Obama-care
Just Keep Giving Us More Money For Less!

By Arthur Piccolo

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Nov. 20, 2015: Now that all the partying is done for the 250th episode of Obama’s America, I can get back to work. That was quite a bash my publisher threw. Wow!

And this is not my Thanksgiving episode – that is next week – sorry! Right now it’s back to Obama’s signature project health care again – his big claim to fame as President of the United States. Right! Back in episode 249 I hit him for ignoring massive fraud in our health care industry.

Turns out President Obama himself is guilty of health care fraud. It has a name – Obamacare. This from a recent New York Times article ..

“In many states, more than half the plans offered for sale through HealthCare.gov, the federal online marketplace, have a deductible of $3,000 or more, a New York Times review has found. Those deductibles are causing concern among Democrats.”

You think? We need an ENCORE here …

“In many states, more than half the plans offered for sale through HealthCare.gov, the federal online marketplace, have a deductible of $3,000 or more, a New York Times review has found. Those deductibles are causing concern among Democrats.”

In other words, not just is Obama forcing Americans who do not have the luxury of employer health care to buy primitive private health care insurance policies under penalty of law that cost them thousands of dollars a year they can’t afford, there is also another PENALTY. The widely used DEDUCTIBLE means of course you have to spend more money on health care before the insurance policy covers even a modest part of any medical expenses. As the Times article attests, many of these policies force their policy holders to spend $3,000 before the policy has any value at all.

Or how about this article from Wall Street Journal Thursday …

“United Health Raises Doubts About Its Participation in Affordable Care Act” …..

“United Health Care Inc. said it expects major losses on its business through the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges and will consider withdrawing from them, in the most prominent signal so far of health insurers’ struggles with the health law’s marketplaces.”

“ ….sharply boosts worries about the sustainability of the law’s signature marketplaces, amid signs many insurers’ losses on the business continue to mount. We can’t sustain these losses,” CEO Stephen Hmley said. “We can’t subsidize a market that doesn’t appear at this point to be sustaining itself.”

“UnitedHealth’s announcement comes as other insurers have been sounding alarms about their exchange business, though the big insurer went considerably further than its peers in flagging the recent rapid deterioration of its performance and raising concerns about future viability.”

In other words even though many consumers are getting screwed with these Obamacare policies the insurance companies aren’t making enough from them to keep offering them. Let me interpret …

The cost of these policies are going to keep rising while the value of them is going to keep decreasing. SURPRISE!

The entire concept behind Obamacare is FATALLY flawed. Forcing individuals and families that don’t have employer provided health care and who can’t afford to but policies are going to now be able to do so because Obama has made it ILLEGAL not to do so.

But what about the subsidies in Obamacare? What about them? You still have to pay a good portion of the cost and the policies you get if you can’t afford the better plans is virtually worthless.

What Obamacare is, is nothing but a PENALTY for not being able to afford health care insurance while Obama can brag falsely that so many more people are covered because of Obamacare. Covered for almost nothing!

Here is a lie from an Obama Administration spokesperson in response to articles like this. A spokesman for the federal Department of Health and Human Services said the health exchanges “continue to grow, giving millions of Americans access to quality affordable insurance.”

Affordable QUALITY insurance .. right!

Let’s turn back to The New York Times again an article from Thursday too.

“Shopping for Health Insurance Is New Seasonal Stress for Many.”

Here is how the article opens …

“For 2014, the first year she got health coverage through the Affordable Care Act, Gail Galen chose a plan from a new nonprofit insurer, Oregon’s Health CO-OP. But the price jumped for 2015, so Ms. Galen switched to a policy from a different company, Life Wise Health Plan.”

Then this ….

“Over the past two years, the Affordable Care Act has created entirely new markets for health insurance, and a new way of buying it, via online exchanges that allow comparison shopping …… But these new markets have also seen sharp price swings, or changes in policies, that are driving many consumers to switch plans each year.”

And hw about this “advice” from President Obama …

“Obama administration is encouraging switching as a way to avoid steep increases in premiums — and promote competition among insurers, as the law intends. Next year will be no different: The price of plans will rise in most states, the administration says that 86 percent of people who currently have coverage through the federal exchange can find a better deal by switching.”

Better deal really? Isn’t this a good way to have health insurance changing insurers every year  and in most cases having to switch doctors and hospitals covered by the “new” insurer while getting less for the same money.

Or as The Times article goes on to say …

“Switching plans is becoming an unwelcome ritual, akin to filing taxes, that is time-consuming and can entail searching for new doctors and hospitals each year.”

SURPRISE!

“I don’t have a regular doctor anymore, so I avoid going,” said David Saphier, a self-employed technology consultant in Manhattan who will be switching to his third exchange plan for 2016.

So Mr. Saphier and many others are being forced to pay for nothing with Obamacare. SURPRISE!

How about this?

“Dr. Joseph Ladapo, a physician and health policy researcher at New York University School of Medicine, said it could be problematic in part because new providers often cannot get a patient’s old medical records. Doctors also may feel less invested in the health of patients they believe are with them only for the short term, he added.”

And of course ….

Annual changes in plans and prices are a result of many unknowns in the new markets. Insurers are changing their pricing, often significantly, year to year as they struggle to figure out how healthy or sick their new customers are.”

Insurance companies are going to PROFIT from Obamacare or else.

“An additional factor is the closing of a dozen nonprofit cooperative insurers that had more than 500,000 customers around the country. Those consumers will have no choice but to find a new plan, as will others whose insurers are leaving the exchange markets because they were losing too much money.”

ENCORE …

“An additional factor is the closing of a dozen nonprofit cooperative insurers that had more than 500,000 customers around the country. Those consumers will have no choice but to find a new plan, as will others whose insurers are leaving the exchange markets because they were losing too much money.”

Obamacare is NOT the answer to America’s health care and medical industry mess. As long as a basic human right in America is just another for profit industry forcing Americans to buy this product just insures more of the same.

Arthur-Piccolo-ObamasAmerica

About The Writer: Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.