Why Won't MoveOn Move ON? The February Recess

Psst…This is why people were willing to take a chance on something else this election season, exhibit one, MoveOn.org and their relentless and inaccurate defense of Obamacare, preventing any progress in the grotesque program of Obamacare that imposed mandatory purchase of health insurance under penalty of tax while increasing those costs for health insurance for the majority of Americans in order to create an entitlement program on health exchanges that included no assets test for eligibility but instead an income test that conceivably would allow millionaires who could keep their incomes within Obamacare limits eligible for government handouts. Anyone who's arguing NOT to repeal Obamacare is quite frankly as the Democrats claim uninformed about the law (naturally they've worked hard to argue that this lack of understanding is all that prevented Americans from loving the law, nonsense).

MOVEON, apparently resorting to keeping their fans angry to notice that the Democratic Party remains unrepentant and out of touch, is encouraging people to stay stupid and argue that Obamacare was great, instead of gathering their people power to have consumers fight for consumers, for the mass majority of Americans who actually suffered under this healthcare law.

So sure, go out and harass your representatives during their recess, but why waste your time in defense of a political party instead of defending yourself? Why not ask some real questions?

Unfortunately, after all these years, MOVEON is still supporting lying in order to preserve bad law. Here's the challenge, will Democrats finally MOVE ON and ask the real questions based on lessons learned from Obamacare?

First, start with an omission rather than a lie. We KNOW that Obamacare managed to leave a carveout for public employees from having to live with the law they passed by categorizing the federal government (WHICH WE PAY FOR) as an employer that just happens to offer far superior benefits to its public employees. THIS LOOPHOLE IS YOUR FIRST HINT OF A BAD LAW, WHEN CONGRESS MAKES SURE IT WON'T APPLY TO THEM.

First question: Will any health insurance law passed under a Trump Administration require that public employees be covered by such law in the same way as the rest of America and close up the public employee loophole used by Obama's public employees including a RAISE increase possibility to cover the increased costs for such public employees?

Second, don't be silly enough to spout a lie: MOVEON declares that a vote to repeal Obamacare is a vote to "Take insurance away from 30 million." A, the Obama government acknowledged that it NEVER COUNTED how many people lost insurance options and were forced into marketplace plans and therefore there is NO WAY to consider how many GAINED insurance and how many were forced to SWITCH insurance under Obamacare. OK, so those forced to switch insurance weren't new enrollees.

B, there were the millions who could NO LONGER afford health insurance for their dependents, who also were ineligible for marketplace plans, that's the FAMILY GLITCH. OK, so family glitch folks LOST insurance options.

Then, C, and D, there were the government's admissions at two separate times that the number of uninsured had been inflated, meaning the original uninsured number was phony and second that the number of individuals who could have gotten Medicaid prior to Obamacare was also in the millions (look for the woodwork effect talked about by none other than the man who called us all stupid, Jonathan Gruber, yeah, an Obamacare "architect.")

So instead of continuing to perpetrate Obamacare lies, why not instead ask how a new plan will more successfully encourage Medicaid coverage of state's citizens through federal block grants to states, for example by increasing the block grant amount based on WHO is eligible under a state's Medicaid laws including increased payments for more expansive Medicaid enrollment eligibility?

Third, arguing that REPEALING Obamacare will increase consumer costs ignores the truth which is that Obamacare increased the majority of consumers' costs in the form of deductibles, copays, and coinsurnace. MOVEON wants you to argue that repealing Obamacare will increase costs with higher insurance deductibles, copays and prescription drug costs--This one should have you laughing bitterly ARE THEY KIDDING? Spend five minutes on looking into this and you'll know that this is what Obamacare did.

So, instead, ask how the new law will dissolve the government partnership with insurance companies and instead strengthen the government's representation of citizens in working to get laws that protect Americans and exploitive business practices?

