This is a primer for Covered California and for California’s implementation of the Affordable Healthcare Act, popularly known as Obamacare.
Would anybody reading this be surprised to learn that the implementation program in California has been based on faulty data? My readers are too smart, given the track record of ‘progressives’ to cherry-pick data and hold it up as fact, but I don’t think that the general population gets it. Progressive people usually come up with ideas to save the world with somebody other than them paying for it, and then when it doesn’t work, they have to explain why their brilliant scheme didn’t work. The poster child for this would be President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society.
Covered California = Obamacare  (overseen for compliance by the Internal Revenue Service)
Insurance companies in California really love Obamacare. If you look at their stock prices, they are on the way up. Really, they’re higher than ever before. Why is this? They’re about to make a LOT of money. 
Riddle me this: When has a government mandate ever made anything less expensive? Government isn’t in that business.
In order for insurance companies to peddle the goods to Covered California, they have offered loss-leaders, which means that the entry rate into this new insurance scheme is artificially low. They will not take profits in the first year. That situation will not last. Covered California has distorted the data that they use to demonstrate that the public is going to receive better care for far less money under Obamacare. Even though the promise of Obamacare is that all pre-existing illness will be covered by nationalized health insurance, it turns out that “some” pre-existing illness is covered… make of that what you will.
How did they pull this off? In order to keep the Obamacare insurance rates low, California selected second and third tier hospitals, which will offer their sub-standard services to people who pay for Obamacare. Doctors who accept Obamacare will be those doctors who can’t make it any other way. Don’t trust me on this. Ask a doctor.

(Commerterama Politics) Forbes examined California’s claims and found them to be fraudulent. It turns out that California was comparing individual plans to business plans when it said the rates would go up only about 2%. Forbes did the math and found that if you are a single, non-smoking 25-year-old male, you will pay a minimum of $184 a month for a catastrophic plan. The same plan is currently available for $92. That’s a 100% increase. 

If you’re 40, then you aren’t allowed to buy a catastrophic plan anymore, so you will pay $261 for a plan you can currently get for $121… a 116% increase. So much for 2%.  Forcible Upgrades: In addition to the exchanges, Obamacare includes various mandates on insurers outside the exchanges. This will result in millions of cancellation notices being issued because most policies don’t fit the mandates. The people receiving these noticed will then be offered new policies, which Team Obama claims will offer more benefits (true) but won’t increase costs (false) and even if it does, you should be thankful because you’re getting more benefits now. Right… we should be thankful for being forced to accept something we don’t want and paying more for it. 

Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Democracy is two wolves 
and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty 
is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.” 

Andrew Price looked into his crystal ball – which is the same one that I gaze into, and this is what he saw:

Event 1: People get notices that their policies have been cancelled and their new rates are 25% higher. Liberals deny it and blame greedy insurers.
Event 2: A BUNCH of businesses dump their plans and tell their employees to go buy from the Glorious People’s Exchanges! Liberals deny it and blame greedy insurers.
Event 3: Signup day happens and people are shocked to discover that they can’t get the rates advertised. Most actually pay double. Liberals deny it.
Event 4: We hear that there’s no money to pay the subsidies, so poor people will need to be seen on credit. Liberals deny it and blame greedy Republicans.
Event 5: We start getting reports that young people refused to sign up. Liberals deny it but accuse young people of lacking patriotism.
Event 6: We get reports of hospitals turning away Obamacare patients, who now can’t find doctors. Liberals deny it but blame greedy doctors.
Event 7: The 2015 rates come out and they are double the 2014 rates. Liberals blame greedy insurers!
Event 8: We hear that the IRS took in a lot less in fines than expected as people refused to pay them. Liberals blame the rich and the unpatriotic.
Event 9: The exchange system is folded into Medicaid and quietly vanishes. Liberals talk about the need for someone to finally tackle the issue of healthcare since “no one ever has tried before” and they lament the 65 million uninsured.

And

By 2015, businesses have completely restructured to face the “affordable healthcare system”. It’s well underway now. Those who are able, will hire fewer than fifty people, cut hours to less than 30 and won’t offer healthcare plans anymore. The now part-time workers can go into the market and pay a premium price for substandard healthcare. 
This won’t impact everyone, but it will impact a SIGNIFICANT number of people. Usually those people will be the ones who can least afford to have their full time job turned into a part time job.

Parting Shot

Yesterday House Oversight Committee Chairman Darryl Issa told CNN’s Candy Crowley that interviews with workers in the IRS show targeting of conservative groups was “a problem that was coordinated in all likelihood right out of Washington headquarters.” I guess that Obamacare/Covered California will work better for registered Democratic Party Voters if this pattern continues.

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4 COMMENTS

  3. They need to sew up the deal, but for some reason, they all feel that it can't be repealed. I believe that they're wrong.

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