ACA Exchanges - Why?

Some of the problems with ObamaCare, or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), are the requirement to register for insurance coverage through healthcare websites labelled "Exchanges".  Those exchanges have several problems that would immediately put a private owned business out of business.  These problems include:

Availability.  When the exchange website went online it was inaccessible. People trying to sign up were stopped by the system itself.  While perusing the Huffington Post, commentators were chastising others who complained of a 4 hour wait to maybe get signed up ("4 hours is nothing if you get insurance' they would say).  Mostly the website was unavailable.

Poor information security.  Independent investigators conclude that the exchanges are the most insure websites they have encountered.  After the Obama Administration announced the problems were fixed, the experts testifying before congress said that security is worse than it was before it was "fixed".  If you want to be a victim of identity theft, here is the place to accomplish your dream.

No "back end". The people hired to design the ecommerce website did not include a way to catalog the information plugged in by anxious users to distribute to the various agencies required to verify the information or to send the information to insurance companies in order to get an actual quote.

Insurance policy may not be in effect. Once you complete the forms and are lucky enough to get a quote from an insurance company, and then pick a policy, there is no guarantee and no way to verify that you are actually covered.

OK, so what is my purpose in listing all of this bad news?

My reason for this is to point out that there is no known need to have ACA exchanges.  None whatsoever.

I can say that because of a few things everyone, and including politicians, should know:

1. Insurance companies have been running secure, reliable and available websites for, what? One, two decades?  They know how to do this.  Insurance companies would need only one thing from the federal government to sell insurance in compliance with ACA standards to anyone and everyone who wants coverage: Remove the barriers to interstate sales of insurance policies.

2. Many states have a public services commission that regulates which insurance companies can provide coverage, and what coverage are required, to persons within their borders.  These commissions also employ price fixing that requires insurance companies to submit requests to raise rates and play up to the commissions in order to stay profitable.  These commissions need to disappear or be refocused to other services.  Since the federal government has superseded any requirements state commissions could come up with and are doing the price fixing at the federal level, the commissions are irrelevant.

3.  The federal government has used the Commerce Clause to the US Constitution to regulate and create laws reaching into the states for enforcement.  In this case, the Commerce Clause could more appropriately used to force states to accept insurance policies from any insurance company that the federal government approves.  This, btw the way, is the express purpose of the Commerce clause: the prevent states from imposing unfair trade practices with their fellow states in this union.

To summarize, the exchanges, designed and built by the incompetent friends of the Obama Administration, are completely unnecessary.  Allowing insurance companies, who already have online and brick and mortar stores, to manage the transition from unqualified insurance policies to ACA approved polices.

Lets face facts, insurance companies are not in the business of throwing away money.  If they were tasked to arrange and implement ACA back in 2010, you can be pretty much guaranteed to have a functioning, available, secure, and easy to use website and navigators that would make moving to CA seamless and pleasant, well except for the part about the cost and disgust over paying for services you will never use.

Ahh, politicians.  Can't live with them, can't deport them.

Ignorant Legacy Media

Every day it becomes more and more obvious that the legacy media cannot be trusted to be truthful in their news and the opinions. The latest misinformation was published last Monday in an LA Times Op-Ed where Joe Queenan complains,

"Rush Limbaugh threatened to leave the United States if the healthcare bill passed. Well, the bill did pass, and he's still here."

I'm sorry to have to inform Mr. Queenan that Mr. Limbaugh never said that. What he and others are doing is hearing what you want to hear, or just plain lying. What he actually said was he would get his health care in Costa Rica.

How would I know the truth? Easy. Unlike our fleet of professional researchers, reporters, editors and pundits, I actually listen to the show occasionally and I heard him say it.

Imagine that. Actually knowing what you are talking about. What a concept.

He goes on to say,

"If you were going to make a threat, you were honor-bound to go through with it. Otherwise, you were merely confusing the issue."

Does that include campaign promises (threats, as I see them)? I have to wonder if he had the same opinion on President Obama's threats. You know, those campaign promises to be post-partisan and transparent among others. If Mr. Obama were honor-bound to go through with his threats, he would have insisted that a health care insurance reform bill included Republicans in the backroom bribery sessions and questioned the Democrats sneaking out of those rooms to avoid Republicans.

But in the newly emerged tradition of Democratic Party politics, he falls under George Stephanopolous' famous line after President Clinton's reelection in 1996. When asked why President Clinton did not keep his campaign promises, George Stephanopolous said,

"has kept all of the promises he intended to keep."

I expect politicians, and the legacy media (such as Mr. Queenan) who prop them up, to continue acting infallible while continuing to fail at every opportunity.

ObamaCare Passes: Progressives Have Change.

The US House of Representatives passed their health care reform legislation later last night. The progressives (i.e. liberals) have more of the change they have been looking for. They believe they are winners and are still using the GOP as a whipping kid.

Trying to share the blame, Nancy Pelosi said that "the vote may be partisan, but the bill is not as it has 300 Republican amendments". Of course she won't say what the GOP amendments are. That would allow Americans to verify her claim. But, since it's not true, and she is not truthful, we can take our cues from that.

With any luck, in November, we will replace many of these post-American politicians with some that will minimize the damage HCR will cause.

Stop ObamaCare, Contact Your Senators and Representatives

Writing to you congresspersons is a relatively easy process. Simply type their name and the word "contact" in your preferred search engine. Google with show a contact link is the search results.

