Tennessean Editorial: Obama's broken promise burns the insured

I was pleasantly surprised to see an editorial in this morning's Tennessean that was critical of Obamacare and lamented the massive number of insurance plan cancellations occurring in Tennessee as a result of it. Why didn't the Tennessean foresee this and alert us to the fact the the President's pledge of, "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan," was a lie? This should not have been a surprise to anyone. Any rational person knew the President's promise could not be true. When minimum standards where were put in place requiring things not previously covered to be covered and abolishing annual and life-time caps, then all of those plans that did not meet the new requirements were going to be cancelled. Beyond that, premiums had to increase. The only way the plan can work is to have the premiums collected cover the cost of providing the service. If more people, many of them high risk, were to be included in the insurance pool, premiums had to increase. It is hard for me to have much sympathy for those who voted for President Obama and are now shocked to find they are going to be without insurance or have a massive premium increase.

Now, million of people are going to lose their insurance, and with a web site that doesn't work, come January 1, they will be uninsured. People who would have otherwise been covered are going to get sick and be in accidents and be without coverage. People will go bankrupt. People will die. Lives will be ruined. That is a fact. What can we do about it now? I don't see anything that can be done. Congress can't just mandate that insurance companies undo the cancellations. I am sure many good progressives will justify the damage done by Obamacare with the old adage, "if you are going to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs."  It is not the individuals they care about, they want a radical transformation of society.

This could have all been avoided with measured steps that reformed the current health system rather than a radical restructuring of the whole health care sector. When you ram a plan through without bipartisan support, when you bully and bribe to get a plan through Congress, when the media stops being critical and becomes propagandist cheerleaders, you may not get the best plan.

I am convinced that the problem with Obamacare is not just with the roll out but that it is flawed from the start. Obamacare should be scrapped and the Congress should start over.

Below are excerpts from today's Tennessean editorial: Obama's broken promise burns the insured.

The troubled rollout of health-plan enrollment under the Affordable Care Act hit home in Tennessee this week as it was learned that about 66,000 Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee customers will not, in fact, be able to keep their current health insurance, as President Obama had promised.

While some may complain about the insurer, make no mistake: This one is on the president.
.....
Without a doubt, many otherwise skeptical Americans were won over to the Affordable Care Act by the fateful promises made to them by the president. Now they are being thrust into the Health Insurance Marketplace to join uninsured Americans who already are struggling to get enrolled in a system rife with glitches.

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