What a day ObamaCare is having. A quick scan of today’s headlines brings us three remarkable stories about the plucky little law that could. First up, how to sell ObamaCare to the American people who still don’t like it, because we’re just not smart enough to know what’s best for us:
Several former White House staffers have found a new way to promote Obamacare: They’re spending millions of dollars in secret corporate and union cash, and they’re harnessing grass-roots tactics to some of the biggest names in the health care industry.
Organizing for Action, the successor to President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and Enroll America, a group led by two former Obama staffers that features several insurance company bigwigs on its board, are planning to unleash the same grass-roots mobilization and sophisticated micro-targeting tactics seen in the 2012 campaign.
What are they so afraid of? The whole house of cards collapsing, just as soon as people catch on that the penalties tax for not following the mandate tax are much smaller than buying insurance.
How much smaller? Way smaller:
Bronze will be the lowest tier health-insurance plan available under Obamacare–after Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Under the law, the penalty for not buying health insurance is supposed to be capped at either the annual average Bronze premium, 2.5 percent of taxable income, or $2,085.00 per family in 2016.
That’s from a CNS report on just how much the IRS estimates insurance will cost a family of five as soon as 2016:
In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.
That’s the Bronze plan. The cheapskate plan. How much will Silver and Gold cost? Well, if you have to ask…
But why bother asking? You can pay $20,000 up front, or shell out a couple grand at the end of the year. And if you get sick? Insurers can no longer deny you for having a preexisting condition, even if it’s something you were diagnosed with, say, earlier this morning.
If you think there might be a few people willing to game that system, my buddy John Nolte is way out ahead of you.
Even millionaires and billionaires are having trouble scraping up enough cash to pay for ObamaCare’s many taxes and fees, as evidenced by Smith & Nephew:
A global medical technology company has laid off nearly 100 employees at its offices in Tennessee and Massachusetts and is blaming the layoffs on the medical device tax tied to ObamaCare.
Perhaps what is needed here is an even bigger effort to sell us stupid Americans on the marvels of ObamaCare. Here’s what the Department of Health and Human Services and Death Panels and Taxes is doing to pitch in:
HHS officials recently announced that they are “rebranding” one of Obamacare’s major components; henceforth they will replace the word exchange with marketplace.
I feel better already! And a good thing, too, since I hate to think of how long I’d have to wait to see my doctor.
Crossposted from The Tatler.
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