The ravages of Obamacare “reform,” continued
Photoshop credit: Rachael in Kentucky, via our Obamacare photoshop contest 2009
Propaganda: “No one is going to lose their coverage.” – Obama administration, November 2010
Reality: Firms to cut health plans as reform starts: survey; 30% of companies say they’ll stop offering coverage – MarketWatch, June 2011
Once provisions of the Affordable Care Act start to kick in during 2014, at least three of every 10 employers will probably stop offering health coverage, a survey released Monday shows.
While only 7% of employees will be forced to switch to subsidized-exchange programs, at least 30% of companies say they will “definitely or probably” stop offering employer-sponsored coverage, according to the study published in McKinsey Quarterly.
The survey of 1,300 employers says those who are keenly aware of the health-reform measure probably are more likely to consider an alternative to employer-sponsored plans, with 50% to 60% in this group expected to make a change. It also found that for some, it makes more sense to switch.
Propaganda: Obamacare will lower premiums, save money! – Peter Orszag, November 2010
Reality: Out-of-pocket medical expenses skyrocketing, May 2011
Carol Schaub of Madeira Beach is thinking about dropping her health insurance because she can’t afford the $500 monthly premium. Bob Shah of Seminole increased the deductible on his family’s plan to $5,000 to keep his rates affordable. Janet and David Quinn of Brooksville have put off needed treatments and medications for financial reasons.
These are a few faces of a trend that has seen the amount of money American families shell out for health care more than double over the past decade, according to a new study.
The report, released this month by the industry consulting firm Milliman, found that average out-of-pocket health care costs for a family of four with insurance have ballooned from $3,634 in 2002 to $8,008 this year.
And that’s for families who get coverage from their employers. If you’re paying COBRA premiums like Schaub, or buying on the individual market like the Shahs, the costs are often much higher.
Health experts and advocates say that rising heath costs will force more people to the ranks of the uninsured or force them to skip necessary care and medications.
Propaganda: You can’t seriously question the constitutionality of Obamacare! – Nancy Pelosi, October 2009
Reality: The constitutional challenges keep on coming. Latest from Richard Epstein and Mario Loyola in the WSJ today:
The constitutional battle over ObamaCare has largely focused on the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Namely, does forcing individuals to buy health insurance violate the commerce clause? But as the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals prepares to hear Florida v. United States, a second issue is of equal importance: Was District Court Judge Roger Vinson correct to rule that the federal government can force states to expand their Medicaid programs as a precondition for continuing to receive matching federal funds for the program?
Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, states have a choice: Expand their Medicaid rolls or bear the full cost of caring for their state’s current Medicaid population, while continuing to subsidize the Medicaid programs of other states. The constitutional danger of such a scheme has long been recognized. In 1936, the Supreme Court warned in U.S. v. Butler that if conditional federal grants were not restrained, the taxing and spending power “could become the instrument for the total subversion of the governmental powers reserved to the individual states.”
And yet the government is comparing this Medicaid requirement to a “voluntary” contract. Does anyone believe that a person is entitled “voluntarily” to continue his journey so long as he pays for all poor people who use the roads? The government’s action is plainly coercive because it necessarily conditions the exercise of one right upon the conscious surrender of a second.
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Thanks for fixing that for me, Hawkeye.
Ilovemycountry said:
Mommy burn your fart sack?? Is that why you are here?
Nawwww! They wouldn’t do a thing like that! These are all decent, honorable people. Pelosi is just misunderstood and Anthony Weiner (who voted against a law to stop transporting minors over the border to get an abortion, amongst other patriot votes) are being picked on. Back off, folks. They only have our best interests at heart. They tell me, and I believe it.
/unnecessary
Just think if that expert on the “smell of death” (from the Anthony trial) should happen to descend into the basement of Ilovethestinkyones. It would kill him very quickly. Mommy must wear a gas mask when she brings his lunch and picks up his dirty drawers.
OK. I’ll concede the amusement aspect. I don’t read all posts but only once have I seen a response to anyone from [insert ILoveMy....] after initial idiocy entry. It’s usually a drive by posting.
On June 7th, 2011 at 10:58 am, kwrxxx said:
I want you to read this very carefully and let what this says sink in and register: The bottom line to this is -WHERE IS the MONEY going to COME from for OBAMACARE?
