First we heard the cry from the few ObamaCare defenders that the criticisms of this disaster are coming from center right news organizations like Fox News. We've illustrated how wrong that claim was with stories in the New York Times and left of center news outlets across the country.
Now, there's a shift to claiming that the people complaining about ObamaCare, even in these liberal outlets, are mostly conservatives. Again, easily proven false.
Let's remember that it was Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) who predicted in April that ObamaCare would be a "huge train wreck." More recently "the rollout has been a disaster," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., remarked Sunday on "Face the Nation."
But that's not all.
Obama Takes Friendly FireI heard an ObamaCare defender on one news program (can't recall the name) echo a sentiment similar to Barro who said that the policies which are being dropped are inferior as if the government knows better when it requires senior citizens to pay for maternity coverage and birth control.
An ally of the president begins to panic over Obamacare fallout.
By Ron Fournier
October 28, 2013
National Journal
Incoming from Democrats:
"Dem Party is F****d." That was the subject line of an email sent to me Sunday by a senior Democratic consultant with strong ties to the White House and Capitol Hill. The body of the email contained a link to this Los Angeles Times story about Obamacare "sticker shock:"
"These middle-class consumers are staring at hefty increases on their insurance bills as the overhaul remakes the healthcare market. Their rates are rising in large part to help offset the higher costs of covering sicker, poorer people who have been shut out of the system for years."
"Although recent criticism of the healthcare law has focused on website glitches and early enrollment snags, experts say sharp price increases for individual policies have the greatest potential to erode public support for President Obama's signature legislation."
In his story, reporter Chad Terhune also quoted a letter sent to a California insurance company executive. "I was all for Obamacare," wrote a young woman complaining about a 50 percent rate hike related to the health care law, "until I found out I was paying for it."
Also of interest to the Democratic consultant: A Josh Barro column on Obama's promise that "if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan." It was never a reasonable pledge, Barro argues, and it's being proven false. He called this "a good thing" because "a lot of existing health plans were bad." Reforming the nation's health care system "was necessarily going to have to change a lot of people's health plans," Barro wrote.
The Democratic consultant said none of this is news to him, but he wonders why Obama wasn't honest with Americans. He predicted surprise and outrage over higher costs and lesser coverage. "We will own this problem forever," the Democrat wrote.
Next I found this gem from the Chicago Sun Times:
Sue Klinkhamer has a problem.It may soon become clear that among the loudest critics of ObamaCare are Democrats who will either pay a huge political price for their support or are truly shocked at the massive fraud which has been perpetrated on them along with the rest of the American people. Obama's ObamaCare promises may go down in history as the greatest con job of all time!
It’s called Obamacare.
And the irony of her situation is not lost on her. In a recent email addressed to her former boss, Illinois Congressman Bill Foster, and other Democratic colleagues, she wrote:
“I spent two years defending Obamacare. I had constituents scream at me, spit at me and call me names that I can’t put in print. The congressman was not re-elected in 2010 mainly because of the anti-Obamacare anger. When the congressman was not re-elected, I also (along with the rest of our staff) lost my job. I was upset that because of the health care issue, I didn’t have a job anymore but still defended Obamacare because it would make health care available to everyone at, what I assumed, would be an affordable price. I have now learned that I was wrong. Very wrong.”
For Klinkhamer, 60, President Obama’s oft-repeated words ring in her ears: “If you like your health plan, you will keep it.”
Well, possibly not.
When Klinkhamer lost her congressional job, she had to buy an individual policy on the open market.
Three years ago, it was $225 a month with a $2,500 deductible. Each year it went up a little to, as of Sept. 1, $291 with a $3,500 deductible. Then, a few weeks ago, she got a letter.
“Blue Cross,” she said, “stated my current coverage would expire on Dec. 31, and here are my options: I can have a plan with similar benefits for $647.12 [or] I can have a plan with similar [but higher] pricing for $322.32 but with a $6,500 deductible.”
She went on, “Blue Cross also tells me that if I don’t pick one of the options, they will just assume I want the one for $647. ... Someone please tell me why my premium in January will be $356 more than in December?”
ObamaCare has become a laughingstock. Here's the opener for the October 26 Saturday Night Live:
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