Was THIS What They Intended?

I can point you to any number of articles, but they would be superfluous; Obamacare prices and health insurance prices, are going nuts for 2017.  You will be paying and paying and paying, and getting not a blessed thing more for the additional cost.

On average, if you were paying $1,000 a month this year, you will be paying $1,250 a month in 2017, except you will get nothing more than you did in 2016.  Oh, and your deductible, the part you have to pay out of your pocket before the insurance kicks in, will be higher.

Of course, the deductible was supposed to be lower with Obamacare, which was of course one of the number of lies about the program that were tossed out there by the president with one hand, while ramming it through a lapdog Democrat-controlled Congress.  Just in case you had forgotten what those lies were, well, here is a lovely and beautifully-written piece with a bunch of them.  OK, yeah, I wrote it, but it's still true.

Yesterday there was a TV interview with good old Jonathan Gruber, the fellow who is amazingly still a professor at my alma mater, M.I.T., and who is the reason that I no longer donate a penny when the Alumni Fund people come after me each year.  Gruber was the architect of this mess, and astonishingly is still willing to take "credit" for it.

His message to us was that the big spike in cost that Obamacare delivered this year (and last year, and will next year if Hillary is, God forbid, elected), was simply a natural market force and we shouldn't be so concerned about it.  Of course, Gruber and his dependents are covered by the health plan of his employer, M.I.T., so like those Democrats in the 2009-10 Congress that stupidly voted for this, the rate hikes and deductible increases don't affect him at all.

I think there is a simple question here.  It is one that could have occupied about a third of one of the debates, if the Obama administration had allowed the rate hikes to be made public before the last of the debates (they couldn't help the fact that they had to be announced before the election, but they would have tried that to delay that, too, if it were possible).

Is this what they intended?

Hillary Clinton wants to keep Obamacare and work around the edges.  Well, that's what she says in public; her lips were moving so it can be assumed that she was lying -- she also told the Canadians in private (for money) that she wanted a total government-run system.  But she says, for us, she wants to fix it a bit.

But ... but ... but ... if this is what they intended when the law was rammed through, it's pretty clear that we can make two conclusions that don't smell very good for Hillary and the Democrats.

(1) If this (massive rate hikes, out of control) was not predicted when the law was rammed through, then the people who created the law, sponsored it, shoot, voted for it, all have proven themselves totally incompetent or, at a minimum, corrupted.  It has led to this; if they didn't see it coming they should be out of a job tomorrow and certainly not allowed ever again to be in a position to make a decision affecting the USA.

(2) If this was predicted, and Gruber, Obama and the Democrats in Congress and, for that matter, Hillary Clinton knew it was a likely outcome, then they are indeed liars and utterly corrupt.  They not only should be removed from office, but should be subject to criminal liability in some form.  Jonathan Gruber should be in jail, not in rosy academia (OK, M.I.T. is not the rosiest campus on earth, and it's bloody cold up there nine months of the year).

I don't have to pay Obamacare increases, truth be told.  I'm 65, so I'm on Medicare, for which I pay now but in truth had been paying, by withholding taxes, for during my entire working life before age 65.  And the government is not exactly "running" my insurance; I have a Medicare Advantage plan so the insurance company itself actually runs it for the government.

But I have a lot of sympathy for those who do.  They didn't deserve to have been scrod by Obama and Congress, even if they voted for those people.  And now we have to ask ourselves if the disaster we have now was what they intended when they passed the law, or not.

If it was intended, they're corrupt and criminal and should be jailed today.  If it wasn't, they're incompetent and should be fired today.

And Hillary is going to use all those people either way.  Think about it if you were even remotely considering voting for her.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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