26 year-old: Obamacare Has “Raped My Future!”

From Liberty News:

Obamacare Has “Raped My Future!” Says Underemployed College Grad in Viral Letter

Ashley Dionne is a 26 year-old college graduate who says her future has been “raped” by Obamacare, reports Campus Reform.

This University of Michigan alum shared her story of Obamacare sticker shock and outrage with radio host, Dennis Prager.  Here’s a copy of her open letter:

“My name is Ashley Dionne and I’m a 26-year-old recent graduate from Michigan.

The phony Obamacare signup poster boy made me want to send a message about how Obamacare is really affecting people.

I graduated from The University of Michigan in 2009. In my state, this used to mean something, but even with a bachelor’s I was told I was too educated and wouldn’t stay. I watched as kids with GEDs and high school diploma’s took the low-paying jobs for which I applied.

I went back to school and got a second degree and finally found work at a gym. I work nights and only get 32 hours a week for eight dollars an hour. I’m unable to find a second job at this time.

I have asthma, ulcers, and mild cerebral palsy. Obamacare takes my monthly rate from $75 a month for full coverage on my “Young Adult Plan,” to $319 a month. After $6,000 in deductibles, of course.

Liberals claimed this law would help the poor. I am the poor, the working poor, and I can’t afford to support myself, let alone older generations and people not willing to work at all.

This law has raped my future.

It will keep me and kids my age from having a future at all.

This is the real face of Obamacare and it isn’t pretty.” 

This isn’t the first time an American citizen has discovered the truth about Obamacare.  It will not be the last.

Will the Obama Administration notice?

Nooooo.

They are too busy waging war on people who can give other people jobs,

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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54 Comments

  1. tcreek says:

    Will the Catholic bishops notice?
    They were and are among the biggest supporters of Obamacare, except for the HHS mandate.

  2. inexcels says:

    I like to have a sense of humor about things, so I was amused when I got an email that said “Under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, your health insurance premium has increased by 25%.” I wonder if whomever was responsible for typing that message appreciated the irony.

    Of course, 25% is peanuts compared to the 425% increase Ashley Dionne was subjected to.

    My karate instructor was also complaining about how he can’t afford health insurance and being forced to buy it for $500 a month would break him. I think for now he’d probably be better off just paying the fee.

    This law is hurting a lot of people in very real ways, and it’s the “little” people who are getting the screw. But Democrats are the party of the people! They look out for the little guy! Riiiight.

    I’ve heard it said that liberals love people in the abstract but don’t give a crap about actual, flesh-and-blood people. I know it’s an overgeneralization, but I’ve seen a lot of things to convince me that there’s a deep grain of truth to it.

  3. Midwest St. Michael says:

    Folks, this was all along a precursor to a single payer system.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/08/10/sen-harry-reid-obamacare-absolutely-a-step-toward-a-single-payer-system/

    One cannot help but think it was in the cards all the whole time. The biggest problem for the dims in this scenario are the unions. They will *not* be happy with the eventual fallout of a sps.

    Good grief. What a !&%$@* mess these people have made.

    God help us.

    MSM

  4. Magpie says:

    There’s also the fact that the diversity/pluralism/tolerance/equality agenda has raped men’s future. Ireland is a good (or should I say bad) example. Women have overrun the work force. And immigrants have taken many jobs. Qualified men like me have trouble getting jobs, but there you are. Life sucks. It isn’t fair. Oh well.

  5. capchoirgirl says:

    Well wait a second, magpie. Some women NEED to work. I’m a single woman in my 30s. I need a job. What am I supposed to do? Now, if I were married, I would be a stay at home mom. But I’m not. Thus, I’m in the workforce.
    Also–immigrants have taken many jobs….gee that’s what people told my Irish/German/Scottish/Italian ancestors when they came to the United States.
    I do not, by the by, believe in affirmative action. I believe in giving the most qualified person the position. And I am definitely well-qualified for the position I hold.

