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Obamacare: The No. 1 Consumer Fraud
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Those Seeking To Control Your Medical Care Are Really Seeking To Control You
By Herb Denenberg, The Bulletin
Obamacare from the perspective of a consumer reporter is a classic rip-off.
Red Flag No. 1 — Tight Deadlines Are Imposed With ‘Now Or Never’ Claims
One of the first red flags flying over a rip-off is the time hustle, the deadline. The con man tells you that you have to sign the contract right now if you want this good deal. You can’t wait until tomorrow -- now or never.
Obamacare involves a variation of the time hustle. We have to get this done before the August recess. Or we have to get this done this year. They say the “stars are aligned” for health care reform. In “this town” unless there’s a deadline, it never gets done. People are losing insurance every day so we have to act immediately (even though much of the bill doesn’t go into effect until 2013). Obamacare advocates imply that unless “health care reform” is rammed through without delay, the economy will collapse. They don’t have time to get it right.
The con man wants immediate decisions. If victims think about it, they will soon realize it is a rip-off.
We’ve seen this time hustle with Cap and Trade and with the Stimulus Bill, the most expensive legislative failures in history. That $787 billion monstrosity was supposed to hold unemployment to eight percent. Well, it is 9½ percent and still rising (and predicted to reach double digits before long), jobs are still being lost, and the economy is still in recession. The urgency of that bill allowed no time for reading. Obama, the con man, is trying the same play for Obamacare, another 1000-plus page bill that nobody is going to read before voting to spend trillions.
When you try to jam through a 1000-plus-page bill that restructures one-sixth of the American economy without time to read it, let alone analyze and debate it, you have a formula for disaster. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said what good is it to read a bill – unless you have two days and two lawyers to explain what you read.
If you want a rational legislative process, you have to let the legislators, the experts and the interest groups figure out what is in it and what it will do if implemented. That takes time. Simply reading the bill scratches the surface. Only intense analysis from many points of view reveals all the consequences of the bill, intended and unintended.
Those involved in drafting legislation know it requires many revisions, opportunities for comments and suggestions, and a wide circle of participants in the process. I spent six years revising insurance laws in Wisconsin. It would have been unthinkable and irresponsible, to slap-out a proposal and pass it on the fly a la the U.S. Democratic Congress.
We would circulate one revision after another and get a steady stream of corrections, suggestions, and recommendations. And that was just the drafting process. The legislative process calls for hearings, more revisions, and extensive debate and deliberation. You need time for the public to read the bill and comment– especially on legislation that impacts every aspect of their health and life.
This is not just another piece of legislation, but one of the most important, complex and far-reaching proposals ever considered by Congress. In terms of time and effort spent, you would think they were considering a resolution honoring peanut farmers. We are witnessing one of the most dangerous and irresponsible legislative farces in history. Anyone who votes for this kind of bill without reading and understanding it is a disgrace to the Constitution and to Americans.
Consider just a few of the ticking legislative time bombs slipped into one or more of the bills. Some would allow abortion at taxpayers’ expense to those covered by the health insurance policy. This is a highly charged, divisive issue, but it has been gliding through with little notice. The bill also contains strong elements of affirmative action for the selection of providers. Those are just two that came to mind and there are probably dozens of other such issues lurking in the legislative tall grass.
This is really not a bill about health care – it is about seizing control of the economy and the American people and implementing every liberal proposal that can be squeezed into the legislation.
Red Flag No. 2 — It Just Sounds Too Good To Be True
Another standard red flag of an upcoming rip-off is the “deal” too good to be true. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Consider the pitch for Obamacare. It’s going to cover the 45 million uninsured. It’s going to give people more choices. It will deliver better quality care. It is going to lower premiums. It is going to make insurance more accessible. The insurance companies will have to take all comers without regard to pre-existing conditions and will eliminate any caps on lifetime benefits. Everybody can stay with their insurance companies and doctors. That incredible platter of goodies will come without adding to the deficit, and will be paid for in higher taxes only by the very wealthiest.
