That screaming you’re hearing a lot of in the last few days isn’t coming from the local Halloween haunted house. It’s all of the people who pay for their own health insurance getting notices about raised premiums under the “Affordable” Care Act.
That’s right, kids, as President Barack Obama prepares to leave the White House in a few months, he and his “signature achievement” want to make sure they give America the finger on the way out the door.
Premiums will go up sharply next year under President Barack Obama’s health care law, and many consumers will be down to just one insurer, the administration confirmed Monday. That’s sure to stoke another “Obamacare” controversy days before a presidential election.
Before taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25 percent across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services. Some states will see much bigger jumps, others less.
Moreover, about 1 in 5 consumers will only have plans from a single insurer to pick from, after major national carriers such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana and Aetna scaled back their roles.
“Consumers will be faced this year with not only big premium increases but also with a declining number of insurers participating, and that will lead to a tumultuous open enrollment period,” said Larry Levitt, who tracks the health care law for the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Sure, to the people who were gullible enough to believe all of that “affordable” talk this may seem like the law isn’t working. Well, it is. It never was supposed to help as presently constituted, it’s all just a big ruse for the single-payer nightmare to be forced upon us.
Still, the faithful believed everything The Lightbringer told them, and they were willing to publicly throw down for him to promote the law. There were many full-throated social media proclamations about how much awesomeness we were in for, at least whatever passes for full-throated on Twitter.
The Organizing for Action (previously “Obama for America”) Twitter account isn’t even letting today’s news slow it down, offering several tweets about why you should be grateful that you can’t afford health insurance anymore. Let us begin with them.
NEXT PAGE: YOU’RE HAPPY, PEASANTS!
True, the OFA account is obligated to defend this dog of a law (apologies to all dogs out there), but maybe they should have toned it down for a day or two knowing that the White House was about to dump the bad news.
Nah.
1: You’re Too Stupid To Know It’s Good
“You’re getting better quality even though you don’t know that Obamacare is doing it. Thanks, Obama.” —@BarackObama https://t.co/KhBo1f6sV1
— Obamacare (@obamacare) October 24, 2016
This tweet brings back a lot of memories. In the early days of the Obama administration it was considered racist to refer to the law as “Obamacare” or to refer to the president as simply “Obama”. Either we never were racists or his partisans have become racist. 2016, right?
2: Insurance Companies BAD
Obamacare ended some of health insurance companies’ worst practices. We can’t go back. pic.twitter.com/U4JDADCqX2
— OFA (@OFA) October 24, 2016
“We’re forcing the evil insurance companies to be good and without us they’ll be bad again. Please reward this coercion by paying them more. Namaste.”
3: SHUT UP AND EAT YOUR PREMIUMS
It’s working.
It’s saving lives.
And we’re not going back.
Retweet to show your support. pic.twitter.com/YOBeMMSYP8— OFA (@OFA) October 24, 2016
Well, retweet while you can afford Internet. You’ve got some tough choices ahead of you America.
“Let’s see…surgery or Netflix…”
NEXT PAGE: OH, MATTY.
Vox.com juiceboxer Matt Yglesias was so excited about his messiah’s signature achievement that he was wagging his tail about the law’s rollout. Even the most optimistic people tend to err on the side of caution and hiccups for the implementation of something this big. Not our Matty. (Using a tweet of mine here with a screen shot of his original tweet because he deleted it once pretty much everyone online had shamed him.)
4: A Marker, I Say!
.@mattyglesias Never gets old: pic.twitter.com/HuD3eN13SZ
— SFK (@stephenkruiser) February 11, 2014
If Twitter had a dunce cap, it would have Yglesias’s face on it. That kind of embarrassment would generally doom someone’s career in punditry. Not on the left. He’ll probably be Hillary’s press secretary.
NEXT PAGE: VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY AND STUFF
Before reality sets in, there is always the “Republicans are making it up!” defense from the Democrats. When Hillary said the home server emails were all about yoga and wedding plans, any suggestion to the contrary was a “made-up controversy” that the Republicans were trying to force on people. It’s their go-to, and it was no different in early Obamacare days.
5: Magic 8 Ball Says…
Right-wing media falsely claim that health care reform will increase premiums: http://bit.ly/a6Zi7e #p2 #noisemachine #hcr #health
— Media Matters (@mmfa) February 25, 2010
That’s from way back in 2010, when they were really high on the gooey health goodness that His Obamaness would bring to their grateful lives.
6: Politifact, For When Facts Don’t Matter
Fact checkers: No, health insurance premiums will not rise under Obamacare. http://t.co/kkbAnlk9
— OFA TruthTeam (@OFATruthTeam) October 17, 2012
Politifact is sort of like the KFC of fact-checking: no one really knows what their formula for determining veracity is. Normally, their proclamations make it seem like a parody site. It was all-in for O-Care here, but the law was such a train wreck that, just a year later, even Politifact couldn’t pretend anymore.
7: As Long As You Believe It Until The Election
RT @truthteam2012: When Obamacare is fully implemented, economists predict that family health insurance premiums will be about $2,000 less.
— The Democrats (@TheDemocrats) October 4, 2012
The last two tweets are both from October of 2012. The prime directive for the media was to keep lighting scented candles around the dung heap that was Obamacare so that no one would focus on all of the problems that were already cropping up even before its delayed launch.
Mission accomplished.
8: Shut Up And Math, People
Read all about it: The CBO says lower premiums (yes, really) will drive down Obamacare’s expected costs. http://t.co/GaydwRnG1w
— OFA TruthTeam (@OFATruthTeam) April 16, 2014
This links to an article that is just perfect for the fourteen brain-dead Americans who still believe that in some parallel universe there exists a federal bureaucracy that somehow spends less than it projects. Yes, I know the CBO is “non-partisan.” Santa Claus told me. The article also reinforces my theory that the Congressional Budget Office is really just a room full of interns who are paid in kegs and pizza.
LAST PAGE: THE MOTHER OF ALL DISCONNECTS
We finish with what may be the funniest or saddest tweet ever regarding Obamacare, and it comes from the woman who currently is in charge of none other than the Democratic National Committee.
9: I’ve Been In A Coma For 20 Years, Is Anything Happening In Healthcare News?
What’s on your menu? Just got off the phone with my health care provider asking them to explain why my premium jumped up. No good answer!
— Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) February 27, 2013
The cream really rises to the top with the Democrats, doesn’t it? Gotta love ’em.
Kidding, you totally don’t.
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