  6. capchoirgirl says:

    Forgot to add: As far as Obamacare, I’m freaking. Yes, I have insurance, but I also have a bazillion medical situations that require top-notch care. As in if I lived under a single-payer system, I’d be dead. So I hate–loathe with a deep passion–this whole idea.

  7. One of those TNCs says:

    “They are too busy waging war on people who can give other people jobs,”

    You nailed, it, Father.

    After all, if people can still get private sector jobs, the government isn’t big enough yet….

  8. EXCHIEF says:

    Almost unbelievable is the fact that so many people still have not figured out what a liar Obama is. You can keep your doctor=lie; you can keep your insurance=lie; costs will go down=lie. This pretender president has made a career out of lies and yet so many people are enamored of him. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

  9. Giuseppe says:

    Internet stories like these are like Lifetime movies. They are heart wrenching. And the truth behind them is usually fictionalized. This woman’s income qualifies her for federal subsidies for her insurance.

    This story will be debunked. It won’t matter much, as those who read it will be convinced of its truth. I love her use of ‘raped’ by the way. I’m surprised she did not say that Obama ‘forced me to abort’ her care.

    Don’t get me wrong, I do not like Obamacare. But I like internet frauds even less.

  10. This story doesn’t fit the democrat and the media’s script of “the tea party has taken America hostage” so it will never see the light of day. Only coverage that mocks the majority of Americans who disapprove of obamacare (Rasmussen polls) and only coverage that falsely shifts blame from radical leftists to those representatives in Congress who are actually trying to REPRESENT Americans and our rejection of obamacare.

  11. Gratias says:

    The Liberty News site where this letter was published has the very apt banner:

    “Organizing for Death Care”

    Unfortunately, our Federal government is anti-American. It was elected by the 47% of social Parasites living off the taxes of working classes. And our Catholic Bishops provide essential support to the welfare state, as if they had never heard that Communism was inimical to religion.

  12. Bea says:

    This administration has made me sick to my stomach.
    While congress twiddles its thumbs and does nothing to stop this tyranny.
    Not just O’Care but all that has come with it.
    It should have been called ObamaCareless.
    Those who voted for him (including many of our hierarchy) should be held accountable for the coming destruction of our once free and beautiful country.

  13. David Collins says:

    Those who voted for him…should be held accountable for the coming destruction of our once free and beautiful country.

    What sort of accountability is being thought of here? Is it the “Kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out,” kind?

    Thanks, Giuseppe for a sane response.

  14. PA mom says:

    My mother law announced that she will be retiring at the end of the year, because her government job recently announced that the “Cadillac tax” applies to their plan, and her premiums will be going from nearly nothing to $3-5,000/ year.
    The union of course, blames the government for not just paying it and leaving the employees out of it, but why should the populace have to pay the rich benefits AND the Tax???
    The first thing I thought was, thank goodness, a younger person will be able to get a real job.

  15. ecs says:

    There is nothing sane about Giuseppe’s response. The first thing I thought of when I read it was whether he or she is a paid Democrat operative. Even if we were to assume that this young lady qualified for some subsidy, the point remains the same. She is a college educated 26 year old woman who is under employed but who prior to Obamacare was at least independent and self sufficient. Now, best case scenario she is a ward of the state! Wow!!! How wonderful! That’s soooo much better. See, Obama world isn’t that bad. You just have to give up that selfish desire to live free.

  16. tcreek says:

    Question — Where are the people that are denied health care because they do not have insurance and cannot pay the bill? If they could be found, you can bet that Obama and his minions would parade them before the public every day of the year.

    Fact – Every year doctors and hospitals provide billions of dollars of “free” health care for those unable to pay.

    Obama care is all about more government control. You cannot trust doctors and hospitals to serve the poor.

  17. Seamus says:

    ” I watched as kids with GEDs and high school diploma’s took the low-paying jobs for which I applied.”

