Someone please enlighten me as to how a supposedly conservative state such as Kansas could have ever elected a raging liberal such as Kathleen Sebelius? There is something neo-Fascist about the way the Obama regime goes about its business. Just wait until 2012 approaches and they can sense defeat, then you will really see the full court Stalinist attempt at repression of any dissenting news.
by Michael Tanner
The mobster walks into an office. “Mighty nice insurance company you have here,” he muses. “Be a shame if anything happened to it.” Shortly thereafter the business owner “voluntarily” hands over a payment for “protection.”
The Obama administration didn’t quite pull a page from the Sopranos last week — but it came awfully close.
Faced with the fact that the new health-care law was driving up insurance premiums, Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warned that the administration would have “zero tolerance” for anyone who blamed them for those price hikes.
Insurance companies that persist in telling the truth could face dire consequences. “We will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes . . . on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections,” she wrote in a letter to the insurance industries’ trade association.
At the very least, she noted “bad actors” could be excluded from new government-run health-insurance exchanges that will begin operation in 2014 under the law. That could cost insurers as many as 30 million customers nationwide. People also might not be able to use government subsidies to buy insurance from companies that don’t toe the administration line. What’s next? Only companies that write checks to the Democratic National Committee can participate? Have too many employees contribute to the wrong candidate, and you get a visit from the insurance commissioner?
Well, at the risk of sleeping with the fishes, let’s be clear about what ObamaCare means for insurance costs. The new health-care law requires insurers to provide coverage even for people who are already sick and forbids them from charging sick people higher premiums than healthy people. It requires all insurance plans to include a host of added benefits and prohibits insurers from capping how much they pay out over a year or a lifetime.
Read the rest ObamaCare Extortion
Big premium hikes are coming (is anyone surprised?).
by Betsey McCaughey
President Obama is boasting that his new health law provides “free” preventive care, such as mammograms and colonoscopies. But when you open your mail, you’ll find out that’s untrue; all he’s doing is making you pay for it in advance.
The government isn’t going to force you to get a colonoscopy, but being forced to pay for one feels almost the same.
Millions of Americans are getting notices that their premiums are going up to pay for changes required under the ObamaCare law. Section 2713 of the law requires that those premiums include the full cost for such preventive services as Pap smears, mammograms and smoking-cessation programs. Obama’s “free” really just means you won’t have a co-pay if you decide to get that service. But it’s not free — merely prepaid. When a restaurant charges you $25 for the all-you-can-eat buffet, it can’t claim dessert is “free.”
Read the rest: Obamacare to hike insurance premiums
