The "Affordable" Care Act is a Trojan Horse. The more we find out about it, the less appealing it becomes. Here are 3 of the greatest myths or fairytales about Obama Care.
1). Working people are now paying the healthcare bills of those who don't have health insurance. This will cease to be the case under Obama Care. False. False. False. Exactly the opposite is true for reasons explained below.
2) Nearly everyone will have health insurance under the "Affordable" Care Act. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. In fact, there will be more people with no de facto health insurance than ever before, partly because of the huge co-payments and deductibles with Obama Care.
3) Americans will have greater, more affordable access to health insurance. Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire! You may have a lot of trouble keeping your doctor or finding a good new one.
Here is the disgusting truth.
Under private health insurance, you got to choose your deductible, the amount you pay out of pocket before your health insurance begins to pay. Many people had deductibles of $250 to $500 a year under their own health plans. In short, when they spent $250 out of their pocket, their medical insurance paid the most of the bill from there on. Under Obama Care, most health insurance plans that are affordable have annual deductibles of $5,000 to $7,500 per year. Yes, for real. You have no medical coverage for the first $5,000 to $7,500 of annual medical expense! That amounts to NO INSURANCE for most Americans. For example, if you have an Obama plan with a $7,500 annual deductible and go to the hospital or ER.....and.....
YOUR BILL IS $950.00
YOU PAY $950.00
OBAMA PAYS $0
YOUR BILL IS $4,600
YOU PAY $4,600
OBAMA PAYS $0
YOUR BILL IS $10,000
YOU PAY $ 7,500
OBAMA PAYS $2,500
Of course, you may be able to find a plan with a lower annual deductible. However, it will cost you much more than your plan cost before Obama Care. So, in effect, the cost of any decent health plan will go UP, not down.
Does the average American family have money lying around to pay the first $5,000 of a medical bill? Does a poor American family have that much? Of course not. So, what happens? The individual has, in effect, no health insurance. He goes to the emergency room because the ER can't turn him away without treatment. (Hey, isn't that the same system we have now?). The problem is, nearly everyone will have that sorry system under the "Affordable" Care Act, whereas, before--at least some people had really good insurance. Not any more! Not unless they can pay an arm and a leg for it.
Then, there is the matter of co-pays. A co-pay is the percentage of the medical bill that the insured has to pay AFTER the insurance plan has paid all it will pay. Under most private insurance plans before Obama Care, co-pays were seldom above 10 percent, often a fraction of that. So if you had a $10,000 medical bill (one night in the hospital), you might pay a co-pay (your share) of $200 to $1,000.
The co-pay (your share) under most Obama Care plans is 30 percent. Thus, with a 10,000 medical bill, you would expect to pay the first $5,000 as a deductible, plus 30 percent copay on the remaining $5,000 - another $1,500 out of your pocket. Wait a minute, out of a $10,000 medical bill, you end up paying $6,500 yourself while Obama Care pays $3,500? What are you paying insurance premiums for?
And for that wonderful coverage you are paying MORE in premiums than you paid the insurance company for far superior coverage prior to Obama Care! A really good policy that might have cost you $140 a month previously is exchanged for a poor policy that costs you $200 to $350 a month! And for much, much less coverage.
The obvious lies about "Affordable" Care are plain for all to see:
- Like your present insurance policy? You can keep it. (False, as we now know).
- Like your doctor? Keep him/her. (False- they won't take the sorry insurance)!
- Everyone will have access to medical care. (Not unless you got big bucks for deductibles and co-payments, which most people don't). As of October 28, 2015 the Government says less than 40 million people have bought Obama Care. The population of the US is 319 million. That's not close to everyone!
- No one is turned away due to a pre-existing condition. (True, but they have to afford up to 65 percent of the first $10,000 in medical bills each year - plus the premiums they cough up for the sorry insurance they're being sold. It may be a good deal for a relatively few individuals with catastrophic illnesses who will pay 65 cents on the dollar instead of 100 cents on the dollar, but it punishes millions to reward a much smaller number; not be best way to fix the problem).
- Emergency rooms will no longer have to bear the burden of providing free treatment for those who don't have insurance. (Yes they will, because millions cannot come up with the first $5,000 of the bill plus an extra couple of thousand for co-payments; thus, even more folks will wind up in the ER than before)!
