Corporatism In America

Corporatism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction.” It is a serious intermingling of politics and corporations. It is currently what we have created in America with the passage of ObamaCare.

In its October issue, Townhall Magazine features an article entitled, “ObamaCare’s Illegal Insurance Company Bailout.” The article explains the role of major insurance companies in the writing of ObamaCare in such a way that regardless of the impact of ObamaCare, the insurance companies would not lose money. If the law has a negative impact on the insurance companies, they will be bailed out by the American taxpayers.

The article reports:

…Obamacare’s authors created three programs to help socialize insurance company risk.

Reinsurance: Obamacare’s reinsurance program is paid for by a $63 tax on all health plans.  The money then goes to any health insurance company who spends more than $60,000 on any Obamacare patient in any single year. Since the tax applies to all health care plans, but the benefits only go to Obamacare plans, the reinsurance program is really just a transfer of wealth from those who had insurance coverage before Obamacare to those who are now covered by Obamacare.

Risk Adjustment: The risk adjustment program is designed to stop insurance companies from marketing or pricing their plans in such a way that they only attract healthy, and therefore lower-cost patients. The program accomplishes this by assessing the patient population of each insurer and then determining which insurers are covering healthier people and which are covering sicker people. The plans covering the healthy people are then forced to pay money to the plans covering sicker people. All transfers between insurance companies even out.

Risk Corridor: The risk corridor program is intended to encourage insurers to price their premiums low by protecting them from losses if their patients turn out to require more care than anticipated. The program uses a complex formula to take money from those insurers that do not spend a lot of money paying for patient health care, and then gives that money to other insurers that do spend a lot of money on patient care.

So where does the money come from if all insurers spend more money on patient care than anticipated? That is the billion dollar question.

The article quotes an HHS regulation published in May 2014:

“In the unlikely event of a shortfall for the 2015 program year…HHS will use other sources of funding for the risk corridor payments.”

The article explains that according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Obama Administration is expected to make $725 billion in net payments out of the risk corridor program in 2015 alone. When you include the increased reinsurance payments, the bailout will top $1 billion.

So why is this illegal? The article explains:

According to long-standing, federal rules, in order for Congress to properly authorize payment, both the directive to pay and amount, and the source of funds for that payment, must be identified.

And while the risk corridor program does identify who is to be paid (the insurance companies), it never identifies where the funds should come from.

This is neither free enterprise or market-driven. It is time to replace ObamaCare with something that respects the free market and puts patients and doctors back in charge of health care. We need portability of health insurance, tort reform, and risk pools (as are used in auto insurance) to equalize the burden among insurance companies. We don’t need government-run healthcare. Government healthcare benefits no one. We need to stop it before it is too late.

 

The House Of Cards Begins To Collapse

On Tuesday, the Daily Caller reported that the largest healthcare insurance company (with the lowest premiums) is dropping out of Minnesota’s ObamaCare Exchange because the government health-exchange is unsustainable.

The article reports:

PreferredOne Health Insurance told MNsure, the state-run exchange, Tuesday morning that it would not continue to offer its popular insurance plans on the marketplace in 2015. It’s “purely a business decision,” spokesman Steve Peterson told KSTP-TV. The company is losing money on administrative costs for plans offered on the bureaucratic and glitchy government exchange.

Part of the problem, according to PreferredOne, is that MNsure hasn’t even been able to verify its customers’ information. PreferredOne said that some of its customers have turned out not to even live in Minnesota.

Insurers are required to accept customers who’ve been approved by the exchange for coverage, but states and the federal government have been struggling for months to determine which applicants are actually eligible for the benefits.

Americans were told that if they liked their health insurance, they could keep it. Now people in Minnesota have lost their health insurance twice under ObamaCare and are facing large rate increases this fall. Can we please elect people to Congress who will make this monstrosity called ObamaCare go away. Enough is enough.

When Do We Admit ObamaCare Is A Bad Idea?

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that the HealthCare.gov website had been hacked. Evidently the hacker uploaded malicious software. Ann investigation concluded that no personal data was taken, so theoretically, if you used the site to purchase your healthcare insurance, you should not have to worry about identity theft (at least from that particular site).

The article concludes:

The attack comes as the federal government and insurance companies prepare for open enrollment, which begins Nov. 15. It is likely to be seized on by Republican lawmakers, who oppose the law, in fall campaigns as another sign of the health law’s flaws. HealthCare.gov suffered from crippling technology problems when it launched in October, though the government has since improved the site.

Taken with recent data thefts from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Home Depot Inc., and celebrities’ iPhones, the HealthCare.gov hack further underscores that large organizations haven’t yet mastered how to secure the troves of data they collect from consumers.

