#Obamacare chronicles: more sticker shock, canceled coverage, and Halloween horror

**Posted by Phineas

"You're doing what??"
“Wait! It’s not free??”

I swear by the Good Book, I’d love to be working in a Republican communications shop scripting campaign commercials; Obamacare is making their job so easy.

The Los Angeles Times published an article yesterday that tried valiantly to convince us that there are both winners and losers under Obamacare, but it seems the only real-world examples (1) they could cite were of the losers, such a pregnant mother-to-be:

Fullerton resident Jennifer Harris thought she had a great deal, paying $98 a month for an individual plan through Health Net Inc. She got a rude surprise this month when the company said it would cancel her policy at the end of this year. Her current plan does not conform with the new federal rules, which require more generous levels of coverage.

Now Harris, a self-employed lawyer, must shop for replacement insurance. The cheapest plan she has found will cost her $238 a month. She and her husband don’t qualify for federal premium subsidies because they earn too much money, about $80,000 a year combined.

“It doesn’t seem right to make the middle class pay so much more in order to give health insurance to everybody else,” said Harris, who is three months pregnant. “This increase is simply not affordable.”

Remember what I wrote about campaign commercials? If “Obamacare hurts pregnant women” isn’t being broadcast over every woman-oriented medium in summer and fall 2014, someone needs to be shot.

The quote of the day, however has to come from the unnamed woman who just learned that unicorns don’t exist:

Pam Kehaly, president of Anthem Blue Cross in California, said she received a recent letter from a young woman complaining about a 50% rate hike related to the healthcare law.

“She said, ‘I was all for Obamacare until I found out I was paying for it,'” Kehaly said.

Reality has a way of shattering those Candyland dreams, Β doesn’t it? Maybe she can commiserate with these people.

There are hundred of thousands, if not millions of Americans, not only in California but across the nation, finding themselves in similar situations: losing the coverage they like, being cut off from the doctors they trust, finding their choices restricted and their costs increased, and this is all before they actually have to try to get decent medical care under this anti-constitutional monstrosity.

Which means, as time goes by, there are going to be more and more angry people who also happen to vote, which already has Democrats in a near-panic. After all, they voted for this thing; we didn’t.

And we will be sure to make that quite clear to all and sundry.

Oh, that Halloween horror I mentioned? Check out this web ad from Generation Opportunity. This year, the scariest Halloween monster won’t be Frankenstein, but Uncle Sam:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/fQvfwW5zflY]

RELATED: From Reason Magazine, Obamacare has a big problem with Medicaid sign-ups — too many of them. After nearly four weeks after the opening of the Obamacare web site, more than 330,000 people have gotten to the point where subsidy calculations can be made. That’s across the entire nation. No word on how many of those actually bought a policy.

PS: I can’t resist going back to the LAT article and pulling one last quote, this from the director of Covered California, that is a sterling example of progressive-bureaucratic arrogance:

“People could have kept their cheaper, bad coverage, and those people wouldn’t have been part of the common risk pool,” [Peter] Lee said. “We are better off all being in this together. We are transforming the individual market and making it better.”

Translation: “People could have kept the coverage they were satisfied with, but then we wouldn’t have been able to force them to pay more for coverage they don’t want or need. We’re from the government and we know how a free market should be run.” Just amazing.

Footnote:
(1) As opposed to “All is well” pronouncements from regime apparatchiks.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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