Obamacare, Five Weeks Later – the Pain is Spreading

Obamacare, Five Weeks Later – the Pain is Spreading

Kathleen Sebelius finally testified in front of Congress, and her entire testimony was “Oops.  My bad.  We’ll fix it.  And no, I have no idea how many people have signed up.”

The partial answer to that, as finally discovered by the media, is that a whopping total of SIX people managed to sign up on October 1st.  By the end of October 2nd, that number had risen to…. wait for it… 248 people.

This is not what success looks like.  The administration says they will be releasing numbers later this month.  We’ll see if that actually happens.

No wonder Republican state senator Brian Kelsey of Tennessee thought this was a perfectly suitable present for Secretary Sebelius:

kathleen-sebelius-9

Website troubles aside, the flood of personal anecdotes and cancellation letters are also finally being acknowledged by the mainstream media, including President Obama’s lie (yes, a lie is a lie, be it either by omission or commission) that if you liked your health plan, you could keep your health plan.  No matter how his lackeys are now trying to spin those words, there is no denying that the average American took “If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan.  Period” at face value, and are now paying for their belief in the president’s words.

Welcome to MyCancellation.com, where the average American can send in pictures of their health insurance cancellation letters to be posted on a Tumblr page for all to see.  These are real people, who are going be doing some real suffering.  How many people?  NBC estimated, through their sources, that somewhere between 50 and 75 percent of the 14 million people who currently have individual health insurance are going to lose their plans, and the administration knew that years ago.

To put that in perspective, the administration knew that the LOW estimate kicked at least 7 million people off their insurance plans.

President Obama won the 2012 election with just under 5 million votes.

The current spin from the administration’s sycophants is that “well, these plans were terrible!  What you will get is better!  You shouldn’t have such a non-compliant plan!”

Enter the tragic story of Edie Littlefield Sundby, who wrote an opinion piece about her fight against stage 4 gallbladder cancer… and how she is losing her insurance under Obamacare.  GOOD insurance.  Insurance that she made SURE covered her chosen doctors, for both her primary care and to fight her cancer.  Now, even though she was perfectly satisfied with her insurance plan, she is going to lose it, lose part of her care (depending on what choice she pursues for insurance, because no option is comparable to what she had), and may possibly lose her life.  The gut-wrenching truth is summed up at the end of her op-ed:

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.

For a cancer patient, medical coverage is a matter of life and death. Take away people’s ability to control their medical-coverage choices and they may die. I guess that’s a highly effective way to control medical costs. Perhaps that’s the point.

How many millions of Edie Littlefield Sundby’s are out there, getting those cancellation letters, and facing a Hobson’s Choice of life or death?

And even if it isn’t life or death, it might be life or your wallet, as the sticker shock begins to sink in.

Only time will tell how this affects the economy, the electorate, the polls, and YOU.  Be prepared for the news to not be good.  The American people are not stupid.  They may not pay attention when events and scandals don’t affect them personally.  But Obamacare IS affecting everyone personally – if not you, then your parents, another family member, your neighbor, your co-worker.  And when policies and events hit people in the wallet, they pay attention.

The sleeping majority of Americans, drugged on reality TV and the soap opera of Facebook, may finally be waking up.

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15 Comments
  • Kevin says:

    When you read the entire (albeit short) article about Edie Littlefield Sundby in the Wall Street Journal (remind me again, who owns the Wall Street Journal?), there’s a couple of sentences buried in the article that read, “Sundby says despite Obama’s promise, she’s being forced to give up a great health plan from UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH), which has paid out $1.2 million to her health care providers since March 2007. Now, United is pulling out of California’s individual health insurance market, where it serves about 8,000 customers.”

    She lost her coverage because her insurance company no longer serves the people of California; not because of the Affordable Healthcare Act (AHA).

    The news is reporting this morning (probably the entire past week) that both sides of the isle are falling over themselves to amend the Affordable Healthcare Act so that these “minimum” or “catastrophic” plans can still be considered as adequate coverage for people. If I were given a notice that my insurance was cancelled because it didn’t meet the minimum standards, I would do some research to understand what I missed. Did the plan not cover inpatient hospital care? Had limits on the maximum amount of payouts? Or some other flaw that I didn’t fully understand.

    If people want to keep these “substandard” plans, I say let them keep them. In the end, God forbid, they encounter some horrific medical crisis and don’t have the coverage they need because of not having read or understood the small print, that’s their choice. Isn’t this what America is all about … having choices? Even if those choices force you into bankruptcy, lead to the lose of all your assets, or the financial devastation of your family for the next generation. Choice … A Republican standard no matter the consequences.

    • Deanna Fisher says:

      Kevin, are you disputing the validity of Ms. Sundby’s story simply because of WHERE it was published? If you are, that is very small-minded of you.

      Secondly, SHE is very clear, repeatedly, in her editorial, that the reason that United is leaving California is BECAUSE of Obamacare. And she goes through great detail on how her plan met her needs.

