You're Losing Your Plan

I hate to say I told you so, but…

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You’re losing your plan

By SCOTT GOTTLIEB
Last Updated: 4:33 AM, June 14, 2010
Posted: 1:16 AM, June 14, 2010

Late last week saw the first leaks of the administration’s draft regulations for imple menting the ObamaCare law – and everything is playing out just as the critics warned.

The 3,000-odd pages of legislation left most of the really important (and controversial) policy decisions to the regulations that government agencies were told to issue once the bill passed. Now that those regs are starting to take shape, it’s clear that the Obama team is using its new power to exert tight control over the payment and delivery of all formerly “private” health insurance.

The ObamaCare law references the Secretary of Health and Human Services almost 2,200 times and uses the phrase “the secretary shall” more than 725. Each reference requires HHS to set new rules on medical care, giving control to an existing federal office or one of 160 new agencies that the bill created.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (who was once the Kansas state-insurance commissioner) has taken to these tasks with zeal. In some circles, she’s now known as the nation’s “insurance regulator in chief.”

She’s starting off by applying new regs to health plans offered by large employers – even though these costly rules were supposedly only going to apply to plans sold in the state insurance “exchanges” that don’t get created until 2014. This twist is spelled out in an 83-page draft of a new regulation that leaked late last week.

Bottom line: Sebelius means to dictate what your insurance plan must look like almost from day one, no matter how you get your coverage.

Indeed, the draft regs envision more than half of all policies having to change within three years – an unmistakable break with President’s Obama’s oft-repeated promise, “If people like their insurance, they will be able to keep it.”

Yet that may be the least of the broken promises.

Ultimately, these rules force consumers to buy one of just four health policies – which vary mostly only by trading off higher co-payments for lower premiums, while offering essentially the same actual benefits. In arguing for passage of the law, ObamaCare’s defenders claimed the rules were aimed at health plans sold in the “exchanges.” Oops: Now Sebelius is applying them to employer plans. Eventually, this would force all but the very wealthiest Americans into a single government-designed insurance scheme.

This is far from the only area where Secretary Sebelius is exploiting the law’s fuzzy language to tighten her control over the private insurance market. In recent weeks, she has said that the new law gives her authority to review and even set the rates on health policies sold in private markets, a role previously left to state insurance regulators.

The ObamaCare bills were written to paper over an intellectual divide between White House economists and HHS policy wonks. Some economists wanted genuine competition to take root in the new federally managed insurance “exchanges.” The HHS crew favored a one-sized government plan with tight federal regulation over benefits.

The law itself didn’t explicitly side with either school – but it did leave the writing of the implementing regs to those same HHS wonks. Unfortunately, those more moderate White House economists are now leaving the administration, including the rumored departure of widely admired businessman and health-care expert Robert Kocher.

Washington insiders refer to this HHS team as “true believers” – a group of earnest, left-leaning activists who’ve long favored a single nationalized health plan. They are massaging the law’s vagueness to give themselves the tight federal control over health care that will bring their vision into practice.

Critics warned that the Obama bill meant a federal takeover of health care, with Washington bureaucrats making core decisions about medical care. With ObamaCare taking shape, that’s exactly what consumers are getting. Saying “we told you so” is no consolation to those who took the president at his word.
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Yep - we tried to warn everyone, but noooooo . . . hope for change, ya’ll. . . hope for change

This is so exciting! Now Obama government will be paying for our gas and mortgage!

I talked to one man(a very educated man) yesterday who voted for Obama and he was telling me how stupid he feels now after seeing all thats goin on

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Yep - we tried to warn everyone, but noooooo . . . hope for change, ya’ll. . . hope for change[/quote]

x2

[quote]farmerson12 wrote:
This is so exciting! Now Obama government will be paying for our gas and mortgage!

I talked to one man(a very educated man) yesterday who voted for Obama and he was telling me how stupid he feels now after seeing all thats goin on[/quote]

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Hope and Change.

[quote]farmerson12 wrote:
This is so exciting! Now Obama government will be paying for our gas and mortgage!

I talked to one man(a very educated man) yesterday who voted for Obama and he was telling me how stupid he feels now after seeing all thats goin on[/quote]

I love this youtube video – it sums up the absolute stupidity of so many Obama voters and libs in general. They can now happily vote for the destruction of the country and chant ‘Yes we can!!’ all the way into Hell.