The government has no business doing health insurance–that power is not given to them in the Constitution. We are going to reach a point in America when we have to decide whether or not the U.S. Constitution is the law of the land. We can either choose to follow it or not. I think that during the past few years we have seen the consequences of not following the Constitution–government and government spending are out of control and all Americans pay a price for that–in terms of finances and in terms of privacy. It truly is time to take back the country from the Washington elitists who have been running it for a long time.

The Politics Of ObamaCare Premiums

The Daily Caller posted an article today about the collusion between the Obama Administration and health insurance companies to insure that healthcare premiums for consumers would not increase drastically just before the midterm elections of 2014.

The article explains:

New documents reveals that top White House adviser Valerie Jarrett personally conducted damage control with nervous health insurance companies after those companies saw no other way to hold premiums down under Obamacare without a taxpayer-funded bailout.

Their pleas worked.

A month later, the Obama administration issued rules to allow for a taxpayer-funded insurer bailout.

At a time when the federal budget is spiraling out of control, the Obama Administration is spending taxpayers’ money to avoid a political problem before the election.

The risk corridor program is set up so that consumers will not see the full impact of ObamaCare on their insurance premiums until 2017–after the midterm elections.

ObamaCare needs to be exposed totally for the disaster it is and ended as quickly as possible.

A Federal Appeals Court Rules On Subsidies

NBC News is reporting today that a Federal Appeals Court in Washington, D. C., has ruled that  that the Patient Protection and  Affordable Care Act, (ObamaCare), as written, only allows insurance subsidies in states that have set up their own exchanges. This ruling invalidated an Internal Revenue Service regulation that allowed subsidies in all 50 states. Thirty-six states did not set up the exchanges required by ObamaCare, so the federal government set up exchanges in those states. The court ruled that the federal government may not pay subsidies for insurance plans in those states.

The article reports:

Today’s decision reaffirms that the administration cannot rewrite the health law that was passed and it stops the Internal Revenue Service from doing the same,” said Andrew Kloster of the conservative Heritage Foundation. “The statute is clear in the Affordable Care Act that the subsidies are to be directed only to states that elected to set up insurance exchanges.”

This is actually the problem with the law–it has been rewritten as we go along. Mandates have been postponed, the stay-in-your-home provision for the elderly has been dropped altogether, and exemptions have been handed out left and right. It will be interesting to see if another Executive Order promptly makes its appearance.

One of the effects of ObamaCare (intended or otherwise) is the redistribution of wealth–it takes affordable healthcare away from those who already had insurance–some rates have gone up as much as $7,000 or $8,000 per year for people not eligible for subsidies, and provides subsidies for people with lower incomes (without demanding income verification). In one state, people whose incomes were well above the poverty level were eligible for subsidies, but one wonders if those subsidies will decrease after ObamaCare is fully operational.

It will be interesting to see if this decision stands–it will wind up in the Supreme Court.

 

A Hidden Cost Of ObamaCare

On Monday, Forbes Magazine reported on a little-known aspect of the ObamaCare law.

The article reports:

Want to know what’s happening with Obamacare? Good luck finding out. The White House recently adopted a new approach for updating Americans on the country’s most consequential law. I call it the “needle in a haystack” method: Bury the announcement in hundreds of pages of regulations and hope no one finds it.

The White House tried a test run several weeks ago. Hidden in the midst of a 436 page regulatory update, and written in pure bureaucratese, the Department of Health and Human Services asked that insurance companies limit the looming premium increases for 2015 health plans. But don’t worry, HHS hinted: we’ll bail you out on the taxpayer’s dime if you lose money.

Crony capitalism, anyone? But it’s more than crony capitalism–the White House wants to keep insurance premiums down because the health insurance rates will be released before the mid-term elections.

The article concludes:

These may not be the only examples where the administration has lawlessly rewritten Obamacare without letting the American people know. The law created at least 11,000 pages of new regulation, with more added every day. The White House got caught this time—but they’ll have plenty of other chances to hide the truth.

It’s up to the voters to inform themselves and act accordingly.

ObamaCare Can’t Even Follow Its Own Rules

Yesterday Investors.com posted an article about some of the basic problems in the administration of ObamaCare.

The article reports:

In a section titled “Other Issues,” an inspector general report released last week found that the HealthCare.gov marketplace couldn’t show it had been reconciling its monthly enrollment numbers with insurance companies.

That’s despite the fact that the law specifically calls for this reconciliation, and the fact that, as the IG report notes, “the federal marketplace obtained the services of a contractor to reconcile enrollment information.”

Obama administration officials “stated that the system to support reconciliations had yet to be developed.”

But as the IG makes clear, without this monthly reconciliation, the government “cannot effectively monitor the current enrollment status of applicants, such as … termination of plans.”

