Thread: Rush: ObamaCare Website Glitches Are Purposeful In Order To Hide Actual Costs

Does Obamacare cover sticker shock?

By Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (PA) October 21, 2013 6:50 am

Rebecca was stunned when she opened her mail last week.
Her insurance carrier, Highmark BCBS, said her health insurance premium would rise 40 percent this year and her policy would be canceled on Dec. 1, 2014.
She had purchased the policy in 2009, after her husband had passed away from lupus, which he'd contracted 10 years before. His employer's insurance covered virtually all of the $1.1 million cost of his care during the last 66 days of his life.
With three children to raise, Rebecca knew how important it was to have good coverage. Her husband's company covered her for three months after he died. That gave her time to buy her own coverage with Highmark -- though paying the $400 monthly premium would not be easy.
She worked two or three jobs to make ends meet -- jobs that allowed her to be home when her kids got home from school. She was thankful to receive $1,300 a month in widow's benefits from Social Security, which her husband had paid into for years (she will soon lose these benefits when her youngest turns 16). Her combined income is $47,000 a year.
By scrimping and saving, she has been able to pay her mortgage and insurance, feed her kids and get the oldest two through college (thanks to several loans she is repaying).
So, she was stunned when she found out what her new insurance policy would cost.
The Highmark representative explained that her new policy had to meet all the requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). It would have to cover things she does not want or need -- such as mental health problems, substance abuse and maternity care.
She asked the representative to help her choose a policy similar to what she had. The closest match he could find was a comprehensive PPO policy.
Her deductible would go from $1,200 to $1,500 per person, but her family deductible would increase from $2,400 to $5,000.
Her 90-percent copay would rise to 80 percent. Instead of being responsible for only 10 percent of her medical bills, after the deductible is met, she would be responsible for 20 percent. Her maximum out-of-pocket costs would soar from $2,000, after deductibles, to $12,000.
Her premium would go from $400 to $884 per month -- an increase of almost $6,000 per year.
If she or one of her children were to get ill, as her husband did, her out-of-pocket costs would run about $24,000 a year.
Surely there are subsides for people in Rebecca's position?
Not in her case.
If her three children were younger, she would be eligible for a $6,000 tax credit. But her two oldest kids have just entered the workforce and their combined income disqualifies them.
If she covers just herself and her youngest child, her $47,000 income is still too high to qualify for subsidies.
She is too proud to accept subsidies in any event. She doesn't want taxpayers picking up the tab for her coverage. In fact, ObamaCare subsidies will cost taxpayers $1.9 trillion over the next decade.
Her only solution is to find a full-time job that provides benefits -- if she can find an employer that offers them. Employers, too, are seeing their premiums soar.
Virtually everyone agrees our country needs to help the uninsured and those with pre-existing conditions get coverage and care.
However, ObamaCare is essentially forcing those who buy their own insurance to pay double or triple costs to cover those without insurance or who have pre-existing conditions -- and a good many of these middle-class people will not qualify for subsidies.
The shame here is that there are creative ways for the government to solve the problem by establishing guidelines while unleashing market forces. This is demonstrated by Medicare Part D, a successful entitlement program that provides drugs to the elderly poor.
Under Part D, seniors are free to choose among a variety of benefits, costs and plans offered by private insurers. According to the Heartland Institute, Medicare trustees estimated a 2013 average monthly cost of $61 -- the actual costs are HALF that.
In any event, lots of people are getting sticker shock as they learn how much their premiums will increase. And despite the president's promises, many people will not get to keep their current coverage.
Just ask Rebecca.
Tom Purcell, a freelance writer, lives in Library.
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American Patriot added a new photo.

Obamacare Demonstrates that Somewhere in North America There are Quite a Few Idiots

I recently saw a bumper sticker that read "Somewhere in Kenya a village is missing its idiot." No doubt that's true. Equally true, however, is that somewhere in North America there's a country full of idiots.


If a buyer went to a car dealer to buy car, picked one out, and asked the salesman what kind of a deal he could make, and the salesman said, "Good choice. Sign this contract and we'll get you on the road today," the buyer would probably not agree to sign. The rest of the conversation might be as follows:

Buyer: "Wait a minute. I don't know what's in the contract. Why would I sign it?"
Salesman: "That's our policy."
Buyer: "I need to read the contract. I need to know what you're asking me to sign."
Salesman: "We don't have time for that. The deal I'm offering you is only good for the next three minutes."
Because the buyer really wants the car, he considers skipping a review of the contract, and says, "At least tell me how much it is."
Salesman: "Not to worry. It's not as much as you think. As soon as you sign the contract and give me a signed check, I'll give you the keys and I'll fill in the amount later this afternoon. You'll find out what it is when you get your bank statement. Trust me, you can afford it."

No one but a fool would take this deal, and yet that is exactly what a majority of the "honorable" congressmen [they call themselves "Honorable"] did in voting for Obamacare.

The highest ranking Democrat in the House, the Speaker at the time, said that one would have to wait until the bill was passed to find out what was in it. It was 2700 pages long and threatened to impact almost 20% of the largest economy on earth. Obviously, because one could not know what the bill provided for within the week or so allotted before the vote, one could not know what it would cost. Just like the car.

Also, just like the car example, the Obamacare deal had to be sealed in a hurry. You may recall Obama on television saying it had to be signed by the end of the week.

My estimate of the time it would take to have a "working knowledge" of this bill is six months working full time. I would estimate further that it would take an additional six months to come up with ballpark cost figures. I used to read proposed and passed legislation for a living.
One might conclude from these estimates that anyone who voted for Obamacare under the conditions under which it was presented, is patently irresponsible.

Obviously, some sort of underhandedness was at work, as it always is with congress. Regardless of what was at work, if ordinary people had called their representatives and said, "Don't you dare vote for this bill," most congressmen would not have embarrassed themselves by their votes.
In order for a Constitutional Republic (what we have) to work, the voting public must be somewhat aware of the issues, must watch what its representatives do, and must be prepared to make intelligent decisions. That's what we don't have.

I won't speculate on why this is true. One might mention the high school dropout rate, the adulation of criminals and professional athletes at the expense of healers and scientists, the mindset represented by the Kardashians, and a collective morality that is self-centered.

Regardless of the reasons, when the voting public ignores its responsibility to make a democratic republic work, con-artists will fill the jobs that used to be held by Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. The con-artists will reflect the public at large, and just like the public, they will have no concern for the collective well-being. The con-artists will spend the entire year running for election and do what the party hacks tell them.

They will vote for bills like Obamacare, presented in haste, potentially catastrophic in its effects, ideologically motivated, designed to empower the federal government even more than it already is, and approved by a majority of congress who had not read, understood, or thought about what they were voting for, much less what it would cost largely because they were pressured by their party masters.

Politics, under these circumstances, becomes no more than looting of the federal treasury to fund ideologically based legislation that can be introduced and approved without regard to content or cost.

A Constitutional Republic cannot survive this degradation. But that's what we have.

Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/10/ob...HgI1fSv73dt.99

Okay so now tell me again why did all the politicians including "obamacare's" founding father EXEMPT themselves family and friends from it....