“Dad, I have cancer”

Loading

Non-Hodgkin-Lymphoma-2b

Obamacare is going to kill you. Or one of your kids. Or one of your parents. Someone in your family is going to die from Obamacare. You can bet on it. You can bet your life on it.

There are many things in medicine that are in a state of flux because of Obamacare. Obamacare is the name given to the most inappropriately termed “Affordable Care Act.” There is nothing about Obamacare that makes care affordable. Obamacare has made care much more unaffordable. What it has done is make healthcare appear to be affordable because of subsidized premiums. The problem is that liberals – and especially democrat voters- do not comprehend that coverage is not the same thing as care. People are forgoing medical care because they cannot afford the large deductibles needed to keep premiums at even marginally affordable rates. Deductibles are especially high for seniors:

Patricia Wanderlich got insurance through the Affordable Care Act this year, and with good reason: She suffered a brain hemorrhage in 2011, spending weeks in a hospital intensive care unit, and has a second, smaller aneurysm that needs monitoring.

But her new plan has a $6,000 annual deductible, meaning that Ms. Wanderlich, who works part time at a landscaping company outside Chicago, has to pay for most of her medical services up to that amount. She is skipping this year’s brain scan and hoping for the best.

Hospital emergency room utilization is up, not down as they promised. That means a strong possibility of delay should you ever be the one wheeled in.

Obamacare is not reducing costs as promised either. The notion that millions could be added to the rolls of health care and pre-existing condition restrictions done away with and see costs lowered was absurd.

Those who do seek care are discovering that it isn’t a simple matter to even obtain it. Rural hospitals are dying because of Obamacare:

Since the beginning of 2010, 43 rural hospitals — with a total of more than 1,500 beds — have closed, according to data from the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. The pace of closures has quickened: from 3 in 2010 to 13 in 2013, and 12 already this year. Georgia alone has lost five rural hospitals since 2012, and at least six more are teetering on the brink of collapse. Each of the state’s closed hospitals served about 10,000 people — a lot for remaining area hospitals to absorb.

As they close, patients will see lengthened transport times for critical care:

Peanut and cotton farmer Buren “Bill” Jones, 52, died of a heart attack a month after Stewart-Webster closed. His family had to wait about 15 minutes for an ambulance to take him to a hospital 22 miles away, where doctors couldn’t revive him. The closed hospital was 9 miles from his house, a distance his wife or daughter — who performed CPR on him at home — might have driven.

The requirement for electronic records comes at a significant and sometimes, fatal cost:

But the $1 million or more it was going to cost to change over to electronic records was one of the last straws for Randy Stigleman, former owner of Stewart-Webster. Efforts to sell the hospital never panned out.

The anger residents feel toward Stigleman is palpable here in Richland. He appeared to shut the hospital down suddenly — giving them only a week’s notice. But Stigleman says he just couldn’t put any more money into the hospital.

And there’s one more unpleasant surprise you have coming. Ever see those websites that post all of your personal data and then demand you pay to have it removed? You’re going to see more of that- only this time with your personal medical records. Credit card companies and businesses are frequently hacked now as it is. Now that your private records have to go online they’ll be easy prey.

Insurers have already cut reimbursement rates for providers. This is leading to many clinicians questioning whether they would continue to see Obamacare patients. It’s hard to run a practice at a loss.

Things are even worse for Medicare and Medicaid. Doctors are looking at a big cut in Medicaid reimbursement:

Andy Pasternak, a family doctor in Reno, saw more than 100 new Medicaid patients last year after the state expanded the insurance program for the poor under the Affordable Care Act.

But he won’t be taking any new ones this year. That’s because the law’s two-year pay raise for primary care doctors like him who see Medicaid patients expired Wednesday, resulting in fee reductions of 43% on average across the country, according to the non-partisan Urban Institute.

“I don’t want to do this,” Pasternak said about his refusal to see additional Medicaid patients. But now that the temporary pay raise is gone, he and other Nevada doctors will see their fees drop from $75 on average to less than $50 for routine office visits.

“We will lose money when they come to the office,” he said.

The temporary raise in rates was another one of those mirages democrats threw into the air to mesmerize the public. Medicaid has been greatly expanded and democrats trumpet that (along with adding in dental coverage) as a measure of Obamacare success.

Americans are looking at higher deductibles and reduced access to care. Obama’s response to the increases in insurance rates is to obtain a lower degree of coverage to remain near the same premium. In many cases that will mean dropping from a silver to a bronze plan, and individual deductibles could run as high as $6000 and $12,000 for a family.

The solution that you’re likely to see addressing the expected shortage of doctors is the increased dependence on physician’s assistants and nurse practitioners, which leads me to why I wrote this post in the first place.

Never in one’s life does a day go instantly darker as it does when your child calls you and says

“Dad, I have cancer.”

My son (who was in his late 20s’s) made that call to me a few years ago. He usually calls his Mom to talk and I get the report on things. When he calls me, I know something’s up. I was sitting at my desk in my office when he called. Upon hearing his words I experienced an absolute emotional shock and to my surprise, tunnel vision. My first words to him were “I’ll get you through this.” He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and actually made the self-diagnosis, finding a positive supraclavicular lymph node.

Months before he’d mentioned to me that he had an enlarged and hardened axillary lymph node. That instantly sets off alarms in my head and I begged him to see a physician ASAP. His insurance coverage had him seeing a PA (physician’s assistant) who suggested he might have cat scratch fever based on a chest x-ray and CBC. You want to believe this represents the truth but it bothered me and never stopped bothering me and the PA insisted it was nothing. Some months later he called when he found the second node.

We saw an oncologist and then my wife and I took him up to Dana Farber in Boston to see Arnold Freedman, the top lymphoma doc in the world. I remember Dr. Freedman rubbing his hands together and saying to my son “You had a 7 cm mass under your arm and they thought it was nothing.”

If you’re a doctor you know exactly what he was saying.

