Thread: Do you support Obama Care ?

Higher Percentage Uninsured Under Obamacare Than in 2008, Says Gallup
March 10, 2014 By Matthew Burke

A new Gallup poll states that a higher percentage of Americans are uninsured now, under Obamacare, than were uninsured in 2008, which is before the bill even became law.

As reported by CNS News, the AP is reporting that “Americans without health insurance is dropping to the lowest levels since Barack Obama took office. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index found that 15.9 percent are still not insured so far in 2014, which is a downward fluctuation from the 17.1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/...red-rate-drops

However, as CNS News points out, the new 15.9% uninsured number is still higher than it was in 2008, when 14.8 percent were found by the same Gallup poll to be uninsured.

http://www.tpnn.com/2014/03/10/highe...8-says-gallup/

comments

Once you realize that Obamacare has nothing to do with health insurance and everything to do with wealth redistribution and the destruction of the American economy, it all makes sense.


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Obama is achieving exactly what he said he was going to do: complete transformation of America.

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It was never about Health Care, it was never about helping those who had less, it was never about any of that. It was always about CONTROL over peoples lives. It was about changing the actions of all Americans and the transforming of our Nation into a Socialist Country. Why else would Obama appoint Socialist and Communist personnel to cabinet postings? Why else would he kowtow to other Nations, bow to leaders of lesser Countries. Why else would he gut the Military and remove hawkish Generals and appoint pro-Gay ones who care more about drag queen parties then Military readiness? Why else would he approve the hiring of Muslim Chaplains for the Military but at the same time attack and hinder Christian Chaplains and even threaten servicemen who speak about GOD? Time for Obama to resign or be Impeached, but until we retake the House and the Senate that will never happen. The time is now to reclaim our Nation or accept becoming a Third world one


Health law cited as US uninsured rate drops
March 10, 2014 - 5:34 PM By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The share of Americans without health insurance is dropping to the lowest levels since President Barack Obama took office, but sign-ups under his health care law lag among Hispanics — a big pool of potential beneficiaries. With just three weeks left to enroll on the new insurance exchanges, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, finds that 15.9 percent of U.S. adults are uninsured thus far in 2014, down from 17.1 percent for the last three months — or calendar quarter— of 2013. Released Monday, the survey based on more than 28,000 interviews is a major independent effort to track the health care rollout. The drop of 1.2 percentage points in the uninsured rate translates to about 3 million people gaining coverage. Gallup said the proportion of Americans who are uninsured is on track to drop to the lowest quarterly level it measured since 2008, before Obama took office. "It's probably a reasonable hypothesis that the Affordable Care Act is having something to do with this drop," said Frank Newport, Gallup's editor-in-chief. "We saw a continuation of the trend we saw last month; it didn't bounce back up." The survey found that almost every major demographic group made progress getting health insurance, although Hispanics lagged. With the highest uninsured rate of any racial or ethnic group, Latinos were expected to be major beneficiaries of the new health care law. They are a relatively young population and many are on the lower rungs of the middle class, in jobs that don't come with health insurance. They've also gone big for Obama in his two presidential campaigns. But the administration's outreach effort to Hispanics stumbled from the start. The Spanish-language enrollment website, CuidadodeSalud.gov, was delayed due to technical problems. Its name sounds like a clunky translation from English: "Care of Health." The feds also translated "Affordable Care Act" as "Law for Care of Health at Low Price" — which doesn't sound too appealing. A spot check of the Spanish site on Monday showed parts of it still use a mix of Spanish and English to convey information on such basics as insurance copays, risking confusion. With disappointing Latino sign-ups, the administration is making a special pitch as the end of open enrollment season approaches March 31. The president was on Spanish-language television networks last week to raise awareness. Obama assured viewers that signing up for health care won't trigger the deportation of any relatives who are in the country illegally. The law's benefits are only for citizens and legal US residents. Gallup found the biggest drop in the uninsured rate was among households making less than $36,000 a year — a decline of 2.8 percentage points. Among blacks, the uninsured rate was down by 2.6 percentage points. It declined by 1 percentage point among whites. But Latinos saw a drop of just eight-tenths of a percentage point. The Gallup poll is considered authoritative because it combines the scope and depth found in government surveys with the timeliness of media sampling. Pollsters interview 500 people a day, 350 days a year. The latest health care results were based on more than 28,000 interviews, or about 28 times as many as in a standard national poll. The survey can be an early indicator. Gallup saw a modest decline in the uninsured rate in January, and now two full months of data point to a trend emerging. "This is another indication that the (law) is achieving its key objectives," said Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Medicare agency, which is also steering the rollout. Gallup said the drop coincides with the start of coverage under the health care law on Jan. 1. The major elements are now in effect. Virtually all Americans are required to get covered or risk fines. Insurers can no longer turn away people with health problems. New state-based markets are offering taxpayer-subsidized private insurance to middle-class households. Medicaid rolls are also growing, with about half the states agreeing to the program expansion in the law. Low-income people who qualify for Medicaid are able to sign up year-round, so the uninsured rate may keep going down even after the end of open enrollment for private coverage. The administration is citing numbers that are far higher than Gallup's: about 4 million people signing up for private coverage, and 9 million for Medicaid. But those statistics also include people who already had health insurance and switched to coverage offered under the law. They also include children, while Gallup focuses on adults. The survey was based on telephone interviews from Jan. 2-Feb. 28 with a random sample of 28,396 adults aged 18 and older in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total national sample, the margin of error is plus or minus 1 percentage point, larger for subgroups. ___

