Our congressional "representatives" are voting for the largest spending bills in the history of civilization, yet not even bothering to read them first. Obama is going around saying things about this plan that are 180 degrees opposite from what we know to be contained within it.
Our 44th POTUS has been flying all over telling anyone who would listen that we will all be able to keep our private plans if we choose.
I don't know what the Arabic term for bullshit is, but I am pretty sure Obama knows.
David Freddoso at the Washington Examiner has taken a look at what is in both House and Senate versions, and sees no real way we will be able to keep our private coverage for very long:
So what happens to people with individual policies after ObamaCare begins? It depends.
In the Senate Democrats' bill, individual policyholders can keep their coverage, but they will be penalized under the individual mandate as though they did not have any coverage at all. That would be the death-knell of individual policies, says the Heritage Foundation's Ed Haislmaier. Insurers, he says, "could exit the market entirely." (The Senate bill is similarly merciless when it comes to employer-based plans that don't conform with the rules for the planned government-run exchanges. In other words, the Senate bill, unless changed, will force your employer to change your coverage -- maybe just a little bit, but perhaps dramatically.)
House Democrats' bill, on the other hand, would grandfather individual policy-holders. They could keep their coverage and even add dependents over time. But no new individual policies could be sold as of the first year ObamaCare begins.
Under the best-case scenario, grandfathered individual policies would continue to exist until all of their holders die. But in all likelihood, economic and regulatory forces would conspire against them. The worst case would be a collapse of private insurers, but it doesn't have to get that bad for individual policies to disappear. For example, if enough individual policy-holders are lured away by the subsidies that will be available for policies in the government-run insurance exchanges, insurers might find that they don't have a viable risk-pool in the dwindling individual market anymore. They could drop out of the individual market, and they will feel more pressure to do so as patients age.You can read the rest of Freddoso's analysis here.
The bottom line: Under ObamaCare, your individual insurance policy is probably doomed, even if it is grandfathered. You might be eligible for a subsidized exchange plan, but if your income is too high, you will have to pay premiums that are inflated by other people's subsidies.
ObamaCare represents the single greatest threat to our freedoms and liberties that has ever been kicked around the halls of congress. It is essentially nothing more than a takeover of 1/6th of our nations economy by what I can now only describe as a federal government gone rogue.
Of course, what almost nobody is talking about is that this entire process is unconstitutional, and therefore illegal as hell, just as Obama's seizure of GM, Chrysler, the mortgage industry and the financial industry was. I expect this from the democrats, as they have reduced our nation's most important document to so much butt-wipe. But, the fact that some republicans are willing to go along with this hideous, freedom-killing nonsense offends me to no end.
If the republicans are serious about re-taking congress in 2010, they need to knock off this "go along to get along" BS and grow a spine.
The House critters claimed today they knocked a paltry $100 million off the price tag of this nation-killing, illegal legislation. Big deal. Anybody with a brain and even half a memory knows full well that big ticket government entitlement programs always end up costing at least three times the original estimate, if not more.
$3 trillion over ten years is a hell of a price to pay for a bill that will ultimately destroy freedom and liberty in this country as we know it, and complete the bankruptcy of our nation already underway with the $12 trillion (that we don't have) Obama and the democrats have already blown out of the federal treasury.
I am glad that as each day passes, more and more of our fellow Americans are putting down their People Magazines, turning off American Idol, and starting to pay closer attention to what is really going on up in Washington.
Let's all hope far more will educate themselves during the congressional recess and give their respective congress critters an earfull when they return to their respective districts and states.
The very survival of our republic may well depend on it
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