- Doctors will be so eager to accept Obama Care benefits that all patients will be welcomed with open arms and treatment plans. (Biggest lie of all. Doctors and hospitals HATE Obama Care with a purple passion; many are either going broke or quitting the practice of medicine rather than face the scourge of "Affordable" Care). PS: Doctors got sold down the river by some professional lobbies that supported "Affordable" Care and are mad as ---- now that they know the truth! It's hard to find a real doctor who likes or supports "Affordable" Care! Have you asked your doctor? Mine hates it!
Originally, the mandates for businesses to provide health insurance for their employees were supposed to become effective in 2014. The mandates were delayed because of public concern about the dysfunctional website used to sign up for "Affordable" care and, frankly, because it would have flattened job growth and devastated the economy. So, the president reluctantly delayed the requirement for business to provide health care insurance to their employees.
Even with those delays, we saw some pretty awful consequences of "Affordable" care. Millions of Americans lost their insurance policies as insurers who could not meet the federal mandates opted to cancel their policies. Mostly affected were Americans who purchased their own health insurance. Since most Americans have health insurance through their employers, they were temporarily spared the painful cancellations and costly premium increases.
But now, the mandates are about to kick in for business. 80 percent of Americans who are insured by their employers will now face the agony of those who had individual health insurance policies.
If you think there was an angry howl about policy cancellations, premium increases, increased co-pays and deductibles before, just wait until employers have to meet all the health insurance mandates under "Affordable" care! Here's what we're going to see:
- More companies will become Forty-Niners, that is, companies with only 49 employees--since many mandates can be avoided by employers with fewer than 50 workers. How do you get down to 49 employees? Simple. Keep a few key employees on full-time and put all the others on a part-time basis with no insurance, no benefits. It's already happening all over the county and more medium sized companies are set to become Forty-Niners.
- Companies will try hard not to hire new workers, especially full-time workers who qualify for mandated insurance under Obama Care. This will flat-line the job growth numbers, which are already dismally low when viewed without the political spin.
- The short term economy will decline, not grow. Companies that show signs of financial success will be punished by mandates that will cost them millions of dollars. Smaller companies will be forced out of business altogether. It will be progressively harder to start a new business.
- Long term, the economy will grow dismally slow, like the European economies that absorb extravagant taxes to support big social programs. A sluggish economy will be thought of as the new normal.
- Ultimately, more Americans will be without health insurance than before Obama Care. Deductibles (the part of health care you must pay yourself before insurance begins to pay) averaged $250 a year prior to Obama Care. Under Obama Care, the average deductible will increase to around $5,000 per year. Since most folks do not have $5,000 a year to pay this deductible, the effect is that they will not have any health insurance coverage under Obama Care. On top of the huge deductible, Obama Care policies average paying about 70 percent of your hospital bill (vs. 80 to 100 percent prior to Obama Care)! Do the math and feel the pain.
There is nothing "affordable" about Obama care, either for the US economy or for the family.
The Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) was not designed, as advertised, to provide affordable health insurance to all Americans. That was just the political cover used to sell the idea. In fact, federally mandated, government sponsored health insurance had been opposed by the public ever since it was first introduced. President and Mrs. Clinton discovered Americans' animosity to government health insurance years ago. President Obama was determined to avoid Clinton's mistakes.
The real purpose of Obama care is to control the cost of healthcare consumed in the United States. That can only be done effectively if the US government is given authority to regulate healthcare.
Another purpose of the Affordable Health Care Act is to shift the cost of insurance coverage from poor Americans to working class middle income Americans. They call it subsidies. We will be hearing more and more about subsidies. A "subsidy" is when you and I pay for health insurance for someone else. Call it what you will. It is another tax on working Americans.
How does a subsidy work? It's really simple. Taxpayers contribute money to the US Treasury, mostly by paying income taxes. Another major source of funding under Affordable Care is over-priced premiums paid by middle class working Americans to purchase health insurance. The government uses some of these funds to help pay for health insurance for supposedly disadvantaged families or individuals. Really, it is working class Americans paying extra for healthcare to finance care for millions of people who cannot afford it. The government merely acts as the conduit or "pipeline" that collects the money and then redistributes it to the individuals they believe should have it. (I know how much the term "redistribution" is hated by liberal politicians - but that's exactly what the government is doing).