The chemo regimen that Dr. Freedman recommended was the same as the one the local oncologist recommended and we felt comfortable with it. My son underwent seven chemo sessions lasting as long as nine hours. I sat together with him for six of those sessions, canceling out my days so I could. It may sound odd, but really I enjoyed the time we shared.

He’s been cancer free for several years now and for that I am eternally grateful. We would have taken him anywhere on Earth to do whatever it took. Fortunately the answer was nearby. I could not be more proud of how he shouldered the treatment.

Since then, Obamacare has excluded many of the premier cancer treatment centers from it’s coverages. That means Obama’s kids, Pelosi’s kids and grandkids and Gruber’s kids will get the very best of treatments should they require it, but yours likely won’t.

If you’re tempted to think doctors are paid too much, imagine for a moment what you would pay to save the life of your child. Imagine what you’d think if your child’s life hangs on a cheaper doctor substitute. Health care costs what it costs because people want to live. They want their kids to live. Health care costs what it costs because people need and use health care. The only way around it is high deductibles, rationing and lower cost treatments. As we’ve seen recently, liberals mean all those things for you and not for them.

My son had the benefit of having the right Dad and for Dad having one of the best internist-diagnosticians around as a close friend. PA’s and NP’s are stopgap measures, but they aren’t doctors. Someone you know is going to die because of that. You can bet your life on it.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
76 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Meanwhile, in reality, Obamacare is saving lives – first and foremost by eliminating the denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions:

“When I applied to Blue Cross, I was promptly denied due to “pre-existing conditions.”
By the way, having your chest cut open is not the only way to be determined un-insurable.
Pregnant? That’s a pre-existing condition.
Ever seen a therapist and been prescribed antidepressants? You have one, too.
Susceptible to chronic urinary tract infections or kidney stones? You guessed it.
Asthma? Ditto.
In fact, it wasn’t until our government passed the health care bill I so often hear referred to — with a derogatory slur — as “ObamaCare” that I earned the right to be covered under the new Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan.
Now I’m a highly functioning sick girl, and one who’s unbelievably grateful to her government for the work Congress and the President did last year, giving me the ability to stay healthy.”
http://www.lemondrop.com/2010/11/02/obamacare-saved-my-life-maxim-cover-girl-speaks-out/

And the only way to eliminate the pre-existing conditions exclusion is to require purchase of insurance (or to impose a tax …. the dollars work out much the same way).

If you can figure out a way to eliminate the pre-existing conditions exclusion WITHOUT requiring purchase of insurance (or imposing a tax) by all means propose it. Conservative in Congress haven’t.

And finally, that last part of my statement which so enraged Pete //* it’s not relevant to the claim that Obamacare will kill someone in your family OMG OMG OMG!!!!*// is still true.

So Gruber doesn’t think information technology cuts costs; he doesn’t think preventative care cuts costs; he doesn’t think the 80/20 rule cuts costs; etc; etc; etc.

He’s wrong. That’s o.k. Bureaucrats can be wrong sometime – don’t you agree?

And either way, it’s not gonna kill anyone in your family. If costs stay the same or rise only more slowly than they were rising pre-Obamacare, it’s not going to croak anyone you love….except possibly your rabid hatred of anything with Obama in the name LOL

@rewinn:

If costs stay the same or rise only more slowly than they were rising pre-Obamacare, it’s not going to croak anyone you love

A few things-

Costs are rising- more than promised.
Deductibles are going to cause delays and deferral of care and that will result in their dying early
Did I mention that my son was denied the PET scan in a follow-up visit under Obamacare?
We have been lied to about Obamacare every step along the way. Every single one.

@rewinn:

Entitlements:

The $5 billion fund set up by ObamaCare to cover new high-risk insurance pools in each state from pre-existing conditions is already running out of money — a full year before projections.

So why should anyone believe ObamaCare’s overall cost projections are any more accurate?

Panicked to control mushrooming costs in its pre-existing conditions insurance plan, or PCIP, the Health and Human Services Department is having to curtail benefits to cancer patients, among others.

It’s a bad omen for the larger plan.

ObamaCare funded the PCIP with $5 billion to cover patients with pre-existing conditions from 2010 to 2014. Less than a third of the people HHS projected would enroll in the plan actually signed up for the coverage.

Yet despite the low enrollment, the plan is broke. In fact, it started running out of money at the beginning of this year, which means it busted its budget a full year ahead of projections.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/041013-651429-pcip-bankruptcy-bad-omen-for-rest-of-obamacare.htm#ixzz3OKSS1gIs

And you don’t think costs are going to rise- a lot? You cannot- I repeat- cannot eliminate pre-existing conditions, add millions to Medicaid, and pretend to cover everyone AND reduce overall costs. It is impossible, unless you ration care. I believe Gruber agrees with that as well.

@rewinn:

Have you clicked on your link? It takes us all to the “Love and Sex” section of HuffPo

Did you tell people this was a super model complaining?

Did you tell people she screwed up?

“Separated from her husband, she was accidentally dropped from his insurance..”

BTW, she’d be paying that $19,000 over two-three years with in deductibles today. She had her chest cut open and it cost only $19,000? Really?

Honestly, it sounds to me that she let coverage go and then sought it once she discovered she had a problem. She should not have waited until she contracted an illness. Her problem was likely one of personal responsibility and not insurance. This is not a good example for you as an argument.

@rewinn:

The years of treatment, if I had not been covered by insurance, would have cost more than $1 million. Seven figures to fix a 29-year-old cover girl.

http://www.tcpalm.com/opinion/jennifer-sky-caveman-style-or-american-style-a

If, as she claimed, she lost her insurance due to a filing error, she has a cause of legal action. I will also remind you that the end of pre-existing conditions preceded Obamacare.

@rewinn:

An article from your link:

“Woman Brilliantly Busts Myth That Some Men Are ‘Too Big’ For Condoms.”

@rewinn:

Yep, you’re right. Making people pay out of pocket for elective procedures is not denying care.

In what fathomable way is this article talking about elective procedures?

