ObamaCare Comes Up Short

Get ready for major hikes in health-insurance premiums, notwithstanding all the promises from "The One."

From Obamacare shorts health insurers $2.5 billion:

Insurers will get far less money than promised from the federal government this year — and a few billion dollars less than they requested — to help pay for their sickest customers.

Insurers learned late Thursday [October 1, 2015] that they'll receive just $362 million out of the $2.9 billion in requested for 2014 for the program, according to an announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services.

That's because a program created under the 2010 Affordable Care Act hasn't brought in nearly as much money as it needs to pay out. As insurers enrolled more older, sicker Americans under the new healthcare law, they were promised some federal money to help cover their new costs, through a program known as risk corridors.

This shortage in funding ObamaCare was totally predictable, of course. People with chronic health conditions typically cost more in healthcare dollars. The cycle of life.  All the utopianism in the world can't change the natural order of the universe.

OBAMACARE FAIL

Forget the hope of those high-risk pools for health insurance:

Funds run low for health insurance in state ‘high-risk pools’

Tens of thousands of Americans who cannot get health insurance because of preexisting medical problems will be blocked from a program designed to help them because funding is running low.

Obama administration officials said Friday that the state-based “high-risk pools” set up under the 2010 health-care law will be closed to new applicants as soon as Saturday [February 16] and no later than March 2, depending on the state....

A delay in applying to a high-risk pool has been inevitable for some:

[T]he pools are open only to people who have gone without insurance for at least six months.

One of my dearest friends in my small circle of friends lost his health insurance (employer based) on January 1. The health insurance company stated that federal regulations precluded the company's viability to operate, so the company went under.

The end result for my friend: after decades of having health insurance coverage, he now is forced to go without any coverage for six months so as to be eligible for a high-risk pool.

Catch-22.

Obamacare is a scam, the goal of which is the redistribution of wealth.

Welcome to the gulag.

OBAMACARE REALITIES

Let us understand some of what ObamaCare requires by 2014, unless, of course, one chooses to pay the tax instead of ponying up for health insurance.

 I did research on the topic of availing this household of the "cheap ObamaCare policies" in 2010, shortly after ObamaCare was thrust upon our nation by Congress and the Obama administration. At that point in time, Mr. AOW was paying $584/month, and I, in the same age bracket, was paying $256/month for our separate private policies. The difference in those premiums is attributable to Mr. AOW's having pre-existing conditions even before his stroke [We have had health insurance all of our married lives, some 40 years], whereas I do not have any pre-existing conditions. Each of our policies at that time had an in-network deductible of $2500/year with a maximum of $5000/year in-network out of pocket. No prescription coverage whatsoever was included. 

Those ever-touted-by-the-Left "cheap" health insurance policies" mandated by ObamaCare and subsidized by the government in 2010 went begging, that is, people were not signing up.  It's easy to understand why if one considers the above.

So, how do those "cheap ObamaCare" policies scheduled to go in force in 2014 work?  What I have gleaned so far about taking preemptive action in advance of 2014....

Read the rest at Always On Watch.

The Broken Promises Of ObamaCare

If we don't put a stop to ObamaCare, the worst is about to happen as health care and health insuracne costs continue to soar.

OBAMACARE DEMOLISHED IN 30 SECONDS

Demolished by Richard Foster, the top official at Medicare (hat tip to Mike's America):


Obama so-called health care reform is an epic fail and a series of lies perpetrated upon the American people.

EVAN THOMAS CRITICIZES OBAMACARE

Quite something, considering that Evans's past comment likening Obama to a god:

OBAMA CARE AND FAMILY-INSURANCE PLANS

Much ado was made of Obama's warning health-insurance companies not to raise costs.

And I personally know of several people who supported ObamaKare because they believed that ObamaKare would help them to keep their children on the family's health-insurance plan until those children reach age twenty-six. Quite the attractive carrot for Obama's health-insurance reform, apparently.

Surprise! There's no such thing as a free ride!

From this June 27, 2010, article in the Washington Post:

It is among the top early selling points of the health-care overhaul -- a new rule that has particular appeal for middle-class, middle-age voters: Young adults who lack health insurance will soon be able to remain on their parents' plans until age 26.

But although Obama administration officials note that the provision will help millions, the benefit is proving less immediate than many families expect.

The administration's success in convincing dozens of insurers to comply with the provision earlier than the law requires has left many parents with the impression that their adult children will be eligible for continuing coverage far sooner than is likely to be the case, experts said.

Furthermore,

Many military families are also just learning that the young adult children provision -- and the rest of the overhaul -- won't apply to TRICARE, the Defense Department health plan serving 9.6 million active and retired service members and their families.

[...]

Many military families are also just learning that the young adult children provision -- and the rest of the overhaul -- won't apply to TRICARE, the Defense Department health plan serving 9.6 million active and retired service members and their families.

[...]

The years to come could bring further rude awakenings for parents as employers and insurance companies look for ways to offset the added costs of covering these workers' children longer into adulthood, experts say.