    Maybe potential employers could see that those “GEDs and [holders of] high school diploma’s [sic]” understood proper use of apostrophes (something usually taught, IIRC, in first grade) better than she did.

  18. The Masked Chicken says:

    “Question — Where are the people that are denied health care because they do not have insurance and cannot pay the bill? If they could be found, you can bet that Obama and his minions would parade them before the public every day of the year.”

    Me, me…I have two automatic denial-of-coverage problems (I checked both with my, then, insurance agent and a separate, different, insurance company) and my insurance will be, when I am forced to get it, in the range of $1000 – $1500 / month (or so I think). I refuse to use an insurance (government subsidies) which is so complicit in supporting abortion and contraception. In truth, what we need is a Catholic Insurance Corporation, which sells insurance by Catholics, for Catholics, only. That, satisfies the HHS mandate, as I understand it. Where are the Catholic insurers??

    Seamus,

    You wrote:

    “Maybe potential employers could see that those “GEDs and [holders of] high school diploma’s [sic]” understood proper use of apostrophes (something usually taught, IIRC, in first grade) better than she did.”

    Give the kid a break. She has mild cerebral palsy and was, probably, using something like an iPad with its facist autocorrect. It might have done an autocorrect and it was too much effort for her to correct it. Charity demands that we give her the benefit of the doubt. I am as guilty as the next person (maybe, more) for being cynical, but let me play the hero, for once, and defend her honor.

    The Chicken

  19. The Masked Chicken says:

    at reek,

    Sorry, I misread your comment. Please, ignore my last comment.

  20. Imrahil says:

    As an annotation,

    I believe in giving the most qualified person the position.

    This seems to be the official doctrine (where no affirmative action is taken).

    But should not all those wishing to do some decent work somehow get the chance to earn a living?

    Not all of those who are qualified are best. And even if you are excellently qualified, there is also more than one excellently qualified person.

    I’m not giving a solution, but suggesting a problem.

    Back in the days, it is told, you could go to the nearest factory to apply for manual labor if you weren’t too haughty for it (and willing to suffer your lesser educated workmate’s spites, if you were better educated). Is that still possible? I don’t know, but it is doubted, generally.

    To quote Wilhelm Voigt according to Zuckmayer (in an admittedly other circumstance), “why don’t they just let me live my in my country? if so, then perchance I may also die for it when the day comes”.

  21. The Masked Chicken says:

    That should be tcreek. See what I mean about autocorrectors.

    The Chicken

  22. wmeyer says:

    We must expect to see this theme repeated, millions of times. Anyone with the most basic appreciation of economics (not as “taught” in government schools) should have been able to see that this legislation was a recipe for disaster. This system will collapse, and then the liberals will say: “See? We told you private market medical care won’t work.” On that basis they will implement socialized medicine, as already seen in Canada and the U.K. Death panels, long waits for care, innumerable abuses, and a declining population of physicians will ensue. All highly predictable.

  23. SKAY says:

    ” This woman’s income qualifies her for federal subsidies for her insurance.”
    Giuseppe —
    Interesting. Obama has given subsidies to all the federal employees who are actually under Obamacare because they were all very upset and many were threatening to quit if forced to pay out of pocket.. These people in Washington make very good wages compared to ordinary taxpayers in middle America who will be paying much more for less and less actual healthcare unless of course you have received one of those Obama special waivers( unions etc.)

    Who do you think really pays for all these “federal subsidies” along with their own extra costs now for their healthcare needs and the needs of their children? ?

    There are at least 21 new taxes included in the bill – so we will be paying in many other ways beside increased up front costs for the insurance and that is just the tip of the ice burg.
    Of course Obama, Biden, Senators and Congressmen and those on the Supreme Court are exempt from Obamacare. If this bill is so great–why are they not under it also? The Republicans tried to change that–but the Dems would have non of it in the Senate. That should tell us something.

