Democrats are congratulating themselves and patting themselves on the back for the 1.2 million new Obamacare signups in recent weeks. That brings the total to 11.3 million people. Big whup. It’s not surprising that bigger bribes, a $100 million promotion budget, and an extended enrollment period would lure some people in. But all these cartwheels barely moved the needle. Obamacare enrollment has never been and never will be anywhere close to the 21 million signups promised when they were ramming Obamacare down our throats.
But you wouldn’t know that from a recent government report claiming Obamacare now covers 31 million people. To get from 11.3 million to 31 million, they had to lump in Medicaid expansion, basic health plans, and four million who were eligible for Medicaid without Obamacare. Here are some other dirty tricks: they are taking credit for people who were kicked off their prior plans because of Obamacare who subsequently enrolled in Obamacare plans. You can’t call them ‘newly insured’ with a straight face. They are also counting people who cannot be disenrolled from Medicaid during the COVID pandemic, even though the people subsequently became ineligible. Isn’t there something wrong if they have to lie to make their case?
What they’re not telling you is that Medicaid expansion enrollment blew past all projections and is more than double what anyone expected. This is not a great triumph, as the Biden administration would have you believe. It’s a gigantic screw-up by people who worship Big Government and can’t put their underwear on straight.
Obamacare is still a colossal failure, no matter how you slice it – underenrollment, narrow networks, no competition on the exchanges in many places, illusory preexisting condition coverage, unpaid premiums, and young people priced out of health insurance when they were needed to keep the whole thing financially afloat. Not to mention Obamacare has further governmentized a fifth of the economy which has meant more paperwork, higher prices, and less innovation. My doctor now wants me to pay a dollar a day – $365 a year – to keep up with all the paperwork, whether I utilize his services or not. Thanks Obamacare, you destroyed my insurance and now you have shafted me again. You are the gift that keeps on giving.
Yet, the Biden administration is bound and determined to shut escape hatches from Obamacare. It wants to reinstitute severe restrictions on short-term plans, which it calls ‘junk insurance’. These plans resemble the catastrophic insurance that served my needs magnificently for 30 years before Obamacare came and made it illegal. Short-term plans have a lot of advantages: they’re a lot cheaper, give access to more doctors, and provide flexibility for people who will be getting school or employer coverage in the near future. They meet a lot of needs and that’s why they’re so popular.
Let’s put short-term plans side-by-side with Obamacare and see what happens, shall we? Kansas state Senator Beverly Gossage tells the story of a patient with a short-term plan who had to have emergency gall bladder surgery. The patient paid a $2,500 deductible and the short-term plan paid the rest of the $95,000 bill. Under Obamacare, the patient would have had an $8,550 deductible plus co-pays, and the Obamacare premiums would have been twice as much. After comparing the high-deductible, high-premium, narrow-network Obamacare plan with flexible, affordable short-term policies, Gossage rightfully asks: “Which one is the junk insurance?” [Grace-Marie Turner mailing 6/4/21]. Good story, isn’t it? Remember it the next time the Left is beguiling you with its lies and trying to get you to worship at the altar of Big Government. This god has feet of clay.
REPEAL OBAMACARE NOW!
– legalize true catastrophic insurance
– return Medicaid to a poverty program
END THE OBAMACARE CONGRESSIONAL EXEMPTION!