The Littlest Victims of Obamacare
The Littlest Victims of Obamacare
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
It’s time for America’s youth to buckle up and take a rough ride on Reality Highway. For the past two years, President Obama has promised our children the moon, stars, rainbows, unicorns and universal health care for all. But the White House Santa’s cradle-to-grave entitlement mandates are a spectacularly predictable bust.
Don’t take it from me. Take it from Obamacare’s own biggest cheerleaders.
Late last month, the Service Employees International Union informed dues-paying members of its behemoth 1199 affiliate in New York that it was dropping its health care coverage for children. That’s right. A radical leftist union, not an evil Republican corporation, is abandoning the young ‘uns to cut costs.
More than 30,000 low-wage families will be affected, according to The Wall Street Journal. Who’s to blame? SEIU 1199 benefits manager Mitra Behroozi singled out oppressive new state and federal regulations, including the much-ballyhooed Obamacare rule forcing insurers to cover dependents well into their 20s:
“…(N)ew federal health-care reform legislation requires plans with dependent coverage to expand that coverage up to age 26,” Behroozi explained in an Oct. 22 letter to members. “Our limited resources are already stretched as far as possible, and meeting this new requirement would be financially impossible.”
In a related development, over the past several months several insurers across California, Colorado, Ohio and Missouri have dropped child-only plans because of Obamacare-induced premium increases. Untold tens of thousands of families who purchase their plans in the private individual health market will be affected.
Let us pause for a moment to ruminate on this wholly man-caused disaster. To sell Obamacare and manufacture support, desperate Democrats pandered to the college set and their parents. Former SEIU chief Andy Stern specifically touted the unfunded kiddie insurance mandate as a strategic selling point, telling the Washington Post early this year that the lobbying and public relations campaign would be “helped by which parts of the bill go into effect immediately. It’s hard to talk about things that’ll happen in 2019. But if you can say to people that if your kid is 26 years old, you can keep him on your insurance plan? … They get that.”
Some 20 states had already passed legislation requiring insurers to cover adult children before the federal rule was imposed. Citing results in New Jersey, Wisconsin and elsewhere, many critics pointed to how such top-down benefits mandates were driving up the cost of insurance and limiting access instead of expanding it. In response, top SEIU thug Dennis Rivera accused Obamacare opponents of “terrorist tactics” in a conference call earlier this spring with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Now, confronted with the thorny allocation of scarce resources, profligate money managers at the SEIU are dropping thousands of kids’ health coverage because they, too, can’t afford to foot the bill imposed by the president whom their union bosses spent more than $60 million to elect. And SEIU’s Rivera is nowhere to be found.
The SEIU also pumped tens of millions of dollars in union funds directly into the campaign for Obamacare. Workers regurgitated White House talking points hyping increased access, lower premiums and peace of mind for the working class. SEIU 1199 — which is now cutting off health care coverage to children whose parents work in the health care industry of all industries — was at the forefront of those D.C.-directed “reform” rallies. The same militant leaders of SEIU 1199 sent hordes of their workers on buses to an anti-tea party rally convened by Comedy Central clowns in October, while their benefits and pension funds eroded.
Yes, the union road to hell is paved with workers’ own hard-earned dues money. All hail progressivism!
How far we’ve come from the halcyon moment when President Obama rallied young college students at George Mason University in Virginia in March. To wild applause, he pledged: “If you buy a new plan, there won’t be lifetime or restrictive annual limits on the amount of care you receive from your insurance companies. (Applause.) And by the way, to all the young people here today, starting this year if you don’t have insurance, all new plans will allow you to stay on your parents’ plan until you are 26 years old. (Applause.)”
Cue bitter laughter here. As I reported two weeks ago, more than 111 unions (including two SEIU affiliates), companies and insurers have now secured federal waivers to escape the first provision Obama mentioned to the George Mason University students. And more financially strapped union affiliates like SEIU 1199 will undoubtedly be canceling children’s coverage to escape the costs tied to Obama’s second vow.
For the kiddie human shields who helped the Democrats dig their own ditch, reality bites. Live and learn.
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Imagine, a whole class of people (children) thrown under Obama’s bus. Who’d a thunk it?
It is what everyone who was paying attention KNEW would happen. Fear of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and some union thugs kept all too many from taking this action before the elections. Merry Christmas from the Obaminites and their Health Care Nightmare on Pennsylvania Ave.
Stock up on medical supplies before Bambi’s ObamaCare taxes price them out of existence. Waivers for the few, painful deaths for the rest?
===
Let your sidearm be like American Express:
Don’t Leave home without it.
Resistance is mandatory
Errah Maybe the SEIU members should ask for the $60M back so they can now cover their kids. LOL! Flash forward to 2019. A 26 Yrs old without a job and living in Mom’s basement playing “Call of Duty, DC in Decline, The Obama Years”
Statism runs over the children. What’s new about that?
But, but, but – I thought Obamacare
was for the children!!
Of course for those of us paying attention we knew this was never about healthcare in the first place. All these provisions were sought in an attempt, that failed misserably, to sell this to the masses.
I also heard Cantor say yesterday that the Republicans no longer favor repealing the entire bill. Instead they want to keep in place parts of Obamacare such as the coviering adults, lets face it they aint kids if they are 26, and the not being denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions.
Adult children? Either they’re adults or they’re children, you can’t have it both ways! It was always doomed to failure!
Can an adult child be charged as a juvenile if arrested for committing a crime or entering into a contract?
Ain’t that a pisser when reality gets in the way?