The article also reports:

Aetna says that out of 720,000 sign-ups, only about 580,000 were paid up by May 20, a payment rate of only 80.6%.

It’s also unknown how many have failed to keep up with their payments after making the initial one — the law gives consumers a three-month grace period before insurers can cancel their coverage. But the number could be significant.

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 43% of those buying ObamaCare plans say they are having difficulty paying premiums, with 14% finding it “very difficult.”

That’s despite the fact that 87% of those who bought one of these plans through HealthCare.gov got taxpayer subsidies.

It is becoming obvious that ObamaCare is a disaster. We need to elect people in November who will practice free market principles–not crony capitalism–in healthcare policies. We are in danger of having the best healthcare system in the world destroyed. The American voter will be responsible for whether or not that happens,.

After A While, You Have To Wonder If This Is Intentional

Yesterday, the Daily Caller reported that one of the taxes in ObamaCare will result in the loss of between 152,000 and 286,000 jobs by 2023. The tax is the health insurance tax which charges insurance companies according to their percentage of the insurance market — the more health plans sold (Obamacare’s goal), the more insurers are required to pay.

The tax will actually impact small businesses, raising their insurance costs. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) estimates that 57 percent of the jobs lost will be in companies with less than 500 employees. Small business is the backbone of the American economy, the economic policies of the Obama Administration are undermining the strength of our economy.

The article reports:

The federal government expects to collect $8 billion from the tax in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, with the pot growing to $14.3 billion by 2018. While the Obama administration may have intended for the tax to take a hit at insurers’ profits, the cost of the tax will likely be passed along to those purchasing the plans — which in the vast majority of cases are employers.

The American Action Forum, a Washington-based free-market think tank, estimates that the health insurance tax will add $101 onto customers’ premiums in 2014 and $143 in 2015 and 2016.

ObamaCare is not good for Americans, and it is not good for the American economy. We need to elect people in November who are willing to repeal it. There are ideas in ObamaCare that can be included in new healthcare programs, but ObamaCare has to go.

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The Chickens Are Coming Home To Roost

Even though the November election is seven months away, this is the election season. One of the goals of the Democrat party during this season is to convince Americans that ObamaCare is a good thing and that we like it. So far that effort is not going particularly well. Based on some numbers posted by Forbes Magazine, it is about to get worse.

Yesterday Forbes Magazine posted an article with the following headline:

Health Plan Premiums Are Skyrocketing According To New Survey Of 148 Insurance Brokers, With Delaware Up 100%, California 53%, Florida 37%, Pennsylvania 28%

Democrats may be okay with those numbers, but to a lot of Americans, those numbers represent one more broken promise in ObamaCare.

The article reports:

Health insurance premiums are showing the sharpest increases perhaps ever according to a survey of brokers who sell coverage in the individual and small group market. Morgan Stanley’s healthcare analysts conducted the proprietary survey of 148 brokers. The April survey shows the largest acceleration in small and individual group rates in any of the 12 prior quarterly periods when it has been conducted.

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.”

Not only has ObamaCare wrecked the American healthcare system, it has spent massive amounts of money to do so and has placed enormous financial burdens on Americans trying to purchase the required healthcare. It is truly time for ObamaCare to go away.

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About That Presidential Victory Lap Last Week

Today’s U.K. Daily Mail posted an article posted a story about President Obama’s statement on Tuesday that “The debate over repealing this law is over. The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.” The basis for this statement was the President’s claim that 7.1 million Americans have signed up for ObamaCare. Well, that may or may not be the case.

The article reports:

But buried in the 7.1 million enrollments he announced in a heavily staged appearance is a more unsettling reality.

Numbers from a RAND Corporation study that has been kept under wraps suggest that barely 858,000 previously uninsured Americans – nowhere near 7.1 million – have paid for new policies and joined the ranks of the insured by Monday night.

Others were already insured, including millions who lost coverage when their existing policies were suddenly cancelled because they didn’t meet Obamacare’s strict minimum requirements.

Still, he claimed that ‘millions of people who have health insurance would not have it’ without his insurance law.’

‘The goal we’ve set for ourselves – that no American should go without the health care they need … is achievable,’ Obama declared.

There is a lot of information in the Rand Study that makes the accuracy of the President’s statements very questionable. The deadline to enroll in ObamaCare has been extended and now depends on someone simply saying that they tried to enroll, with no verification.

We may or may not be stuck with ObamaCare, but frankly I would be very suspicious of any numbers regarding ObamaCare released by the White House.

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Let The Squabbles Begin

The Boston Globe posted an article today about the fight among the New England States for ObamaCare grants to set up websites. Originally, Massachusetts was given a $45 million federal innovation grant to build a state-of-the-art consumer platform for President Obama’s insurance program.