How anyone could call this "the Affordable Healthcare Act" with a straight face is beyond me. The average working American who pays full fare for his or her health insurance will see premium spikes of up to 400 percent. Of course it costs extra to cover millions of persons with catastrophic pre-existing conditions while giving away millions of insurance policies to the poor and unemployed. That is supposed to drive costs down? Hardly! It reminds me of the old joke about the used car dealer. He said he lost money on every car he sold. How could he stay in business that way? His answer was -- Volume! Sorry, it's a terrible joke but a good illustration.
"Socialism" is another hated word these days, because it correctly describes a big government superstructure trying to tax anyone that produces wealth in order to care for those who produce nothing. Liberals embrace and love the principles and ideas of socialism but hate the word because it once had a very negative connotation. Although the word socialism does not have the negative taint that it had during the Cold War, no politician wants to be labeled as a socialist (except Bernie Sanders)! They prefer other labels, such as progressives, free thinkers, "compassionate liberals," etc. No matter what they call it, no matter how they disguise it, the principles of European style socialism are at the core of all they are and do. That includes the economic structure of the Affordable Care Act. It is Socialist all the way to its core.
Socialism embraces the idea that it is wrong for "a few" in society to have too much while the masses suffer poverty and want. Of course, it cannot avoid pitting class against class, although that is constantly disavowed for the reasons already explained. Karl Marx's idea of socialism was to confiscate most of the wealth of rich individuals and redistribute it to the poverty stricken masses. The problem is that socialism fails to recognize the absolute necessity of producing wealth. Government only spends money; it never creates any wealth. Government could not collect taxes without wealth on which to place taxes.
As an example, the average working class American lives in a pretty nice home, owns a couple of good automobiles, has a checking and savings account, has 3 or 4 television sets, a cell phone for each member of the family, and in short enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world! How was this achieved? By the success of the American economy, driven by privately owned businesses which provided good jobs and incomes for millions of Americans. Destroy the wealth created by those privately owned businesses and BOOM--suddenly you have no more wealth. Nothing left to tax. There goes the standard of living for everyone. Socialism does not just attack the vulgar "rich people," it attacks the middle class, too. But if I had the job of selling socialism to the American people, I would portray it as "taxing only the rich" and making the "wealthiest Americans" pay their fair share. Sound familiar? We'll hear a lot more of that in the 2016 election cycle.
Traditional socialism's model is for the government to own and control key elements of a nation's economy. Typically, we think of a socialist government owning the nation's airlines, railroads, utilities and perhaps automobile manufacturing. Smaller industries may be privately owned, except, of course, in communist countries such as North Korea or Cuba.
The Affordable Care Act, whether intended or not, is one huge step in decimating
the traditional US free market economy. After all, healthcare now constitutes
one-sixth of the US economy and if growth trends continue it will
constitute at least one-fifth of the economy by 2025. A government takeover of
that gigantic piece of the economy is too significant to comprehend. It's much
bigger than the US government announcing that it would
take over automobile manufacturing or airlines. It's bigger than a government takeover of auto manufacturing,
airlines and railroads combined! Yet, it has drawn relatively moderate criticism compared to a government takeover of those private sectors. Can you imagine how Republicans would scream if the US Government suddenly took over Ford, GM, Chrysler, the airline industry, the railroads, etc. They just took over one fifth of the entire US economy and we're quiet as a mouse.
What liberal socialists hate about free enterprise is that it rewards achievers but not those who cannot or will not achieve. It allows more economic gain to those who produce something. In other words, free enterprise does not create a totally "equal" society where one person has as much wealth as every other person. The only known economic system that has openly attempted to do that is extreme socialism, also called communism, today practiced in such countries as Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, etc. (China now embraces a weird combination of communism and carefully controlled capitalism).
Obama Care (the "Affordable" Care Act) is a victim of liberal and socialist thinking. It combats, in the name of compassion, the idea that some people can have more than others, some will achieve more than others, some will be better educated than others, some will succeed and some will not...., etc. It strives to destroy the incentives of what are often called the "wealthiest Americans" and provide relief to those whom the government perceives as poor or disadvantaged. The problem is, what it really does is diminish the middle class of working Americans by additional taxation and financial penalties. It requires working Americans who are by no means wealthy, and who are struggling to maintain a decent standard of living, to spend extra money to pay for health insurance for millions of others who say they cannot afford to pay for it themselves. And it tries to achieve this goal with the most inefficient, expensive and non-competitive manner that can be imagined.