Online: http://www.gallup.com/poll/167798/un...nues-fall.aspx



http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/....h8t3m7G6.dpuf

Originally Posted by boopster

I have a question: i thought you had to be a citizen to purchase health insurance and/or sign up for medicaid? If that is the case, my understanding is that US citizens have to be able to speak and read English so why is there a website in Spanish?

Dem Response : You're RACIST !!!

Eat your own words on Obamacare, Debbie Wasserman Schultz
By Michelle Malkin | MARCH 7, 2014 AT 10:16 AM

At the end of 2013, Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz had some nasty words for yours truly. Irked that I used my Twitter feed to criticize her Obamacare propaganda efforts, Wasserman Schultz snarked back at me:

"Thanks for spreading the word! You'll be eating them next year. #GetCovered."

Classy as always. And completely wrong-headed as usual. Less than three months into 2014, how's dutiful Debbie and her Dear Leader's pet government takeover program doing? The most recent retreat measures -- call it the Obamacare Endangered 2014 Midterm Democrats' Rescue Plan -- include:

-- Allowing insurers for two extra years to continue selling plans that otherwise would have been banned by Obamacare. Last fall, Americans across the country and from all parts of the political spectrum raised an uproar in the wake of millions of Obamacare-induced cancellation notices on their individual market health plans. President Obama trotted out a "keep your plan" Band-Aid effective through this year. Now, the "transitional period" will extend through October 2016 and cover policyholders until the following September, after Obama is safely out of office.

— Extending the open enrollment period for 2015 from November 2014 to February 2015, a month longer than originally scheduled. (It will no doubt be extended again as the midterm elections get closer.)

— Relaxing eligibility requirements for insurers to qualify for financial help under a three-year program intended to cushion insurers' costs of complying with Obamacare mandates.

— Exempting labor unions, universities and other self-insured employers from paying a fee that creates the above-noted fund.

In addition, the White House last month allowed medium-sized employers an extra year to comply with the Obamacare mandate to offer insurance to all full-time workers and reduced the percentage of workers that large companies are required to cover. These latest regulatory walk-backs by administrative fiat all come on the heels of dozens of administrative delays and rollbacks.

While Democrats complain about Republican Obamacare repeal efforts, we may be nearing a special inflection point at which the White House will have reneged on more Obamacare regulations than it's actually enforcing!

Remember: In November 2010, the White House began issuing thousands of waivers to unions, cronies, businesses and organizations that offered affordable health insurance or prescription drug coverage with limited benefits outlawed by Obamacare. The federalized health care architects had sought to eliminate those low-cost plans under the guise of controlling insurer spending on executive salaries and marketing. Despite the waivers, the mandate has led to untold disruptions in the marketplace and has prompted businesses to cancel the beneficial plans altogether and/or slash wages and work hours.

In April 2011, Obama signed a bipartisan-backed law repealing his own onerous $22 billion Obamacare 1099 tax-compliance mandate that would have destroyed small businesses inundated with pointless paperwork.