Lets just wait and see how bad it gets, it just might – might – get to the point where you or someone you actually care about is deemed unworthy of some sort of procedure that is not elective.

They might be deemed “too sick” or “too old” or, if things go far too far down the road “not the right political party” and told to “just take a pill” to make them comfortable until they “pass peacefully into rest.”

It’s really easy to poo poo the concerns that conservatives have when liberals want to screw around with other people’s medical treatment.

Please come back and share your thoughts when they screw with yours.

@the other bob:

Given the history of the IRS it’s not hard to imagine the HHS determining that conservatives get the red pill and democrats get the blue pill when only the blue pill works.

//*if …. she lost her insurance due to a filing error, she has a cause of legal action*//

Nope.

LOL.

Don’t play lawyer. You’re not good at it.

//*…the end of pre-existing conditions preceded Obamacare.*//

LOLWUT?

You’re saying that before Obamacare, you could not be denied health insurance do to pre-existing conditions?

That is false. You know it’s false. So why did you write that?

I get it. You’re making stuff up to waste my time replying.

Isn’t your time more valuable than this?

Or does the pleasure you get by ranting greater than the pleasure you get actually helping people?

I got better things to do.

Good bye!

@rewinn:

You’re saying that before Obamacare, you could not be denied health insurance do to pre-existing conditions?

Please, seek help for your cognitive dissonance.

I get it. You’re making stuff up to waste my time replying.

No, we get it. When ever you liberals get your clock’s cleaned by rationale, logic and facts, you slink off like the slugs you are leaving behind only your trail of slime.

The high risk pool did not solve the problem of pre existing conditions. And it is rather silly to suggest that it did when you have before you an actual case.

If your boys are lawyers, have them explain why the lady in question had no chance of winning a lawsuit.

And, of course, to a dead person, even winning a lawsuit rather misses the point. Even a conservative should be able to understand that being alive is more important than being rich.

As to crawling in slime, Iam sure you know everything about crawling in done, since your entire argument appears to be shoutig at liberals instead of solving problems.

You amuse me and yet bore me. Why not drop the invective and address real issues?

Are you trying to drive of rational discussion so you can congratulate yourself on winning an argument?

Lol. OK you win. I really do have better things to do than give you actual cases that disprove OP.

Please enjoy your victory. It’s like winning a video game using cheat codes

@Skookum:

Thanks, Skookum. Glad to provide the proverbial best medicine of laughter.

Have a great day.

@rewinn:

Your self-assumption of superior intellect is another typical leftist tactic that fails when you write such deliberately stupid strawman arguments. You asked for a copy of Gruber’s statements, denying he said anything about denial of care. Now, in typical leftist dishonesty, you want to deflect from the topic being discussed with blithering nonsense. You demonstrate clearly the mindset of the collectivist in falsely assigning to me any preference for “unicorns and crystals” for treating medical problems as a counter to my opposition to the IPAB and Gruber’s clearly stated philosophy of denial of care. Your actual understanding of how such processes work in the real world of medicine is woefully inadequate, hence your posting of such sophomoric drivel. The irony is it is always leftists who come into the hospital demanding unproven granola-head “treatments” and resisting scientifically proven medical interventions. So it is with people who, regarding the repeatedly disproven autism/MMR vaccine theory, trust the word of a former playboy bunny and current e-cig spokesperson versus multiple studies looking at thimerosal-content in vaccines – always leftists.

You can continue to ignore the very real impact of government bureaucrats – with no requirement for them to be physicians – determining which treatments are valid and worthy (and therefore recompensable) versus the physician at the bedside actually caring for the patient. See, if you had any actual experience practicing medicine, particularly in a field such as neonatology, you would know that much of what is accepted as common practice in neonatology is not “proven” by medical studies because such studies cannot be performed under the precepts of medical ethics. You would know that relatively new therapies, such as therapeutic hypothermia (the cooling of infants for 72 hours who suffered from hypoxic-ischemic injury at delivery) which are now accepted as literally life/brain saving, were initially considered “ineffectual” or “controversial” because we did not have enough data to “prove” they worked. This medical treatment is now considered “standard of care”, and ambulance chasers are on the lookout to sue doctors who don’t use this treatment. Under the idiotic bureaucratic rules of the IPAB, any such future new medical treatments or interventions would be denied until “proven”. If you need another example, you can look up the history of stomach ulcers and the battle the primary care physician who determined the helicobacter pylori (bacterial species) cause of >90% of all stomach ulcers went through against all the “experts” who insisted bacteria couldn’t possibly survive stomach acid to cause ulcers.

The main on point difference – within this debate – between us is that you are so entrenched in support of collectivism that you prefer the decision-making of the power-centered bureaucracy with little-to-no subject matter expertise to that of the medical provider actually laying hands on the patient. Furthermore, you ignore (purposefully, I presume) the clearly stated motivation to deceive the public which Gruber declared when he commented on “get people covered first, THEN worry about cost control” as the tactic to enforce government health care. Though socialists always deny during their attempted takeover that care will be denied, there is no possible way that care cannot be denied when resources are finite and must be paid for. The NHS in England did not start out denying organ transplants or dialysis beyond 55 years of age, but they have such measures now. Once the government takes over health care, it will not be the medical condition of the patient that determines the treatment plan, but the POLITICAL condition. It makes no sense for taxpayers to pay for the surgical mutilation of someone afflicted with gender identity mental illness, yet that will be covered. That is only one example.

Your self-image as someone who “cares about the poor and uninsured” makes you vulnerable to the highly manipulative and evil propaganda of politicians who are enacting this power grab, all the while pretending to care about the poor and downtrodden. I assume it also makes you perceive me as a cold-hearted, greedy, selfish bastard due to my vituperative animosity to socialist “health care”. If so, I would challenge you to spend some time shadowing a physician for a day or two and get some actual experience in what it means to care for patients.

