A word against Obamacare

A word against Obamacare

Power Line - Saturday October 8, 2016

by Scott Johnson

(Scott Johnson)

In the Wall Street Journal Andrew Ogles and Luke Hilgemann argue that “Obamacare’s meltdown has arrived”(their column is accessible via Google here. They take Tennessee as their proving ground, citing state insurance commissioner Julie Mix McPeak approving premium increases of up to 62 percent in a bid to save the exchange set up under the Affordable Care Act. “I would characterize the exchange market in Tennessee as very near collapse,” McPeak said.

And that’s not all. Last week BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee announced it would leave three of the state’s largest exchange markets—Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville. “We have experienced losses approaching $500 million over the course of three years on ACA plans,” the company said, “which is unsustainable.” As a result, more than 100,000 Tennesseans will be forced to seek out new coverage for 2017. “All told,” Ogles and Hilgemann observe, “more than 60% of our state’s ObamaCare consumers will lose their coverage heading into 2017. When they go in search of a replacement plan, they will confront two unfortunate realities: a dearth of options and skyrocketing costs.”

Well, it sounds like Minnesota to me. Obamacare is something like an unnatural disaster in Minnesota as well. Here I will simply quote Sharon M., an admirable lady who lived with us for a summer when she was a college student after we had our third daughter. Sharon moved on to graduate from college and marry her boyfriend. She and her husband support their family with a small business they have built together. This week Sharon posted this protest against what Obamacare has wrought in Minnesota on Facebook:

Before Obamacare, we paid $481 per month for decent health insurance. Just got notice that we will have to pay $1140 PER MONTH next year!!! I am not kidding and yes you read that right…..that’s a mortgage payment! On top of that, we will now have a $6550 deductible per person with no prescriptions covered.

All of our doctors and clinics are no longer in-network and if we travel outside of the cities, there are no clinics or doctors covered! So if we are traveling and get sick or are in an accident, it will ALL be out of our own pocket! It is absolutely ridiculous!!!

Even though I am not crazy about my other options, I WILL NOT VOTE FOR HILLARY…..who is just carrying on what Obama started. We are just normal people working hard to run our own business….why should self-employed people be so penalized to cover all of the uninsured?!?!? We are hoping we can switch plans, but have already been told by our insurance agent that the options aren’t much better, uggghhh!

Sharon tells me via email that she has posted similar comments on President Obama’s Facebook page: “I think the American people need to realize that Obamacare is significantly affecting real middle-class
entrepreneurs and things need to change.” 

  

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