    “The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”

    Vladimir Lenin

    They are printing a lot of money in Washington now–that makes the dollar worth less and less.
    A simple trip to the grocery store tells you that.
    A trip to the Dr. tells you that all of your personal medical information will be going to Washington and the IRS. It will no longer be private. We have seen that the IRS is no
    longer making any pretense of being independent.

  24. chantgirl says:

    Giuseppe- people don’t get subsidies until they get their tax return, so they still have to pay the expensive premiums every month in advance of getting their return. I used an Obamacare calculator and figured out that if my husband lost his employer-provided insurance, we would have to pay over $1000 more per month just for the premium. That doesn’t include the deductible. Many families like mine will not be able to pay for the premiums month in/month out in hopes of being reimbursed at tax time.
    We also aren’t addressing the origin of these subsidies. Who is going to pay them? Very likely, the bulk of the lifting will be done by the working middle class in the form of new taxes.
    This law will decimate the middle class.

  25. MarkG says:

    AP did a fact check and it was easily verified by the State of Michigan that the numbers were wrong.
    For a 26 year old female, the current minimum for the state is $101.81. She claimed to be paying $75 a month, and that figure is not correct.
    For a 26 year old female, making $8 per hour, under Obamacare, the silver plan for Michigan is $22.17 per month. The bronze plan is $0 (free) per month. She claimed a quote of $319 per month, and that figure is not correct.
    In reality, she will go from $101.81 per month down to $0 per month for a higher level of coverage, as the bronze plan covers more than her current plan.

    What exactly was her degree in that she can’t find a job? In the STEM areas, there are over millions of jobs unfilled in this country today. Just go to SimplyHired.com and search on “Java” and you will see hundreds of thousands of jobs if you don’t believe me. Java is just one small area of IT jobs.

  26. mparrot says:

    Giuseppe, I am with you on this one. Something about this does not pass the smell test. If she makes 8 dollars an hour at 32 hours a week then she makes close to $13,312 a year. If she lived in a state with expanded Medicaid she would qualify for Medicaid. Michigan opted not to expand its Medicaid rolls; however, according to the kff.org subsidy calculator she would be able to get a bronze plan for $0.00 per month when the tax credits are taken into consideration. I know in Kentkucy (and I believe nation wide) you receive the tax credits up front or you can opt for them at the end of the year.

  27. StJude says:

    I am 45 .. my son is 21 and in college. I pay $297 a month for our health insurance. Its a 30% co pay. Its not platinum coverage but its perfect for us.. both healthy and never see a Dr.

    under Obamacare.. for a bronze plan for us.. its $511 dollars with a $6500 deductible. For a plan similar to what I have now.. Its over $800 a month.

    For curiosities sake.. I priced out a family of 4 2 adults/2 kids an 80/20 plan with maternity and RX… its $2800 a month.

    Hope n change.. or something.

  28. cajuncath says:

    Back in the early 1960s, there apparently was a campaign, including folks like Ronald Reagan, that warned that if the proposed Medicare program bill was ever instituted into law and practice, we would witness the wholesale decimation of freedom in the country.

    Whatever criticisms that one wants to level against Medicare, I don’t think we can say that it has directly caused the dissolution of our freedom during the past 47 or so years. I have a couple of elderly Republican die-hard relatives who rail against everything Obama, but demand in the next breath that nobody had better touch their Medicare. How noble.

    Up there is also Michael Novak, a Catholic ‘conservative’ intellectual, who John Medaille incisively pointed out in his article “The Politics of Ingratitude” was hypocritcally slamming ‘socialized medicine’ while asserting that he supported Medicare, which allowed him to afford the needed medicines for his stricken wife.

    While I am not an Obama supporter, it’s increasingly hard not to have some growing sympathy for him. If the track record of shame, nonsense, and stupidity regarding Medicare is any meaningful relevant indication, ACA may well turn out to be fabulous.