Massachusetts is a bit of a ‘techie’ state, and it was hoped that they would share the technical knowledge used to build their ObamaCare website with the other New England states. That sounds like a very reasonable idea in theory. Unfortunately, in practice it didn’t work.

The article reports:

Massachusetts has failed to produce a successful computer model to share, and in the meantime Connecticut’s insurance marketplace, built by Deloitte LLP, is working so well that the state is now offering its computer system as a model for other struggling states.

Counihan said five states have expressed interest in piggybacking off Connecticut’s insurance marketplace, but not Massachusetts.

“Some states were trying to build a Maserati. We built a Ford Focus,’’ Counihan said. “It might not be as glamorous but it runs. It can get you to the store.”

So what’s the problem? The article explains:

Connecticut health care officials are now mounting a campaign to collect a portion of a $45 million federal innovation grant that was awarded to Massachusetts to build a state-of-the-art consumer platform for President Obama’s insurance program.

…But, Rhode Island state Representative Joseph McNamara, a Democrat on the General Assembly’s Permanent Joint Committee on Healthcare Oversight, said he thinks Rhode Island could benefit from the money. Federal grants for the Rhode Island insurance marketplace end by July 2015, when the state would face a $24 million shortfall, he said.

“It’s a liability that we’re starting to discuss right now,” McNamara said. “We would appreciate any assistance from our friends in Massachusetts.”

Somewhere along the way, someone needs to remind these states that this is not ‘free’ money. It comes off the backs of overtaxed taxpayers who are paying upwards of 40 percent of their earnings in taxes. At some point we need to admit that ObamaCare is costing considerably more money than anticipated and repeal it. Unfortunately, as long as states are willing to fight over federal tax money in order to avoid spending their state tax money, the federal deficit will continue to grow.

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I Don’t Think This Was Part Of The Plan

Yesterday’s Daily Caller posted an article about the Maryland Obamacare exchange. It is currently under federal investigation for fraud.

The article reports:

The inspector general’s office for the Department of Health and Human Services reportedly told Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris that it will proceed with an investigation into how Maryland’s Obamacare exchange spent copious amounts of federal grant money in the face of its failing exchange.

Oregon’s Obamacare exchange will also be investigated by the General Accountability Office after a separate request from House Republicans.

Large amounts of federal money were given to these two states to set up their exchanges–Oregon was awarded $304 million in federal funding for its Obamacare exchange — in addition to $160 million spent in state funding so far, the Maryland Health Benefits Exchange expects to spend $261 million, over 80 percent of its federal grants, by the end of 2015.

It seems to me that any person with some degree of common sense would be looking at these numbers and wondering how Obamacare was going to save money. It really is time to get the federal government out of the health insurance business and let the free market reign. There are ways that the government can set basic regulations to make it easier for people to afford health insurance–more competition in the free market would allow prices to drop, as would portability across state lines, tort reform, tax credits for individuals purchasing health insurance, and some other basic changes. It’s time to admit that Obamacare does not work and needs to be done away with and replaced with a free market system. The insurance industry is a business. There is nothing evil about business. Businesses work best with the least amount of government interference.

 

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There Really Is A Plan B

Today’s Weekly Standard posted an article by Bill Kristol and Jeffrey Anderson about the 2017 Project. The 2017 Project has developed an alternative heath care proposal to ObamaCare.

The article explains:

It would solve the three core problems that called out for real reform even before the Democrats passed Obamacare: getting more people insured; dealing with the problem of preexisting conditions; and lowering costs. In providing politically attractive and substantively sound solutions to these three core concerns, it would justify bringing an end to Obamacare, and thus would pave the way for full repeal.

Just as important as what our proposal would do is what it wouldn’t do.  It wouldn’t force anyone to buy insurance. It wouldn’t auto-enroll anyone in any plan. It wouldn’t reduce the tax break for employer-based insurance (aside from closing the tax loophole at the high end). It wouldn’t cost anywhere near the $2 trillion over a decade that Obamacare would cost. It wouldn’t undermine religious liberty. It would allow Americans to keep their current plan if they like it.

It would be wonderful to have a plan that provided health insurance for every American without spending $2 trillion over ten years. It would also be nice to let Americans make their own decisions about what health insurance they need and what health insurance they don’t need.

More information on the alternate proposal to ObamaCare can be found at 2017Project.com. Please follow the link to see the details.

 

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I Hope This Headline Is True

John Podhoretz posted an article at the New York Post today with the headline, “Congressional Budget Office sends death blow to ObamaCare.”

The article reports the contents of the CBO report:

The one-two punch: Virtually as many Americans will lack health coverage in 10 years as before the law was passed — but 2 million fewer will be working than if the law hadn’t passed.

