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Remember when we had the freedom to choose what types of health insurance we would buy, or not buy? Good times, good times. Then came the Age of Obama and the institution of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, and more commonly known as \u201cThat God Damn Piece of Sh*t!\u201d well, it’s now coming out that the insurance companies are looking at some major price hikes for the Obamacare policies. Here’s some details from Politico<\/a>:<\/p>\n The cost of Obamacare could rise for millions of Americans next year, with one insurer proposing a 50 percent hike in premiums, fueling the controversy about just how \u201caffordable\u201d the Affordable Care Act really is.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The eye-popping 50 percent hike by New Mexico insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield is an outlier, and state officials may not allow it to go through. But health insurance experts are predicting that premiums will rise more significantly in 2016 than in the first two years of Obamacare exchange coverage. In 2015, for example, premiums increased by an average of 5.4 percent, according to PwC\u2019s Health Research Institute.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n You may be wondering why the insurance companies want such massive hikes in premiums. The answer is simple and the politicians knew this back when they were shoving this thing down our throats that the numbers flat out didn’t work. The Republicans sounded the trumpets and the Democrats flat out lied. The insurance companies? They expected to be taken care of by the Regime when they helped them ram this through. That didn’t work out for them and this is why they are desperate to raise premiums. They’re running out of money.<\/p>\n \u201cInsurers seem to be reporting higher trend, which means they are seeing bigger increases in health care costs,\u201d said Larry Levitt, senior vice president for special initiatives at the Kaiser Family Foundation. \u201cBut really what\u2019s going on here is they now have data showing what the risk pool looks like. Initially in 2014 they were completely guessing about who was going to enroll and how much health care they were going to use.\u201d <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n And what has been happening is that healthy people have been staying away from the Obamacare system in droves. The only people who have been signing up are those who thought they were going to get subsidized insurance and those who lost their previous insurance thanks to the Obamacare mandates and were desperate for coverage, no matter how bad it was.<\/p>\n Those who didn’t feel they needed the garbage plans put out by the Obamacare system just didn’t sign up. Oh, and that \u201cSign up or else\u201d mandate? People figured out that the only way the IRS could get them to pay was to arrange to have a tax refund. If they owed money, they didn’t have to pay the \u201cTax\u201d John Roberts shoved on us.<\/p>\n The reasons for the rising premiums are complex. Part of it, as Levitt noted, is simply that the carriers know a lot more about the health status and health care patterns of their new customers. Part of it\u2019s rising drug prices. And the planned phasing out of certain ACA programs that were designed to reduce risk for insurers who entered the untested Obamacare marketplaces, are also causing carriers to price cautiously.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yep, the free money from Obama isn’t going to arrive, and there is a very good chance that all those people who thought they were eligible for subsidies, aren’t and are going to have a massive tax bill sent to them.<\/p>\n In addition, those plan cancellations \u2013 and the political outcry they caused in 2013 \u2013 still plays a role. To quell the controversy, the Obama administration allowed plans that don\u2019t meet the Affordable Care Act coverage requirements to remain in place through 2017. Insurers are still dealing with the market disruption and economic fallout of competing with those noncompliant plans. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yeah, this disaster of a law has been routinely ignored by the Obama regime. They have lost a number of court cases over this. Simply put, Obama doesn’t think any laws apply to him and that if he feels the need, he can imperiously wave his hand and change the law.<\/p>\n Affordability, already a political talking point, is a concern of consumers and advocates, who are imploring state regulators to vigorously contest price hikes that could render coverage unattainable for low-income people, even with Obamacare subsidies.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cPeople are already having that sticker shock,\u201d said Gabriel Sanchez, executive director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation\u2019s Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico, who ran focus groups recently among Latinos in New Mexico.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n What did you expect? Free stuff ain’t cheap after all.<\/p>\n The bottom line for participants, he said, was \u201cI thought this was the <\/i>Affordable <\/i><\/em>Care Act?<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n But the large proposed increases among market leaders are sparking a new round of recriminations, and Republicans on the Hill are again pledging to undo Obamacare. Rising costs would also be likely to elevate the issue in the looming 2016 presidential contest.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cPeople are paying more as a result of the Democrats\u2019 health care law, and they\u2019re going to be paying even more next year, and the year after that, until we\u2019re able to do something to stop it,\u201d Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chair of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, said in a floor speech before the Memorial Day recess. \u201cRepublicans are offering real solutions that will end these destructive and expensive Obamacare side effects.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The are three problems with getting rid of Obamacare. John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and of course, the SCoaMF himself, Barack Obama. Boehner and McConnell are spineless cowards who literally don’t have the guts to take down Obama. The slightest resistance from the Progressive Liberal Fascists Democrats and those two fold like cheap suits.<\/p>\n Obama? Well, he is Obama and he rejects anything that makes him look like the complete idiot that he is. (I believe the term is Megalomania) Then we have another wrench waiting to fly into the gears of Obamacare.<\/p>\n Hovering over the rate-setting season is the specter of the <\/i>King v. Burwell<\/i><\/em> lawsuit currently before the Supreme Court. A ruling is expected in late June, and defeat for the White House would mean subsidies would be eliminated in at least 34 states that use the federal health insurance exchange. That would throw the insurance markets into chaos.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The only hope for Obamacare supporters, (Mostly people who don’t use Obamacare insurance of course), is that the Supreme Court literally rewrites the law. The last time this happened was when Chief Justice John Roberts caved in and declared that the Obamacare fines were a \u201cTax\u201d and let this unconstitutional pile of horse manure stand. Considering how badly Roberts was hammered the last time, he might decide to actually follow the constitution this time.<\/p>\n In addition, insurers are dealing with uncertainty and the phasing out of \u201crisk adjustment\u201d programs that were designed to protect companies from undue financial risk if they participated in the exchanges. The reinsurance program, which compensates health plans that end up with a disproportionately expensive population, is scheduled to disappear after 2016. The program has already dwindled from $10 billion in 2014 to $4 billion in 2016. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n