« Another Gun From Obama and Eric Holder's “Fast And Furious” Turns Up At Deadly Crime Scene In Mexico | Main | Utah Asks Supreme Court to Block Gay Marriage »
January 01, 2014
Gov. Rick Perry: You can’t dress up the failures of Obamacare
Gov. Rick Perry: You can’t dress up the failures of Obamacare
By Rick Perry
The promise and potential I normally greet each New Year with is, this year, being tested by a great sense of peril as Americans face the full brunt of the disastrous impacts of Obamacare in 2014. The delays, deceit and debacles that marked Obamacare’s rollout in 2013 show no signs of slowing in the new year.
People all across the country have witnessed what a disaster this program has been from its earliest stages, ranging from the $600 million website debacle to the sad fact that President Barack Obama flat-out deceived the American people when he promised that those who like their coverage could keep it. To stem the bleeding, the administration is resorting to arbitrary delays for some Obamacare mandates, which only inject more confusion into the marketplace and with consumers.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and the president are left with selling a faltering program to an American public that has rightfully become more and more concerned with what it’s learning about this law.
Much of what sold Obamacare in the first place was the administration’s assertions that we could trust them, and that even though nobody could explain precisely how or why, Obamacare would make everything better. It hasn’t. Sadly, it takes more than empty assertions to fix what ails Obamacare.
To start with, consider the nearly 6 million Americans estimated to have already lost their insurance thanks to Obamacare. This was not something the administration told us about, although it should have foreseen this catastrophe.
Instead, they claimed 7 million people would be signing up on the federal exchanges. That’s the number they estimated would be necessary to make the program financially feasible. To date, the administration estimates about 2 million people have signed up for insurance, far short of its target of 3.3 million by now.
The math gets worse heading into the new year. Starting in 2014, up to 80 million Americans might lose their employee-sponsored policies because those policies don’t comply with Obamacare specifications. And those fortunate enough to keep coverage will still face a host of health care taxes, fees, premium increases and increased out-of-pocket costs.
The sticker shock will be felt on every level, from small-business owners who’ll suddenly see their bottom line shrink or even vanish, to employees who could see their paycheck shrink dramatically as their premiums rise, or they face higher co-pays and deductibles. Or, worse yet, see their jobs vanish because their employer can’t afford to keep them on anymore. We’re already seeing reports of employers cutting employee hours to avoid Obamacare mandates.
Obamacare apologists may attempt to explain away all that by insisting these are transitional changes — even though it flies directly in the face of statements and promises to the contrary made by President Obama himself.
The truth is, these are real failures of this law, and they will profoundly affect every single American, whether they have coverage or not.
The insurance industry — already being forced to cover more people without seeing the promised influx of younger, healthier uninsured purchasing coverage to help cover costs — is being forced to cut costs and raise premiums, meaning less choice, less coverage and longer wait times for Americans at doctor’s offices and hospitals, despite paying more money out of their pockets.
Another consequence of Obamacare is the effort to cram more people into an already broken and costly Medicaid system without any reforms. Increasing income disregards, eliminating asset testing and forcing previously ineligible individuals into Medicaid all function as a backdoor expansion of Medicaid. Yet Obamacare’s own system to transfer Medicaid applicants to Texas doesn’t even work.
Despite what they say, not only is Obamacare not solving any of our health care issues, it’s making them far worse. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something — something you don’t want and can’t afford.
Wild Thing's comment............
Perry is so good, he really has been a great Gov. I would trust him on anything he wanted to do. He is awesome.
Posted by Wild Thing at January 1, 2014 02:47 AM
Comments
You can put pearls and a dress on a swine and you still have a pig.
Posted by: bobf at January 1, 2014 10:58 AM
I hope more voters wake up before November as they see their employer provided health insurance leap up in price and as their deductibles skyrocket.
Posted by: TomR,armed in Texas at January 1, 2014 11:29 AM