One killer detail comes on Page 111, where the report projects: “As a result of the ACA, between 6 million and 7 million fewer people will have employment-based insurance coverage each year from 2016 through 2024 than would be the case in the absence of the ACA.”

The irony of the whole ObamaCare program is the fact that ObamaCare was supposedly designed to provide health insurance to some 30 million Americans who are currently without health insurance. The CBO report predicts that in 2024, under ObamaCare, 31 million Americans will be without health insurance. If you consider ObamaCare as  the ‘War on the Uninsured’ in America, it appears that it will be about as successful as the War on Poverty in America.

The article also reports:

If that’s not startling enough, there’s also the telling projection about ObamaCare’s impact on employment — “a decline in the number of full-time-equivalent workers of about 2.0 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024.”

Overall employment will rise, the report says, but not steady, secure, long-term assured employment. The possibility of securing government-provided health-care without employment will give people a new incentive to avoid it. “The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply,” the report says.

Indeed, overall, between 2017 and 2024, the actual amount of work done in this country will decline by as much as 2 percent.

It really is time to come up with an alternative to ObamaCare. I only hope Congress is up to the task.

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Using Taxpayer Money To Delay Insurance Increases Until After 2015

The Daily Caller posted a story today about the possibility of the Government having to bail out insurance companies because of the lack of participation by young people in ObamaCare.

The problem is that young people are not signing up for ObamaCare. The article reports:

While there’s still time for young adults to sign up, the Obama administration has a lot of ground to cover in just two months. If not, a bailout via the “risk corridor” provision could offer a temporary fix.

“If [a bailout] does occur, it’s certainly going to hold down the size of the premium increases next fall and the year after,” Tanner told TheDCNF, “but the bailout only goes until about 2016 — so in 2015 we can begin to see significant increases” in the amount Americans pay for their health care costs on Obamacare exchanges.

The risk corridor program would partially reimburse insurers for losses only through 2016, allowing the underlying problem to come out in full force during the presidential election season.

The article states that the bailout’s cost to taxpayers could run as high as $25 billion, but that would only delay the rise in premiums until the election campaign season. It will be interesting to see how the Obama Administration handles this problem–the bailout will show the problem with ObamaCare regarding actuarial figures. Insurance companies base their premium costs on actuarial tables that calculate risk and allow the companies to make enough money to stay in business. If insurance companies do not make money, they do not stay in business. Subsidizing insurance companies for two years does not solve the actuarial problem–it simply delays it. The Republicans need to come up with a better way to help Americans get insurance–without a government takeover of the insurance industry.

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Hurting The People You Claimed You Wanted To Help

ObamaCare is in effect now. Some of the penalties for not having insurance are on hold until after the election, and the employer mandate is on hold until after the election, but ObamaCare is now the law of the land. There are a few court cases pending about the birth control mandate, but right now we are stuck with ObamaCare. So what does that mean?

For one thing, it means that confusion abounds. The U.K. Daily Mail reported on Friday that the staff in a hospital in Northern Virginia was turning away patients who couldn’t figure out whether or not they were covered by ObamaCare.

The article cites one example:

Patients in a close-in DC suburb who think they’ve signed up for new insurance plans are struggling to show their December enrollments are in force, and health care administrators aren’t taking their word for it.

In place of quick service and painless billing, these Virginians are now facing the threat of sticker-shock that comes with bills they can’t afford.

‘They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!’ a coughing Maria Galvez told MailOnline outside the Inova Healthplex facility in the town of Springfield.

She was leaving the building without getting a needed chest x-ray.

‘The people in there told me that since I didn’t have an insurance card, I would be billed for the whole cost of the x-ray,’ Galvez said, her young daughter in tow. ‘It’s not fair – you know, I signed up last week like I was supposed to.’

The x-ray’s cost, she was told, would likely be more than $500.

As she said, she did what she was supposed to, and now she can’t get the medical care she needs. The article points out that even if she had her medical insurance card, the Carefirst plan that Ms. Galvez signed up for has a $5,500 per-person deductible for 2014–that is the amount she would have to pay out-of-pocket before her coverage would apply to medical expenses.

The article concludes:

President Obama has attracted widespread criticism, and a ‘lie of the year’ award from one newspaper’s fact-checker, for promising that Americans who liked their health plans would be allowed to keep them.

Dr. John Venetos, a Chicago gastroenterologist, told the Associated Press on Thursday that he is seeing ‘tremendous uncertainty and anxiety’ among his patients who signed up for Obamacare plans but don’t have insurance cards.

‘They’re not sure if they have coverage,’ Venetos said. ‘It puts the heavy work on the physician.’