Last March, with the support of several key Democrats, the Senate voted to repeal the Obamacare medical device tax. But the vote has not been enforced. Device makers have cut back on research and development. And according to the medical device manufacturers industry group AdvaMed, the punitive tax has forced companies to lay off or avoid hiring at least 33,000 workers over the past year.

In December and January, when Wasserman Schultz was busy acting like a 2-year-old in response to Obamacare critics, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was busy:

— Delaying premium payment deadlines.

— Delaying high-risk insurance pool cancellations.

— Delaying equal coverage mandates that force companies to drop health benefits rewards for top executives.

— Delaying onerous "meaningful use" mandates on health providers grappling with Obamacare's disastrous top-down electronic medical records rules.

While Wasserman Schultz defiantly claims all Democrats will proudly run on health care in 2014 and 2016, endangered Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina was caught on camera just last week literally running away from a journalist who dared to ask her about the 24 times she falsely promised that if you liked your plan, you could keep it under Obama.

It's not just Hagan; every vulnerable Senate Democrat who rammed Obamacare down America's throat is now running for the hills. When the White House now talks about the "Get Covered" campaign, it's not about ordinary Americans getting health care. It's about covering the backsides of the Obama water-carriers who may very well lose their jobs. They're not just eating their words. They're choking on Obamacare's massive, inevitable, job-killing, life-threatening failures.

I'd like to tell bratty Wasserman Schultz that Obamacare critics will have the last laugh. But we're too busy weeping at the senseless government-induced wreckage around us.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/eat-yo...rticle/2545263

Obama suggests people cancel cable and cell phones to afford Obamacare
Written by Allen West on March 12, 2014

According to President Obama, low-income families may have trouble affording Obamacare premiums because they simply do not know how to spend their own money. Last week, during a town hall meeting for Spanish language media where Obama was promoting enrollment, a viewer challenged the economics of it for low-income Americans now forced to buy health insurance, according to Hot Air.

The president responded that “if you looked at their cable bill, their telephone, their cell phone bill… it may turn out that, it’s just they haven’t prioritized health care.” He added that if a family member gets sick, the father “will wish he had paid that $300 a month.

Not that the father has any choice in the matter, considering the government is forcing him to buy it.

No Sir, it just means they haven’t prioritized spending on the health care you’re shoving down their throats. The hypocrisy never ceases to amaze. While the “era of austerity is supposedly over,” it’s clearly over for the federal government only.

Once again, President Obama finds someone else to blame for the failures of his own policy — which is so unappealing he keeps delaying it piece be piece. Ironically, cell phones are okay if they’re given away “free” at the expense of the hard-working American taxpayer, but not if you want to buy one yourself.

Daniel Garza, Executive Director of The LIBRE Initiative said of Obama’s remarks, “If the president actually believes that a family earning less than $40,000 per year can afford nearly $4,000 in health insurance premiums, then he truly does not understand middle-income families. Americans do not need the President to tell them how to budget their households. People are already cutting back on things like cable television and cell phones, just to compensate for an awful economy. This president promised he would deliver on affordable health care. Instead, premiums are up, out-of-pocket expenses are up, and overall cost of living is up. The president simply doesn’t get it. And his condescending attitude adds insult to injury.”

Once upon a time, families had the choice of using Healthcare Savings Accounts (HSAs) to spend pre-tax money on routine care and smaller emergencies, while using so-called catastrophic insurance to deal with serious illness requiring hospitalizations. But as part of Obamacare, HSAs are now taxed as well. So much for freedom of choice.

Perhaps we should take away Obama’s cell phone (and pen, while we’re at it) so the politicized executive orders will stop.

Obama is trying to convince Americans that the unaffordability of the Affordable Care Act isn’t his fault. It’s the fault of the states (run by those rascally Republicans) that won’t expand Medicaid. And it’s the fault of those selfish, irresponsible folks who’d rather have cable and cell phones.

If you like your iPhone, you can’t keep it. Period.

http://allenbwest.com/2014/03/obama-...CfucVsYTece.99

comments

$5000 deductible. $600/month premiums. Premiums higher than an auto payment and equal to half of my mortgage. Claims taking 11 months to pay out. Getting harassed by collectors ...even when I'm making payments to the medical providers (just not fast enough for them to get all their money)...and now you want me to cancel my cable and cell phone... well I have two words for you and it is not Happy Birthday!