That would be one of the great miracles of history. It would be a double miracle, as its advocates have apparently not even read the bills that they are depending on to deliver this cornucopia of benefits. When asked about a specific of the bill, Obama admitted he was not familiar with the provision. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), one of the key architects of one of the bills, when asked about the details of the bill, with some annoyance answered that he could not be expected to know such details. And Rep. Conyers seems to admit that these 1000-plus page bills are simply not read.
The proposed legislation cannot possibly deliver the benefits promised. For example, Obama has said everyone can keep their insurance companies and doctors. Yet the Lewin Group, a respected consulting organizations, determined that the bill would mean 119 million Americans would have to switch coverage (out of a total of 177 million). Even without that study, it doesn’t take a haymaker genius to figure out that many companies will drop coverage under the proposed scheme. One Congressman said one businessman told him that the penalty (up to 8 percent of payroll) for not carrying coverage was less than the cost of his coverage, so he would make money by dropping coverage, paying the penalty, and letting his employees go to the public option. When the government makes the rules and controls the public option insurer, those rules would likely favor the government insurer.
The New York Times, a lapdog and enabler of Obama, admitted in an editorial (July 26, 2009), that private companies would not be able to compete with the “public-option.” It wrote, “Under the House reform bill, all employers would eventually be allowed to enroll their worker in insurance exchanges that would offer an array of polices to choose from, including a public plan [public option] whose premiums would almost certainly be lower than those of competing private plans.” So even the Times admits the public plan would dominate the market and that Obama has been telling lies when he says you can keep your private coverage.
Yes, Obama is a con man, and Obamacare is his biggest rip-off to date. Beware. Your life and health are in jeopardy. In a few words, Obama and Obamacare are the number one and number two consumer frauds, respectively.
Herb Denenberg has served as Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, the Loman Professor of Insurance at the Wharton School, the Associate Director of the Wisconsin Insurance Laws Revision Committee, and as Special Advisor to the Governor of Pennsylvania on Consumer Affairs. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences as a result of his work as insurance commissioner. Herb Denenberg can be reached at advocate@thebulletin.us.
Red Flag No. 1 — Tight Deadlines Are Imposed With ‘Now Or Never’ Claims
One of the first red flags flying over a rip-off is the time hustle, the deadline. The con man tells you that you have to sign the contract right now if you want this good deal. You can’t wait until tomorrow -- now or never.
Obamacare involves a variation of the time hustle. We have to get this done before the August recess. Or we have to get this done this year. They say the “stars are aligned” for health care reform. In “this town” unless there’s a deadline, it never gets done. People are losing insurance every day so we have to act immediately (even though much of the bill doesn’t go into effect until 2013). Obamacare advocates imply that unless “health care reform” is rammed through without delay, the economy will collapse. They don’t have time to get it right.
The con man wants immediate decisions. If victims think about it, they will soon realize it is a rip-off.
We’ve seen this time hustle with Cap and Trade and with the Stimulus Bill, the most expensive legislative failures in history. That $787 billion monstrosity was supposed to hold unemployment to eight percent. Well, it is 9½ percent and still rising (and predicted to reach double digits before long), jobs are still being lost, and the economy is still in recession. The urgency of that bill allowed no time for reading. Obama, the con man, is trying the same play for Obamacare, another 1000-plus page bill that nobody is going to read before voting to spend trillions.
When you try to jam through a 1000-plus-page bill that restructures one-sixth of the American economy without time to read it, let alone analyze and debate it, you have a formula for disaster. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said what good is it to read a bill – unless you have two days and two lawyers to explain what you read.
If you want a rational legislative process, you have to let the legislators, the experts and the interest groups figure out what is in it and what it will do if implemented. That takes time. Simply reading the bill scratches the surface. Only intense analysis from many points of view reveals all the consequences of the bill, intended and unintended.