      I’ll meet you halfway. Obamacare, which is the president’s “signature legislation” and bears his name, was designed to provide insurance for those who were uninsured. Ms. Sundby was NOT uninsured; she was quite happy with what she had. She even makes the point that she had never had a procedure denied under her insurance coverage. Clearly, she is being drastically hurt by a law which wasn’t aimed at her at all. Now that her story is out there, the ball is in the president’s court. What will he do? Will he move to allow more plans that people liked to be grandfathered in? Will he loosen some of the ridiculous requirements, like insisting that all plans carry maternity coverage – even for 70 year old men? Or would he look at Edie Littlefield Sundby and count her as an acceptable loss in his pursuit of “the greater good?”

      I submit to you that as Obamacare becomes more and more personal, people are not going to stand for THEIR loved ones becoming the sacrificial lambs for “the greater good.”

  • GWB says:

    She lost her coverage because her insurance company no longer serves the people of California; not because of the Affordable Healthcare Act (AHA).

    And it no longer serves the people of California because of ObamaCare, you ignoramus. (Yes, I have lost my patience with your blind ignorance when it comes to your progressive ideas.)

    Choice … A Republican standard no matter the consequences.

    So, we’re the Party of Choice, now? Maybe you’re coming to your senses after all………

    • Kevin says:

      GWB … You’re a little bipolar in your responses … ignoramus and then coming to my senses.

      I know a good prescribing psychiatrist that can help you balance out your emotions 😉

  • Nina says:

    Wow – glad some folks will be doing research to find out what they missed or why their insurance they’ve had for so long is “substandard” according to the great Oz.

    However, as someone who has had family members in health crisis and friends who’ve gone through serious and long-term health crosses … there is no choice but to be 100% knowledgable of what your insurance does and doesn’t cover! I’m pretty damn sure that Ms. Sundby and her family have been thoroughly educated on all aspects of the insurance plans they HAD. Yet the new CA Exchange can’t or won’t give them a straight answer on what will and won’t be covered, if she can deal with the same doctors, or if she can use the same excellent hospitals she’s been at before.

    I know elderly people who are dealing with major heart issues, cancer issues, and alzheimer. Yet the “new” plans proposed are not only more costly – they have items in there that they have to pay for yet will never use! Why the hell does an 81 yr old grandmother dealing with Alzheimers and Macular Degeneration have to pay for maternity care coverage??!!

    Yeah – you say its all about having choices. And we should have the choice! Our country is predicated on the Freedoms to run our lives as we see fit. Not be forced into a substandard plan/program that doesn’t make sense and costs a helluva lot more when directly applied to our individual lives.

    And for the record – I don’t want to touch any of the exchanges with a 60′ pole until they fix the security issues. The fact that my personal data could be hacked is a key non-starter for me.

  • She lost her coverage because her insurance company no longer serves the people of California; not because of the Affordable Healthcare Act (AHA).

    Except for the fact that the states get to decide who may sell insurance in their exchanges, which means that the STATE, in accord with the Unafordable Health Care Act’s mandates, decide the features and prices that “allowed” insurers must offer.

    If people want to keep these “substandard” plans, I say let them keep them. In the end, God forbid, they encounter some horrific medical crisis and don’t have the coverage they need because of not having read or understood the small print, that’s their choice. Isn’t this what America is all about … having choices? Even if those choices force you into bankruptcy, lead to the lose of all your assets, or the financial devastation of your family for the next generation. Choice … A Republican standard no matter the consequences.

    There is so much FAIL! contained in this paragraph, I’m shocked that it didn’t tear a hole in the space-time continuum.

    What you, President Derp, and Doc Zeke Emmanuel fail to grok about this scenario are some fundamental concepts.

    1. Despite the decades-long attempt to transmute the Commerce Clause into the rental car clause of the Constitution (Rental Cars Are the Best Cars In the World Because There IS NOTHING That a Rental Car Cannot Do!), the federal government has NO authority to do this. NONE.

    2. Who the hell is the Federal government to decide that “cost-shifting” is bad when it occurs on a limited scale in a VOLUNTARY contractual relationship with “bad apple” insurance companies, but it is “an airbag”, i. e. good when it is done on a national scale in a government-mandated transaction?

  • ALman says:

    The book that ought to have been presented, if one existed:
    “How to be a Decent Human Being for Dummies
    (Why Being a Liberal Doesn’t Help)”

  • Eleanor in Hell says:

    You’re witnessing the destruction of the private insurance industry in slow-motion. These new and expensive policies are simply the deckchairs on the TITANIC. A single-payer system is the goal and, barring an asteroid hit, is the inevitable outcome.

    Your boy in the White House has been meeting with the Insurance leaders for four years, up to and including today. To quote old Light Bulb down here, he’s been “pissing on their legs and telling them it’s raining.” 👿

  • F.D.R. in Hell says:

    Babs, I’m reminded of Leonardo da Vinci’s warning, “It’s easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.”

    The last doctor to exit the old American Healthcare System, please turn out the lights. 🙁

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