To subsidize health insurance premiums for the previously uninsured, the government depends on selling over priced policies to younger, healthier Americans who do not perceive any need for or appreciation of health insurance benefits. Health insurance is especially not appreciated at the exorbitant prices being offered by Obama Care. In other words, a working class American is not willing to pay an extra $300 or $400 a month to provide health insurance for someone else. And adding millions of individuals with catastrophic, pre-existing health conditions will cost trillions of dollars. Without a large base of younger, healthier Americans buying over priced health insurance, who pays the cost? That's where the Affordable Care Act comes apart at the seams! You can hear the rivets popping! It seems like sixth grade arithmetic but the administration either lied or began to believe their own press releases.
As a columnist once said, "I'm scared. I don't know if the world is controlled by geniuses who are bluffing or by idiots who mean it."
The diabolical results of "Affordable Care" have been absolutely disastrous, unfortunately. Far fewer Americans have health insurance now than before this ill conceived law. Cost of health insurance did not go down - but up--and dramatically so in most cases. Simply getting or keeping health insurance is profoundly more difficult now and the law has a loophole that works against the government's intention of forcing younger people to purchase over priced health insurance. That loophole, unintentional as it was, allows individuals to pay a penalty (which is a fraction of the cost of health insurance) and opt out of the whole stupid, messy business. Millions are opting out and more will do so unless the loophole is closed by drastically increasing the penalties immediately. And the public doesn't seem to be in a mood to let that happen, at least not today. So politicians who supported Obama Care wring their hands and wonder how to get reelected. (The mid-term elections sent most of those people back home, unemployed)!
Obama tossed the politicians a political bone: we will delay the mandate that employers must buy health insurance for all their employees. How long will we delay that? Until after the mid-term elections--so all you Democrats who supported Obama Care can get reelected. (We couldn't have done it without you; one good deed deserves another). So politicians who stuck their necks out and supported Obama Care hoped the American voters had poor memories. They always have had. But, not this time. Along come the mid-terms and Americans remembered. The Obama Democrats got fired--the Republicans took control of both Houses of Congress. Sadly, though, we are still stuck with Obama Care.
So the younger, healthier Americans under age 45 who were supposed to contribute trillions of dollars to subsidize health insurance for the disadvantaged are opting out and paying the penalty. And in the haste to ramrod Obama Care quickly through Congress, terrible blunders were made. For instance, Obama Care was ramrodded through Congress without so much as a basic legal provision to pay health insurance companies their premiums. The fault lines are just now being discovered; the quake has not yet registered on the Richter Scale.
The worst of Obama Care was hidden until after the 2014 mid-term elections (on purpose). As fewer individuals actually purchase Obama Care there are fewer dollars for the government to use in paying for low cost or free health insurance for the disadvantaged. (The administration finds that there is a useful element to successful free enterprise after all--that element being to provide a tax base--the goose that lays the golden egg). But the goose is afraid to lay any eggs, not only because the eggs will be stolen but also because her proverbial head may be chopped off. So, as middle class working Americans avoid Obama Care, the government must spend more and more dollars to prop up the "Affordable" Care Act. Since the government has no more dollars, what does it do. It increases the debt. By October 31, 2015, the debt will have reached at least 19 trillion dollars and Congress will vote to allow the debt to ascend quickly to 22 or 23 trillion dollars to avoid a shutdown of the US government. This will happen in spite of the fact that Republicans will control the Congress in 2016. It will happen because Republicans are too timid to really oppose Obama Care. If the government does shut down in late 2016, Republicans know Obama will blame them. They have the gun to their head now. So, to avoid the shutdown, they authorize deadly debt limits approaching 23 trillion dollars--so much money that no government on earth has ever seen, printed or counted that kind of money.
Not long ago the progressives told us all would be well. The website would be fixed. You were not really being forced to do anything except what is right. If you love your old insurance plan, just keep it! It's all oh so voluntary. All we're doing is to help a few million uninsured people to get free or almost free health insurance and what's wrong with that? But that is not at all what they were doing. And if it were, nothing would be wrong with that--except that we contrived a nightmarish, expensive method to achieve that goal.