Now that you are there, fill in the indentification information and do not forget to enter your email address if you would like a response from them.

When sending an email be sure you treat it as if you were sending a letter with the proper salutation, such Dear Senator Last name, be respectful if you are serious about getting a favorable result with your message, do not stray into more then one issue (or you risk confusing them), and end it with a respectful closing, such as, "Thank you for your service". Do this even if you did not vote for that person and especially if you do not like them at all. This will demonstrate ability to keep a level head when discussing issues that you care about deeply and especially if the issue presses your hot buttons.

These same rules apply when writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper, or even when responding to blogs. Some of the more open minded and progressive blogs, such as the Huffington Post, censor the comments and will remove anything that goes against their mindset, or the mindset of the author of the blog, using the excuse that you were using ad hominem attacks or other distractions that they willing allow when the object is someone or some organization that they don't like. Save the fun for your own blog.

Back to writing to your congressperson....

Here are examples of two different webmails I sent to my senators this morning.

The first one is to Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida. I'm pretty sure he will vote for ObamaCare anyway, believing we will forget that he helped destroy the country by the time he runs for reelection.

Notice how I give my specific reasons why I do not want this legislation passed. And, while I may not have all my grammar and spelling correct, I sent it anyway because the issue is important to me and I believe that it is understandable.

Here goes....

Dear Senator Nelson,

I am very troubled this morning to learn that the US Congress is planning to force the president's version of health care insurance reform through congress while knowing that 73% of Americans are against it.

The problem isn't that we do not know enough about it, as we do know.

The problem is that experts agree this program, if enacted, would destroy all private sector health insurance companies and make all Americans dependent on the federal government for health care insurance.

With the Medicare cuts, it would destroy Medicare as well.

It cuts payments to doctors ensuring that there will be fewer doctors to provide services to the president's estimate 30 million additional patients while reducing the number of qualified researchers who discover all the wonderful innovations that have made America the envy of the entire world.

This one reason alone is why other countries can seemingly afford nationalized health care as we are paying for the research, not them. It is the same as they depend on us for their national defense and they only invest minimally in their own.

It increases the threshold of medical expense deductibility from 7.5% to 10% of the adjusted gross income, penalizing responsible Americas who pay for their own medical care and insurance.

Instead of lowering private sector insurance premiums, it would cause a large increase due to:

- having fewer paid customers (who will be moving to the government's plan),.

- making up the difference of lower government mandated fees to doctors who would otherwise leave the profession due to their inability to earn a living.

- no relief from malpractice insurance ensures no relief from higher costs and higher fees that are passed on to the patients and their insurance company.

- mandatory coverage of pre-existing conditions means that people will not pay for insurance until they need it. This will drive costs even more as the only paying customers will be those who already require expensive treatments.

- this country is already dangerously in debt and this health care reform will make matters worse. The debt is responsible for devaluing the US dollar, down at least 16% in the last year. This also makes insurance more expensive.

Government mandated purchasing of insurance by working Americans will fail the Constitutionality test as this kind of intrusion has never been the within the authority of the federal government.

This bill makes no sense to working Americans and needs to be stopped before it can further ruin this country.

The government is constituted to represent the will of and by the consent of the people. Poll after poll shows that most Americans do not want this bill. Passing it will surely cause voters to reconsider who they allow to be the majority party in congress during the next few election cycles when we know for a fact that will of the governed is being set aside for political gain in Washington.

There are better plans out there that need to be considered by rushing into national bankruptcy merely for the purpose of tallying up a win in the president's corner.

Thank you for your service.

I also wrote to our other senator, George LeMieux, Republican - Florida.

Dear Senator LeMieux,

While I am very sure that you will be voting against this health care reform package, I would like to reiterate my opposition to it. This makes me in agreement with at least 73% of Americans who are against it, knowing that it would be a huge unwieldy mess and that there are many more common sense way to help uninsured Americans to receive proper health care. Most of those ways are listed in the GOP's health care reform web site.

I also want to thank you for your service to this country and the Great State of Florida and I hope that you will consider a run office at the end of this term.

Sincerely yours.

Please note that the letter to the "friendly" senator is much shorter than the one I sent to Senator Nelson. I've written to both before on this issue and while Senator LeMieux's response agrees with mine, while Senator Nelson's only reiterated the party talking points.

When you right a letter, you do not need to include all the reasons your are for or against some issue or policy. Just letting them know your position on the issue is normally enough. Besides, I doubt they (or a staffer, most likely) will not have the time or inclination to read it all. That is the reason I put my request, vote NO, in the subject line of the mail. When the staffer sees the subject, the point is already made.

Finally, I tried to write to my Representative, Vern Buchanan, after writing to my senators, but it seems as if his web page is overloaded and would not display. I'm sure he is on the same side of this issue as I am, so I may try again later or simply trust him to do the right thing. (What a concept).

The Mighty Scott Brown: an Army of One

Good News.

In a special election to fill the US Senate seat held for over four and a half decades by the dearly departed and Honorable Senator Ted Kennedy, a relatively unknown state politician in Massachusetts named Scott Brown, a Republican, is elected in the bluest blue state in the nation. He upsets the unbalance in the US Senate adding the 41st vote for the minority and ending the Democratic Party's filibuster proof, and out of control, 111th Congress. This apparently has put and end to the ill, and secretly, conceived Health Care Reform legislation, saving the country from certain bankruptcy.

Thank you Senator Brown, and thank you Massachusetts.