  29. TimG says:

    I am not sure why some folks appear to be defending Obamacare on this blog. Does anyone truly believe that costs are not going to go up? As wmeyer stated, this is simple economics and we have many examples around us to look at…

  30. TimG says:

    And does anyone truly believe that socialized medical care is good for our country? Why?

  31. cajuncath says:

    TimG, are you saying you are implacably opposed to Medicare and Medicaid and want to see them completely abolished? If so, how does that help our current situation?

    I don’t see how one can have it both ways. Either everyone, in principle, should have recourse to government assistance for medical care or nobody should. What side of the question do you fall on?

    If by socialized medical care you mean a single-payer health care system of some or any kind, there appear to be reasonable arguments in favor of it as a viable option.

  32. TimG says:

    cajuncath…
    The system is broken. As an engineer I think there is a solution but do people have the will to do the right thing?

    I think the government can help bring people together to try and come up with a viable solution but I absolutely do not believe it can be trusted to run it. Too much centralized power that can / will be abused and following Canada or the UK model does not make sense.

  33. TimG says:

    Not to mention the amount of overhead that comes with any govt run program.

  34. cajuncath says:

    Direct answer TimG – Do you want Medicare and Medcaid shut down or not?

  35. wmeyer says:

    Let us also remember that the Church has condemned socialism. And most assuredly, the “single-payer” insurance which will rise from the ashes of Obamacare is nothing if not socialism.

    TimG, as another engineer, I see the decades of destruction legislated by the Feds, and must, must reject the notion that they are applying a fix. Well, other than in the sense of “the fix is in.”

    Any real “fix”, as with so many problems created by politicians in search of power and re-election, will require the roll-back of prior “fixes”.

  36. TimG says:

    There are probably too many people dependent on it already and in reality it cannot be shut down.

    – I do not proclaim to know what the answers are but I know it is not Obamacare (which was formulated by a bunch of Socialists with all kinds of vested interests, first and foremost the most offensive Planned Parenthood.)
    – I would compare this situation on a macro level to what Abp Chaput encountered when he moved to Philadelphia. A school system completely broken, he formed a committee that was committted to finding the right answers and from what I have heard the changes they have implemented is considered a success so far…

  37. tcreek says:

    WE won’t have to shut down the entitlement programs.

    Living on borrowed time. (and borrowed money from our children and grandchildren.)

    May 31, 2013
    CBS News

    The latest projections in the annual report of trustees of Medicare’s giant hospital trust is that it will be exhausted in 2026. The date that Social Security will exhaust its trust fund is 2033.
    The new report warned that Medicare and Social Security face significant funding challenges as the giant baby boom generation continues to retire.

    The program was stable when there were more than 3 workers per beneficiary. However, future projections indicate that the ratio will continue to fall to below two workers, at which point the program becomes financially unsustainable.
    —-
    Our National debt is approaching 17 trillion dollars. It was 10.6 trillion when Obama took office. Our current budget deficit is 814 billion dollars. Obamacare will greatly increase those amounts.

  38. TimG says:

    Thank you tcreek. I have apparently hit the moderation limit and my other comment is pending…

  39. tcreek says:

    The Doorbell
    Remember this from a couple of years ago?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqoGORXAv2o

  40. MikeM says:

    “Don’t get me wrong, I do not like Obamacare. But I like internet frauds even less.”

    I’m no fan of liars on the internet, but they don’t take a thousand more dollars of my money, destroy my health insurance coverage and then tell me that if I even want that I have to pay for abortifacients. Between the two, I’ll take some bogus stories online ANY DAY.