It's kind of like having a flat tire on the freeway. It's a problem. The sane way to fix the problem is to change the tire. The insane way to fix it would be to leave the car on the side of the freeway and go buy a new $100,000 luxury sedan on credit.
I write this in December of 2013, near the end of the first terrible year for Obama Care. The doctor's diagnosis has come in and it is not good for the patient. Obama Care has failed. Even loyal progressive Democrats have had enough! No more trying to sell a dismal failure to the public, not on the eve of House and Senate elections when control of the Congress is up for grabs and angry voters are likely to send the scoundrels who sold us Obama Care back to work (and I mean real work, not back to Congress)! So now Democrats are screaming that Affordable Care was a good dream that just doesn't work, it is broken, and it must somehow be fixed! We will hear that at least until after the mid-term elections. I mean, politicians will resort to anything to get reelected--even telling the truth once in a while.
I'm not sure how to fix a rapidly sinking ship at sea. No dry dock is in sight.
Those who helped bring us the nightmare of Obama Care because they blindly believed what they were told, by people who were either unbelievably ignorant or preposterous liars (you choose) - deserve to lose their seats in the Congress. They ought to. Americans are too forgiving, especially toward politicians.
The Affordable Care Act is a national cancer. It is hemorrhaging and its victims are emaciated, angry, betrayed and lethargic. It will require a great lie, greater than all past lies combined, to cover up the unfolding national disaster. Whether politicians are capable of finding a mega lie that even a significant minority of Americans will believe remains to be seen; however, there are master liars in Washington, so all bets are off. There are still several months to go and the wheels are spinning desperately to find a political fix. Not a real fix to the nation's healthcare crisis, a political fix that saves the politicians. Reality doesn't matter. What the public thinks is real--that is what matters. And we have the talking heads on the media and the politicians telling us what is "real." We may or may not still be gullible enough to believe them.
The mid-term elections will tell the tale.
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One small update. I add this in April, 2014. I am watching a TV news report that says millions of Americans have had their private health plans cancelled. Also, many Americans say that health insurance policies offered by the Obama Care "marketplace" are inferior to the insurance they just lost. Deductibles are higher, co-pays are higher, premiums are higher, coverage is worse. Real Americans are on TV telling their story. How do Washington's political spokespeople respond to these reports?
"It's all lies." A US Senator stands in front of the camera and says with a straight face, "These are all lies." Obama Care is great. Those who find fault with it are just lying.
Here is what I wrote back in December 2013: " It will require a great lie,
greater than all past lies combined, to cover up the unfolding national
disaster. Whether politicians are capable of finding a mega lie that
even a significant minority of Americans will believe remains to be
seen; however, there are master liars in Washington, so all bets are
off."
Of all the "great lies" that seem to have been prototype tested, this is the one they have chosen to use so far. "It's all lies." Get it? The great lie is: It's all lies.
We lied to you about Obama Care. You found us out. You spoke the truth. With what great "mega lie" can we respond? "It's all lies." The great mega lie is, "Our critics are all liars."
________________
I update this post again AFTER the 2014 mid-term elections. To my surprise, Republicans have taken the House and Senate by large margins. Voting for Obama Care was, indeed, the kiss of death, for many Democrats in the Congress. (And they know it). We now know what the Democrats' big lie was. ("All our critics are liars."). After the elections are over, Obama Care is now a moot point. No one is talking about it. Republicans won't or can't repeal it. They won't even try seriously. Here is the new big question: Will Republicans use their new power in the Congress to roll back any of Obama's radical agenda before the next big shakeup, the 2016 presidential election? Probably not. Will Obama Care even be a talking point in the 2016 presidential race? Probably not. Will Republicans pledge to repeal Obama Care if they capture the White House and both houses of Congress in 2016? Probably not. That leads me to a new big question: What good are the Republicans if they won't use their power to keep the national debt under $20 trillion or at least try to restore our healthcare system? Haven't they become just like the Democrats? Is there any hope in a political outsider like Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, Donald Trump or someone/anyone who hasn't sold his soul to the devil up in D.C.? Will the 2016 presidential elections change anything? Or will we listen to whoever has the slickest promises, elect him or her, and things will continue as they are now?