For instance, roughly half of employer-based insurance plans currently charge a blanket family rate regardless of how many children are included on the plan. But the survey by Mercer found that one in five are now strongly considering or likely to start charging on a per-child basis.

Similarly, while Mercer found that on average employers cover more than two-thirds of the cost of family plans, 16 percent said they are strongly considering or likely to require their workers to start contributing a greater share.

ObamaKare - smoke and mirrors, and utopian fantasy that cannot possibly be fulfilled.

And now that the bill has been passed, we who bear the burden of the costs of ObamaKare are finding out more and more of the ugly details. More such ugly details to come. Quite the reality check is looming.

DEMOCRATS ADMIT: 'WE SHOULD CALL IT CLUSTERCARE'

Just read between the lines of the 2,000-page ObamaCare bill and you'll find two stark admissions. Democrats are convinced that the bill will lead to an unmitigated catastrophe.

Admission 1: After months of proclaiming the "urgent" need for health care reform, PelosiCare doesn't actually kick in for at least three (3) years.

There are two reasons for the delay.

First, it's a tacit acknowledgment that prompt implementation would destroy Obama's reelection chances in 2012.

Second, it's an outright financial scam authored by the Statist Democrats: " The CBO has scored the bill at $1.055 trillion [which] does not take into consideration that fact that the ten-year window contains ten years of revenue and only three to eight years of major payouts –- meaning that the bill will bleed red ink [in subsequent years."

Admission 2: The only Americans not required to join the national health care program are -- wait for it -- members of Congress. Democrats are so certain that their own health would be endangered that they want no part of the disastrous Rube Goldberg contraption they've created.

* * *
"ClusterCare" is a $700 billion tax hike that will bankrupt the country as certainly as night follows day. It is 2,000 pages of pure horror, a perfect read for Halloween.



Cross-posted at: Doug Ross @ Journal.

Videos Cover 'Obamacare' and Broken Guitars

Videos became the subject of two new posts at Bob McCarty Writes yesterday:

• Dr. Randy Tobler, a physician, radio talk show host and voter, explains in a new video why he strongly opposes President Barack Obama's healthcare reform plan. Click here to watch the video.

• "United Breaks Guitars" is the message Dave Carroll shares more than a year after United Airlines baggage handlers allegedly severely damaged his $3,500 guitar. Click here to watch the music video.

Health Care Alert: Canadian Socialist Leader Meets with Dems

One of the most overlooked stories of the week is the leader of Canada’s socialist New Democratic Party Jack Layton linked the future of his country’s universal health care system to President Obama’s public health care program in a Washington speech Wednesday. The Washington Times story is here.

Many conservative groups have pointed to Canada’s universal health care system as a reason to keep the American health care system in the private sector.
Americans for Prosperity Foundation's campaign, for example, launched an ad campaign last week featuring a Canadian woman named Shona Holmes who was
diagnosed with brain tumor and says in the ad the only way she survived was by seeking treatment in America.

Mr. Layton’s trip comes at the beginning of an aggressive effort to ramp up grassroots support for President Obama’s health care plan by Organizing for America. While in Washington, Mr. Layton met with Democrats on Capitol Hill as well as White House Communications Director Anita Dunn.

In the run-up to Mr. Layton’s visit, his party sought fundraising solicitations using an image of an economy-class plane ticket from Ottawa to Washington for the Canadian leader. In the bottom left corner it said: “SUPPORT OBAMA’S FIGHT FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. PROTECT MEDICARE BACK IN CANADA.”

Michelle Malkin writes about CanadaCare and accurately questions
whether CanadaCare killed "The Parent Trap" actress Natasha Richardson here.

The reality is Obama and the liberals have no good intentions here. It is about power and control of Americans--and keeping it. If they truly cared about YOUR healthcare, then they would have passed the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act of 2009 (ORIGINALLY INTRODUCED IN 1997) a long, long time ago. I repeat: this bill was first introduced in Congress in 1997 and has been delayed and never voted on for 11 years.

DO YOU THINK CONGRESS REALLY GIVES RAT'S BEHIND ABOUT YOU?!

THEY COULD CARE LESS, OTHERWISE THIS BILL WOULD HAVE BEEN PASSED.

HEALTHCARE FOR ALL AMERICANS OR "OBAMACARE" IS ABOUT THE PERMANENT POWER GRAB OF LEFT-WING POLITICIANS OVER THE SECOND MOST PRECIOUS PART OF YOUR LIFE.

THEY ALREADY TOOK YOUR FREEDOM AND SOME OF YOU STILL DON'T EVEN KNOW IT.

WHITE HOUSE TURNS HEALTH CARE INTO ECONOMIC ISSUE

Here it comes, the urgency of health care reform. Americans still don't get the fact that socialized or universal health care is no good. Again, sounds great on paper, I mean who wouldn't want want a child or the WORKING poor to be insured. We have programs that do this already. LEAVE IT TO THE STATES. Obama is doing it again Alinsky's Rules apply. Create urgency and identify with the sympathies of your audience.

DO NOT BE FOOLED. If you thought HillaryCare was horrid, wait until you see ObamaCare. If you think it hard to get approved for testing or an MRI NOW, wait until the government has to approve the test and then sends you to a sub-par facility with poor radiologists doing the reads.

