GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN!! IT’S THE APOCOLYPSE!!! Oh, wait, you mean it isn’t? Listening to the main stream media you’d think we’re all going to die. They even started a #DearCongress hashtag on Twitter so people could vent their spleen. 800,000 people are temporarily not working and that is such a MAJOR deal. Now can someone please tell me the last time the MSM started a hashtag to bash Congress about the MILLIONS who are out of work or cut back to part time due to the very law that this shutdown is about?
It’s those damn Tea Partiers! They are defying the will of the people! Or maybe not. A recent ABC-Washington Post poll showed that Americans oppose the law 52% to 41% and 67% think the Supreme Court should strike down the entire law or take out the parts forcing people to buy insurance. Hear that , Pelosi/Reid/Obama? Cruz wasn’t off his rocker, he was LISTENING TO US! You might want to try it.
But it’s THEIR FAULT! First they tried to defund it, and now they are trying to delay it! Yes, but what Congress really said was they would accept a delay of Obamacare in “fairness to all” and avoid the shutdown. Harry Reid, with Obama’s blessing, said NO and that they would not negotiate, period. Never mind that it’s proven to be, THREE YEARS after it was passed, not quite ready for prime time. Delay might actually be better.
So why are Conservatives bucking Obamacare? Besides it’s obvious encroachment on individual liberty; mandates to require people to purchase a commodity or face fines (no wait, a tax …); or the fact that religiously affiliated institutions are being required to provide services to their employees that violate doctrine or conscience; there are myriad other reasons why it is a boondoggle of epic proportions.
First, it’s a job killer. The employer mandate means that employers MUST provide health insurance or face fines (or is it taxes…) to their full time employees. Full time is defined as anyone working more than 30 hours a week. Investor’s Business Daily is keeping a list (http://news.investors.com/politics-obamacare/093013-669013-obamacare-employer-mandate-a-list-of-cuts-to-work-hours-jobs.htm) of those who have already started to cut employees back to less than 30 hours. Not just Fatburger, but also municipalities, schools, colleges and universities. Now please, someone with half a brain, please tell me how employees cut to part time can afford to pay for their own insurance? Or the fines (taxes?? Can Justice Roberts please clarify again…)? Mortgage or health insurance? Food or health insurance? I thought the point of Obamacare, given all the propaganda pumped out before it was passed, was to avoid these kinds of choices???
Second, it doesn’t provide protection for those with pre-existing conditions. Per the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Obamacare is already shutting those with pre-existing conditions out of plans designed specifically for them. The idea that you could go to any new insurer and say “you have to cover me because of Obamacare, even if I have ______” was false. Shocking, I know. What the ACA did was set up specific plans to cover those with preexisting conditions called Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP). These PCIPs are already out of money, and have stopped allowing people to enroll.
The Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) officials told the GAO they anticipate the program to go over budget and are taking “program management steps.” How? By lowering what they reimburse doctors, shifting “benefit changes” and “more costs onto PCIP enrollees, including by increasing enrollee co-insurance from 20 percent to 30 percent” and suspending enrollment in February 2013 (http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/654260.pdf). So, if you just got word that your insurance will be canceled soon, you can’t get into the program. If you have the PCIP insurance, your doctor gets paid less and you pay more. Did you realize that your doctor can also drop you because the cost of caring for you now costs?
Third, Obama lied when he said that “if you like your coverage, you can keep your coverage.” The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) backs that up. They estimate that 20 million people or more will lose coverage between now and 2022. Why? Because the cost to business is much higher than they were promised. Those businesses will drop coverage completely for their employees. Paying the fine would be less expensive. That leaves the employees with the “choice” of expensive insurance exchanges. The other choice for business, go bankrupt paying for insurance, then close its doors. That means no jobs for their employees, who still have the requirement of health insurance. See how that works?
The biggest lie? Your health insurance premiums will go DOWN. Tweets showing that a family of 2-4 in a majority of states will be paying in excess of $900 a month were proliferating Twitter yesterday. Affordable? Hardly. Here’s why: Government regulators decided that they needed to impose a 3.5% surcharge on plans sold through the exchanges. “So what,” you think, “I have insurance through my employer.” Not so fast. An extra $63 per employee covered is being charged. Wait! There’s more! You also get a “premium tax” that will require insurers to pay more than $100 billion over the next decade. Do you honestly think they WON’T pass that along to us?
Now factor in this: rate hikes on those who usually get a break: the young and healthy. Under Obamacare, they have to make up for the older and sicker. People are already seeing this. Rate hikes, being kicked off plans that they tailored for their life: e.g. a single male not buying coverage for pregnancy and pediatrics. Now they must get plans with higher deductibles and coverage they won’t use or want.
So Reid and Obama need to stop playing games and listen to the 67%+ Americans who say this law needs to go or go through a serious fix. If not, we’ll all be deciding whether to pay the mortgage or for our health insurance.
Image: Author:I, Sailko; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