Maybe these kids will grow up having learned that you can never trust what a leftist-statist says or what a union thug says.
The solution to part of this problem is to abolish public sector unions.
Eliminate them.
Done.
So, under federal law, wouldn’t the SEIU plan be unacceptable, or have they already applied for and received a waiver? Or is this just a clever way of saying, “See, we need a single-payer plan, y’all. We needed that public option.” I hope union members like finding private health plans for their kids, since they won’t want to be in violation of the Obamalaw.
Dems will miss Allan Grayson and his poster display set up to explain this.
The firm I work for announced that due to rising health care costs, and specificaly pointing to the provision of keeping children on their parents palns until 26, that they are raising the employee controbution for plans. So no pay raises again this year, but at least we are paying more for our health care.
Thats not true. The parent/child relationship is not defined by age.
Yet, I agree, it was always doomed to failure!
But the age of responsibility is…
I think Obama’s team selected 26 as the age because that would give the kids of liberals time to get a bogus/free degree from Princeton or Harvard, then spend a couple of years as a community organizer before running for some sort of public office that provides free health insurance paid for yet again by someone other than the recipient of the health insurance.
Great column. Shows the contradiction between what “progressives” say they want and what actually occurs. This isn’t the first time “progressive” legislation turned out to hurt children and others it was supposed to help.
But I don’t think most SEIU people will ever learn.
Do these plans include Depends for Adult Children?
I’m tempted to say it serves them right, but I hate that the Libs are ruining the country, even if the people who vote for them are the ones who suffer most…
***
The hallmark of socialist / statist / communist regimes is that they promise to help out the poor people. And then they make their lives worse as they enrich themselves.
***
The old Soviet era joke went (kindov) “There is no news in Pravda (truth), and there is no truth in Isvestia (news)”.
***
Winston Churchill said, “Capitalism results in uneven blessings for all. Socialism results in equal misery for all.”
***
Comrade Obama sent the White House bust of Winston back to Britain when he moved in–he doesn’t relate well to non socialist ideas. And the Union families who have lost their kids health care will wise up soon.
***
John Bibb
***
What it boils down to is this: your nine-old-son’s broken arm won’t get covered so that costs can pay for some 19-year-old douchebag’s venereal disease or some 24-year-old’s fifth abortion. Sorry little kid who needs an organ transplant, leukemia treatment, or treatment for juvenile diabetes…we have to cover post-graduate slackers’ trips to rehab, the emergency room, Planned Parenthood, or whatever due to fights, car wrecks, indiscriminate sex, and drug/alcohol use.
And yet the press still covers for these imbeciles.
With Obama and the current Democratic Party and allies, it is ONLY about power. They will say ANYTHING and do ANYTHING to get that power, and take no responsibility for ANY of the results.
We have won the first battle in November, but it will take many more battles to finally drum them out of office and to eliminate the influence of tyrants.
It once again moves to the RINOs and making sure they don’t get nominated in 2012. Then it is defeating Obama and legion that November. It will have to continue for years after that.
Stories like this one were very predictable. The SEIU must be driven out of government.
For 2011, the House needs to start reducing the size and scope of these unions by firing the employees and reducing their pay.
Barkley describes Obama pretty well.
Just more liberalism pushing responsibility onto someone elses shoulders. How much you want to bet when a bunch of these college kids start nearing there 26th B-day the dems will push for extending it out till 30, then 35, then 40, and so on…
Personally I think the SEIU’s behavior is criminal. The SEIU has proven they do not care about their members, only about pushing their radical social agenda. They are a political organization with required membership for whole segments of the population. The government is forcing people to pay for a political agenda they don’t want and one that is not in their interest. How can this possibly be legal? What is this country becomming?
Any union or organization that anyone is required to join, ahould be prohibited from any and all political action or donating to any political organization, party or candidate.
I’m still waiting for my free gas vouchers and a paid-off mortgage. I am pis*ed off.
Hey, something for nothing crowd, you get what you pay for. There was no promise in bhocare to fix everything. In fact, it was set up to get a verrrrrry lousy single payer plan where the sick would die quickly. What better way to reduce the cost curve than to deny access to care. The gov should be careful what is wishes would happen. Those unintended consequences derail even the best plans.
i bet that BHO was not expecting all these problems to start cropping up until after the 2012 election.
We can add the CEO of Honeywell to the leftists enablers. He was just giving Obambi credit for avoiding a depression.
I’m afraid bho didn’t avoid a depression. He’s given the dems a HUGE one which started with the last election. The usual word twisting won’t save them this time.
Maybe NY SEIU 1199 can stop giving millions to Democrats and cover the children.
Purple beanies are the new dunce caps.
He who digs a pit will fall into it, And he who rolls a stone, it will come back on him.
– Proverbs 26:27
as long as my illegal pool boy’s sex change is paid for, I don’t care.
We must remember that Cantor wants to keep this part of the bill, too. We can’t trust any of them. When I sent a donation to Brown in Mass. I learned my lesson. It will be a long time before I send any money again. I now offer time and footwork only to politicians. I’ll save my money to pay the taxes on the money of mine they have wasted and the insurance premiums I will pay for other peoples wasted lives.
When the SEIU loves their children more than they hate America, then they will join us in repealing this monster. But not before.
You did the right thing at the time. Coakley winning would have been a disaster, and Brown’s victory energized the Tea Party movement, even if Brown himself turned out to be a turkey.
The wavers will be the last nail in the coffin of ObamaCare. They alone prove the need to repeal and start over with the adults after January.