Unless Your Name Is Barack Obama, You Won't Be Surprised to Learn that The Pill Is Not Free

Let’s go over Barack Obama’s acumen when it comes to insurance, shall we?

When I was young, just got out of college, I had to buy auto insurance. I had a beat-up old car. And I won’t name the name of the insurance company, but there was a company — let’s call it Acme Insurance in Illinois. And I was paying my premiums every month. After about six months I got rear-ended and I called up Acme and said, I’d like to see if I can get my car repaired, and they laughed at me over the phone because really this was set up not to actually provide insurance; what it was set up was to meet the legal requirements. But it really wasn’t serious insurance.

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Lest you think I’m making this up, there’s video at the link. What young Barry had contracted for was obviously minimum liability insurance. It’s cheap. It covers the legal requirement to have insurance so you can drive your car legally but doesn’t cover collision damage. You see commercials for this insurance on cable all the time. The commercials typically look like they were produced on a budget of about $15 and feature an animated general or, in the Baltimore area, Ravens football players, surrounded by scantily-clad women, while they attempt to rap. Classy stuff. Whether you pay your premiums every month is irrelevant to what kinds of repairs are paid for in the event of an accident. That’s in the contract, for those who bother to read it. Depending on what young Barry said to the insurance pros when he asked them to pay for repairs to his car, he probably deserved to be laughed at. But chances are, the insurance pros didn’t laugh at him. But maybe they did, who knows for sure? Barry says lots of things that turn out not to be, strictly speaking, true.

At any rate, fast forward a few years, and young Barry isn’t so young and he can afford better insurance for his cars, though he gets a few company cars and a helicopter and a jet now, so he probably still hasn’t looked into the details of insurance much over the years. Perhaps his wife handles the family insurance nowadays. Maybe his former pastor did, or that guy in the neighbor who helped him launch his political career. It doesn’t really matter.

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Last week Barry decreed that health insurance companies would provide a service to millions of people, free of charge henceforth.

About that:

Asked what impact the requirement will have on their costs in the year to two years after it goes into effect, 40 percent of the participants said they expect the requirement will increase costs through higher pharmacy expenses.

I bet you could knock Barry over with a feather when he reads that. If he ever bothers to.

The survey of pharmacy directors at the health plans was conducted on Wednesday by Reimbursement Intelligence, which advises pharmaceutical, medical device and other companies on reimbursement issues. The firm did not name the insurance plans it surveyed.

Of the health plans, 20 percent said costs would even out because they already budget for contraception in the premium, 6.7 percent said it would drive up pharmacy costs but decrease medical costs, while 33.3 percent weren’t sure. None said it would lead to net savings.

If middle aged Barry has figured out how to dispense billions of pills at no cost to anyone, perhaps he can turn his powerful mind toward performing lesser miracles next week.

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