Posted on 10/12/2016 4:30:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
Once was a shock. Twice was an outrage. Thrice is a nightmare that won't end.
Over the past three years, my family's private, individual health insurance plan -- a high-deductible Preferred Provider Organization -- has been canceled three times. Our first death notice, from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, arrived in the fall of 2013. Our second, from Rocky Mountain Health Plans, came last August. Three weeks ago, we received another ominous "notice of plan discontinuation" from Anthem informing us that the insurer "will no longer offer your current health plan in the State of Colorado."
Every time we receive a cancellation letter, I recall President Obama's big lie: "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."
Then I imagine Vincent Price's evil "Thriller" laugh reverberating at the end of that cruel punchline: Mwahahahahahaha!
(Actually, you can play a real-life horror soundtrack by watching Obama's jerk speechwriters Jon Lovett, David Litt and Jon Favreau cackle with liberal PBS host Charlie Rose earlier this year about authoring Obamacare's big lie. Google it, but take your blood pressure medication first.)
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 (as opposed to group insurance through a company or third party). Our most recent plan features a $6,000 deductible with a $1,000 monthly premium. It's nosebleed expensive, but provides us access to specialists not curtailed by bureaucratic gatekeepers. This has been important for us because several members of my family have required specialized care for chronic illnesses.
Once again, however, I'll soon be talking about our plan in the past tense. Choices for families like mine have evaporated in the era of Obamacare. In Colorado, UnitedHealthCare and Humana will cease selling individual plans next year. Rocky Mountain Health Plans is pulling out of the individual market in all but one county. Nearly 100,000 of my fellow Coloradans will be forced to find new insurance alternatives as open enrollment approaches on Nov. 1, according to the Denver Business Journal. As Anthem abandons PPOs, the cost of remaining individual market plans will soar an average of 20 percent.
It's a nationwide implosion.
Individual market customers on the Obamacare exchange in Oklahoma learned last week that they'll face average rate hikes of a whopping 76 percent. Last month, Maryland approved double-digit rate hikes for all individual market plans. In August, Tennessee approved rate increases of between 44 and 62 percent for three insurers still carrying individual market plans. And in Minnesota, where the individual market is on the brink of collapse, state officials recently agreed to raise rates an average of 60 percent next year -- affecting an estimated 250,000 people both on and off the Obamacare exchanges.
The private individual insurance market is in peril. The government-run exchanges are flailing. And the vaunted nonprofit Obamacare co-ops that were supposed to dramatically lower costs have bombed despite billions in taxpayer subsidies.
I believe this insurance market meltdown -- which many of us predicted from the get-go -- is not by accident, but by design. Or as Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John D. Doak put it: "This system has been doomed from the beginning."
Smug propagandists for Obamacare, such as liberal magazine Mother Jones, continue to dismiss the plight of millions of families like mine and accuse us of concocting a "phony" crisis. But it's the architects of Obamacare who prevaricated all along. Remember: Obamacare godfather and MIT professor Jonathan Gruber bragged that "lack of transparency" was a "huge political advantage," along with what he derided as "the stupidity of the American voter."
This wealth redistribution Trojan horse was sold to gullible Americans as a vehicle for expanding "affordable" access to health insurance for all. Now, millions of us are paying the price: crappier plans, fewer choices, shrinking access to specialists, skyrocketing price tags -- and no end in sight to the death spiral.
Mission accomplished.
MS just had 1 small hospital shut down last month, virtually no warnings to workers or patients. Nearest next hospital is 30 mins away and has a very bad rep. Baptist Desoto.
All trauma victims go to Memphis to the MED and the renown Elvis Presley Trauma Center. Nic U is the other draw as it is the best in the Tri state area.
The hospital itself and the regular ER are doctors offices for the Third World and Welfare crowd. Hospital is full of nasty germs. ER is a 8+ hr wait time.
This will be standard operations within ten years across the nation.
My brother counted the other day...four hospitals within 30 min’s of his house. He thinks two will convert to clinics only within five years. The other two can probably survive but they won’t carry all standardized procedures (just a humble guess). So the all-purpose-four-star place will be an hour’s drive away.
This is the only way that a Medicare-only type system can survive.
I keep getting calls about jobs in the Boston area
Would I go nuts there? The pay is pretty decent, but I have a hard time dealing with liberals
I knew one woman at a place I worked who said some joke about how you were stupid or evil if you were republican. right out of the blue, in the middle of any conversation.
I finally had enough and told her not everyone agrees with your politics and wants to be insulted by you all the time.
This is not different. In effect your insurance policy is ‘cancelled’ every year and you have new terms to re-up or choose a different plan or a different company altogether.
This is the same with car insurance, home insurance etc. It’s not an unlimited term.
The problem is that companies keep dropping out OR they change their terms drastically from year to year so it’s a bigger change. Before the terms were pretty steady from year to year.
In addition, in the previous system insurance companies could negotiate with the State to raise premiums, reduce coverage, etc.
Obamacare is an abomination but in some respects it is not a ‘change’ from what we had before. The insurance companies are basically a government sponsored monopoly. In theory the government sets the terms they can offer ... but that is just a smokescreen. They lobby hard with whatever entity supposedly ‘regulates’ them to get what they want. That part has not changed. The industry is still a cartel as it was before.
What we have needed all along, and what would have been real CHANGE is to allow open competition between insurance companies and let them offer a variety of plans and across State lines. But the insurance industry DOES NOT WANT THIS. Don’t be fooled. It is the health insurers who are against open competition. Congress (or State legislators) are just doing their bidding.
Thank Chief Judas Roberts.
The private individual insurance market is in peril. The government-run exchanges are flailing. And the vaunted nonprofit Obamacare co-ops that were supposed to dramatically lower costs have bombed despite billions in taxpayer subsidies.
I believe this insurance market meltdown — which many of us predicted from the get-go — is not by accident, but by design.
...
Yep. Has the MSM held Obama accountable? Everything that came out of his mouth was a lie.
At the time, Bangor was a small town of about 30,000 people or so. Hospital was totally out of proportion for the population served, even including all of the surrounding areas.
So.....who needed all that medical care? Well, a short walk through the parking lot would show 50% of the license plates to be Canadian. Bangor is also the closest international airport to the European continent.
It wasn't Mainers picking up the tab for all that medicine.
I’m born and raised in MA. Been here 55 years. I do not recommend the state to anyone, and I’ve told my kids they need to move West and South — my oldest is in PA and says I was right. My youngest is still at home.
MA is very expensive. The salaries are good, but real estate will kill you. You will likely feel poor here even on a big salary. People are rude and unfriendly — I am; everyone is; we don’t know any other way to behave.
Politics is pretty universally Liberal and in-your-face about it. We are racist, homophobic, ageist and sexist — but it’s OK because we vote correctly.
Everyone here thinks that they are the center of the universe and they are clearly better than you are. So get out of their way, you peasant. Good churches are very hard to find. Unitarian, Methodist and other silly things are available, but if you expect your church to crack open a Bible, you will have to search far and wide to find what you want.
We often have Republican governors: William Weld, Mitt Romney, etc. That’s our way of showing people that we are not 100% leftwing looney toons. How we doin’ on that score, chief? And if your name is Kennedy, yes, we will vote for you.
No. This is not a good state.
I should add that I was raised on the North Shore, I lived directly in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville for 20+ years, I worked on the South Shore for 5 years, and I now live a good deal west of the city, near the NH border.
I guess some parts of MA are less obnoxious than others, but there is no escaping the problem by moving to “the good part of the state”. We don’t have one of those.
The thing that shocked me most when I worked in MA was the amount of traffic
With the amount of tax money spent permile being one of the highest in the country, it seemed to me there should be more roads if that many people want to get some place
It took me 3 hours to get to the airport on the thruway once, with actual stopped traffic every 50 feet for hours.
The trip took 30 minutes (from Lowell) during non-rush hour traffic.
I stopped flying there and drove back and forth, because the extra 3 hours on the road I was halfway home.
If Hillary’s elected everything’s going to get worse... much worse. Obama’s only the start of the horror that’s to come.
The REAL rational for 'obamacare' was to shake-down the insurance industry while guaranteeing them THE FORCED Participation OF CITIZENS. The SC ruled that out, but long after the BIG MONEY HAD ALREADY ROLLED INTO DEMOCRAT 'FOUNDATIONS' AND WORSE...
Obamacare was never about ‘health care’ it was always about forcing citizens to buy worthless insurance in exchange for massive donations from the insurance industry.
The SC nixed the ‘forced’ part but Democrats had already ‘cleaned up’ if you know what I mean...
You nailed it! And all the sheeple fell for it hook, line and sinker.
When I run into one of these loons I look at them and ask so you want the same SFB bureaucrats who run the VA and the DMV deciding if you get a hip replacement or heart surgery in a timely manner? It usually works once they figure out them and their doctors are taken out of the equation and a faceless bureaucrat gets to decide whether you live or die.
WOW!
My sister and her husband who is a doctor are paying $800 a month in premiums and have $7000 deductibles for a very basic insurance plan. Anything minor they go to an urgent care clinic he operates as a side business in their small town.
That, and the Denial that comes with it...
bookmark
That doesn’t even count the clinics. More little clinic like Kroger’s are popping up with just a PA and a intake person. For minor stuff that works well. I use it occasionally for an infected bug bite or this week for the sudden loss of hearing and pain in the ear, I wear twin hearing aids and ear wax build up is an issue. Turns out it was fluid behind the ear drum from backed up sinuses. Round of Predisone is working, along with an increase in Flonase use with my Claritin. VERY high pollen season this year, worst I’ve seen. Usually the Claritin takes care of it all, not this year had to add in the Flonase.
Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Throws In The Towel, Admits Obamacare Is Not Affordable
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2016/10/12/democratic-governor-obamacare-is-not-affordable-n2231368?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=
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