@rewinn:

LOL…OK…let’s play “tit for tat” on the effect of obamacare.

http://sharylattkisson.com/obamacare-fail-stories/

INSURANCE COSTS GOING UP FOR SENIOR COUPLE

Submitted on 2015/01/01 at 1:34 pm
67 years old and have Medicare Part A only, but am on wife’s company health plan; got onto Healthcare.gov and found that the CHEAPEST plan (either through a Medicare Advantage plan or a regular ACA plan) available to me alone would cost $581 month in premiums, with a $6K annual out-of-pocket, and $8.5K deductible. We decided to stay on company health plan even though they raised their monthly premiums to $404 a month for BOTH of us. Not sure what we will do when wife retires…

TEXAS PROGRAM DISCONTINUED AFTER OBAMACARE

Submitted on 2014/12/30 at 9:43 am
Stories about the ACA providing insurance for people with pre-existing conditions fail to mention other options were already available. In Texas there was a high-risk pool which made insurance available at reduced prices (supported by state funding). As insurance is regulated by the state, all insurers operating in Texas were required to participate. Individuals were not required to participate. Employers were not required to participate. With ACA, the Texas program was discontinued.

INSURANCE CANCELLED AFTER OBAMACARE. NOW HAS TO PAY MUCH MORE

Submitted on 2014/12/09 at 11:29 am
I am male, 34 years old. Prior to April of this year, my bcbs plan was $97 per month, with a $3500 deductible, including dental. In April, bcbs sent a notice of cancellation, moving me to another plan in compliance with the ACA. My premium has increased to $251 per month for health, and $24.50 for dental. So I now have to pay $6000 deductible before I get coverage, plus $3000 in premiums. I have a car and house payment, making about $42000 per year. This program is another redistribution plan that is punishing middle class workers who have to purchase individual plans. I have to have it if I get really sick, but it has really affected my quality of life.

PROBLEMS WITH COVERED CALIFORNIA OBAMACARE EXCHANGE

Submitted on 2014/12/01 at 12:20 am
I live in CA and if you move to a different county you must immediately notify Covered California ObamaCare Exchange and not use the your obamacare Medical benefits until the new county approves you. Not only will your ObamaCare benefits be denied because you are officially out of Network because you moved you could also be charged with a crime. I did not get my care until 6 months after I applied for ObamaCare. I notified ObamaCare CA that I moved and 5 weeks later I still have not received any information from the new county. There going to send me a very large book in multiple languages to pick a network and a doctor in the network in my new county where I now reside. 5 Weeks & I can’t use my Medical Card all because of ObamaCare ! This did not happen before ObamaCare ! I am over 55 and none of my benefits are paid for either. Its just put on a gov credit card and in the future they will take everything I own. They never tell you how much is being paid to the insurance exchange or any of the bills. THEY REFUSE TO DISCLOSE COSTS !!!! Under ObamaCare. If you ask me we have been literally screwed and its only going to get worse.

CAN’T AFFORD SAME COVERAGE, DAUGHTER MUST GO WITHOUT PRIVATE INSURANCE

Submitted on 2014/11/03 at 3:29 am
Wife and I have a 32 yr old daughter. She has never made much money and has no insurance unless wife and I provide it. For years wife and I cheerfully paid for catastrophic medical insurance for daughter. It started out about about $65.00 per month and up until Obummercare it was about $125.00 per month. It didn’t provide hardly any coverage until daughter’s years expenses hit about $5,000.00 But we were still happy with that, because daughter didn’t cost us all that much for out of pocket yearly routine medical expenses. And if something serious happened to daughter, and expenses got high, then medical insurance would step in and pay the medical bills. IOW, in case of catastrophic medical problem with daughter, wife and I would not go bankrupt yet daughter would still get medical care. But insurance company was forced to add extras we didn’t want to policy and raised monthly cost to about $295.00. Now that is too high and we cannot afford that. Guess will let taxpayers foot bill and get daughter onto Medicaid. Goes against our values, but Obummercare forces it

.

NEW PREMIUM: MORE THAN DOUBLE FOR FEWER BENEFITS

Submitted on 2014/10/31 at 12:06 pm
Last year in all of the ACA hubbub, our family of four opted to keep our non ACA-compliant policy for one more year under the reprieve. This was our best option since we had switched our individual coverage from a grandfathered pre-2010 non ACA-compliant plan to another plan (It was comparable in price, and I understood it to be ACA-compliant back in 2010 before anyone understood what that even meant. Why were they allowed to sell new, but non ACA-compliant plans for 4 more years? Oh yeah, to be sure they had the chance to forever screw us out of grandfathered low cost coverage).

So now our time is up and I got my renewal letter. Highlights: My current plan is discontinued as of 1/1/15. Anthem has preselected a new plan for me, the ANTHEM BRONZE PATHWAY 0% FOR HSA. They will transfer my bank draft information to this new plan and keep withdrawing the premium unless I call to cancel. All very convenient, except:

My new premium is $938.20 monthly for a $12,000 deductible and $12,900 out-of-pocket max.
My current premium is $425.33 monthly for $11,000 deductible and $11,000 out-of-pocket max.

This is 221% increase in our monthly premium for a $1000 higher deductible. Both plans have preventative care. The biggest difference is that at forty years old with two boys (the youngest 9), I was previously able to take responsibility for my own “family planning” and opt out of maternity care since I have no intention of having any more children. I would happily get my tubes tied to prove it, but it wouldn’t matter (and I can’t afford to). All Americans pay the same amount for maternity care now, even the three males I live with. I estimate that maternity coverage is needed by most women for a period of 5 years or less and that most know when they need it and made sure they had coverage, even those with “poverty” coverage like medicaid. I’d like to know how many women have actually filed bankruptcy or paid the full $10,000-$20,000 maternity bill out-of-pocket due to lack of coverage. But now we all have maternity care, males too, for an entire lifetime. You’d think spreading it out across the years and genders would erase it’s impact, but the cost of maternity appears to be the same $500 per month increase it was pre-ACA for those women of child-bearing age that opted to have it.