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I was wondering if he was going to share those words of wisdom with the numerous people who go through my line at the grocery store. Setting down their new iPhone, or Samsung Galaxy along with their new car keys. Carefully sorting through their brand new Michael Kors purse, as to not damage their freshly manicured nails; then flipping through 5 or six credit cards to get their food stamp card so they can pay for the company lunch? I was just wondering about that. (This may sound like an exaggeration, and I really wish it was. Sadly, it is not. )

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Middle income people end up with no medical insurance if they are faced with extremely high deductibles such as the $4500/family member deductibles that some have quoted.

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When you live in a protected bubble where nothing you do will cause failure, when every meal, every trip, every opportunity is paid for by faceless others, and when you have absolutely no skin in the game you are creating and shoving down the throat of everyone else, it is easy to tell people what they are doing "wrong".

Obama is an arrogant troll who thinks only of himself.

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I am not one to have the government tell people how to spend their money either, but that is just it. ACA makes it the government's responsibility to provide healthcare insurance, free to some, discounted to others, for some not so cheaply. My point is that people will pay for a lot of things and leave things like health insurance and the doctor out of the equation all the while loading up the cable, watching that nice new TV, talking on that cool new smart phone. If people would save and spend on the important things, perhaps we would not have the ACA in the first place

if we don't get our own households in order, how can we ever expect those we elect to do the same thing?

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My own experience was that I had a policy that would cover catastrophic but only allowed me 4 dr visits a year. Worked for me. I chose it because it fit my budget, and my health needs. But because my basic care was limited, my policy has been cancelled. And because I am 60 the policies available to me are at a minimum triple what I was paying with huge deductibles. Now, not only do I get to pay a huge premium, I have to pay out of pocket for all my needs because I'll never meet the deductible unless I have a catastrophic problem. Now if I want that cortisone shot in my shoulder, I'll have to pay for it out of pocket and still pay a premium every month. How would you prefer me to "get my house in order"? Oh, I thought I'd let you know that my cell phone costs $30 a month. I have it so my elderly mother can reach me when she falls because they now tell her she's too old for the operation to fix the tendons in her knee. Thank you ACA and people like you who need to walk in others shoes before you judge with your self righteous attitude.

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Your condescending attitude is the same as Obama. Perhaps you should walk in someone else's shoes before telling them how to live. Cell phones or PHONES for that matter are a necessity, that is IF you want a job, are looking for a job, have applied for a job....do I make myself clear?

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Very few jobs actually require you to have a cell phone, those that do require it as part of the job will usually provide it or a stipend to help pay for it. Old fashioned home telephones suffice for most jobs and cost a whole lot less than that cellie bill, furthermore, a good old fashioned $20 track phone would work too. Priorities people. What is more important, paying your bills or having those really cool gadgets. I am fortunate enough to have a job, but it doesn't pay for everything I want. I have to make sacrifices all the time. Do I make myself clear?

http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/vi...p&VID=25681032

http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/vi...p&VID=25681032

Sebelius says Obamacare premiums will go up next year
11:54 AM 03/12/2014

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted Wednesday that Obamacare premiums will probably go up in 2015, that she does not know how many Obamacare customers have paid their premiums, and that she does not know how many Obamacare enrollees had insurance previously.

“I think premiums are likely to go up, but go up at a slower pace” than they did previously, Sebelius admitted at Wednesday’s House Ways and Means Committee hearing.

“I can’t tell you that, sir, because I don’t know that,” Sebelius said when asked by Georgia Rep. Tom Price how many Obamacare customers have paid their first premiums. Sebelius said she also does not know how many Obamacare customers previously had insurance plans that were canceled.

The Obama administration has delayed many provisions of the Obamacare law until after the 2014 midterms, including the economically consequential employer mandate.

The administration’s inability to meet its goal for enrolling young, healthy “invincibles” on the Obamacare exchanges has mired the entire Obamacare program in the so-called “death spiral,” which drives up health insurance rates because older, sicker people are primarily signing up.

