The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

A Typical ObamaCare Nightmare

Posted on | April 29, 2014 | 47 Comments

The damage caused by the ObamaCare catastrophe — arguably the worst federal public policy initiative of the past 40 years — are usually discussed in terms of politics and macroeconomic statistics: X-number of jobs lost, an X-percent decline in President Obama’s poll numbers. True enough, the harms of the paradoxically named “Affordable Care Act” have impacted our entire society, hindering economic growth, incentivizing job losses, and resulting in policy cancellations and higher premiums for millions of Americans.

The very worst has been suffered by small businesses (both owners and employees) and by self-employed independent contractors. Statistics cannot adequately express what at an unprecedented nightmare many people have gone through. One of these ObamaCare victms, blogger Rich Vail, describes his frightening ordeal:

Last fall we received a letter saying that because of the myriad of changes that HHS had ordered health insurance companies to make to individual policies that were purchased on the open insurance market, that our health insurance would be cancelled…and it was despite they lies presented by President Obama and Sen’s Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulski. “If you like your insurance, you can keep it, period.”
Because last year was a pretty good year for me, we don’t qualify for subsidies…so my insurance which had costs us $132 per month rose to $137 per week. We had the choice of paying that or the rent…
The problem now is that I have four fractured ribs…

Read the whole thing and please hit Rich’s tip jar. I did.

 

Category: Barack Obama, Health Care

Comments

47 Responses to “A Typical ObamaCare Nightmare”

  1. Dana
    April 29th, 2014 @ 3:35 pm

    This was always the intended consequence, though I’d guess that the Democrats didn’t expect it to happen this fast.

    A lot of Democrats really want single payer, and even our idiot President said that would be what he’d prefer, if he could start from scratch. He couldn’t, so this abomination was created, one which I have said all along was intended not to work, but just to pass, to establish the principle that the federal government was ultimately responsible for seeing to it that everyone had health care.

    Then HHS festooned the new law with all sorts of regulations — after the law was passed, ‘natch! — regulations which further burdened the insurance companies. I don’t know whether the HHS regulation writers intended to cause insurance companies to bail, or were just too stupid to realize that what they were doing would result in that, but it doesn’t matter: the results are the same.

    But Obaminablecare has to fail more spectacularly than it has; the whole health insurance industry has to either price itself out of the ability of anyone to pay, or collapse completely, before single-payer can be passed, and there will be a lot of people hurt during that.

  2. Bozikek
    April 29th, 2014 @ 3:40 pm

    Well said.

  3. Kirby McCain
    April 29th, 2014 @ 4:41 pm

    If there could be a silver lining, perhaps America has learned her lesson. No more socialism and never trust a Democrat. After all, why were Democrats saying you could keep your insurance? Because Republicans were warning people what was coming. The MSM played it off as partisanship and the people lost.

  4. Zilla of the Resistance
    April 29th, 2014 @ 4:59 pm

    With my own medical nightmare I am not in a position to help financially, but I did link this at my blog and I hope it can help:
    http://marezilla.com/2014/04/a-fellow-blogger-needs-prayers-and-help/

    Rich is a nice blog friend, I hope he’ll get through all of this OK.

  5. JeffS
    April 29th, 2014 @ 7:49 pm

    Potential contributors — if you use Firefox, you will be blocked. Rich has a re-director to http://whyfirefoxisblocked.com/

    So open another browser first.

  6. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    April 29th, 2014 @ 9:04 pm

    Thank you John Roberts…NOT

  7. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    April 29th, 2014 @ 9:05 pm

    Unfortunately, I do not think so. There is a permanent underclass that will always go that way and unfortunately it has been a growth area under Obama.

    Republicans should focus on a message of creating growth and jobs, because Obama has so loved the poor he has made many more of them…

  8. ...
    April 29th, 2014 @ 9:08 pm

    Whatever the case, Republicans shall sanction Amnesty.

    Ho-hum, they’ll have fooled themselves again. Ho-hum.

  9. CanadianWay
    April 29th, 2014 @ 9:18 pm

    Obamacare is not “socialism”. Private companies are still profiting, and now have a whole new customer base. Until we get a single payer system like Canada, UK, France, and the rest of the industrialized world, you cannot call it “socialism”. All private companies, and profit must be removed from healthcare, For profit healthcare is not only immoral, but also inhuman.

