But with those provisions coming into effect in 2015, employers will continue to restructure their businesses to stay under 50 employees and push workers under 30 hours a week to avoid the hefty fines that will be used to enforce this regulation. Andrew Puzder, chief executive of CKE Restaurants, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that “the evidence that Obamacare is having a negative impact on hiring is unequivocal, abundant and consistent with common sense.” Job creation will continue to suffer.



9. Identity theft and fraud will explode: Tens of thousands of “navigators,” “assisters,” and other agents are being hired, generally by nonprofit organizations, to help people apply. They will be gathering personal information, such as one’s Social Security number, address, income, employer’s name and address, children’s names and birthdates, and health habits, to find out if you qualify for Obamacare subsidies. Others are going door-to-door to get people enrolled, and there is no easy way of determining if the person at your door is legitimate. While these aides do receive some training, they’re not professionally licensed and don’t go through the background checks required of insurance agents and brokers. The risks of potential identity theft are very real, and 13 attorneys general have expressed deep concerns about the security of the exchanges’ information. When this starts happening, it will generate a new wave of negative coverage of the law.



10. Federal-exchange subsidies eliminated? A number of lawsuits are making their way through the courts that could further challenge key aspects of the law. Suits in Oklahoma, the District of Columbia, Indiana, and Virginia federal courts are challenging the legality of distributing health-insurance subsidies through the exchanges created by the federal government, correctly contending that the law explicitly says the subsidies are available only to people enrolled in exchanges created by the states. That could mean that people in 34 states would not be eligible for Obamacare subsidies (even if they were to slog their way through the complex application process).



If you thought Healthcare.gov was bad, just wait.



— Grace-Marie Turner is president of the Galen Institute.
 

Steve

Well-known member
A Chicago Tribune analysis showed that 21 of the 22 lowest-priced plans offered for Cook County residents on the Illinois exchange have annual deductibles of more than $4,000 for an individual and $8,000 for family coverage. (Deductibles are the money consumers must spend on health care before most insurance benefits kick in.)

so when they go to the emergency room.,.. that they still can't afford, (especially after paying for a worthless insurance policy).. they will leave the bill to be paid for by those who still have decent insurance..

isn't that one of the main complaints now that the uninsured go to emergency rooms and we foot the bill?
 

Steve

Well-known member
10. Federal-exchange subsidies eliminated? A number of lawsuits are making their way through the courts that could further challenge key aspects of the law. Suits in Oklahoma, the District of Columbia, Indiana, and Virginia federal courts are challenging the legality of distributing health-insurance subsidies through the exchanges created by the federal government, correctly contending that the law explicitly says the subsidies are available only to people enrolled in exchanges created by the states. That could mean that people in 34 states would not be eligible for Obamacare subsidies (even if they were to slog their way through the complex application process).

by the supreme court eliminating the federal mandate to expand medicaid, many poor are stuck in a catch 22.. they don't make enough to buy health care,.. and even if they get a tax credit,.. they don't make enough for it to do them any good...


I guess all that is left for them is to move to a liberal state so they can get coverage.. overwhelming those states with horrendous medicaid cost increases.
 

Traveler

Well-known member
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/10/21/why-obamacare-is-fantastic-success/

Why ObamaCare is a fantastic success

By Wayne Allyn Root

Published October 21, 2013



There are two major political parties in America. I’m a member of the naïve, stupid, and cowardly one. I’m a Republican.

How stupid is the GOP? They still don’t get it.

I told them 5 years ago, 2 books ago, a national bestseller ago ("The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide"), and in hundreds of articles and commentaries, that ObamaCare was never meant to help America, or heal the sick, or lower healthcare costs, or lower the debt, or expand the economy.

The GOP needs to stop calling ObamaCare a “trainwreck.” That means it’s a mistake, or accident. That means it’s a gigantic flop, or failure. It’s NOT.


This is a brilliant, cynical, and purposeful attempt to damage the U.S. economy, kill jobs, and bring down capitalism.

It’s not a failure, it’s Obama’s grand success.

It’s not a “trainwreck,” ObamaCare is a suicide attack. He wants to hurt us, to bring us to our knees, to capitulate- so we agree under duress to accept big government.

Obama’s hero and mentor was Saul Alinsky -- a radical Marxist intent on destroying capitalism. Alinksky’s stated advice was to call the other guy “a terrorist” to hide your own intentions.

To scream that the other guy is “ruining America,” while you are the one actually plotting the destruction of America. To claim again and again…in every sentence of every speech…that you are “saving the middle class,” while you are busy wiping out the middle class.

