USA Today: Obamacare a fiasco in at least 34 states

The national media were asleep for a long, long time on Obamacare. But no more. This is from USA Today:
“More than half of the counties in 34 states using the federal health insurance exchange lack even a bronze plan that’s affordable — by the government’s own definition — for 40-year-old couples who make just a little too much for financial assistance, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
“Many of these counties are in rural, less populous areas that already had limited choice and pricey plans, but many others are heavily populated, such as Bergen County, N.J., and Philadelphia and Milwaukee counties.
“More than a third don’t offer an affordable plan in the four tiers of coverage known as bronze, silver, gold or platinum for people buying individual plans who are 50 or older and ineligible for subsidies.
“Those making more than 400% of the federal poverty limit — $47,780 for an individual or $61,496 for a couple — are ineligible for subsidies to buy insurance.”
No surprise to readers of conservative, libertarian websites
None of this comes to any surprise to readers of Cal Watchdog, Instapundit, Hit & Run, NRO’s The Corner or plenty more websites where critical thinking about the administration’s biggest initiative trumped partisanship. The Affordable Care Act really was a disaster. Right-wing racists really weren’t making that up.
But instead of seeing all the advance signs the ACA was going to be a debacle, the media either bought the idea that Obamacare critics were racists or took a wait-and-see attitude.
Not any more. Here’s more from USA Today:
“The USA TODAY analysis looked at whether premiums for the least expensive plan in any of the metal levels was more than 8% of household income. That’s similar to the affordability test used by the federal government to determine whether premiums are so expensive consumers aren’t required to buy plans under the Affordable Care Act.
“The number of people who earn close to the subsidy cutoff and are priced out of affordable coverage may be a small slice of the estimated 4.4 million people buying their own insurance and ineligible for subsidies. But the analysis clearly shows how the sticker shock hitting many in the middle class, including the self-employed and early retirees, isn’t just a perception problem. The lack of counties with affordable plans means many middle-class people will either opt out of insurance or pay too much to buy it.
“The prices of exchange plans have shocked many shoppers, especially those who had plans canceled because they did not meet the ACA coverage requirements. But experts are not surprised.
“‘The ACA was not designed to reduce costs or, the law’s name notwithstanding, to make health insurance coverage affordable for the vast majority of Americans,’ says health care consultant Kip Piper, a former government and insurance industry official. ‘The law uses taxpayer dollars to lower costs for the low-income uninsured but it also increases costs overall and shifts costs within the marketplace.’
“Along with underscoring how high rates are in many places, the analysis could portend more problems for the health law’s troubled rollout. The Congressional Budget Office projected 7 million people would sign up for the law by the end of 2014 and enrollment is already falling several million short of that goal. Insurers need a lot of relatively healthy people to sign up for insurance to make up for the higher cost of insuring the less healthy. Highly subsidized lower-income consumers who haven’t had insurance before often weren’t getting regular doctors’ visits. If many of those making about $50,000 for an individual or about $62,000 in household income for a couple opt out of the new health care system, it will deprive it of some of the counterbalancing effect needed.”
We need about 4,000 reverse Pulitzers
This isn’t just an indictment of Obama’s incompetence. It’s an indictment of the sycophancy of the national media.
Instead of giving out 20 Pulitzers this spring, the Pulitzer committee should give out 4,000 reverse Pulitzers to the reporters and pundits for newspapers, magazines and online sites covering Washington. The Obamacare debacle is mostly on the Democrats. But it is also on their de facto media allies.
On the biggest issue of his presidency, they gave their pal a pass. And then things went so bad that they couldn’t keep covering for him.
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“This isn’t just an indictment of Obama’s incompetence. It’s an indictment of the sycophancy of the national media.”
Thank you.
We’ve been pravdatized. And not only on the subject of ObamaCare. On all the critical issues that face us as a nation. And not only by the liberal media. The conservative mainstream media is not much better. We’re told only what they want us to know. They work hand in hand with the boys on The Hill to circle the wagons. Real investigative journalists are as rare as 2-headed goats.
Now that it is too late to do anything about the Obamacare train wreck the lying sacks of Big Media are desperately trying to salvage their credibility. That they still have any to salvage is an indictment of their incredibly gullible audience of saps, suckers and nincompoops.
The truth is that a permanent majority of idiot Americans deserves Obamacare because they voted for it’s namesake twice. Anyone that stupid/morally obtuse SHOULD lose their health insurance and then be forced to pay sky high rates for bureaucrat designed comprehensive coverage they don’t need and can’t afford.
The real injustice falls on those of us who comprise the now permanent minority of sane, prudent and skeptical citizens. Those of us who know an obvious scam when we see it and are not hoodwinked by ridiculous propaganda, self serving blather and preposterous lies are the real victims of this dystopian fiasco.
A pox on my fellow Americans for putting up with all of this like a bunch of brain dead lemmings. And a pox on the useless and repugnant Republicans for letting it happen. If the Republican Party had any courage or integrity they would have walked out of D.C. and formed a government-in-exile over this.
Instead all we get from these loathsome Republican hacks is empty promises to do something about it in the by-and-by. The same party that just blew up the sequester cuts and increased spending for a promise of future reductions just so they could save their precious Perpetual War Machine.
The sad truth is that this country isn’t worth saving any more because the average Doofus Americanus has no desire or capacity to live free. Individual liberty scares the hell out of most Americans. They would rather bow down and lick the boots of their Oligarch masters for a mere promise of security and imaginary safety. We live in a nation of cowards, degenerates and credulous dolts who have traded liberty, truth and prosperity for a Black Friday sale on big screen TV’s.
Go watch your mind numbing pabulum on your new 50″ screen you pathetic slaves and don’t come complaining to me when your electric bill goes through the roof or you have to pay a TV tax surcharge to save Mommy Earth from the Bogeyman or buy billion dollar baby killer robots for the Military-Industrial Complex.
The bottom line is – THIS COUNTRY SUCKS AND EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IS EVEN WORSE! SURELY THERE MUST BE A PARALLEL UNIVERSE WHERE TRUTH, JUSTICE AND SANITY STILL PREVAIL. A BIG SCREEN TV FOR ANYONE WHO CAN GET ME THERE.
That was AWSOME DYS!!! 🙂
Thanks Donk 🙂
(It seems like I’ve got my mojo working today. Maybe it’s the spiked egg nog)
What we are seeing is that people are incapable of self government for any great length of time. It is the nature of mankind. 18th century democracy is the exception, not the rule. Democracy is the worst form of government there is, except for all the rest. Democracies will always end up bankrupting the treasury, because the citizens view it as their personal piggy bank. Just ask the Greeks.
That is better that most of the stuff written by the pros my friend!! 🙂
Nice rant. In particular, the caps.
All the best,
The Maestro
Republicans are on the same team as the democrats. They only wear different colored jerseys to fool you. In a normal game the teams oppose one another. In the current political game the democrats drive the ball with little resistance into the red zone and then the republicans run it into the end zone for them. Then after the game is over they use the same lockeroom and pour champagne over each other’s heads in celebration of the joint victory.
If politics were a Bowl game we would have to call it the Toilet Bowl.
All I know is that the way this nation is being run it does not represent the beliefs or desires of the citizens.
Why Americans give Congress a 13% approval rating and then reelect 95% of the incumbents back into office is anyone’s guess. It defies all logic and reason.
Either we have a collective nation of idiots or the electoral system is rigged from start to finish.
What other possibilities are there?
You decide.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz