You know things are going poorly for the Obama White House when even the New York Times is writing about the “third world experience” of Obamacare.
Heck, it’s almost gotten to the point where I feel sorry for the President.
But I guess I must be a mean-spirited anti-government ideologue, because I can’t stop myself from mocking the President’s ill-fated healthcare scheme. Whether I’m sharing funny cartoons or sarcastic videos, I can’t resist the temptation to kick Obamacare while it’s down.
In this spirit of love and togetherness, let’s take a look at some recent news about the law.
McClatchy News has a big expose that reveals the magnitude of the President’s if-you-like-your-insurance-you-can-keep-it prevarication. Let’s review a couple of excerpts from the story, beginning with a comparison of the President’s promise and the staggering revelation that as many as 52 million Americans may have the rug pulled out from under them.
Even as President Barack Obama sold a new health care law in part by assuring Americans they would be able to keep their insurance plans, his administration knew that tens of millions of people actually could lose those their policies. …report in 2010 said that as many as 69 percent of certain employer-based insurance plans would lose that protection, meaning as many as 41 million people could lose their plans even if they wanted to keep them and would be forced into other plans. Another 11 million who bought their own insurance also could lose their plans. Combined, as many as 52 million Americans could lose or have lost old insurance plans.
Amazingly, the President continues to be truth-challenged.
Obama insisted anew Thursday that the problem is limited to people who buy their own insurance. “We’re talking about 5 percent of the population who are in what’s called the individual market. They’re out there buying health insurance on their own,” he told NBC. But a closer examination finds that the number of people who have plans changing, or have already changed, could be between 34 million to 52 million. That’s because many employer-provided insurance plans also could change, not just individually purchased insurance plans.
Now let’s examine an example of what this means. The Weekly Standard reports on what has happened to some citizens from flyover country.
In North Dakota, only 30 people have so far signed up for Obamacare. Meanwhile, 35,000 people have already or will be losing their existing health insurance plans in that state alone.
But that’s not the only bad news for the President’s statist healthcare scheme.
It seems that Obamacare is a gold mine for crooks and con artists. Let’s look at parts of a New York Times story.
To the list of problems plaguing President Obama’s health care law, add one more — fraud. …State and federal authorities report a rising number of consumer complaints, ranging from deceptive sales practices to identity theft, linked to the Affordable Care Act. …Some level of fraud or abuse is predictable with any big government program… But now, the technical failures troubling the HealthCare.gov website, as well as the law’s complexity, threaten to make matters worse. …Authorities warn that in some cases the come-ons are merely a ruse to get people to divulge sensitive Medicare and banking information. …Medicare has also long been a magnet for swindlers, thanks to its sheer scale and complexity. The troubled rollout of the new health care law has amplified the problem.
By the way, this story doesn’t even mention the possibility and risk of hackers and identity thieves breaking into the massive government databases that will be created as a result of Obamacare.
And if you’ll allow me to briefly digress, the same danger exists if politicians create the huge tracking-and-monitoring database that would be necessary if state politicians get the authority to tax out-of-state Internet sales.
Returning to the topic of Obamacare, it’s also worth noting that the growing burden of taxes and spending isn’t part of the aforementioned stories. Yet can there be any doubt that the program’s failures will lead to even more spending?
Not that any of us should be surprised. That’s almost always been the case when politicians create new entitlement programs. Indeed, I would pat myself on the back for making exactly this predication about Obamacare, but anybody with a room-temperature IQ knew this would happen, so I can’t claim any special insight.
But this does give me a reason to share this new Lisa Benson cartoon.
Needless to say, I’m enjoying the ongoing Obamacare disaster. But not just for reasons of Schadenfreude. The cluster-you-know-what of Obamacare is good news because it increases our chances of repealing the law in a few years (just as I predicted back in April).
But not just our chance to repeal Obamacare. We may actually have a chance to deal with the larger government-caused problems in our healthcare system, all of which lead to third-party payer and undermine the efficiency and low costs that exist when there is a genuine free market.
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Obamacare shows how stupid liberalism is.
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from “front page”:
“the signup rate at the federal website averaged a meager 744 enrollees per state. That’s a remarkably modest number for a website that has cost the taxpayers more than $600 million and counting.”
“as of mid-November, 4.8 million Americans have had their health insurance plans cancelled. That number is expected to rise exponentially. Depending on the source, the number of policies that will be cancelled ranges from 52 million, to as high as 93 million.”
break out the tar and feathers……………………………………..
drketedc, this comes down to how insurance works. When an insurance company can enroll a large group of people all at once, as it does through employer-sponsored health insurance, it can make certain statistically reliable assumptions. That alone lowers the insurer’s risk. Plus, because the employer is bringing so much business to the insurance company, it can state up front that it wants the pre-existing conditions covered, which of course will make the premiums higher, but that is a choice the employer can force because of the leverage it has. On the other hand, when you are buying insurance individually, you have very little leverage and the insurance company can insist on getting a clean product (a clean bill of health) for what it is contracting to insure.
“Heck, it’s almost gotten to the point where I feel sorry for the President.” Save your sympathy for those of us who always knew that individual to be a fraud, yet are now stuck with his terrible policies thanks to low information voters and a corrupt, complicit “news” media.
“But I guess I must be a mean-spirited anti-government ideologue, because I can’t stop myself from mocking the President’s ill-fated healthcare scheme.”
You not only possess the aforementioned character traits, you are also blatantly raaaaaaaaaacist. (Isn’t that what they call EVERYONE who criticizes the president?)
/sarc
Good article, enjoyed reading it. I came to it from Phineas Fahrquar’s Public Secrets blog.
It’s Ceasefire on the Western Front Day, but you lead with another complaint about the PPACA?
Good grief, you really are an obtuse tool of militarism, now aren’t you?
Free market healthcare will require that all government interference ends. Not only must Obamacare, Medicare, and Medicaid be scraped, but the tax deduction must also go.
They should be replaced by cash payments to individual Health Savings Accounts, which will subsidize care for the poor, replace some of the tax deduction lost, and satisfy commitments to seniors and those with pre-existing conditions. If and only if this takes place can we transition to true universal free market healthcare.
Can someone explain the pre-existing condition issue to me? I understand that an insurance company shouldn’t be forced to pay for this, but that is exactly what they do if you get insurance through your employer. I am in the group that must get individual insurance since we own our own business. We provide insurance to employees and they can be accepted no matter what the pre-diagnosed condition, but if we get private insurance we can be turned down. Lump us into the employee group and we can be accepted but if we get insurance individually we can be turned down if we have been diagnosed with something. Is it just an accounting quirk?
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Mitchell neats me to the post I was going to write today about the latest bad news in this rolling fiasco. For example: 30 people have signed up for Obamacare in North Dakota — YAY! But 35,000 people there are losing their insurance, can’t buy new policies because of the crappy web site, and that December 15th deadline to get a new policy is looming — ooops! Be sure to read the rest.