There is no End in Sight

I have been wondering when the time would come that the news cycle would move on from the disaster of Obamacare to some other story on which to focus.  All stories eventually fade from the spotlight.  Most hold the attention of the media for just a day or two.  Right now, Obamacare has been a principal focus of attention for five weeks.  First the website was overwhelmed because so many people tried to get on.  Then, when the traffic to the website dies down, the exchange still did not work because it was not properly designed despite the federal government having three years and two thirds of a billion dollars to do that job.  Then we learned that hundreds of thousands of individual policies in a few states were being cancelled due to the requirements of the Obamacare law.  Next that figure of hundreds of thousands changed into millions; indeed a majority of individual policies were to be cancelled.  Then came the news that the policies being offered on the exchanges were much more expensive for those who received no subsidies even though the new policies had higher co-pays, lower reimbursements and enormous deductibles included.  That was followed by the disclosure that the federal government had predicted for years that all these cancellations would take place in 2014.  That revelation came almost simultaneously with the understanding that president Obama had lied to America repeatedly when he told us that we could keep our policies if we liked them, PERIOD!  As if that were not enough, next came the warning that it was not just the individual policies that were going to be cancelled in a wholesale manner.  We learned that the government prediction is that more than half of all employer policies will also bite the dust, this coming when the employer mandate kicks in in January of 2015.  Then the realization spread that the new Obamacare compliant policies will not allow most people to keep their doctors or their hospitals since the networks of approved physicians and facilities are quite narrow.  For example, in New York City, the four hospitals which most folks would recognize as the best in the city are not included in the networks of individual policies and there is no out of network coverage of any sort.  Then came the stories of sick people who had wonderful plans and who were seeing them cancelled in a way that made it impossible for them to keep their doctors, so that they were facing the potential of death by Obamacare.

During all of these body blows to Obamacare, the administration has come forth with one lame excuse after another to justify what was happening.  It was not enough to lie that we could keep our policies; now they were telling us that the promise only pertained to a few policies that were not substandard.  In Biblical terms, one lie begat many more.  But folks were not buying it; they paid attention enough in earlier years to remember "if you like your policy, you can keep it, period!"

This is going to get worse.  Just imagine what will happen when a drop in consumer spending due to a transference of expenditures to health insurance causes a recession or, at least, a drop in economic growth.  People across America will understand that they are being forced to spend a huge new amount on their insurance.  The anger is going to continue to build.  This story is not over by any means.  There is no end in sight.