Can A Nation Fight Socialized Healthcare With A “Hindsight Is 20/20” Philosophy?
As the Obamacare Glitch-Gate unfolds, stories about all aspects of the failed socialized healthcare system saturate the media. And, as the debacle begins to touch the lives of Americans, in a personal way, the red flags are punctuated by the unfolding realities of the lies and deceptions that preceded the rollout.
One has to wonder, would we have been able to avoid all this if we, as a culture, would have paid closer attention to the early warning signs, and asked questions when Obama said he wanted to fundamentally transform America?
As we watched the events unfold, since it’s passage in 2010, it’s been one snow job after another, in order to herd the masses through the cattle chute, into compliance. Now we are just beginning to see the consequence of the “buyers remorse” from the past elections and ensuing destructive policies. What we are also realizing is that since the roll out, on October 1st, the slick sales pitch is now on steroids, in order to try to avoid the deep pain we are all about to feel from the realities of Obamacare. Is no one wary of pie in the sky promises and the hard sell?
I have come to understand that healthcare insurance carriers and the federal government have become strange bedfellows. I am a single mother of two, and I buy my own insurance. Since I have purchased my own personal coverage for the last several years, I qualify for an early renewal, which enabled me to push the pause button on rate increases, and stay off the exchanges for one year. You wouldn’t have ever guessed, or known that, by talking to anyone working for my insurance carrier.
After literally dozens of calls to my carrier, and as many inquiries about the status of my renewal, I was continually met with the same responses. They didn’t know why I had not received my early renewal forms, but “Would I like some quotes on the market place plans?” It wasn’t long before I started to wonder if the carriers were getting a bonus for pulling customers off their current plans to throw them into the exchanges. The hard sell was that intense. No one had any information about my current status, even though they had all my account information in front of them, on a computer, but they were more than happy to drive me over the Obamacare exchange cliff.
And, despite my best efforts to get information online, I was never able to log on to Healthcare.gov.
So, the questions began to formulate as I navigated through the frustration. What’s in it for insurance companies, to pull you off your current, lower cost policies, earlier, and sign you up for expensive exchanges?
Forbes.com reported, on the same day as the opening of the exchanges, the biggest insurance companies such as CIGNA, United Healthcare and Wellpoint saw “the value of their common stocks go up by 200%-300%,” due to their ability to raise their premiums on small business.
In order to qualify for early enrollment, members must meet a November 15 deadline. Two weeks, after the exchanges opened, I finally received my early renewal form. The early renewal policy wasn’t a last minute add on to Obamacare. Why were insurance companies delaying the dispersement of early renewal forms? And why was this a fact across most large insurance carriers? Yes, that’s right. It wasn’t just a “glitch” from my carrier. No major carrier had mailed their forms to their clients prior to October 1st.
Being the skeptic that I am, and because I was so uncomfortable with the incompetence I experienced at every level of this healthcare rollout, I decided to take some proactive steps to make sure my Early Renewal Forms did not get lost in the return mail.
One form went to my carrier via snail mail, in the envelope provided, but before I sent it off I also sent two, by fax, to two different numbers, supplied to me by my carrier. I also scanned and emailed another copy to yet another department suggested by my carrier. I sent one in the mail by return receipt, and forwarded one to my broker to submit. But it’s the last submission is the most incredible and raised yet more questions.
In St. Louis, my insurance carrier has two office addresses. So, I decided to take a drive to hand deliver the last form, to make sure it had been received, before the deadline. The first address was a large office building, in the county. As I entered the building, there was absolutely no evidence they occupied the space. No listings on the building directory. So, I drove downtown. They have a building in the heart of downtown, and I felt assured I would get a face to face with a “human” who would receive my forms. NOT.
What I saw, next, really raised red flags. Who would have guessed that an insurance carrier would need security, rivaled only by the CIA? That building was locked down tighter than Fort Knox, with armed guards at the lobby desk. The lobby was glassed off with revolving doors, which could only be entered with computer-scanned cards.
Why?
Needless to say, no one in the entire building was qualified/certified to accept a hand delivered early renewal form, at the corporate office in St. Louis. So, I dropped it in the drop box, outside the building.
It took one week to receive a return receipt from the registered mail form sent, and it was the only confirmation received in all the forms sent to my carrier. Since the deadline is November 15 for early renewals to be accepted, I just don’t trust the integrity of the carriers, or the government, to play by the rules.
As we all scramble to find ways to avoid being sucked into the vortex of socialized medicine, and a communist state, it comes as no surprise that the majority of enrollees under Healthcare.gov, are Medicaid patients, and precisely the entitlement class that doesn’t pay into the system. Obviously, Obamacare is not sustainable if they can’t get people to pay premiums to support those that don’t. Wouldn’t it be funny, if the entitlement class, with whom Obama catered to in order win election/reelection, turned out to be his undoing?
Hindsight is 20/20. So, as we all begin to suffer the painful oppression from Obamacare and the rest of this administration’s policies, the question is, will the American people wake up and, at least, question why/ how we got to this point, and will they stand up to do anything about it? Will they demand leadership, with a spine and common sense, to turn the ship around? Will they remember the phase, REPEAL AND REPLACE? Or will they just follow, blindly, into compliance?
