Like some 22 million other Americans, I’m a self-employed small-business owner who buys health insurance for my family directly on the individual market. We have a high-deductible PPO plan that allows us to choose from a wide range of doctors.
Or rather, we had such a plan.
Last week, our family received notice from Anthem BlueCross BlueShield of Colorado that we can no longer keep the plan we like because of “changes from health-care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA).” The letter informed us that “to meet the requirements of the new laws, your current plan can no longer be continued beyond your 2014 renewal date.”
In short: Obama lied. My health plan died.
Remember? Our president looked America straight in the eye and promised: “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”
This isn’t just partisan business. It’s personal.
Our cancellation letter says Anthem is “not going to be selling new individual PPO plans.” When we asked whether we could keep our children’s doctors, an agent for Anthem told my husband and me she didn’t know.
The insurer has no details available yet on what exactly they’ll be offering. We either will be herded into the ObamaCare exchange (launching Oct. 1), a severely limited HMO plan or presented with costlier alternatives from another insurer. If they even exist.
We’re not alone. Across the country, insurers are sending out ObamaCare-induced health-plan death notices to untold tens of thousands of other customers in the individual market.
Few among Washington’s protected political class are paying attention, because they’re exempted from ObamaCare’s destructive consequences. But Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) also lost his individual-market plan. Unlike most politicians on Capitol Hill, he chose not to enroll in the federal health-insurance program. He told me that he opted to participate in the private market “because I wanted to be in the same boat as my constituents. And now that boat is sinking!”
Gardner points to recent analysis showing individual-market rate increases of 23 percent to 25 percent in Colorado. “After my current plan is discontinued,” he wrote last week, “the closest comparable plan through our current provider will cost over 100 percent more, going from roughly $650 a month to $1,480 per month.”
He now carries his ObamaCare cancellation notice with him as hardcore proof of the Democrats’ ultimate deception.
The National Association for the Self-Employed is recommending that its small-business owners and freelancers plan for at least a 15 percent hike nationwide.
One reason for those rate hikes, of course, is that ObamaCare’s mandated-benefits provisions force insurers to carry coverage for items that individual-market consumers had deliberately chosen to forgo.
Americans who had opted for affordable catastrophic coverage-style plans now have fewer and fewer choices. This includes a whole class of musicians, photographers, artists, writers, actors and other creative people who bought health plans through the individual market or via small professional groups.
As St. Vincent College arts professor Ben Schachter reports in The Weekly Standard, groups like the College Art Association, Modern Language Association and the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust are dropping their plans. Young, healthy members of these groups “are far more likely to see their rates go up — or to face the individual mandate penalties.”
Thanks to Obama, access is down. Premiums and health-care spending are up. Research and development on lifesaving drugs and medical devices are down. Hours and benefits have been cut because of ObamaCare costs and regulatory burdens by at least 300 American companies, according to Investor’s Business Daily. And the ObamaCare layoff bomb continues to claim victims.
For hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of self-employed job creators, three fundamental ObamaCare truths are becoming as clear as Obama’s growing nose: 1) You can’t keep it. 2) We’re screwed. 3) The do-gooders don’t care.
malkinblog@gmail.comLike some 22 million other Americans, I’m a self-employed small-business owner who buys health insurance for my family directly on the individual market. We have a high-deductible PPO plan that allows us to choose from a wide range of doctors.
Or rather, we had such a plan.
Last week, our family received notice from Anthem BlueCross BlueShield of Colorado that we can no longer keep the plan we like because of “changes from health-care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA).” The letter informed us that “to meet the requirements of the new laws, your current plan can no longer be continued beyond your 2014 renewal date.”
In short: Obama lied. My health plan died.
Remember? Our president looked America straight in the eye and promised: “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”
This isn’t just partisan business. It’s personal.
Our cancellation letter says Anthem is “not going to be selling new individual PPO plans.” When we asked whether we could keep our children’s doctors, an agent for Anthem told my husband and me she didn’t know.
The insurer has no details available yet on what exactly they’ll be offering. We either will be herded into the ObamaCare exchange (launching Oct. 1), a severely limited HMO plan or presented with costlier alternatives from another insurer. If they even exist.
We’re not alone. Across the country, insurers are sending out ObamaCare-induced health-plan death notices to untold tens of thousands of other customers in the individual market.
Few among Washington’s protected political class are paying attention, because they’re exempted from ObamaCare’s destructive consequences. But Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) also lost his individual-market plan. Unlike most politicians on Capitol Hill, he chose not to enroll in the federal health-insurance program. He told me that he opted to participate in the private market “because I wanted to be in the same boat as my constituents. And now that boat is sinking!”
Gardner points to recent analysis showing individual-market rate increases of 23 percent to 25 percent in Colorado. “After my current plan is discontinued,” he wrote last week, “the closest comparable plan through our current provider will cost over 100 percent more, going from roughly $650 a month to $1,480 per month.”
He now carries his ObamaCare cancellation notice with him as hardcore proof of the Democrats’ ultimate deception.
The National Association for the Self-Employed is recommending that its small-business owners and freelancers plan for at least a 15 percent hike nationwide.
One reason for those rate hikes, of course, is that ObamaCare’s mandated-benefits provisions force insurers to carry coverage for items that individual-market consumers had deliberately chosen to forgo.
Americans who had opted for affordable catastrophic coverage-style plans now have fewer and fewer choices. This includes a whole class of musicians, photographers, artists, writers, actors and other creative people who bought health plans through the individual market or via small professional groups.
As St. Vincent College arts professor Ben Schachter reports in The Weekly Standard, groups like the College Art Association, Modern Language Association and the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust are dropping their plans. Young, healthy members of these groups “are far more likely to see their rates go up — or to face the individual mandate penalties.”
Thanks to Obama, access is down. Premiums and health-care spending are up. Research and development on lifesaving drugs and medical devices are down. Hours and benefits have been cut because of ObamaCare costs and regulatory burdens by at least 300 American companies, according to Investor’s Business Daily. And the ObamaCare layoff bomb continues to claim victims.
For hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of self-employed job creators, three fundamental ObamaCare truths are becoming as clear as Obama’s growing nose: 1) You can’t keep it. 2) We’re screwed. 3) The do-gooders don’t care.