This is important because the Obamacare government partnership with insurers left the government adopting some of the most exploitive insurance company strategies of the past used to maximize their profits by covering less and charging more--which is what Obamacare plans did and then disguised this for the "exchange" users by using the money from everyone else for entitlement payments, so the insurance which was not cheaper but that was cheaper for participants was paid for by the rest of us so that the government could pay it out as entitlement premium tax credits and cost sharing.

Fourth, MOVEON is DISHONESTLY representing the tax credit argument. Politically in order to keep Obamacare, MOVEON wants you to fight additional taxes by removing health care tax credits. STOP right there, we know that most Americans saw their taxes go up first when Obama let lapse the 7.5 percent threshold for the health expense deduction for healthcare and insurance expenses which exceeded 7.5 percent of income and returned it to a 10 percent level for consumers, and also let lapse the payroll tax deduction effectively raising the payroll tax by two percent for employees. What they're really talking about is the premium tax credit permitted for marketplace enrollees, a tax credit that AT ITS BEST applied only to 11 million Americans who actually used the exchanges and left the rest of us paying more.

Instead ask, will you restore the 7.5 percent tax deduction available for people whose healthcare expenses, including health insurance exceed 7.5 percent of their income?

Fifth: MOVEON again is ignoring reality and wants to encourage class warfare by simply asking the same question again, what will happen to the premium tax credit available to the at most 11 million who used marketplace exchanges.

Instead ask WHAT WILL YOU DO TO REDUCE the increased gap between rich and poor that occurred under Obama? (Yeah, it did, even Obama fanboys like CNN had to admit that.)

Sixth, MOVEON worries about substance abuse coverage--Maybe so, but not likely. It's a cheap coverage that most insurance companies provide.

More meaningful would be to wonder and ASK whether the new law will LIMIT the out of pocket maximum increases permitted by CMS, which has numbers set at $7,150 for an individual and $14,300 for a family for 2017?

Seventh, Obamacare pushed the myth, the lie of the "single risk pool." On its face false, because naturally a single risk pool would mean that everyone regardless of everything would be charged the same premium rates for the same health plans. Never was so. Instead, Obamacare made a government deal with insurance companies that they'd cover pre-existing conditions IF the government penalized and taxed anyone for NOT purchasing their product, which as we know, the government did under Obamacare giving us the individual mandate.

BUT, while outlawing the insurance company practice of charging people more to people who represented cost centers, tobacco users, older people, obese people, women of child-bearing age, illegal and legal drug abusers, alcoholics, and those with pre-existing conditions, Obamacare specifically designated charging higher premiums for tobacco users and those who were older, a discriminatory policy rooted in yes, the increased anticipated costs of those groups but which ignored the increased costs of the other groups listed.

Instead of arguing in favor of that illogical and age-based discriminatory policy of Obamacare, consumers should advocate LIMITS on insurance premium surcharges to 1.5 or 1.25 premium for those who fall into these cost center categories. These limits should also include outlawing double-dipping, so if you have a pre-existing condition and you smoke, or you’re an obese woman of child-bearing age that you don't pay this surcharge TWICE.

Eighth, MOVEON also omits questioning the individual mandate and therefore misses yet another problem facing consumers, this time called CONTINUOUS COVERAGE, a private version of the public tax that was created by the Obama Administration's deal with insurers.

Under continuous coverage provisions insurers would be able to charge people more in premium based on LAPSES in coverage. THIS WOULD BE WORTH ADVOCATING AGAINST.

There are too many legitimate ways that people end up with insurance lapses and returning to the unpopularity and unfairness of the individual mandate that force the consumer purchase of a consumer financial product of health insurance, the continuous coverage provisions do the same. The biggest problem with this type of provision is that it discourages insurance companies from being responsive to consumer demands by guaranteeing them customers.

As part of your February Recess strategy, instead of wasting time as a political puppet for MOVEON, expending time and energy on imagined scandals and threats, call out MOVEON for their backwards thinking that ignores Obamacare realities that cannibalized consumers to promote a government-insurance company partnership along with your vacationing representatives.