Obamacare: A Deception

More details can be found at this Maryland pdf link. It's worth looking at this presentation to grasp the big business approach of Exchanges which is clearly profit-driven. The Maryland Exchange strategy is just one example. The goal of Exchanges is sell, sell, sell.

Exchanges certainly have a lofty goal -- promote success stories only and be ready to contradict and cover up the bad stuff as quickly as possible. Massachusetts residents have been there. The Connector and state politicians including the governor made sure that anyone being harmed by Romneycare would not be heard in spite of statewide survey reports put together by outreach agencies advising state legislators and power players that low-income people were not faring well under this law. Various issues were spelled out and testimonials were included, but residents' concerns about the adverse effects of Romneycare were ignored. MA national legislators also went along with this agenda as did the mainstream media.

When $130 million was needed in 2009 to balance the Massachusetts state budget, the Connector -- with the blessing of MA Gov. Deval Patrick and the MA legislature -- removed about 28,000 legal immigrants -- working people paying taxes -- from their insurance plans. Another 8,000 or so were barred from enrolling in insurance plans because the MA legislature voted to cap enrollment in the subsidized plans. This took place at the same time Mr. Obama was trying to sell the ACA to the nation, so, under pressure from Washington, the MA legislature restored some of the money, and the Connector dumped these people, without their consent, into an out-of-state plan with higher copays, less comprehensive coverage and next to no doctors or safety net hospitals in its network. 

This has huge implications for the ACA. If legal immigrants can be removed from their plans and others denied enrollment when a state budget is squeezed, which vulnerable segment of the population is next in line? The good news is these legal immigrants in MA sued the Connector and its then-Executive Director, Jon Kingsdale, and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled unanimously that the state could not violate their right to equal protection under the state and federal constitutions and fiscal considerations alone cannot justify a state's invidious discrimination against them. As a result of this decision, the state had to come up with some bucks, and the Connector was forced to put the plaintiffs back into their original plans.

Getting back to Enroll America, Herndon Alliance and some of the less-than-honorable Exchange strategies -- it's one thing to inform Americans about the ACA and Exchanges that offer the possibility of either purchasing high-deductible or catastrophic coverage with a loan from the government to help pay for it or being tossed into expanded Medicaid -- but, mounting a costly, massive campaign to purposely deceive and manipulate the public with the unstated goal of more profit for the already extremely lucrative health insurance industry is disgraceful.

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Is the ACA a fair law if it helps only one small segment of the population but hurts and exploits a larger number to do so? The way this law works is fundamentally unfair and will not bring medical care to the many, but, instead will progress to greater personal debt for individuals and families who can't afford the "affordable" insurance as well as those who must keep an eye on their income to avoid the many traps and false ends this law creates. At their expense, the forced purchase of health insurance will bring increased revenue to the industry, not to mention more kickbacks to Congress, and in the very near future, the health insurance industry will be "too big to fail."

The ACA is most definitely a "uniquely American solution" which has little to do with reforming this country's barbaric health care system. It merely controls peoples' finances and choices while leaving insurance companies in charge and does virtually nothing to end their abuses. It will leave many millions of Americans uninsured and millions more underinsured at a staggering cost to taxpayers.

Politicians, health care policy wonks and vested interests will brush aside the ACA's adverse effects. You'll hear that some have fallen through the cracks of health care reform but the problems can be easily tweaked. You will also witness the usual dog-and-pony show on Capitol Hill in which the two parties play the blame game. The bought-and-paid-for mainstream media will regurgitate whatever Washington feeds it, and TV talking heads will chime in, inviting their "experts" to analyze the situation while real people in the real world struggle to get by under this law or fall by the wayside.

Good luck everyone and watch out for the folding chairs.

addendum:

Obamacare architect leaves White House for pharmaceutical industry job

Physician payments based on outcomes