Lawmakers at Wednesday morning’s hearing grilled Sebelius on the impact of the employer mandate, taxpayer-funded contractor costs related to the glitch-ridden Obamacare enrollment website, and the administration’s inability to meet its original goal of enrolling seven million people in Obamacare.

“Even though you’re pushing those mandates off,” businesses are still making changes including freezing hiring and reducing hours for staff, said Republican Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan in his questioning of Sebelius. ”I don’t know how much more burden we can put on employers.”

“We are watching, as I say, that very closely,” Sebelius said.

Georgia Rep. Tom Price characterized a “growing lack of trust” in government because “real people are getting harmed” by Obamacare and asked about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s comments that negative Obamacare stories are “all lies.”

“Congressman, I did not hear what Senator Reid said, and of course there are a lot of anecdotes” that indicate success for Obamacare, Sebelius said. “I don’t want to comment on” Reid’s comments.


http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/12/se...#ixzz2vmySGBa5

Shhhhh! HHS basically exempts everyone from individual mandate (but keep it quiet)

of pants.

Of all the ill-conceived elements of ObamaCare, the worst may be the individual mandate. Not only is it unconstitutional (Chief Justice Roberts's inexplicable journey to the dark side notwithstanding), but it also presents a conundrum for which there is no plausible resolution: If you don't enforce the mandate, the viability of the entire health insurance market is jeopardized because you need those young healthies to pay for all that "affordable care" for the old sickies. But if you do enforce it, people rightfully cry foul because you've already delayed the employer mandate not one year but now two.

So what to do?

If you're the Obama White House, you have to come up with some sort of scheme - however warped - to split the difference. So here it is, courtsey of the intrepidly reported Wall Street Journal editorial page. You keep the mandate in place, but administratively create loopholes so broad that anyone who wants to make noise can get an exemption . . . but you don't announce that to the public because, if you did, everyone would do it.

How did they pull this off? With a non-publicized adminstrative rule that expands a previously established "hardship" exemption for anyone who had their insurance cancelled as a result of ObamaCare. This was quietly issued last week, and most of the media were characteristically paying no attention. But the WSJ was:

In 2013, HHS decided that ObamaCare's wave of policy terminations qualified as a "hardship" that entitled people to a special type of coverage designed for people under age 30 or a mandate exemption. HHS originally defined and reserved hardship exemptions for the truly down and out such as battered women, the evicted and bankrupts.





But amid the post-rollout political backlash, last week the agency created a new category: Now all you need to do is fill out a form attesting that your plan was cancelled and that you "believe that the plan options available in the [ObamaCare] Marketplace in your area are more expensive than your cancelled health insurance policy" or "you consider other available policies unaffordable."

This lax standard—no formula or hard test beyond a person's belief—at least ostensibly requires proof such as an insurer termination notice. But people can also qualify for hardships for the unspecified nonreason that "you experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance," which only requires "documentation if possible." And yet another waiver is available to those who say they are merely unable to afford coverage, regardless of their prior insurance. In a word, these shifting legal benchmarks offer an exemption to everyone who conceivably wants one.

For the White House, this may be the ultimate example of flying by the seat of their pants in the implementation of this fatally flawed law. The individual mandate is widely reviled - an egregious imposition on people's right to choose their own health care arrangements. But you can't socialize health care unless you impose an everybody-in-nobody-out mandate that is inherent to command-and-control systems. So Obama tries to split the difference. Everybody in, unless we let you out, which we will if you push us hard enough, but shhhhhhh! Don't say anything about it, or everyone will want to do it!

And this is supposed to be better than the health care system - for all its flaws - we had before?

http://www.caintv.com/shhhhh-hhs-basically-exempts-e

comments

It looks to me that Obamacare is designed to put the insurance companies out of business, then they propose single payer HC run by the democrats and ensuring their party has control of government for years. The democrats have little concern presently that the citizens are hurting, they will turn it to be the fault of the Republicans. Will the citizens wake up before it is to late?

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Where or how do you apply for these exemptions? Where to start?
As soon as ppl start using this he will change the law AGAIN..

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Its illegal, its a violation of the constitution, the separation of powers and is lawlessness

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And since were all guarenteed the right to equal treatment under the law, if others can get an exemption from a law, guess what, SO CAN YOU.

I want no part of this UN-American socialism.