This is one of my favs. It makes me sad, laugh, and pissed off all at the same time

What of the dozens of lawsuits against this law?

[quote]Standard Donkey wrote:
What of the dozens of lawsuits against this law?[/quote]

You do know that courts take forever. I personally wish the Supreme Court would take this one up really quickly.

[quote]pushharder wrote:
You fuckers that voted for BamBam happy now? Gittin everything you wuz hopin fer?[/quote]

Probably not. Its going to take a long time and an act of God before I turn Texas into a swing state all by my lonesome.

Didn’t hurt though.

Fuck they should of just rammed single payer through or just abandoned the whole thing. What a legislative nightmare. This is a perfect example of half measures not working.

He should have gone straight after financial reform and trade reform. I don’t blame him for TARP, I honestly believe it had to be done (well atleast most of it). But this, this is fail.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Otep wrote:

Didn’t hurt though.[/quote]

I see. You’re gittin used to it now, huh? Startin’ to feel good even?[/quote]

I am, in fact, loving it.

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Otep wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Otep wrote:

Didn’t hurt though.[/quote]

I see. You’re gittin used to it now, huh? Startin’ to feel good even?[/quote]

I am, in fact, loving it.[/quote]

Since you’ve conceded you’re a catcher and not a pitcher which do you love better, missionary or doggie? [/quote]

Ahh…verbal vomit… Let us realize that Otep is trolling, lest we continue to make such grotesque utterances.

[quote]PAINTRAINDave wrote:
Fuck they should of just rammed single payer through or just abandoned the whole thing. What a legislative nightmare. This is a perfect example of half measures not working.

He should have gone straight after financial reform and trade reform. I don’t blame him for TARP, I honestly believe it had to be done (well atleast most of it). But this, this is fail.[/quote]

You may as well have burned that TARP money. You’d be better off if you consider what most of it was spent on…

TARP - name of the woolen tarp pulled over the eyes of the American public to hide the liberal’s paying off their real friends . . .

[quote]Standard Donkey wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Otep wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Otep wrote:

Didn’t hurt though.[/quote]

I see. You’re gittin used to it now, huh? Startin’ to feel good even?[/quote]

I am, in fact, loving it.[/quote]

Since you’ve conceded you’re a catcher and not a pitcher which do you love better, missionary or doggie? [/quote]

Ahh…verbal vomit… Let us realize that Otep is trolling, lest we continue to make such grotesque utterances.[/quote]

Lest I be confused with actual trolls and their trolling, allow me to explain my position on America’s Presidental Elections.

I live in Texas.

Texas will probably vote republican as long as I live.

As a result of not being a swing-state, I have to visit Youtube to see campaign attack ads. I find this unacceptable.

If enough people in Texas vote democrat, Texas can become a swing-state and thus, finally, get good television.

Hence, my vote for Obama.

Because at the end of the day, who runs this country is less important to me than that they think my vote is worth paying millions of dollars in advertising for. Kind of.

[quote]Otep wrote:

[quote]Standard Donkey wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Otep wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Otep wrote:

Didn’t hurt though.[/quote]

I see. You’re gittin used to it now, huh? Startin’ to feel good even?[/quote]

I am, in fact, loving it.[/quote]

Since you’ve conceded you’re a catcher and not a pitcher which do you love better, missionary or doggie? [/quote]

Ahh…verbal vomit… Let us realize that Otep is trolling, lest we continue to make such grotesque utterances.[/quote]

Lest I be confused with actual trolls and their trolling, allow me to explain my position on America’s Presidental Elections.

I live in Texas.

Texas will probably vote republican as long as I live.

As a result of not being a swing-state, I have to visit Youtube to see campaign attack ads. I find this unacceptable.

If enough people in Texas vote democrat, Texas can become a swing-state and thus, finally, get good television.

Hence, my vote for Obama.

Because at the end of the day, who runs this country is less important to me than that they think my vote is worth paying millions of dollars in advertising for. Kind of.[/quote]

It is insulting if they do not even try to entertain you…

No “panem et circenses” for you and that SHOULD make you mad, you deserve to be bribed, pandered and lied to like everyone else.

Seriously.