Both plans amount to virtually no actual coverage for us. Year to date we have applied less than $300 toward our $11,000 deductible. We are now required to pay $11,300 per year for the privilege of paying another $12,000 before anything is covered. The only covered care our family will likely receive is my “free” pap smear that will really cost us more than $11,000. We will receive no further coverage until we spend upwards of $23,000.

I consider myself an independent. I voted for Obama–partially based upon the promise of more affordable health care for the self-employed because foolishly, I thought it was already too expensive. Now it’s basically a second mortgage. I was duped, and the elections are coming. The problem is big business insurance appears to be benefiting a great deal, so I don’t see this getting repealed on either side of the aisle. Anthem can now charge me twice as much for worse coverage, and either I pay the difference myself or everyone does if the government subsidizes it. Either way they get their monthly check for the full amount while raking in enormous corporate profits.

The only option remaining is exactly the same as it’s always been for the spouses of the self-employed. Secure a job with better benefits, but good luck because their prices are skyrocketing too while their coverage is shrinking.

So much for small business, the American dream and personal freedom.

COVERED CALIFORNIA OBAMACARE SKYROCKETED PREMIUMS

My husband and I returned to live in California about four years ago. We had been very well served by the NHS in Britain for over 30 years. During our first years back, we had insurance benefits from my employer, playing roughly half of the premium which was only $400 for both of us a month. Though we had doubts about ACA, our premiums rose on our birthdays every year, so we were encouraged by the possibility of decent healthcare insurance.

We signed up for Covered California and were shocked that our premiums had skyrocketed to over $1300 for the two of us, of which we had to pay $410. (I was well-aware that, as taxpayers, we were paying the rest of the premium through our taxes and that the insurance companies were raking in the profits. After all, a health insurance lobbyist designed the ACA with that result in mind.)

My husband just received notice that his premium alone will be rising to over $800 a month in January 2015. Fortunately, we learned this before the November election so we can vote those responsible for this travesty out of office.

Whatever you think about the British National Healthcare Service, it works and the healthcare staff are superb, not profit-motivated like U.S. doctors. The service is free at source, there are no skyrocketing premiums and no health insurance companies to rip off the taxpayers.

The ACA was designed to ensure the insurance companies make a profit, get their payoff upfront, with no concern for the people who really need medical assistance.

Not affordable. Not healthcare.

INSURANCE COSTS WENT UP FOR INFERIOR PLAN: COULDN’T KEEP PLAN OR DOCTOR

Submitted on 2014/10/27 at 3:09 pm
My wife works for a medical group and the insurance was very good coverage. But after ACA went on the books, she/I was told that it would cost an extra $206 dollars a month for me to stay on the policy. The reason? I had a full time job and could get insured through my work. No problem… right? Nope. My current insurance is far inferior compared to the policy I enjoyed in the past. And… since our daughter stayed on the wife’s policy, we’re paying around $110 dollar more a month when you add what is taken from my check and my wife’s for health insurance. So… NO I didn’t get to keep my plan. NO I didn’t save money. Oh… I forgot. NO I couldn’t keep my doctor.

BOOTED OFF PLAN FOR MORE EXPENSIVE INSURANCE UNDER OBAMACARE

Submitted on 2014/10/27 at 2:00 pm
I am getting kicked off my current plan ,$ 1,230 month with no deductible,the NEW AND IMPROVED ACA plan is $1,720 with a $5,000 deductible.I am dumfounded when I see these news reports about how well the ACA is.It is only good for you if you are getting a subsidy,meaning that once again the “makers” will pay for the “takers”.Basicaly a $10,00 tax on me to support this piece of crap law.I also happen to be a physician,self employed,so I see that the employee mandate delay has helped hide what will come next year.My friends don’t believe what a increase in their insurance is awaiting them.All the available plans have large deductibles,every one of them,people are not going to seek medical treatment because they are going to have to pay for it until they meet the deductible,which in the “cheaper” bronze plans make them basicaly very expensive “catastrophic”medical insurance.

PREMIUMS MORE THAN TRIPLED FOR TEXAS FAMILY

Submitted on 2014/10/27 at 10:32 am
I am in the insurance business, and have watched the insurance companies try to keep pace with changing the requirements from the ACA. The companies are doing what they must as required by law but the consequences are that they are spending money at an alarming rate just to keep up. With that, I have seen my family (2 adults & 2 kids) see the health premiums go from about $725 per month in 2012 to last years $823 per month to a whopping $2300 per month. We live in Texas and we do not have insurance on the exchanges (Obamacare) we buy health insurance direct from the insurer on an individual plan, but the cost of complying with ACA has driven up the cost everywhere! Failure is in the future! Failure of 1) the ACA 2) the medical service 3) medical professionals 4) our way of life!

OBAMACARE CATCH 22 FOR COUPLE

Submitted on 2014/10/27 at 12:00 am
One of the stories that I have not heard about is the cancelling of state high risk pools because of the ada. For example, Utah and Iowa have already cancelled their high risk pools. Oklahoma plans to cancel theirs at the end of this year. We live in a state that has not yet cancelled their high risk pool. However we are in a catch 22. If they cancelled our high risk pool we would be in trouble. We own a business that is not making money. Because we have no income at all we cannot qualify for ada subsidies. Also, because we have a 401k we do not quality for medicaid insurance. So we would have to use up our 401K to quality for health insurance. My wife was talking to an insurance lady on the phone and she said that one should used their 401k to pay for insurance premiums. Strangely, we would be required to pay the highest rate for insurance that would soon use up our 401k. My wife said that perhaps it would be better to keep the 401k in case we had a catastrophic event. The lady then said “But then you wouldn’t have the safety net of insurance”. But with our 401K used up we wouldn’t have that safety net.

CO-PAY FOR MEDS WENT UP

Submitted on 2014/10/26 at 2:16 pm
My co-pay for meds has increased over $ 100 per month. This is mainly due to drug companies has increased all their contracts with insurance plans.