‘At some point, every practice is going to make a decision about how long can they continue to see these patients for free if they are not getting paid.’

We need to scrap ObamaCare and make a few changes to the previous healthcare system that would expand coverage for those who may not be able to afford it. We need to make insurance portable across state lines, we need to link insurance to the person–not the company he works for, we need tort reform. and we need tax subsidies to make sure low-income people can afford health insurance. What we don’t need is to mess up the insurance for the 90 percent of Americans who actually like their current healthcare plan.

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A Website That Doesn’t Allow Change

Once you sign up for ObamaCare on the website, you are locked into your current marital status, family size, and profile forever–there is no way to make adjustments if a new baby arrives in your family, if a family member dies, or if you lose or change your job. You cannot edit your profile once your insurer is chosen.

Breitbart.com is reporting the following today:

The Associated Press is out with a report this morning that pregnant women have an entirely new set of headaches to expect from their ACA-triggered coverage, namely, that HealthCare.gov is not designed to accept any changes in status that would include or exclude a person from coverage. When a baby is born, there is no way for parents to notify the federal government that the baby now exists and needs coverage.

There is also no way to notify the federal government of marriage or divorce, of a death in the family, or of a new job or loss of a job.

The website allows one to open a profile, but not to edit it once an insurer is chosen. All of these changes could potentially affect those insured or open new options for coverage from different insurers or types of insurance. They may also result in higher premiums or more expensive coverage. These would all be options and possibilities if HealthCare.gov had any way of editing one’s information on the page.

What a mess.

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A Forgotten Promise

When he ran for office in 2008, President Obama promised not to raise taxes on any family that earned less than $250,000. Then candidate Obama stated, “I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.” (from Townhall.com) Well, I guess that promise has been added to the list of broken promises.

Today, Heritage.org posted a story about tax increases that occurred in 2013 and tax increases planned for 2014.

The article reports two new taxes for 2014:

  • Obamacare’s individual mandate. Beginning in 2014, it’s mandatory to purchase health insurance. If you don’t, you’ll pay a penalty that dramatically increases over time. It starts at $95 or 1 percent of your income (whichever is greater). It rises to $325 or 2 percent of income in 2015, and $695 or 2.5 percent of income in 2016.
  • Obamacare tax on insurance companies. If you liked seeing your premiums go up, you’ll love this new tax on health insurers—which they are most likely to pass on to you.

The article also posted a list of the 2013 tax increases. The Social Security payroll tax for workers went from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent for everyone–regardless of whether or not they earned $250,000.  Also increased were various taxes on high earners–marginal tax rates increased, deductions decreased, investment taxes increased, and inheritance taxes increased. Excuse me for being totally politically incorrect here, but keep in mind that taxes on people who do not work but collect welfare or other government handouts did not increase. Keep in mind that when you tax an activity it decreases, and when you don’t tax an activity it increases. These kinds of tax increases do not encourage economic growth–they stifle it.

The article reminds us:

President Obama promised the American people a “balanced approach” of tax increases and spending cuts to reduce deficits and debt. He achieved the tax increase portion of that approach. Now Congress needs to force him to follow through on the spending cuts.

Until we see spending cuts, the economy will continue to grow much more slowly than it is capable of growing. The combination of high taxes and over regulation by the government is the biggest obstacle to a much needed economic recovery.

 

 

 

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It Was A Dark And Stormy Night…

I love the Peanuts cartoon. If you read the cartoon, you know that Snoopy is perpetually writing a novel. Many of his novels begin with “It was a dark and stormy night…” That is what the latest episode of the ObamaCare saga reminds me of.

National Review is reporting today that over the weekend, without telling anyone, in the dark of night, the Obama Administration has moved the deadline to sign up for ObamaCare.

The article cites a Washington Post story as its source:

Sources told the Post that the 24-hour extension has been built into the online system and is intended as a precaution in the event that the the problem-plagued website sees a surge of traffic from individuals looking to sign up at the last minute, and buckles under the weight.

The extension, said the sources, cannot be overridden by insurance companies if they object to it. It is the latest of several last-minute, ad hoc rule changes issued by the administration, including last week’s announcement that individuals whose insurance plans were canceled may receive an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate

Please note that none of these changes are being sent through Congress and they are simply decided on by the Obama Administration. What happened to the legal process of passing and amending a law? Where is the Constitution in this? Why isn’t Congress complaining about being left out of a large part of the implementation of this law?

Have we entered a period in our history when laws are changed in the dead of night without anyone other than the Administration having any input?

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Are We Rapidly Losing The Constitution?

On Saturday Forbes Magazine posted an article titled, “Government Takeover: White House Forces Obamacare Insurers To Cover Unpaid Patients At A Loss.”