“The federal government’s financial condition deteriorated rapidly last year, far beyond the $1.5 trillion in new debt taken on to finance the budget deficit, a USA TODAY analysis shows.The government added $5.3 trillion in new financial obligations in 2010, largely for retirement programs such as Medicare and Social Security.” “That brings to a record $61.6 trillion the total of financial promises not paid for.”
ILMC
I really need to patent phrases “you folks” and “you people”. I’ll be able to retire handsomely.
Most of those people either choose (here I thought libs were all about “choice”) not to be covered because they don’t want to give money to an insurance company (I thought this was another left-wing position as well) or they WOULD qualify for ALREADY EXISTING programs but simply have elected not to partipicate.
My great uncle and aunt did this. They had the reputation in the family for being penny pinchers, but they didn’t want to give and give to an insurance company. Besides, they did something extraordinary to cover their bills.
It’s called saving.
Scary, huh?
…..You are aware that over 80% of their funding is from private donations, right? And those people gave money without the commerce clause telling them to.
The truth. It’s that big ugly thing that sometimes means we can’t always get want we want, do what we want…or (you might want to sit down for this) feel good inside all the time.
I’m glad there are still some that will do that. More should be mentioned about paying for ones own! health care/hospitalization in installments.
Sometimes it drives around the block, makes a u-turn or a turns into a cul-de-sac and circles back for more abuse.
That’s only when it is lost, but is too afraid to ask for directions…After all his mommy told him about these mean old conservatives.
I’d read about a person who had to be treated for sudden illness while on vacation in Palm Springs and the hospital offered him a substantial discount for his care if he paid cash instead of using Medicare.
Hey, watch it there……
we aren’t all old.
True story – a former nurse’s aide at a VA hospital transferred to the housekeeping staff and got an immediate pay increase of over $6,000 per year. I guess it matters more that the trash cans are emptied and the floors are clean than to provide well-paid nursing care for patients.
Speak for yourself. I am mean AND old. Anyone want to make somethin’ out of it?
hands off keyboard, backs away slowly……aaand out of the room.
Lest you feel the wrath of the skillet.
On June 7th, 2011 at 2:34 pm, NavyGal
I dont doubt it one bit. In my earlier story about being at the VA hospital I woke up from the surgery in the ICU. I barely remembered why I was there. I turned on the tv to realize that it was Sunday not Friday like I thought. So I decided to ask for more info. I hit my call button and 45 minutes later a nurse showed up. That’s right 45 minutes for a nurse to show up and I was in the ICU! The nurse that showed up ended up not even being my nurse.
The nurse that was assigned to me was not there, because he was out at an interview for a different job. I asked why it took 45 minutes for someone to show up and I was told that they were hoping that my nurse would be back sooner and with no alarms going off they figured I could just wait.
As I consider my own health insurance plan (earned by myself since I’ve made sure I have skills not easy to come by) a phrase I once heard comes to mind:
Wither on the vine.
On the lighter note: Does the above mean that you are ‘afraid’ of an “old pan-handler” from MN?
Just curious?
“Oh Lord, spare us from the wrath of the Great Northern Skillet.”
Aw, c’mon you guys, you know he has to drive his little sister to her ballet lesson, or his mom won’t let him use the car.
(…I cannot resist…)
Doesn’t the “C” stand for “Couture?”
’cause that’s the only time he gets out of the basement. He’s far too sensitive to be exposed to sunlight for long.
There are other constitutional challenges as well. In the 4th Circuit Liberty University is raising an Establishment Clause and Equal Protection Clause argument since ObamaCare exempts some religions from the law but not all religions and there is no rational basis for the exemptions. I would guess based on the way the law was passed that the only basis for the included exemption was they needed votes from certain congressmen, so voila exemptions.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.”
–C. S. Lewis
Needed: a photoshop of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi holding guns to the heads of the States’ governors.
Caption: The gang who couldn’t “shoot straight”.
Were that they were moral, but in our case, our amoral omnipotent busybodies of the left exhibit no moral standards, restraints, nor principles.
I guess, unlike most here, I allow the Shmuck in Chief has benign intentions. He is deluded and deceived into believing he is indeed some kind of Messiah, and what he’s doing is moral and right.
In a word – more stupid than evil. I could be wrong.
You might be right about Obama. But it is his handlers that tell him what to do. He is a puppet. He may have “moral” intentions but simply following the real leader. And now, it is too late, even if he changed his mind. He is trapped. Could he become a more centered POTUS? You remember what happen to JFK?
Helluva good question scrap. If he tries to bring her starboard for the election he further alienates his commie buds. If not, he won’t likely get reelected and he won’t have Rahmbo the snake with him this time.