POLICY CANCELLED UNDER OBAMACARE: NEW PLAN $11,540/YR SO WILL GO WITHOUT INSURANCE

Submitted on 2014/10/26 at 11:27 am
My wife and I have had a policy with a company for the last year that was $1683 per quarter with a 10K deductible. That policy is being cancelled December 1, thanks to Obamacare and ACA guidelines according to the insurance company. The new plan they have in store for us if we want it? $2885 per quarter or $11540 a year. No thanks. We’re going to invest the money we would have spent and go without insurance. We’re in good health so far and will hope that it stays that way until we reach Medicare age, which will be in the next couple of years.

SUBSTITUTE TEACHER SCHEDULE LIMITED AFTER OBAMACARE

Steve
October 23, 2014 at 9:28 pm # Edit
I teach in New Jersey. Our substitute teachers are not allowed to work more than four days a week because of Obamacare. This not only hits the pocketbooks and wallets of our regular subs, but it effects the quality of a lesson when the teacher is absent. As teachers we can select the subs we want in our classroom. The number of quality subs is limited as it is and now the best subs can only work 4 days a week. The subs did not receive health benefits in the past and to my knowledge they didn’t need it. Most are either covered by a spouse, Medicare or they are college students still on their parents plan. It is only October and we have received multiple job postings for substitute teachers.

POLICY CANCELLED, NEW PLAN OFFERED WOULD BE NEARLY DOUBLE, WILL GO WITHOUT INSURANCE

Gary Clemente
October 26, 2014 at 11:27 am # Edit
My wife and I have had a policy with a company for the last year that was $1683 per quarter with a 10K deductible. That policy is being cancelled December 1, thanks to Obamacare and ACA guidelines according to the insurance company. The new plan they have in store for us if we want it? $2885 per quarter or $11540 a year. No thanks. We’re going to invest the money we would have spent and go without insurance. We’re in good health so far and will hope that it stays that way until we reach Medicare age, which will be in the next couple of years.

CO-PAY UP $100/MONTH

Huseyin
October 26, 2014 at 2:16 pm # Edit
My co-pay for meds has increased over $ 100 per month. This is mainly due to drug companies has increased all their contracts with insurance plans.

DOUBLED PREMIUM WITH HIGH DEDUCTIBLE AND CO-PAY

jwm
October 26, 2014 at 9:35 pm # Edit
tried posting my “success” to http://www.acasuccess.com/ yet it never appeared SUCCESS!

ACA/Obamacare told Kaiser Permanente 2 cancel my health care insurance. KP did just that, then offered insurance that doubled my premiums with high deductibles and high co pay. I was told to be grateful to obtain health insurance.

State: oregon

SMALL FARMERS PAY HIGHER PREMIUMS

Wanda Patsche
October 22, 2014 at 12:27 pm # Edit
My husband and I have a small farming business. We have one employee. In order to give health insurance as a business benefit, all of our health insurance plans need to be same. Nondiscriminatory. I get that. But this is where common sense is left behind. We are not able to purchase an insurance plan for our employee identical to the one we have as a family. No, Obamacare requires us to purchase a group health insurance plan, which is significantly higher in cost. This makes no sense other than for us to pay higher premiums.

PREMIUMS ROSE FROM $119 TO $250/MO, DEDUCTIBLE ROSE FROM $3K TO $8K, LESS DR. CHOICE

Hunter
October 22, 2014 at 12:37 pm # Edit
Humana
As a direct result of the ACA (as stated in a letter from Humana) premium rose from $119 to $250/mo
Deductible from $3K to 8K
No copay preventative care benefits removed or watered down. In system doctors reduced to two names.

Nonsmoker in “perfect” health (according to my primary care physician). Current policy now again will no longer available after December. Humana will not say what if any policy will be available in my market. Exchange policies not an option – they essentially offer zero care as deductible is unworkably high. Better to just pay out of pocket for everything.

I was in better shape and had better coverage before the ACA. No problem seeing/finding doctors. Now it looks very much as if I will take a year off from health insurance and see what happens.

DENIED FOR PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS, TEMPORARILY WENT UNINSURED. NEW PLAN IS 90% COSTLIER WITH HIGHER DEDUCTIBLE.

Gina
October 22, 2014 at 12:43 pm # Edit
I’ve been denied twice for private insurance due to pre-existing conditions since the ACA took effect. (I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen anymore?) Once because ACA compliance had driven my small employer-based premium up 66% in the two years the State of California was ramping up for it, so I tried to get private insurance elsewhere. The other when I moved and tried to get “gap” insurance, because COBRA would have cost me $1900 a month. We went uninsured until I started my new job.

My new employer’s small business plan is grandfathered in so we’re still okay, for another year. The insurance broker said to get similar coverage that’s ACA compliant, the cheapest he could offer us would represent an 90% premium increase, with higher deductible.

Now – not that I expect you to have read all the way through to this point, being a leftist as you are – but if you went to the weblink I included you will know that these are less than 1/5th of the page of obamacare complaints that have been posted there. So you can keep throwing out your silly sob stories of people who just couldn’t get health care before the horror of obamacare, and I can keep posting the vastly larger numbers of stories of people who were fine with their pre-obamacare coverage who are now being severely negatively impacted all for the sake of a despicable leftist power grab.

Conservatives have put forth numerous plans to actually improve health care coverage issues – like allowing people to purchase coverage for what they want, not what some government bureaucracy arbitrarily decides needs to be a covered benefit; portability of insurance plans across state lines; extension of employer provided tax exemption for health insurance coverage – all of which would do vastly better than the idiocy of socialism.

@rewinn:

Your rabid adoration of anything Obama-related blinds you to reality. Honestly, as much as I despise Gruber and those like him for their deceitfulness, he is far more accurate in his assessment of the manner in which socialist systems cut medical costs than the wishful thinking silliness you demonstrate.

