Crazy on a ship of fools so crazy on a ship of fools

Obamacare Ship of Fools
Jim Quinn

It was so fitting that Obama sauntered into the Rose Garden on April Fools day to proclaim the wonderful success of Obamacare. We are the fools for allowing this fool and his fellow fools in Congress to further bankrupt our country with this disastrous government run clusterf*ck. He is a dangerous empty suit. The only thing that mattered to him and his sociopathic control freaks in the last two months was hitting an enrollment number that he could tout as success. Making sure there are enough doctors in the plan or ensuring excellent healthcare services once you get sick is not part of their agenda. And they certainly don’t worry about the 7.1 million people paying their premiums. That’s the insurance companies’ problem.

Their is so much propaganda, spin, disinformation and outright lies circulating in the captured mainstream media that the dumbed down, distracted, disinterested American populace believe the sound bites from Obama and the talking heads on MSNBC and the rest of the Obama loving media. Isn’t it funny how early in  the disastrous roll-out of this joke Sebelius and her band of HHS drones didn’t know how many people had enrolled for weeks after the end of a month, but yesterday Obama knew that exactly 7.1 million people had enrolled within hours of the final deadline?

You may have noticed the non-stop 30 second ads trying to convince iGadget addicted morons to sign up for Obamacare over the last three months, building to a crescendo in the last few weeks. Obama was desperate to get young people and his black constituency to sign up. Most of the commercials were black NBA superstars yapping about the wonders of Obamacare. These were surely targeted to white middle class people. Right? Guess how much the average 30 second commercial costs. How about $123,000. The government has admitted their advertising budget for the last three months was $52 million. My guess is they went over budget and probably spent $75 million of your tax dollars to convince millions to join a government program that will cost you trillions more of your tax dollars. The original July 2013 estimate from the government for the total advertising of this mess was $700 million. I’ll take the over in the final number. This is after spending $600 million on the wonderful glitch free website.

Let’s assess the tremendous success  the Savior was blustering about yesterday. He sold the plan to the American public back in 2009 with a number of promises.

It won’t add one dime to the deficit

Our teleprompter reader in chief told the American people his plan would not add one dime to the deficit. After it passed he told Congress it would cost $900 billion over ten years. Then the CBO actually ran the numbers and it jumped to $1.4 trillion. What’s a $500 billion error among friends? That almost perfect accuracy for the Federal government. Of course the Democratic politicians that passed this wonderful bill delayed all the bad stuff until 2014 and after, while front loading all the good stuff.

They delayed the major spending provisions in order to show only six years of spending under the plan in the original 10-year budget window (from FY2010-19) used by CBO at the time the law was enacted. Therefore, the original estimate concealed the fact that most of the law's spending only doesn't even begin until four years into the 10-year window. A Senate Budget Committee analysis (based on CBO estimates and growth rates) finds that that total spending under the law will amount to at least $2.6 trillion over a true 10-year period (from FY2014–23). That’s a lot of dimes added to the deficit. Does $2.6 trillion sound like budget neutral to you? Of course we’re doing it for the children.

It will cover the 46 million uninsured Americans

The Census Bureau number of 46 million includes 10 million illegal immigrants. I know Obama wants to cover them on our dime, but even he will have trouble with that one. A report from the Kaiser Foundation put the number of true uninsured at 28.6 million. The CBO numbers and the Obama administration storyline were built on the assumption that everyone signing up for Obamacare was previously uninsured. Studies by the McKinsey Group and Rand Corporation have concluded that only 30% of all enrollees into Obamacare were previously uninsured.

The vast majority are previously insured people, many of whom are getting a better deal on the exchanges because they either qualify for subsidies, or because they're older individuals who benefit from the law's massive rate increases for the young. I know Obama loving liberals don’t like math and wish that Common Core feel good math could be applied to the Obamacare clusterf*ck, but here are the facts:

• Supposedly 7.1 million people have signed up for Obamacare.
• Approximately 30% of these people were previously uninsured – totaling 2.1 million people. That is only 7.3% of the uninsured people in the country. What about the 26.5 million people still uninsured? Obama spent all this money on advertising and only convinced 7.3% of the uninsured to sign up????
• The Obama administration seems to be uninterested in whether the people who have signed up for Obamacare have actually paid their premium. The McKinsey survey found that the proportion of those who had formally enrolled in coverage, by paying their first month's premium, was considerably lower among the previously uninsured, relative to the previously insured. 86% of those who were previously insured who had "selected a marketplace plan" on the exchanges had paid, whereas only 53% of the previously uninsured had.
• If you run the numbers, 5 million times 86% equals 4.3 million who have paid their premiums. Of the previously uninsured 2.1 million times 53% equals 1.1 million who have paid their premiums. Therefore, the true number of paying Obamacare enrollees is 5.4 million.

The skewed demographics implications will get worse over time, as the cost of plans continues to go up. In the McKinsey survey, of those who had decided not to sign up for Obamacare, the most common reason was the "affordability" of the offered plans. Indications from insurers like Aetna and WellPoint is that the premiums on the exchange will go up substantially next year. The demographic assumptions for the Obamacare enrollees are disastrous for the American taxpayer. It is skewed toward old sickly people, with very few young healthy people. The risk pool is how premiums are determined.

The LA Times painted the ominous picture for what will happen next year:

Long-term stability could be undermined if newly insured people do not pay their bills or if they drop coverage in coming months because they are unhappy about the high deductibles or narrow doctor and hospital networks some plans offer.Some people have had to pay higher premiums to replace old plans that did not comply with the law’s consumer standards.More ominously, some insurance industry officials are warning they may raise rates substantially next year. Major rate hikes could push out healthy consumers, undermining the law’s marketplaces and recharging political opposition.

Foolish conclusions

• Obama and his Democratic minions (law passed without one Republican vote) have adjusted, delayed, and not enforced all the really bad stuff in this law until after the 2014 mid-term elections, with some really bad stuff delayed until after Hillary assumes power in 2016.
• As usual the CBO estimate of $2.6 trillion will be off by 100% as the true cost will soar past $5 trillion. It will be the gift that keeps on giving, like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Fannie Mae,  Freddie Mac, etc.
• The risk pool will be so skewed towards older sicker Americans that premiums will skyrocket by 20% per year over the next few years, making many of the enrollees drop it altogether.
• The millions who end up not paying their premiums to the insurance companies will be subsidized by the paying customers of the insurance companies because we are rich and need to help the poor. Obama will punish insurance companies that tell the truth about non-payment by the dregs.
• The government has taken control of our healthcare system under the auspices of covering the millions of uninsured. The fact that 93% of the uninsured remain uninsured after the rollout reveals that this has been nothing but a socialistic power grab by Obama and the people who want to control every aspect of our lives.
• The promised $2,500 annual savings in premiums for the average family seems unlikely to materialize as premiums for the average family have risen by 30% to 50% since 2009.
• The if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor promise seems to be ringing hollow as millions have been forced out of their existing plans and now have much less choice of plan and doctor options.
• The millions of math challenged drones who believed Obama and have focused solely on the monthly premiums evidently don’t understand that deductibles on the lowest level plan average $5,000 and go as high as $12,000 drive the true cost much higher. I hope they don’t get sick or injured.

I hope you enjoyed being Obama’s fool on April 1. They say a fool is born every minute. Obama and his minions are counting on it.

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