Those involved in drafting legislation know it requires many revisions, opportunities for comments and suggestions, and a wide circle of participants in the process. I spent six years revising insurance laws in Wisconsin. It would have been unthinkable and irresponsible, to slap-out a proposal and pass it on the fly a la the U.S. Democratic Congress.
We would circulate one revision after another and get a steady stream of corrections, suggestions, and recommendations. And that was just the drafting process. The legislative process calls for hearings, more revisions, and extensive debate and deliberation. You need time for the public to read the bill and comment– especially on legislation that impacts every aspect of their health and life.
This is not just another piece of legislation, but one of the most important, complex and far-reaching proposals ever considered by Congress. In terms of time and effort spent, you would think they were considering a resolution honoring peanut farmers. We are witnessing one of the most dangerous and irresponsible legislative farces in history. Anyone who votes for this kind of bill without reading and understanding it is a disgrace to the Constitution and to Americans.
Consider just a few of the ticking legislative time bombs slipped into one or more of the bills. Some would allow abortion at taxpayers’ expense to those covered by the health insurance policy. This is a highly charged, divisive issue, but it has been gliding through with little notice. The bill also contains strong elements of affirmative action for the selection of providers. Those are just two that came to mind and there are probably dozens of other such issues lurking in the legislative tall grass.
This is really not a bill about health care – it is about seizing control of the economy and the American people and implementing every liberal proposal that can be squeezed into the legislation.
Red Flag No. 2 — It Just Sounds Too Good To Be True
Another standard red flag of an upcoming rip-off is the “deal” too good to be true. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Consider the pitch for Obamacare. It’s going to cover the 45 million uninsured. It’s going to give people more choices. It will deliver better quality care. It is going to lower premiums. It is going to make insurance more accessible. The insurance companies will have to take all comers without regard to pre-existing conditions and will eliminate any caps on lifetime benefits. Everybody can stay with their insurance companies and doctors. That incredible platter of goodies will come without adding to the deficit, and will be paid for in higher taxes only by the very wealthiest.
That would be one of the great miracles of history. It would be a double miracle, as its advocates have apparently not even read the bills that they are depending on to deliver this cornucopia of benefits. When asked about a specific of the bill, Obama admitted he was not familiar with the provision. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), one of the key architects of one of the bills, when asked about the details of the bill, with some annoyance answered that he could not be expected to know such details. And Rep. Conyers seems to admit that these 1000-plus page bills are simply not read.
The proposed legislation cannot possibly deliver the benefits promised. For example, Obama has said everyone can keep their insurance companies and doctors. Yet the Lewin Group, a respected consulting organizations, determined that the bill would mean 119 million Americans would have to switch coverage (out of a total of 177 million). Even without that study, it doesn’t take a haymaker genius to figure out that many companies will drop coverage under the proposed scheme. One Congressman said one businessman told him that the penalty (up to 8 percent of payroll) for not carrying coverage was less than the cost of his coverage, so he would make money by dropping coverage, paying the penalty, and letting his employees go to the public option. When the government makes the rules and controls the public option insurer, those rules would likely favor the government insurer.
The New York Times, a lapdog and enabler of Obama, admitted in an editorial (July 26, 2009), that private companies would not be able to compete with the “public-option.” It wrote, “Under the House reform bill, all employers would eventually be allowed to enroll their worker in insurance exchanges that would offer an array of polices to choose from, including a public plan [public option] whose premiums would almost certainly be lower than those of competing private plans.” So even the Times admits the public plan would dominate the market and that Obama has been telling lies when he says you can keep your private coverage.
Yes, Obama is a con man, and Obamacare is his biggest rip-off to date. Beware. Your life and health are in jeopardy. In a few words, Obama and Obamacare are the number one and number two consumer frauds, respectively.
Herb Denenberg has served as Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, the Loman Professor of Insurance at the Wharton School, the Associate Director of the Wisconsin Insurance Laws Revision Committee, and as Special Advisor to the Governor of Pennsylvania on Consumer Affairs. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences as a result of his work as insurance commissioner. Herb Denenberg can be reached at advocate@thebulletin.us.
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