Because of what has happened with Americans having their health insurance cancelled and not being able to enroll in ObamaCare because of website screw-ups and other glitches, the Obama Administration is attempted to force health insurance companies to hand out free health care—at a loss—to those whom the White House has rendered uninsured.

The article reports:

On Wednesday afternoon, health policy reporters found in their inboxes a friendly e-mail from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announcing “steps to ensure Americans signing up through the Marketplace have coverage and access to the care they need on January 1.” Basically, the “steps” involve muscling insurers to provide free or discounted care to those who have become uninsured because of the problems with healthcare.gov.

…“What’s wrong with ‘urging’ insurers to offer free care?” you might ask. “That’s not the same as forcing them to offer free care.” Except that the government is using the full force of its regulatory powers, under Obamacare, to threaten insurers if they don’t comply. All you have to do is read the menacing language in the new regulations that HHS published this week, in which HHS says it may throw otherwise qualified health plans off of the exchanges next year if they don’t comply with the government’s “requests.”

What we have here is an out-of-control administration that learned politics in Chicago. Until someone in Congress or the private sector has the intestinal fortitude to stand up to this thuggery, it will continue. Meanwhile, ObamaCare gets a little worse every day.

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The Idea Behind The Idea

This is an article about ObamaCare. It is based on two articles–one theoretical and one practical. The theoretical article was posted today at National Review. It was written by Andrew McCarthy. The practical article was posted at Power Line on Thursday. It was written by Paul Mirengoff and illustrates how Andrew McCarthy’s theory looks in the real world.

Andrew McCarthy describes ObamaCare as follows:

It is a Fabian plan to move an unwilling nation, rooted in free enterprise, into Washington-controlled, fully socialized medicine. As its tentacles spread over time, the scheme (a) pushes all Americans into government markets (a metastasizing blend of Medicare, Medicaid, and “exchanges” run by state and federal agencies); (b) dictates the content of the “private” insurance product; (c) sets the price; (d) micromanages the patient access, business practices, and fees of doctors; and (e) rations medical care. Concurrently, the scheme purposely sows a financing crisis into the system, designed to explode after Leviathan has so enveloped health care, and so decimated the private medical sector, that a British- or Canadian-style “free” system — formerly unthinkable for the United States — becomes the inexorable solution.

Andrew McCarthy reminds us of President Obama’s statement to a 2007 SEIU health-care forum.  The President stated, “There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years or 20 years out.” The transition he is referring to is the transition out of employee-based health into a government one-payer system. It was assumed that the individual healthcare insurance market could be phased out much more quickly. We are seeing that already in the number of individual health insurance policies that are being cancelled every day due to ObamaCare. This brings me to the article showing how ObamaCare works in practical terms.

Paul Mirengoff reports:

Covered California, that state’s insurance exchange, has rejected President Obama’s request that people be allowed to remain in non-compliant health insurance plans for another year. This decision is highly significant because California has experienced by far the most insurance policy cancellations of any state, reportedly around 900,000 of them.

Eliana Johnson points out that a number of Blue States — New York, Minnesota, Washington, and Rhode Island — have previously said no to Obama’s fix. So far, less liberal states — e.g., Florida, Tennesse, Alabama, and South Carolina — seem more receptive to the president.

The irony is only superficial. Blue State leaders are saying no because, as liberals, they dislike private plans and, more importantly, want to offer no escape from Obamacare for the young and the healthy whose participation in exchanges is needed to subsidize the middle-aged and the sick.

President Obama’s healthcare fix is political theater. It provides cover for him and (in his mind) for other Democrats. ObamaCare has cost the Democrat party dearly in the polls, and there is an election next year. There is one school of thought that says that because President Obama is in his second term he is more interested in changing America than being popular, but there is a problem with that. President Obama needs a cooperative Congress to keep ObamaCare in place. If the American people decide to vote out of office those politicians who supported ObamaCare, it is very possible that the next Congress could throw the entire program out and start over (we can only hope). So there is a fine line to be walked between changing ObamaCare enough to make it palatable to the American public without sacrificing the goal of eventual reaching a single-payer system and winning the next election. Get out the popcorn–this is going to be fun to watch!

 

 

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We Knew This Was Coming

One of the main problems with the programs put forth by the Obama Administration is that they have a way of rewarding friends and punishing enemies. We saw that in the stimulus and we saw that in the green energy programs. Now we are seeing it in ObamaCare.

Breitbart.com is reporting today that President Obama has changed ObamaCare to give a financial break to labor Unions.

The article reports:

The tax, known as the reinsurance fee, requires self-insured organizations, such as unions and some large companies, to pay $63 for each covered member and an additional $63 for each additional family member on a health plan.