Let's look at a couple of things, historically, here, the Obama way.

Most don't know that HAWAII HAS SOCIALIZED HEALTH CARE. I don't know why Obama keeps saying that his mother had to worry about paying bills--THEY WERE COVERED BY THE STATE. That is why he NEVER HAD TO HELP HER. That answers that.

From the Heritage Foundation back in 1994, when HillaryCare was on the table.

"Despite these advantages present in Hawaii, health insurance premium rates are escalating at a very high rate. This increase is occurring in spite of the rationing of health care by SHPDA, the State Health Planning and Development Agency, through its certificate of need process. For ex- ample, in 1991, the number of MRIs in the state of Hawaii was 1 to 1.1 million population compared to the national average of 1 to 100,000.

Without any political pressure, the Ha-waii Department of Health seemed to be happy with this arrangement even though many physicians were sending their patients to the mainland for MRIs because the total cost, in- cluding hotel and air fare for the patient and companion, was cheaper than getting an MRI in Hawaii. To the Hawaii Federation of Physicians and Dentists, it appeared to be more than mere coincidence that five new MRls were quickly approved by SHPDA through its CON process just when the Hawaii Plan began to be touted as a model for the rest of the nation.

Even with the additional MMs, the ratio is still only 1 to 400,000 population. In addition, the CON process, as well as the cost of land and development, has pre- cluded the construction of hospital beds in our state. For example, the national average for acute-care hospital beds per 1,000 population is 4.2 to 4.7, as compared to 2.1 in Hawaii. This has also resulted in a deficiency in the number of long-term beds available.

There are many occasions when all the hospital beds in the state are full and a 48-hour waiting list for admission to a major hospital is not unusual. Additionally, the shortage of long- term nursing beds often requires patients to remain in acute-care beds for several months awaiting placement. And despite this, published SHPDA plans reveal that their goals are to decrease the number of hospital beds per 1,000 even further.

Reports from the islands of Maui and the big island of Hawaii report a greater than 10 percent occupancy rate in their hospitals for three months out of last year, and there have been reports of physicians having to treat patients with critical illnesses at home because no hospital beds could be found. And despite this rationing of health care, the neighbor is- land and rural hospitals under state control run huge deficits because the state's Medicaid program is the most generous in the country.

In the nation as a whole, the number of nursing beds per 1,000 population for people over the age of 65 is 56, while in Hawaii it is only 18. Last year the Medical Tribune reported that Hawaii had the highest rate of PHYSICIAN EXODUS and EARLY RETIREMENT IN THE NATION.

Another indication that Hawaii's Prepaid Health Care Act has failed to contain costs is the newly instituted Health Quest Program, which was introduced after Hawaii received a waiver from the federal government, in which first the indigent population of Hawaii, and later in Phases 11 and M most of the rest of the population, will be assigned to a primary care provider and will not be allowed to see any other physician unless that primary care provider agrees.

It also states that advanced nurse practitioners have to be included as primary care providers, so we may have a situation in which a patient will be assigned to a Health Maintenance Organization and be UNABLE to see ANY physician, let alone a specialist, unless that nurse refers the patient.

The Clinton health care proposals contain similar provisions which would expand the role of nurse practitioners in the delivery of health care, so people all over this nation may be confronted with this same situation whereby they can get to see a physician only if the nurse recognizes that they are sick enough to warrant it.

In conclusion, Hawaii has had most of the components of the Clinton health care proposals in effect since the enactment of its Prepaid Health Care Act in 1974. It has failed in its two major goals of 1) decreasing the number of Hawaii's population that were uninsured and 2) curtailing the ever-rising costs of health care delivery. In order to control spiraling health care costs, it has just instituted its Health Quest Program, which will severely ration care and deprive most of the citizens of our state of their right to be treated by the physician of their choice.

In light of this information, the American people and members of Congress should think long and hard before enacting a health care proposal which shares so many features of Hawaii's Prepaid Health Care Act. This is especially important when you consider that most of the statistics about Hawaii's health care delivery system come from three sources: HMSA (Hawaii's Blue Cross/Blue Shield), Kaiser Permanente, and the Hawaii Depart- ment of Health. These three would seem to have a vested interest in making the system look good. We should not base a national health system on data provided from a state which have not been independently verified.

ALL OF THIS MEANS UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE IS ANOTHER WAY TO BANKRUPT THE USA AND DELIVER POOR HEALTH CARE TO AMERICANS. GOVERNMENT CAN NOT RUN ANYTHING GOOD, SO WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU HAND THEM YOUR HEALTH CARE?

GO BACK UP AND REREAD THE HIGHLIGHTED SECTION, SLOWLY. READ IT, UNDERSTAND IT, OWN IT.

President Sets Deadline for Health Care Reform

Less than 48 hours after I predicted that a White House meeting of “health care reform stakeholders” would produce a plan “by 5 o’clock,” my prediction came true. Unfortunately, however, it appears to have taken Press Secretary Robert Gibbs a while to craft the message for dissemination to the public.

Read all about it here.