  41. ecs says:

    You are deluded if you think Medicaid and Medicare has not decimated freedom in this country. Let alone what it does to the doctor-patient relationship, the fact that right wing republicans are so dependent on Medicare is proof enough of this fact. It’s not that they like it, but they have no other choice at this stage in their lives. There is no private market that can come in and cover 80 year old grandma if Medicare was suddenly ripped away because she is uninsurable at this point. Medicare essentially monopolized that portion of the health industry and it will be a mess when the country necessarily unwinds it if it does and it will be tyrannical if the government tries to deny math and reality and fight the inevitable as it is currently doing. The dependence of our elderly on Medicare has never been a good thing. Medicaid as it is currently run should be abolished. Medicare should be dismantled overtime. But like someone said above, we have no choice about the end of the current social system. Simple mathematics leads to the certainty that both systems as they currently exist will end. The federal government cannot afford Medicare, it cannot afford Medicaid, and it will not be able to afford ObamaCare. What everyone needs to be asking themselves is not whether the current system is good or bad but rather what is it leading us towards.

    To those of you who apparently live in an alternative universe and seem to think you will not be negatively impacted by what Obama is doing to this country, I wish I new your secret. Where is your pot of gold? Who in the political machine do you know that is going to ensure you benefit from the government largesse rather than get crushed by it like the rest of us?

  42. Giuseppe says:

    @Chantgirl – You are right that someone whose income is so low to require the subsidy would not be able to pre-pay and wait a year and a few months for a refund. However, the law allows people to apply the tax subsidy in advance, so I suspect she will actually pay little-to-nothing out-of-pocket for her insurance premium.
    http://www.irs.gov/uac/Affordable-Care-Act-Tax-Provisions

    @TimG – Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like many aspects of Obamacare, so I am not defending it. But when people argue with anecdotes that are not reality-based, it makes the anti-Obamacare case weaker in the wider public eye.

  43. Giuseppe says:

    @MikeM – Noted. There is something about deceptive internet stories that drives me crazy. It saddens me when good people like Father Z even fall prey to them and post them on the blog. There are many good reasons to argue against Obamacare, but a heart-tugging story with made-up numbers is not one.

    My biggest moral complaint about Obamacare is just what you describe – requiring each insurance plan to cover the same basic elements, which include contraception and abortion. People should be able to choose plans which cover neither.

  44. Obumbrabit says:

    Medicare and Medicaid should be shut down. Let the states create similar replacement programs if they wish, and fund them with their own state’s money. I will admit that people do depend on these kinds of programs, so they have their place, but why do they have to originate from the federal government?

  45. inexcels says:

    I would have to agree that fabricated stories are a bad idea, since they weaken the argument against Obamacare — a completely needless act, because there are more than enough truthful stories to show the damage this law is causing without resorting to fictionalized accounts.

    MarkG:
    What exactly was her degree in that she can’t find a job? In the STEM areas, there are over millions of jobs unfilled in this country today. Just go to SimplyHired.com and search on “Java” and you will see hundreds of thousands of jobs if you don’t believe me. Java is just one small area of IT jobs.

    This is misleading. The majority of IT jobs require years of full-time experience in order to get hired. Unless you were full-time interning for your entire degree (highly unlikely), as a recent graduate you will NOT be considered for these jobs. Just having a STEM degree is no guarantee of finding a job relevant to your field. I speak from personal experience on this, and that’s as an A student with 3 years of part-time internship experience when I got my B.S. It was so helpful for finding a job that I ended up going to graduate school instead.

    There are some openings for people with little or no full-time experience in the field, but they aren’t available everywhere, and not everyone is willing to move 500 miles to a heavily-urbanized area just to get a job relevant to their qualifications. Even if you are willing to do it, there is heavy competition for these jobs so even if you have good qualifications, you might well get rejected for any number of arbitrary reasons. Probably the best approach is to do a full-time summer internship with a company that has a reputation for hiring interns, but by the time you’ve got your degree, it’s too late to realize what you should have done — and then your prospects are much worse.

    Giuseppe:
    My biggest moral complaint about Obamacare is just what you describe – requiring each insurance plan to cover the same basic elements, which include contraception and abortion. People should be able to choose plans which cover neither.