The fee was expected to raise $25 billion over three years, with the funds going to insurance companies to offset the cost of covering pre-existing conditions and other mandatory benefits.

Meanwhile, on top of the carnage already hitting millions middle class families in the individual market, there is a coming ObamaCare tax in the employer-based market that’s about to affect millions who are apparently not among the president’s top donors.

We, as voters, are responsible for the leadership we have. Yuck.

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Why ObamaCare Will Not Work For Everyone

President Obama sold ObamaCare as a program that would provide healthcare for everyone who needed it, improve healthcare and lower cost for those who already had insurance, and generally do wonderful things for the American healthcare system. The Wall Street Journal posted an article yesterday explaining why ObamaCare is potentially a death sentence for Edie Littlefield Sundby. On Monday I posted an article about Ms. Sundby (rightwinggranny.com). Ms. Sundby has been fighting stage-4 gallbladder cancer for seven years. Stage-4 gallbladder cancer has a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. She has survived with the help of good doctors and good health insurance. Under ObamaCare she can no longer keep that insurance or all of her doctors.

Yesterday’s article in the Wall Street Journal explained:

Dan Pfeiffer, President Obama’s chief political spinner, sent out a now infamous tweet on Monday linking to a left-wing website that blamed Mrs. Sundby’s policy loss on UnitedHealthcare. The White House default is always to blame the insurers. But UnitedHealthcare only fled the state because ObamaCare’s subsidized exchanges are meant to steal their customers. As more people are pulled into government coverage, policies like Mrs. Sundby’s are harder to sustain economically, so insurers bail.

…As it imposes these policy cancellations, ObamaCare is also systematically destroying one of the best features of the current individual market, known as “guaranteed renewability at class-average rates.” This meant that once an insurance policy was issued, people could renew their coverage year after year at the same rates as their peer group. So someone like Mrs. Sundby who got sick would not pay higher premiums than average and her insurer could not deny coverage—unless UnitedHealthcare quit the business. This guaranteed renewability is no longer a guarantee thanks to ObamaCare.

…The reason Edie Sundby had to lose her plan is because her needs, and her measure of her own well-being, are different from Mr. Obama’s, and that is now unacceptable.

Healthcare should be a decision made between people and their doctors. The government has no place dictating medical care. If the government wants to provide health insurance and healthcare to Americans without health insurance, it should do that with tax credits–not in a way that disrupts those Americans who already have insurance and doctors they like. We also need to remember that being a profitable company is not a sin–profitable companies employ people and help the economy.

 

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Elections And Laws Have Consequences

America was promised, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” Many Americans believed that and were told that the people who were saying it wasn’t true were fear mongering. Well, here we are, ObamaCare is about to be in force, and we have discovered that the warnings were true. There is now a website called MyCancellation.com that shows cancellation letters from health insurance providers to policy holders. In some cases insurance premiums of the people who have received these letters will increase 300 percent.

Meanwhile, many insurance executives have been intimidated to the point that they are afraid to speak up about the damage ObamaCare will do to healthcare in America. Yesterday National Review posted an article about some of the comments health-care consultant Larry Thompson is hearing from insurance company executives.

The article reports:

Thompson predicts that by the end of next year, two phenomena will begin to unfold: first, that insurance companies, taking losses, will begin to remove themselves from the federal exchanges, and second, that wait times for doctors will rise. He even suggests that some of the exchanges may close by 2015. 

The crux of the problem: “Expectations are high, and delivery is going to low. When those two things converge, the law is going to get a pretty bad rap.”

We are only beginning to see the negative impact of ObamaCare.

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A Simple Guide To ObamaCare

Heritage.org posted an article detailing who is impacted by ObamaCare. The simple answer is everyone, but they posted an detailed list:

If You Have Insurance Through an Employer:  The administration claims that employee-provided coverage will not change–but it will. The administration promises better coverage, but there is a large price tag on that coverage. ObamaCare also requires maternity care for men and for women past child-bearing age. They have to pay for that coverage.

If You Buy Insurance Yourself:  If your insurance is not Obama-compliant, you will lose it. Your new policy will have higher premiums and a smaller network of doctors and hospitals.

If You Qualify for Subsidized Insurance:  Many Americans will be forced to buy insurance plans they do not want subsidized by other taxpayers. The $1.8 trillion spent on exchange plans and Medicaid will be a burden for future taxpayers.

If You Are a Senior Citizen on Medicare:  Half a trillion dollars was taken out of Medicare to fund ObamaCare. The reductions in Medicare spending could cause 15 percent of hospitals to become unprofitable by 2019, and 40 percent to become unprofitable by 2050. That could significantly impact senior citizens access to healthcare.

This really does not sound like a good deal for anyone.

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