The GOP is so stupid they can’t see it. There are no mistakes here. This is a planned purposeful attack.

The tell-tale sign isn’t the disastrous start to ObamaCare. Or the devastating effect the new taxes are having on the economy. Or the death of full-time jobs. Or the overwhelming debt. Or the dramatic increases in health insurance rates. Or the 70% of doctors now thinking of retiring- bringing on a healthcare crisis of unimaginable proportions. Forget all that.

The real sign that this is a purposeful attack upon capitalism is how many Obama administration members and Democratic Congressmen are openly calling Tea Party Republicans and anyone who wants to stop ObamaCare “terrorists.”

There’s the clue. Even the clueless GOP should be able to see that.

They are calling the reasonable people…the patriots…the people who believe in the Constitution ... the people who believe exactly what the Founding Fathers believed…the people who want to take power away from corrupt politicians who have put America $17 trillion in debt…terrorists?

That’s because they are Saul Alinsky-ing the GOP. The people trying to purposely hurt America, capitalism and the middle class…are calling the patriots by a terrible name to fool, confuse and distract the public.

ObamaCare is a raving, rollicking, fantastic success. Stop calling it a failure. Here is what it was created to do. It is succeeding on all counts:

1. ObamaCare was intended to bring about the Marxist dream -- redistribution of wealth.
Rich people, small business owners, and the middle class are being robbed, so that the money can be redistributed to poor people (who vote for Democrats).

Think about it. If you’re rich or middle class, you now have to pay for your own health care costs (at much higher rates) AND 40 million other people’s costs too (through massive tax increases).

So you’re stuck paying for both bills. You are left broke. Brilliant.

2. ObamaCare was intended to wipe out the middle class and make them dependent on government.
Think about it. Even Obama’s IRS predicts that health insurance for a typical American family by 2016 will be $20,000 per year. But how would middle class Americans pay that bill and have anything left for food or housing or living? People that make $40K, or $50K, or $60K can’t possibly hope to spend $20K on health insurance without becoming homeless.

Bingo. That’s how you make middle class people dependent on government. That’s how you make everyone addicted to government checks. Brilliant.

3. As a bonus, ObamaCare is intended to kill every decent paying job in the economy, creating only crummy, crappy part-time jobs.
Why? Just to make sure the middle class is trapped, with no way out. Just to make sure no one has the $20,000 per year to pay for health insurance, thereby guaranteeing they become wards of the state. Brilliant.

4. ObamaCare is intended to bankrupt small business, and therefore starve donations to the GOP.
Think about it. Do you know a small business owner? I know hundreds of them. Their rates are being doubled, tripled and quadrupled by ObamaCare.

Guess who writes 75% of the checks to Republican candidates and conservative causes? Small Business.

Even if a small business owner manages to survive, he or she certainly can’t write a big check to the GOP anymore. Money is the “mother’s milk” of politics. Without donations, a political party ceases to exist. Bingo.

That’s the point of ObamaCare. Obama is bankrupting his political opposition and drying up donations to the GOP. Brilliant.

5. ObamaCare is intended to make the IRS all-powerful.
It adds thousands of new IRS agents. It puts the IRS in charge of overseeing 15% of the U.S. economy. The IRS has the right because of ObamaCare to snoop into every aspect of your life, to go into your bank accounts, to fine you, to frighten you, to intimidate you. And Obama and his socialist cabal have access to your deepest medical secrets.

By law your doctor has to ask your sexual history. That information is now in the hands of Obama and the IRS to blackmail GOP candidates into either not running, or supporting bigger government, or leaking the info and ruining your campaign.

Or have you forgotten the IRS harassed, intimidated and persecuted critics of Obama and conservative groups?

Now Obama hands the IRS even more power. Big Brother rules our lives. Brilliant.

6. ObamaCare is intended to unionize 15 million healthcare workers.
That produces $15 billion in new union dues. That money goes to fund Democratic candidates and socialist causes -- thereby guaranteeing Obama’s friends never lose another election, and Obama’s policies keep ruining capitalism and bankrupting business owners long after he’s out of office.

Message to the GOP: This isn’t a game. This isn’t tiddly-winks. This is a serious, purposeful attempt to highjack America and destroy capitalism.

This isn’t a trainwreck. It's purposeful suicide.

It's not failing, it's working exactly according to plan. Obama knows what he’s doing. Stop apologizing and start fighting.

Oh and one more thing…Conservatives aren’t “terrorists.” We are patriots and saviors. We represent the Constitution and the Founding Fathers. We are the heroes and good guys. Unless you get all this through your thick skulls, America is lost…forever.
 
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