Are you suggesting JFKs center tack led to Dealy Plaza?
happyscrapper
how do I contact you in other ways?
I hesitate to ask on this forum but will give my email: david2350@comcast.net…. the rest of you will be blocked… or shot…. my choice…. lol
skilletofdeath@gmail.com?
I’m not actually suggesting it, but who really knows? All I’m saying is, if Obama crosses the wrong thugs, his fate might be sealed. He is walking a fine line. I don’t envy him.
David…I will e-mail you, probably tomorrow!
David…But only if you promise not to send me any nude photos!!
Great idea for an address! I might just use it one day. We have had to change our addresses a couple times already and are finally thinking about getting off of AOL!! I know, we are a bit behind the times, but what else is new?
*Late to the party here, but most all the right thinking people knew that Obamacare could lead to the death of our beloved Republic; It is the most flawed and destructive policy ever signed into law, as Michele Bachmann has expressed; That’s why it is puzzling to me that Cantor did not want the $105B yanked in the FY2010 budget; Now is the time for the fight of the century; Boehner needs to tell P-BO at the 19th hole, “Full repeal of Obamacare or raising the debt ceiling gets it”!
“He brings a knife, you bring a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. It’s the Chicago way.” Great roll for Sean Connery.
Sad, and quite ironic that Boehner doesn’t have the nads to do it – but Bachmann does. Sigh.
Those who seek to run our lives
This is a short list of politicians who recently have betrayed the people closest to them in sex scandals; their families, their friends, and their colleagues. Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Barney Frank, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim McGreevey, John Ensign, Chris Lee, Mark Foley, Mark Sanford, Henry Cisneros, Larry Craig, and Bob Livingston. Then there are tax cheats like Charlie Rangel, Tim Geithner, and Claire McCaskill.
It is important to keep in mind that these people are like cockroaches; for every one that is flushed into the open, there are dozens more somewhere in the darkness, hidden out of sight.
Here’s a simple thought experiment. Imagine you had a neighbor, a business colleague, or an acquaintance, who was always in your face telling you what car to drive, what food to eat, what healthcare you must have, what you must allow the schools to teach your children, that your teenage daughter could have an abortion at an abortion clinic without consulting you first, that you had no right to own a gun, ad infinitum. Most of us would tell him or her to stuff it, or perhaps use a little more colorful language.
Now, take that same person and put the title Senator, Congressman, or President in front of their name and millions of Americans accept these losses of personal freedom without a whimper. Even worse, some people worship and idolize politicians. They tell us they are smarter, more educated, more visionary, more compassionate, more of everything than those clodhoppers out there in Podunk, USA.
By treating these people as though they are special and gifted, we reinforce the notion in their minds they are our betters. They are not; in many cases they are far worse.
The founders understood that too much political power is dangerous, and that government should have hard limits on its power. If we are to survive as a prosperous and free republic, this has to change.
This government needs to be arrested or suspended in some way, immediately. I am deadly serious. These people are incompetent at best and maliciously malfeasent at worst.
Obama is offering taxpayer dollars to the Euros to bail out Greece now. These people absolutely have to be removed from office or hit with restraining orders. There must be some legal option with which to attack this. I cannot believe Congressional Republicans and the few responsible Democrats are sitting on their hands.
If he does will you reciprocate, and can I get on your mailing list too?
Naked wimmen swinging skillets are my favoritest!
No question that power corrupts! It apparently also makes you either gay or very very horny. And seems to make men act stupidly. Sigh.
Terms limits would go along way to ease this situation. If they know they won’t have their power forever, they might shape up. Oh, never mind. People like Weiner never think with their heads anyway. Their brains are in another location.
On June 8th, 2011 at 9:26 am, Rogue Cheddar said:
One word of caution, Cheddar! Naked 68-year-old women have a few “settling” problems that encourage them to keep their clothes on. And my skillet wouldn’t be the only thing swinging!
Sorry Cheddar, but…reality check. I hope I haven’t spoiled your image of me as a slightly older Mrs. Robinson!
Still, I’m pretty well-preserved, considering! 
Actually I’m um …nevermind
Oh now you’re just being a tease!
Cheddar…at a loss for words? Say it ain’t so!
I got nothing!
Sorry I shocked your sensibilities so badly that you are impotent (in the creative writing sort of way!)
See you on another thread. This one looks deader than Weiner’s chances to keep his job!