Sad, sad opinion piece in the WSJ yesterday, of a stage 4 cancer survivor who loved her health car plan, cherished the doctors who have kept her alive all these years, appreciated the fact her insurance provider shelled out over a million dollars in care and treatment, without batting an eye, and now, she got the Obamacare Letter that millions have received, the pink slip of your health insurance, if you will, stating their health care plan will be discontinued or no longer available as of Dec. 31.
Edie Sundby went on the CA health care exchanges, and was unsuccessful in finding a plan that allowed her to be treated by her doctors. To be fair, ThinkProgress blames the CEO of Healthcare United for pulling out of California for monetary reasons, sighting the fact United HC did not want to absorb the early enrollees, who are likely to have pre-existing conditions. Obamacare critics point to the new regulations in ACA that force companies to pull up stakes in certain markets.
Edie said “Before the Affordable Care Act, health-insurance policies could not be sold across state lines; now policies sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges may not be offered across county lines.
What happened to the president’s promise, “You can keep your health plan”? Or to the promise that “You can keep your doctor”? Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician.”
GWB regretted the “Mission Accomplished” banner on the aircraft carrier, where he stated major military operations are over, when in fact, they worse was yet to come in Iraq. IMO, Obama will regret those words as he peddled the ACA. Even The Washington Post is writing how people in the heart of the middle class, earning $80K a year, are seeing premiums jump 50% with no subsidy from D.C. 10 Democrats (including Jeanne Shaheen) are already ducking for cover, fearing what the 2014 landscape is looking like. As Evan Bayh said on Sunday, he has buyers remorse over supporting Obamacare, me thinks the nation will as well, as the law takes root.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304527504579171710423780446
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/for-consumers-whose-health-premiums-will-go-up-under-new-law-sticker-shock-leads-to-anger/2013/11/03/d858dd28-44a9-11e3-b6f8-3782ff6cb769_story.html
Responding to this diarist, who somehow thinks that the 3 anecdotes constitute a national trend, is really an utter waste of time. Do we really want to do yet another round of emotional sound bite versus stat and reason?
Nor would it take much googling to throw together a more substantive diary on the same topic.
What value does Dan bring to BMG anyway?
I first saw this diary in the list earlier and determined that the combination of author and title could safely be ignored as the drivel it is.
That guy sucked. I’d say he was my least favorite troll. RepublicanRamRodRadio sucked, too.
Another “anecdote” but this couple who loves Obama, worked on his campaign, received the Obama pink slip, and now their new premiums jump for $600 to $1300.
Now this couple is complaining, looking for a subsidy they currently don’t qualify for, and they are discussing working less and earning less and funding more if their IRA’s, to qualify for assistance. I tell ya, what a country.
http://www.propublica.org/article/loyal-obama-supporters-canceled-by-obamacare
If the insurance doesn’t even meet the minimum standard of the ACA, then the insurance SUCKED. Get over it, the point of the ACA is to get everyone covered by insurance, not to having everyone paying insurance bills for CRAP coverage.
Dan joins the GOP in protesting the move to stop unscrupulous con-artists from ripping off the sick and poor with high-priced “insurance” that costs a fortune and pays nothing.
What a looking-glass world we live in. The fact that the major news organizations didn’t debunk this GOP lie within hours of its first appearance is exhibit A to show how those major news organizations are in the pockets of the GOP.
Is Edie Sundby or the couple who supported Obama con-artists? Or is United Healthcare of CA stealing from its clients, even though they shelled out over a million dollars to keep Ms. Sundby alive?
With all due respect Tom, the lies come out of Obama and his White House, when they say these insurance policies are crap and don’t pay anything toward the care of their customers. If that narrative were true, Edie Sundby would have been dropped like a hot potato years ago.
The lie is when Obama promised we could keep our h/c plans and our doctors…PERIOD. And I have yet to read anyone else here on BMG say it was wrong for Obama to have said that. Would you agree Tom, Obama either misled or inadvertently made a promise he can’t keep and should apologize?