    I agree this is probably the most morally objectionable part of Obamacare. But it’s far from the only problem. People should also have the option of not choosing a plan at all. People being forced to buy health insurance when they neither want it nor need it is a garbage system. The usual counterargument is that unless everyone buys insurance, Obamacare will not work. It’s a terrible counteragument because it just acknowledges that the system is fundamentally broken. The cure is worse than the disease. There are better solutions to high costs and people gaming the system than making everyone buy coverage (except, of course, the politicians who wrote the law and their buddies who get not-at-all suspicious exemptions).

    For example, instead of making everyone buy insurance, change the paradigm so that very few people have insurance and the default assumption is that you don’t, so most people pay out of pocket. Decrease the outrageous cost of medical school. Initiate tort reform so practices don’t need hyper-expensive malpractice insurance. Clean up the FDA so it doesn’t give preferential treatment to pharmaceutical companies that promise cushy jobs for the bureaucrats after their tenures are concluded. Do these things and costs would plummet. But these reforms would not support the goal of enlarging government and moving the U.S. closer to socialism, so we get Obamacare instead.

  46. sunbreak says:

    When I read stories like this I wonder if the woman has checked things out carefully. I did the form using her numbers. Yes, it is true that the rates go way up and the subsidy doesn’t cover the difference and she is likely making too little to qualify for the subsidy. But, if she is still living in Michigan, she should qualify under expanded Medicaid and will not have to pay the huge rates. Also, if she is now on a plan and has been on that plan since 2010, she should check with her insurance company to see if she can still have that plan on a grandfathered basis.
    Don’t be so quick to blame Obamacare. If you live in a state that has chosen not to expand Medicaid to cover the lower income people, then your state is the one to blame.

  47. TimG says:

    @wmeyer

    Sorry if I implied that folks are implementing a fix. They most assuredly are not as the federal govt continues to spend spend spend and do nothing about following a real budget.

  48. TimG says:

    And apparently not wanting to be left out, the local govts also like to spend spend spend…

  49. David Collins says:

    Dear ecs: yes, it does seem likely that the Affordable Care Act will negatively affect the US. But Jesus has complete control of the situation. Remember, the soldiers casting lots for the seamless garment had no idea they fulfilling prophecy; so whatever, happens to us, good or bad, will be for the salvation of our souls.

    Which is hard to remember when the cross you carry seems about to get added weight hung from it, but keep in mind it is the Savior who is adding to it.

  50. robtbrown says:

    cajuncath

    1. Socialism is the govt controlling the marketplace. A single-payer of itself isn’t socialism, but if the single-payer system is, as I suspect, a way of fixing prices, then it is certainly socialism. Of course, Medicare now fixes prices, but many people, incl my parents, have carried supplements. And we both know that their are physicians who don’t take Medicare patients.

    2. The selling of Obamacare is nothing if not fraud. The Affordable Care Act is like calling a fat, slow guy “Speedy”. Originally, they maintained it would pay for itself by bringing healthy people into the system. Once that was revealed as total nonsense, other taxes were imposed. Now that it is admitted that Obamacare will in fact raise the price of insurance premiums, the fall back position has become that they will go up for a while, but then later (much later, after those responsible are comfortable in retirement) it will cause prices to go down. Yeah, right.

    3. Any national health care system (incl the VA, with which I am very familiar) does a very good job of making primary care available. For specialized cases, however, they fall short. The excellent war correspondent John Burns, a Brit who works for the NY Times, tells of beginning treatment for cancer in England, that if he hadn’t later decided to be treated in the US, he would be dead. Also if his preemie son had been born in England rather than the US, he wouldn’t have survived.

    4. There are two separate problems: universal care and rising health care costs (thus insurance premiums). The later are the consequence of so many new diagnostic and therapeutic procedures (and med) being now available. People buy more of these simply because they weren’t available before: The health care system is not broken; it is working too well. Knee and hip replacements are now common where before they didn’t exist, one example that it is naive to think that health care costs shouldn’t go up.

