Loyal Obama supporters now realizing they, too, are victims

Loyal Obama supporters now realizing they, too, are victims of Obamacare

I’ve said before, although it is not much of a consolation, that even those who  support Barack Obama and his signature healthcare reform law were going to be  hurt by it just like those of us who have never supported either the man or his  law.

Millions of American supporters of the president and his law  believed all the lies he told about Obamacare. Repeatedly, over the course of  years, the president said, “If you like your plan, you can keep you plan” (a  lie); “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” (a lie); and that  premiums would go down by $2,500 (a lie for most people).

Now, as  they either receive cancellation notices from their current insurance providers  or try to go sign up for coverage via an Obamacare exchange, they are  discovering that even the true believers aren’t exempt from the ravages of the  law, as reported by ProPublica:

San Francisco architect Lee  Hammack says he and his wife, JoEllen Brothers, are “cradle Democrats.” They  have donated to the liberal group Organizing for America and worked the phone  banks a year ago for President Obama’s re-election.

Since 1995, Hammack  and Brothers have received their health coverage from Kaiser Permanente, where  Brothers worked until 2009 as a dietitian and diabetes educator. “We’ve both  been in very good health all of our lives – exercise, don’t smoke, drink  lightly, healthy weight, no health issues, and so on,” Hammack  [said].

Worse plan, worse coverage, higher  cost

The couple had been paying $550 a month for their health  insurance, and it was a plan they were thoroughly satisfied with. It was a  plan that offered solid coverage – not one of the “terrible” plans that Obama  has been criticizing.

However, Kaiser recently informed the couple that  the plan had to be canceled at year’s end, because it did not meet coverage  requirements under Obamacare. Worse, the Hammacks’ replacement plan will be  double what they now pay – with worse benefits.

“From all of the  sob stories I’ve heard and read, ours is the most extreme,” Lee said in an email  to ProPublica‘s writer, Charles Ornstein.

Incredibly, Ornstein  went on to write that he was skeptical of all the other media reports that said  scores of Americans were being dropped by their insurance companies and that the  coverage they would have to buy to replace their lost policies would make them  worse off.

He also demonstrates no shortage of arrogance:

In  many cases, it turns out, the consumers could have found cheaper coverage  through the new health insurance marketplaces, or their plans weren’t very  good to begin with [emphasis added].

Plans weren’t very good to  begin with? Who is Ornstein – or Obama, or White House spokesman  Jay Carney, or anyone in the HHS bureaucracy – to say which Americans’ plans are  good or bad?

The fact is, Americans who have been purchasing their own  insurance like the plans they had. They got the coverage they wanted at  the price they could afford. Now, Obama has messed it all up with his insane  law.

But I digress. As for Ornstein, his smugness was quickly dispelled  when he found that the couple were simply screwed by  Obamacare:

They do not qualify for premium subsidies because  they make more than four times the federal poverty level, though Hammack says  not by much.

‘Thanks, Mr. President’

(Note that, under  Obamacare, even a successful businessman and his wife can nearly qualify as  “poor enough” to receive a taxpayer subsidy for buying a product they once were  responsible for buying all on their own – a policy they  liked.)

So, these lifelong Democrats who worked the phones for  Obama’s reelection were admittedly shocked to find out that he lied to them –  and millions of other Americans.

“I work downstairs and my wife had a  clear look of shock on her face” when she came down with their cancellation  notice, Hammack said. “Our first reaction was clearly there’s got to be some  mistake. This was before the exchanges opened up. We quickly calmed down. We  were confident that this would all be straightened out. But it  wasn’t.”

The new plan that their insurer sent them was $1,300 a month –  or more than $15,000 a year.

“And for that higher amount, what would they  get? A higher deductible ($4,500), a higher out-of-pocket maximum ($6,350),  higher hospital costs (40 percent of the cost) and possibly higher costs for  doctor visits and drugs,” wrote Ornstein.

How’s that for a “thank you”  from the president?

Learn more:  http://www.naturalnews.com/042909_Obamacare_victims_Obama_supporters_health_insurance.html#ixzz2kfxYH6Ps

Tags: are victims, Loyal Obama supporters now realizing they, too