Preventive care can result, in theory, in decreased medical expenses IF everyone is forced to undergo annual physicals; endure enforced diet and exercise regimens based on their BMI, lab results, and medical history; if all tobacco products and drugs of abuse are made illegal; if alcohol use is strictly limited; if dangerous physical activities are banned – then you can get decreased medical expenses from preventive care. Personally, I am not interested in living under such leftist/fascist regulation of my life.

Provide any study which demonstrates the occurance – not predicts in the future – a cost savings from conversion to all electronic medical records.

The only method of actually decreasing medical costs on a national scale is through government rationing of care, as all socialist health systems do. This leads to lower 5 year cancer survival rates than what we have in the US. This leads to resource shortages such as the entire province of Quebec having fewer MRI machines than the city of Buffalo, NY – which incidentally greatly impacts wait times and negatively effects the whole “preventive care” paradigm of which you are so enamored. This leads to the regular example of British Columbia and Alberta needing to send infants needing NICU care to NICUs in Washington state due to not having enough NICU beds in their socialist Canadian medical system.

And I take care of PATIENTS, not just my family members. Your selfishness in commenting about “your family members won’t be killed” – or whatever you wrote reveals far more about leftist motivation than what I am saying in opposition to a horrible law and the negative effects it is and will continue to have for ALL Americans – not just my family members.

@ #48
I really don’t know precisely what I’m dodging as your rant seems to be an all-out sporadic hodgepodge of nitpicking. regurgitation of debunked arguments, and a grasp of amplifying any minute hiccup you can muster up. So if somewhere in your compilation of radical soundbites and unhinged conspiracy theories I missed some question that indicts me of dodging, perhaps you can elaborate. Or, as the theme of your diatribes suggests, you can simply keep that hidden in order to use as an invisible get-out-of-jail-free-card to exonerate you from your failed gibberish.

@Pete:

Sharyl Attkisson? Isn’t she kinda like the Orly Taitz of the birthers. Hasn’t she been slapped down harder than a Betsy McCaughey by Jon Stewart? This is the gal that went utterly batshit crazy with OBS from the very onset of the Obama Administration, even suing Obama for hacking her laptop, only flip flopping while doubling down on that. Even The American Conservative states that she says “jawdropping stuff”. She utters the “Benghazi” word so often that she actually compared it to the Sony hack. She has a long long history of selective and misleading reporting. Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast says it best: “The word is she’s crazy, she’s a kook, you can’t trust her, she lies, she makes up stories.” She has even gone to work for the now discredited Heritage Foundation, a group who’s main objective is a war against Obama and The Affordable Care Act. Facts and reality mean nothing to them.

But it’s one thing to invoke a fruit loop like Attkisson to somehow validate your unhinged conspiracy theories. It quite another to use her followers.

@Ronald J. Ward:

Character assassination, especially one that relies on the comedian Stewart, merely demonstrates your complete inability to refute facts, or to present an argument that has anymore credibility than a 5 year old sticking out his tongue.

Just because you state something is invalid, does not make it invalid.

Your pathetic attempt to dismiss facts inconvenient to your ridiculous position has the same level of veracity as the leftist denunciations of Chamber’s revelations about Algier Hiss.

@Pete: Dismissing the credence of Sharyl Attkisson in an ACA argument is hardly a character assassination. She may be an exceptionally great person, just as the others I mentioned such as Orly Taitz and Betsy McCaughey (who like it or not, love him or hate him, comedian Jon Stewart proverbially kicked her ass in an ACA debate, And I really don’t think that’s even arguable) may be. But these people have simply lost credibility in their political standings because of both their obvious ODS and their exposed dishonesty. The need to find bad prohibited them to acknowledge anything positive and accordingly, their radical extremism superseded reality.

You Pete, may very well be a great person too but you seem to be suffering from this very same dilemma.

Your pathetic attempt to dismiss facts inconvenient to your ridiculous position has the same level of veracity as the leftist denunciations of Chamber’s revelations about Algier Hiss.

Actually, I’m not the one trying to state a position but rather, trying to get you to rationalize yours and obviously, coming up short.

And by the way, why so angry?

@Pete: Revelations confirmed by the NSA’s release of the Venona Cables. Yes, Alger Hiss was a spy and he made FDR look like a fool to the Russians, especially Stalin. And his administration was riddled with spies, far more than McCarty alluded to, but those are inconvenient facts for Leftists, but from the intercepted cables of the big Leftist cheeses, it is stupid trying to carry on the charade. ROFL

You would be well served Pete, to listen to the words @Skookum: as he not only researched Alger Hiss for you (for those that may have missed it) but rolled it into an association of those “Leftists”. To top it all off, he gives you an “out” with ” it is stupid trying to carry on the charade”. Rodeo clown enters stage right while Pete ducks under fence stage left.

To pass up this perfect opportunity to shut the hell up would certainly go against script.

@Ronald J. Ward:

I think you need to re-read what I wrote. Whittaker Chambers was ridiculed as unreliable for calling Algier Hiss a communist spy (until the evidence clearly showed Hiss was a communist spy) – in the same manner you are trying to ridicule Attkisson for calling out the problems of obamacare.

And your pretension of calm rationalism is rather laughable, RJW, considering how you initiated these exchanges, dodge actual facts in lieu of petty leftist propaganda, and throw out irrelevant strawman arguments. I admit I am rather angry about what obamacare has done, is doing, and will continue to do to the American people while collectivist liars keep denying the clear truth right in front of us. That anger stems from actually caring about patients and not wanting to see them harmed by socialist insanity.

And to your comrade-in-arms, rewinn, perhaps you may have seen this little gem from the ever lurking worm Ezekiel Emmanuel:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/skip-your-annual-physical.html?_r=0

Around 45 million Americans are likely to have a routine physical this year — just as they have for many years running. A poke here, a listen there, a few tubes of blood, maybe an X-ray, a few reassuring words about diet, exercise and not smoking from the doctor, all just to be sure everything is in good working order. Most think of it as the human equivalent of a 15,000-mile checkup and fluid change, which can uncover hidden problems and ensure longer engine life.

There is only one problem: From a health perspective, the annual physical exam is basically worthless.