    There is also the change in demographics, the large Baby Boom generation (of which I am a member) is now older and sicker. But the younger, more healthy generation (that pays premiums but doesn’t file large claims), is small.

    4. We also have the ethical problem of the use of so many medical resources to keep people alive for a few months longer.

  51. Dennis Martin says:

    Sunbreak and all the other Obamacare apologists on this thread:

    I do not know the specific circumstances of the case at hand. However, Sunbreak suggested the woman could check to see if her existing plan can grandfather her in.

    You folks don’t get it. Obamacare deliberately eliminated the low-permium plans that a lot of responsible self-employed and some small businesses relied on for catastrophic coverage but with day-to-day medical care costs paid out of pocket.

    Obamacare cannot tolerate this kind of self-starter, responsibility. It seeks to drive everyone into one-size-fits all total health-care plans, as the groundwork for single-payer.

    It is from beginning to end statist. It may well be too late now to ever retreat from statism. So perhaps those of us who remember and loved America must swallow hard and embrace 1984.

    But I hope all the statist-lovers on this thread understand that with statism will come the strait-jacketing of Catholics into a health-care world where euthanasia, abortion, contraception and same-sex worship will be part of the wallpaper.

    Obamacare never was about better health-care. It was from the start about control. Period.

  52. cajuncath says:

    ecs: Medicare and Medicaid have decimated freedom? I find that rather hard to believe. One would have thought that Ronald Reagan, so proud to proclaim this in the early 1960s, would have made it a centerpiece of his presidential campaigns and a top priority to dismantle as part of his administration. I don’t seem to recall the issue coming up much at all. So much for a critic attaining the highest office in the land, and apparently doing little to nothing about it.

    We still have strong forms of freedom in this country. Our Republicans should exercise it by openly proclaiming how horrific Medicare/Medicaid is, and how critical it is to shut it down completely. Not to mention describe in full detail what, if anything, will take its place. Let’s have some openness and honesty, instead of all the silence while ACA is savaged. Let’s have the next GOP presidential nominee run on this as the center of his/her campaign.

    Am I supposed to believe that the retiring, elderly, baby boomers are going to get from the private health insurance industry equal or better coverage at equal or lower rates? I find that hard to believe. I’m pretty sure most elderly don’t.

    I don’t think Obama will necessarily do great things for the country and don’t rely on expecting one iota of benefit from any governmental largesse.

  53. Magash says:

    I’m old enough to remember how things were before Medicare. At that time a retired military person like myself was promised healthcare for the rest of their life, in return for risking their lives for 20-30 years while they were young. Along came Medicare and the military health system basically shed everyone over 65 by transferring them to the inferior Medicare system. Likewise up until that time Union workers had health plans, worked out between employers and unions to ensure retired workers were taken care of. Even most union plans now push their costs onto Medicare when people reach 65. That means they push it on us.
    Medicare was sold as a system for the indigent poor over 65. The system was never designed to cover everyone over 65, as has happened, with the resulting ballooning of cost.
    So yes Medicare is a failed program. It will eventually, with other entitlement programs, eat up all of the federal budget not going to debt maintenance (repayment of interest on the federal debt.)
    So yes eventually Medicare and Medicaid will destroy the country. At this point we are getting close to the point where only economic collapse will fix things. That will be very painful and result in a death toll in the millions.
    Before that happens it is likely that insurance rates will becoming meaningless. It doesn’t really matter if I pay less out of pocket because the government is subsidizing my payments by printing money, if I can’t get a doctors appointment or are being told I won’t get treatment because I don’t contribute anything to society or don’t have adequate survival rates. Set the survival rate requirements high enough and only Congressmen and citizens younger than 45 will be able to get passed the “Death Panels”.

  54. Giuseppe says:

    A belated thanks to @RobtBrown for another superb post. I really appreciate your insights.

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