  10. SDN
    April 29th, 2014 @ 11:01 pm

    No, you’re right: the economic system that involves nominally “private” companies smothered under government regulation is FASCISM.

  11. cubanbob
    April 29th, 2014 @ 11:27 pm

    Your doctors don’t work for free. Indeed most them go on hiatus once they reach their annual cap. All you have is rationing. If your system is so marvelous why are there so many Canadian medical tourists? Indeed your own Supreme Court has allowed some private practice since the provinces can’t fulfill their obligations for timely care. All you have is rationing and having to double pay if you need urgent care that can’t wait for the next available government plan doctor.

    The UK does have it’s NHS, all one has to do is read the UK papers for the daily parade of socialist medical horrors but the UK also allows for private medical insurance and France does so as well for those who can and chose to pay for private coverage.

  12. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    April 29th, 2014 @ 11:27 pm

    If you don’t think there is a “profit” motive in the Canadian, UK and European single payer systems you are nuts. It is a perverse and twisted version of for profit, but it is there.

  13. Adjoran
    April 30th, 2014 @ 1:58 am

    Democrats start with something over the 47% parasitic class. They don’t get all the 47%, because it includes Social Security & Medicare beneficiaries, but they have a drawn among the super-rich, minorities, and the young which puts them in a place to be competitive IF they can turn them out.

    It’s doubtful the blacks and kids will turn out with the same wide enthusiasm for Hillary.

  14. Adjoran
    April 30th, 2014 @ 2:21 am

    Better still, enjoy all the Firefox features without enriching Google or Mozilla by getting Pale Moon. Then perform this little 30-second adjustment to make sure it doesn’t register as Firefox by default: http://bit.ly/1fwCYf6

  15. Adjoran
    April 30th, 2014 @ 2:25 am

    This is tip o’ the iceberg stuff.

    Just WAIT until the employer mandate hits in 2015. Employers will then have to “upgrade” their coverage to the mandated “Cadillac” plan or else turn their employees loose to the exchanges and pay a $2000/head/year fine for not giving coverage. That fine is going to be so much less than the O-care, many will give their employees the difference between what they now provide and the fine to use for their premiums in the exchanges, and drop coverage.

    When those millions find out what they will get instead of the really good plans they had, we’ll be hanging Democrats around the clock.

  16. Chris Mackney
    April 30th, 2014 @ 4:19 am

    {Off-topic.}

  17. CrustyB
    April 30th, 2014 @ 8:24 am

    Obamacare isn’t a disaster. John Kerry will not have his commitment to Israel questioned. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

  18. Freddie Sykes
    April 30th, 2014 @ 9:20 am

    I like Firefox more than I dislike Mozilla which means I will have to forgo visiting his site. I tried.

  19. RS
    April 30th, 2014 @ 10:29 am

    Remember: You can have unlimited, state of the art, cheap health care, provided you only choose two of those three things. Unlimited and state of the art will be expensive; state of the art and cheap will be rationed; unlimited and cheap will be crap. To believe otherwise, is to put your faith in throwing virgins into a volcano.

  20. RS
    April 30th, 2014 @ 10:36 am

    Of course, personal anecdotes are only relevant where the teller is anonymous and his/her story conforms to the accepted Progressive Narrative.

  21. lovinspoonful
    April 30th, 2014 @ 10:55 am

    Obamacare is a scam and it is a disaster. And John Kerry is definitely having his commitrment to Israel questioned. Come out of your stupor and see what is really happening.

  22. CrustyB
    April 30th, 2014 @ 11:22 am

    It’s a joke, junior.

  23. ...
    April 30th, 2014 @ 11:28 am

    This is empirically wrong, junior.

  24. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    April 30th, 2014 @ 11:49 am

    I hope you are right. But with the Establishment GOP falling all over itself to help Democrats, I worry…

  25. lovinspoonful
    April 30th, 2014 @ 11:49 am

    OK. Please do not refer to me as junior. How immature.

  26. White Army
    April 30th, 2014 @ 11:56 am

    And yet this so-called media outlet actively censors those who point out the established ideological relationship between Obamacare and neo-Bolshevik ideologues like Cass Sunstein, David Axelrod, Sandra Korn, and Ezekiel Emanuel.

    Cowards don’t deserve to remain free men.