Why quote anecdote? It can stand on it’s own. Unless you are trying to imply that your handful of anecdotes somehow equate to data.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/07/21352724-exclusive-obama-personally-apologizes-for-americans-losing-health-coverage?lite
#Fail. Just because something happens after something else, does not mean that it happened because of the first thing. Once again, a failure of basic logical thought.
Isn’t it funny if Obama listened to Ted Cruz, his approval rating would be over 39%. Ted was trying to help him all along.
It sounds like he genuinely was surprised rather than lying to begin with as you have accused him. Of course I read someone say his apology should have been, “I’m sorry that I didn’t realize so many people wanted to keep overpriced plans that stunk!”:)
Lanwsprinklers are not going to “admit” things or “give credit”. They’re just going to throw out more stuff. Christopher, you have this eagerness to corner DFW in a contradiction and you’ve been trying to do so for how long now?
It’s never happened. You’re not going to succeed. Learn from the past. Please stop.
All you accomplish by asking for a response is troll feeding. “Dear troll, may I please have another helping of crap? Why troll! The crap you’ve given me is crap! How unfair of you! Please admit you’re unfair!”
…but I wish we could agree that you handle him you’re way and I’ll handle him mine.
I don’t think it’s a question of “your” way vs “my” way.
I’m saying I’ve seen the trying-to-catch-DFW-in-a-contradiction maneuver a lot now. (The oldest one I remember was the bet that DFW lost to stomv without paying up.) You’re not going to convince him. Your comment goes against an ocean of Obama hatred. Anything you say will be swamped by that.
What else could be your motivation? Arguing for a Democratic position? Not letting charges hang?
That’s not going to work here either.
He is much, much better than you at lobbing emotional zingers. So any “defense” you are putting up just becomes another opportunity to publish an additional stupidity-friendly talking point — and to give you another pang of “gotta defend the Democratic position.”
Could I suggest that, whatever your excellent intentions, the only incontrovertible effect of these kinds of jabs of yours is troll feeding? Is there something they accomplish that I’m missing?
And if it is troll feeding, it has a negative effect on others. So it’s not morally neutral.
I guess my primary motivation is that this is a forum readable by the public. I do not want a lack of response here to be taken to mean that we have no answer, and thus by inference he is right and we are conceding that by our silence.
That is what usually comes after a sincere apology. Regrettably, Obama is still jamming the ACA down our throats, in spite of the “anecdotes” that millions have lost their existing health insurance, which many wanted to keep, and millions more seeing their hours slashed by big businesses, as they prepare to get as many workers under the 30 hours, thus avoiding Obamacare taxes.
IMO, Obama knew what he was saying was utterly false. By not even delaying the law until its ready for prime time, it tells me he doesn’t give a damn, which is not the hope and change he promised.
Is why Democrats and progressive are not using this as an opportunity to push for actual single payer healthcare. It would behoove liberals to distance themselves from ACA by beginning all of their defenses of it by repeating over and over ‘if the far right and insurance companies allowed us a clean vote on a public option NONE of this would be happening’.
As Thomas Frank pointed out, the GOP thinks government is bad and then runs the government badly to prove its point. We have allowed regressive Governors to not only opt out of Medicaid expansion but deliberately hide health care information from their constituents. We allowed the insurance companies to right the law and now they are the ones bitching about it on the teevee. Obama needs to get really agressive on two fronts.
First, actually fix the rollout and make the website operational. It sucks, and I am a young person who grew up with computers. Second, say that if the GOP is so desperate to get people better healthcare they can join him in amending the ACA to include a public option. Go on offense.
The longer we trot Sebelius out and play defensive the worse this gets.
He said that if you like your current plan, you could keep it. I guess he mistakenly thought that rational people wouldn’t be happy with plans that charged a lot of money for no appreciable coverage. Joke’s on him. Plenty of people would rather pretend they like their lousy plans than admit that the Affordable Care Act improves their coverage.
This is the odd thing about health insurance. If you don’t get seriously sick, you can be happy with your plan because your interaction with its administration goes smoothly. If you do get seriously sick and discover how thin the protection offered by the plan really is, you will look back and decide your happiness with the plan was illusory.
This is really the problem with health insurance. You might be happy that it covers chiropractic or acupuncture, but the real test is what it does in response to kidney failure.