Posted on 09/24/2013 11:48:05 PM PDT by Kaslin
Like an estimated 22 million other Americans, I am a self-employed small-business owner who buys health insurance for my family directly on the individual market. We have a high-deductible PPO plan that allows us to choose from a wide range of doctors.
Or rather, we had such a plan.
Last week, our family received notice from Anthem BlueCross BlueShield of Colorado that we can no longer keep the plan we like because of "changes from health care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA)." The letter informed us that "(t)o meet the requirements of the new laws, your current plan can no longer be continued beyond your 2014 renewal date."
In short: Obama lied. My health plan died.
Remember? Our president looked America straight in the eye and promised: "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also lied when she pledged: "Keep your doctor, and your current plan, if you like them."
This isn't just partisan business. It's personal. Our cancellation letter states that Anthem is "not going to be selling new individual PPO plans." When we asked whether we could keep our children's doctors, an agent for Anthem told my husband and me she didn't know. The insurer has no details available yet on what exactly they'll be offering. We either will be herded into the Obamacare federal health insurance exchange regime (launching October 1), a severely limited HMO plan, or presented with costlier alternatives from another insurer. If they even exist.
My family is not alone. Across the country, insurers are sending out Obamacare-induced health plan death notices to untold tens of thousands of other customers in the individual market. Twitter users are posting their Obamacare cancellation notices and accompanying rate increases:
Linda Deright posted her letter from Regency of Washington state: "63 percent jump, old policy of 15 yrs. cancelled." Karen J. Dugan wrote: "Received same notice from Blue Shield CA for our small business. Driving into exchange and no info since online site is down." Chris Birk wrote: "Got notice from BCBS that my current health plan is not ACA compliant. New plan 2x as costly for worse coverage." Small-business owner Villi Wilson posted his letter from HMSA Blue Cross Blue Shield canceling his individual plan and added: "I thought Obama said if I like my health care plan I can keep my health care plan."
Few among Washington's protected political class are paying attention, because they enjoy their lucrative government benefits and are exempted from Obamacare's destructive consequences. But one of my state's congressional representatives, GOP Rep. Cory Gardner, also lost his individual market plan. Unlike most politicians on Capitol Hill, Gardner chose not to enroll in the federal health insurance program. He told me that he opted to participate in the private market "because I wanted to be in the same boat as my constituents. And now that boat is sinking!"
Gardner points to recent analysis showing individual market rate increases of 23 percent to 25 percent in Colorado. "After my current plan is discontinued," he wrote last week, "the closest comparable plan through our current provider will cost over 100 percent more, going from roughly $650 a month to $1,480 per month." He now carries his Obamacare cancellation notice with him as hardcore proof of the Democrats' ultimate deception.
Maryland announced that its post-Obamacare individual market rates could also rise by a whopping 25 percent. The National Association for the Self-Employed is recommending that its small-business owners and freelancers plan for at least a 15 percent increase nationwide. One of the reasons for those rate hikes, of course, is that Obamacare's mandated benefits provisions force insurers to carry coverage for items that individual market consumers had deliberately chosen to forgo.
Americans who had opted for affordable catastrophic coverage-style plans now have fewer and fewer choices. This includes a whole class of musicians, photographers, artists, writers, actors and other creative people who purchased health plans through the individual market or through small professional organizations. As St. Vincent College arts professor Ben Schachter reports in the Weekly Standard, groups like the College Art Association, Modern Language Association and the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust are dropping their plans. Young, healthy members of these groups "are far more likely to see their rates go up -- or to face the individual mandate penalties."
Thanks to Obama, access is down. Premiums and health care spending are up. Research and development on lifesaving drugs and medical devices are down. Hours and benefits have been cut because of Obamacare costs and regulatory burdens by at least 300 American companies, according to Investor's Business Daily. And the Obamacare layoff bomb continues to claim victims.
Obamacare is destroying the private individual market for health insurance by design, not accident. For hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of self-employed job creators, three fundamental Obamacare truths are becoming as clear as Obama's growing nose: 1) You can't keep it. 2) We're screwed. 3) The do-gooders don't care.
I believe the so called Tipping Point came with Reagan or even before. I say Reagan because he trimmed the beast around the edges, to the point of initiating the longest boom in history, but was unable to cut out even part of the underlying cancer.
Rise up and cast off your chains. Do not let this happen. Do not enroll. Use cash and keep your doctor.
And will probably come to an end soon. The new regime will not support the costs of R&D. Some liberals say well, we have the most advanced health care system in history. We don't need to improve it any more. We just need to spread it around.
The reality is that without constant very expensive R&D, antibiotics will slowly, maybe not so slowly, lose effectiveness and the system will essentially revert to ca. 1910 or so. You get sick, you die. The Rulers think they can reserve real medicine for themselves while the country depopulates but they will find, too late, that they no longer have sufficient resources to get that R&D for themselves. It costs just as much to develop a drug for a small number of people as it does for a whole population and the whole population of a market economy has the resources to support those costs while that tiny elite will not because they will have destroyed the economic base. They will own all the resources but the wealth pond will have become very small for those big frogs.
And they will not be able to get their efficacious antibiotics from overseas either like the Soviet Politburo could. The USA is the only reason new drugs are developed, even by Swiss and German companies. The American market with its patent protections is what pays for medical R&D everywhere in the world.
1) It ends the 40 hour work week and changes that to 29 1/2. Obamacare starts at 30 hours a week and many large employers have already changed over to it. Many workers who were 'making it' now are underwater financially. Many workers are LOOSING THEIR HEALTH INSURANCE they formerly had due to this POISONOUS LAW.
2) It is imposed on companies with 50 or more employees. Many companies at 55 or so have scaled back to 49 or less to avoid it. IE MORE LAYOFFS coming.
3) Many small businesses cannot afford Obamacare and are simply going belly up. Big businesses have exemptions and sweetheart deals that small businesses just do not have. SMALL BUSINESSES GOING BELLY UP TAKE OTHER BUSINESSES WITH THEM.
Ted Cruz is right to point out what the Democrats and the Mainstream press just does NOT WANT YOU TO FIGURE OUT UNTIL IT IS TOO LATE.
The plan I buy for my son has already gone up far more than 25 percent. I'm not interested in some overpriced Cadillac plan that covers every single visit for hangnails and scraped knees, all I want is a plan to cover medical emergencies--a real insurance plan that operates like any other insurance plan.
My husband’s employer, a large financial-services corporation, is holding meetings telling the employees that they simply don’t know what’s going to happen regarding the employees’ health insurance. My son’s employer, a discount retail chain, sent out letters saying the same thing: “You have to get health insurance, but it beats us how, where, or what it looks like. We only know it’s going to cost you a fortune.”
The question for all the useful idiots is what does this law accomplish? Insure everyone? It will still leave millions uninsured. Decrease costs? No, it will increase costs particularly for young healthy people. Increase access? JUst the opposite.
The useful idiots reelected that arrogant pos occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, don’t expect them to wake up.
The scary part is that IF we avoid collapse, it’s going to take a long time to turn this ship around.
I know that my employer is changing insurance, but I am still waiting to see what the alternative will be. They are trying to paint a rosy picture of things, but I don’t expect any of it to be true.
Useful idiots will reply with whatever the propagandists tell them to say.
But, what Obamacare accomplishes is more government & less freedom. The ruling class gets exactly what it wants. That it is bad for everybody else is irrelevant.
We got a cancellation letter through my daughter’s employer- she has to purchase another plan, not so good but more expensive. It also has a note on it, “ACA Fee” - there is a generalized fee for contributing to Obamacare!
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