Ding Dong the Obamacare Witch is Dead Part III

Well the Obamacare nightmare goes on.  This is what you get when a politician claiming to be a Democrat runs for office and then governs, and I use the term "governs" loosely, like a Republican.   Every Republican house of horrors dream has come to bear under Obama. 

Barack Obama is the first President of any stripe to cut funding for Social Security.  First Social Security was cut but freezing all cost of living raises for 3 years and then instituting the highly desired Republican plan of cutting Social Security with a payroll tax holiday.

From a Washington Post article by Amy Goldstein, October 16, 2010 Business Section:

For the second year in a row, the nearly 54 million retirees and other Americans who receive Social Security benefits will not get any cost-of-living increase in 2011 in their monthly checks, government officials announced Friday, renewing debate over whether the system offers enough help in a weak economy.

The absence of any growth in Social Security checks for consecutive years is unprecedented in the 3-1/2 decades that payments have been adjusted automatically based on the nation's inflation rate.

The news that retirement benefits will remain static was part of a trio of developments on Friday that drew attention to lingering effects of the recession. Taken together, the new reminders of the country's economic fragility carry large political stakes, coming 2-1/2 weeks before a midterm election in which the deficit and jobs are paramount concerns among voters.

Yes, Democratic voters demoralized by Obama’s Republican agenda failed to go to the polls to vote in November 2010.  The Tea Party seized the opportunity of low Democratic turnout to usher in a new wave of Republican Governors, Congressmen and Senators to demand of cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Barack Obama did what no Republican would dare to do, cut Social Security.  That was followed by another Republican dream, the Social Security payroll tax holiday.  Most people were not even aware of the payroll tax holiday because the extra money they received in their paychecks from the payroll tax holiday was so small it wasn’t really noticeable.  But, they sure were aware when their payroll taxes went up 4% to recoup the 2 years of the payroll 2% tax holiday.

There was this article From Strengthen Social Security.org:

Washington, D.C. — The payroll tax holiday recently unveiled by President Obama and Republican Congressional leaders could lead to the “unraveling of Social Security,” charged Eric Kingson, Co-Director of Social Security Works and an expert on Social Security…

President Obama has proposed reducing the employee’s share of the payroll tax from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. Restoring the 2 percent lost due to the payroll tax holiday would be a nearly 50 percent tax increase on what workers would be paying throughout the year.

Two percent of taxable payroll is what Social Security’s actuaries calculate is needed to put Social Security in surplus for the next 75 years. “There are already many in Washington who want to cut Social Security’s modest benefits, which average just $13,000 a year,” claimed Kingson. “If the tax cuts became permanent and if a future Congress chose not to continue to reimburse the Social Security Trust Funds for the lost revenue, today’s manageable shortfall would double, becoming much less manageable.  

There would be tremendous pressure to make deep cuts to middle class benefits, even as the population was rapidly aging.”

“A payroll tax holiday will also promote Social Security privatization,” charged Kingson. “Once people get to put the 2 percent in their own pockets, they will be more susceptible to appeals that they should be able to put the funds into a private account where it can be gambled on Wall Street.”

“All of these likely scenarios, if they occur, will result in the unraveling of Social Security,” claimed Kingson.

Yes indeedy, the Republican and Obama payroll tax holiday could unravel Social Security.  That’s just what Obama and the Republicans planned.

But wait, even more body slams to people on Social Security under Obama and the Republicans.  According to Fox Business News dated October 14, 2013:

Another year, another small raise for millions of people who rely on Social Security, veterans' benefits and federal pensions.

Preliminary figures suggest next year's benefit increase will be roughly 1.5 percent, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. The increase will be small because consumer prices, as measured by the government, haven't gone up much in the past year.

For the second year in a row, it would be one of the lowest raises since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.

The exact size of the cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, won't be known until the Labor Department releases the inflation report for September. That was supposed to happen Wednesday, but the report was delayed indefinitely because of the partial government shutdown.

More than a fifth of the country is waiting.

Nearly 58 million retirees, disabled workers, spouses and children get Social Security benefits. The average monthly payment is $1,162. A 1.5 percent raise would increase the typical monthly payment by about $17.

So, let’s look at Obamacare.  Obamacare was a creation of the Heritage Foundation.  The Heritage Foundation is a Conservative, Republican think tank and is promoted by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. They call for less Government by, for and of the people.

Obamacare was larded up with every Republican wet dream to destroy Medicare.  It is a way to take money away from Medicare and Medicaid and funnel those funds into private insurer’s profits.

For the American people it’s like being strapped into a funhouse car in the house of horrors and being jolted from one horror room into the next.  First horror house room is the American people with individual policies, losing those policies.

On December 9^th a “reporter” from the Huffington Post was on C-Span’s Washington Journal to talk about Obamacare.  A woman from Georgia called in and said she recently retired and receives $1,024 in Social Security.  She was notified by the State of Georgia that she must sign up for Obamacare.  Her policy through Obamacare will cost her about $400 per month after the subsidy allotted to her.  That entitles her to a policy under the Bronze plan.

Under the Bronze plan she pays $400 and month to the insurance company in addition to what the U.S. Treasury pays the insurance company for her.  Under the Bronze plan she has a $6,000 deductible and after she meets her deductible the insurance company pays 60% and she pays 40%.  She asked, "how is that affordable?"

The Huffington Post writer said the good news is, if she can’t afford it she won’t have to pay the penalty.

Hear that?  She still doesn’t have insurance and will be worse off if she gets insurance, that’s the good news. 

Obama and Republicans say you must bend down the cost curve.  Well, today on C-Span’s Washington Journal a previous emergency room doctor turned journalist, Elizabeth Rosenthal, was a guest to discuss her recent article in the New York Times called “As Hospital Prices Soar a Stitch Tops $500”.

"A day spent as an inpatient at an American hospital costs on average more than $4,000, five times the charge in many other developed countries, according to the International Federation of Health Plans, a global network of health insurance industries.

The most expensive hospitals charge more than $12,500 a day. And at many of them, including California Pacific Medical Center, emergency rooms are profit centers. That is why one of the simplest and oldest medical procedures—closing a wound with a needle and thread—typically leads to bills of at least $1,500 and often much more."

Yes, the Obamacare nightmare goes on.  The Republican for profit, Wall Street mandatory profit based insurance system is thriving under Obamacare.  Unfortunately it is at the expense of an abused, beaten, jobless, broke American public.  But Obama’s Republican for-profit healthcare system is ensured endless profits.  Merry Christmas America.

By Patricia Baeten