In 2012, the Cochrane Collaboration, an international group of medical researchers who systematically review the world’s biomedical research, analyzed 14 randomized controlled trials with over 182,000 people followed for a median of nine years that sought to evaluate the benefits of routine, general health checkups — that is, visits to the physician for general health and not prompted by any particular symptom or complaint.

The unequivocal conclusion: the appointments are unlikely to be beneficial. Regardless of which screenings and tests were administered, studies of annual health exams dating from 1963 to 1999 show that the annual physicals did not reduce mortality overall or for specific causes of death from cancer or heart disease. And the checkups consume billions, although no one is sure exactly how many billions because of the challenge of measuring the additional screenings and follow-up tests.

Now RJW, I know you weren’t spewing the idiocy that rewinn was regarding Gruber’s commentary that preventive care doesn’t reduce costs. Due to my patient care duties this morning, I don’t have time to go back and search through the posts here to specifically add to my responses to his comments – so I am simply doing so here.

So Ol’ Dr. Death, who has previously commented that after age 75 people should stop getting medical care, is now laying the ground work for denial of care by claiming there is no benefit to undergoing annual physicals vis a vis reduction in mortality. Now, anyone who is familiar with Cochrane reviews understands that they are not perfect (i.e. the moronic continued inclusion of the discredited 1980’s “Hi-Fi” study in the Cochrane review on high-frequency neonatal ventilation) and one might question why the studies reviewed are limited to the years 1963-1999, as if there have been no changes to the manner in which annual physicals are performed, but this is exactly the kind of data being pushed by the collectivists to justify denial of care – because they know that is the only way to decrease medical costs under the socialist medical system they want to force upon us.

And with regard to my previous posts on the goal of obamacare effecting the end of private/employer-provided medical insurance, from ol’ Zeke again:

http://pnhp.org/blog/2014/04/29/ezekiel-emanuel-reinventing-american-health-care/

* End of insurance companies as we know them
Insurance companies will either become purveyors of management analytics, and actuarial services, or integrated delivery systems actually employing (or contracting with) hospitals, physicians, and other providers to render patient care.

* The emergence of digital medicine and closure of hospitals
Over 1,000 acute-care hospitals will close. We will see a slew of new technologies for remote monitoring, testing, and treating patients in real time outside of the hospital and physicians’ offices.
* End of employer-sponsored health insurance
Fewer than 20% of workers in the private sector will receive traditional employer-sponsored health insurance.

And the plan to deal with physician shortages from forcing everyone into “free” socialist healthcare? just cut the training and shove more people through, regardless of whether or not they actually know what they are doing.

* Transformation of medical education
Medical education will be transformed in 4 fundamental ways: (1) three-year medical schools and shorter residencies; (2) half of medical school clinical training will be outside of hospitals; (3) integration of nurses, pharmacists, social workers with medical students in multi-professional team training; and (4) formal incorporation of population health and management skills in training.

Think this isn’t an accurate portrayal of the leftist mindset on doing away with private insurance?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116752/ezekiel-emanuel-book-excerpt-end-health-insurance-companies

The good news is you won’t have insurance companies to kick around much longer. The system is changing. As a result, insurance companies as they are now will be going away. Indeed, they are already evolving. For the next few years insurance companies will both continue to provide services to employers and, increasingly, compete against each other in the health insurance exchanges. In that role they will put together networks of physicians and hospitals and other services and set a premium. But because of health care reform, new actors will force insurance companies to evolve or become extinct.

The dirty little secret, when slimy vermin like Emmanuel speak (besides the fact that every previous claim they made as to the wonders of obamacare have been demonstrably false) is how they try to make “cookie-cutter”, no-thinking-required medical care sound like a good thing, as if individual humans are completely interchangeable. All for the main goal, which is to reduce costs, not actually take care of the patient.

They will have standardized, guideline-driven care plans for most major conditions and procedures to increase efficiency. They will have figured out how to harness their electronic medical records to better identify patients who will become sick and how to intervene early as well as how to care for the well-identified chronically ill so as to reduce costs.

Still think the collapse of the private insurance system isn’t the goal of these socialist bastards? (From the same article)

In January 2012 Jeffrey Liebman and I predicted in The New York Times the end of health insurance companies by 2020. We might have been a bit optimistic—or provocative. But it is certain they will end.

The arrogance of these leftists in thinking that they know what is best for you is breathtaking in it’s shamelessness. From other columns by the bastard Emmanuel:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/06/opinion/in-health-care-choice-is-overrated.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/opinion/no-there-wont-be-a-doctor-shortage.html

He, and the ilk of leftist obamacare pushers, have already been caught lying (you can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance plan; your insurance premium will decrease by $2500/year; abortion won’t be covered; illegal aliens won’t be covered; the mandate is not a tax increase…) and they continue to lie in their effort to destroy the US medical system and replace it with socialist medicine.

So, yeah, RJW and rewinn, you bet I am angry. I don’t like liars. I despise liars who pretend to care about patients, while trying to force a system down our throats that explicitly will harm patients.

As I have said before – which you leftists consistently will not acknowledge (much less refute) – if obamacare was going to be so damned good, why was it necessary for Obama, et al, to lie about everything it would do, whether or not it was a tax, and be passed solely on a party line vote via questionable legislative maneuvers (being “deemed” passed via reconciliation)?

Gruber’s 2009 policy paper clearly shows the intent of the Obama administration to deceive the American people because they knew they could not be honest about obamacare and expect it to pass . Tell us, please, of a single example of blatant deception ever resulting in anything good for the party or parties that have been deceived.

Obamacare is utterly, contemptibly evil. It is not concerned with improving access to care, nor in improving the quality of medical care to patients. Watering down medical training and destroying private medical insurance makes no sense if your true goal is to improve medical care and access to medical care. It only makes sense if your goal is to force the government takeover of medicine. Obamacare is solely an effort to increase leftist control over the lives of every citizen in the US.

Now pardon me while I go take care of patients.