  27. Lemuel Vargas
    April 30th, 2014 @ 11:58 am

    But not the Tea Party. That is why the Tea Party is the only viable alternative to both the GOPe and the Dems.

  28. MNHawk
    April 30th, 2014 @ 12:43 pm

    If only a retard sporting a Poli Sci degree could actually deliver health care, you might be right.

    But unlike Poli Sci, majoring in health care takes brains, hard work, and LOTS of time. Nobody is going to do that, anymore, if the dumbest in society takes away their ability to profit from their efforts.

  29. Stogie Chomper
    April 30th, 2014 @ 12:52 pm

    I hit his tip jar.

  30. Rosalie
    April 30th, 2014 @ 1:11 pm

    I hope you’re right. The next election will be the big test to see if things will get better.

  31. Rosalie
    April 30th, 2014 @ 1:12 pm

    But even the permanent underclass have discovered that Obamacare is not free.

  32. RS
    April 30th, 2014 @ 1:13 pm

    And the fact that all of the individuals named are Jews is mere coincidence? And no one here disputes the connection between the elimination of personal autonomy and state interference with health care. You’re just butt hurt, because we don’t subscribe your visions of a massive Jewish conspiracy behind it.

  33. Atari 2600
    April 30th, 2014 @ 1:28 pm

    “Cal Quelus” has once again arrived, once again. It’s entirely plain, as he supplemented it with the proverbial antisemitism (i.e. “neo-Bolshevik ideologues, etc.).

    Shame, his second-hand Nazism is on exhibition.

  34. Another Obamacare Victim | Our Tyrannical Government
    April 30th, 2014 @ 2:31 pm

    […] H/T Zilla and Stacy […]

  35. K-Bob
    April 30th, 2014 @ 3:47 pm

    “…arguably the worst federal public policy initiative of the past 40 years…”

    Okay, I understand why limiting commentary to within your own experiential timeframe is important for keeping from getting sidetracked with research, but I’m wondering if anyone can recall (from their studies of history) a worse “public policy initiative.”

    Slavery being pre-baked into the cake, as it were, is disqualified from contention.

  36. K-Bob
    April 30th, 2014 @ 3:56 pm

    Hint: they aren’t “profiting.” Profit comes from hard work adding value. Now they have all been reduced to being branches of the federal government. Any positive value on the balance sheet is from our taxes.

    If the taxes don’t go up exponentially, the actual delivery of care will go downhill in linear fashion, until it becomes as bad as the NHS in Britain, then it will accelerate downward, because not even the NHS was established as horribly as was Obamacare.

  37. K-Bob
    April 30th, 2014 @ 3:57 pm

    It’s basic cronyism. Know the right people, “profit.”

  38. RS
    April 30th, 2014 @ 4:31 pm

    It’s so hard to choose among the various progressive inspired nightmares of the 20th Century, though to be fair, many of those took decades to finally demonstrate how misguided they were.

  39. Cube
    April 30th, 2014 @ 4:51 pm

    Funny, we didn’t hear ‘Obamacare isn’t going anywhere’ from Republicans seeking reelection in 2012. I seem to remember hearing ‘We will defund Obamacare’ instead.

    Thanks for nothing you gutless GOP wonders. Why should we believe anything you say about scamnesty now?

  40. Bob Belvedere
    April 30th, 2014 @ 8:35 pm

    You went too far! /sarc

    [Like I do, apparently]

  41. Wombat_socho
    May 1st, 2014 @ 12:04 am

    You just can’t take no for an answer, can you?
    *plonk*

  42. Wombat_socho
    May 1st, 2014 @ 12:04 am

    And got him hammered again.

  43. lovinspoonful
    May 1st, 2014 @ 1:02 am

    This site must be hard up for moderators if you are an example. Your rudeness overrides your good sense . But,after I perused the site I can undertand why you are a moderator.

  44. Shep Schultz
    May 1st, 2014 @ 9:44 am

    l

  45. lovinspoonful
    May 1st, 2014 @ 12:22 pm

    I won’t miss you either. I have no time for rude, low-class idiots.

  46. Christopher_Renner
    May 1st, 2014 @ 6:57 pm

    Donated. Thanks for sharing, Stacy.

  47. Wombat_socho
    May 2nd, 2014 @ 7:23 pm

    But then you come right back for more abuse. Here, let me help you with that problem.