ObamaCare is HERE!

ObamaCare is here…
The healthcare landscape has changed.

Dave Ramsey’s ELP

As Dave Ramsey’s Endorsed Local Provider (ELP), our goal is to make you aware of these changes.

We have tools available to help answer your questions:

• Do I qualify for a subsidy?
• What would my penalty be if I don’t have health insurance?
• Should I buy a plan now or wait for 2014?
• Should I keep my current plan?

You have more options available now than you will have next year.

MyObamaCareCalculator.com

For an individual / family PRE-OBAMACARE QUOTE, click on your state:

Alabama                             Montana
Alaska                                 Nebraska
Arizona                               Nevada
Arkansas                            New Hampshire
California                            New Jersey
Colorado                            New Mexico
Connecticut                        New York
Delaware                            North Carolina
Florida                                North Dakota
Georgia                              Ohio
Hawaii                                Oklahoma
Idaho                                  Oregon
Illinois                                  Pennsylvania
Indiana                                Rhode Island
Iowa                                   South Carolina
Kansas                                South Dakota
Kentucky                            Tennessee
Louisiana                            Texas
Maine                                 Utah
Maryland                            Vermont
Massachusetts                   Virginia
Michigan                             Washington
Minnesota                          West Virginia
Mississippi                          Wisconsin
Missouri                             Wyoming

Obama-Car

While talking about healthcare reform with my wife, our teenage son started asking questions. We tried to answer him in a way he could understand, but we just weren’t getting through. Health insurance is a foreign language to him. However he is dreaming about which car he will soon purchase. So we introduced ObamaCare to him by way of the Affordable Car Act… a.k.a. Obama-Car:

Obama says his reforms will include additional mandated essential health benefits AND reduce health insurance costs by $2500 per family. That’s simply impossible. That would be like requiring all 2014 cars to be either hybrid or fully electric (more energy efficient), include run-flat tires with electronic low-pressure warnings (better fuel economy), HID headlights (better night vision), GPS (less fuel wasted getting lost), and satellite radio (because it sounds good) at a lower price.

Yes, these OPTIONS are nice if you have the money to pay for them, but they should remain OPTIONS, not REQUIREMENTS.

Instead of a Chevy Cruze starting at $17,000 the new Obama-Car compliant version (such as the Chevy Volt) would be priced around $34,000.

Obama claims these new cars will only be paid in full by the “millionaires and billionaires” because anyone making less than 400% of the poverty level will have some (or all) of their car subsidized by the government.

Now let’s talk about used cars…

Let’s say you like your existing car.  As long as you owned it before March 23, 2010, you would be allowed to keep it. You cannot make any changes to it or it would no longer be “grandfathered” and you would be forced into buying a new Obama-Car next year or pay a penalty.

If it doesn’t get good enough gas mileage or include all the new Obama-Car required Overpriced Bureaucratically Authorized Mandated Add-ons (OBAMA), then you would also be penalized.

Our son is glad Obama-Car doesn’t exist. He can save his own money to purchase any car he chooses… as long as Dad (not Obama) approves of it!

Dislaimer:  This article was never meant to suggest Obama-Car legislation is needed or should ever become law.

Prepare For ObamaCare

Dear Nancy Pelosi,

After 3+ years and 20,000+ pages of additional clarifications…
WE STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT’S IN IT!

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) points up at ObamaCare

Washington’s version of “competing”

How would you like to “compete” against a team where the referee was allowed to make any rule change they wanted…
AND HE WAS ON THE OTHER TEAM?

Welcome to Obamacare 2009!

Massachusetts is working so well… Why not force it on everyone?

So now that the people have spoken very loudly (just ask Claire McCaskill) against socialized medicine congress is trying to get support for another bill that is eerily similar to the Massachusetts healthcare reform plan. The good news is we now have a track record to see how well these mandates work. The bad news is that nobody in the majority party seems to care about results.

Three Lessons from Massachusetts

We can’t afford to make the same mistake.

And would somebody actually read the bill before they vote?

We want Canadian style socialized medicine… right?

Before congress passes a sweeping healthcare bill intending to wipe out private insurance companies and replacing it with a government controlled socialized medicine plan similar to Canada’s, shouldn’t we find out just how efficient the Canadian system really is?

Do you have a story to share about you or someone you know who received treatment from a country with socialized medicine? Please let us know. I will post all experiences both good and bad.

Obamacare stacking the deck against private health insurance

Once again, it takes Paul Ryan to weed through the rhetoric and speak the truth about what’s happening in Washington.

Paul Ryan talks healthcare on CNBC

How can we pay for this? CBO predicts Obamacare will cost nearly $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years! It seems fiscal responsibility isn’t nearly as important as taking over the healthcare industry.

The Washington Post has a poll out that states that the president’s approval rate on healthcare has shrunk to less than 50%. As more people see past the “keep your current plan” rhetoric and read the actual legislation, they are seeing the overall goal of Obamacare… socialized medicine.

If you don’t like your current health insurance plan, you can change insurance companies. If you don’t like your rates, you can choose different benefits and deductibles. Once the private insurance companies are out of the way, what options will we have for inadequate healthcare? NONE!

It is refreshing to hear Paul Ryan shedding light on the overall goal of Obamacare. Why doesn’t congress simply ask Americans if they want socialized medicine? Why can’t the discussions be focused on the merits private pay versus public pay? If socialized medicine is so good for our country, then just say so and let America vote on it. But instead, we get the usual Washington double speak about how the goal here is to compete and drive down costs with competition.

Thanks Paul for speaking the truth!

Just say no… to OBAMACARE!

 

If you are upset about how Congress is trying to take over our healthcare system, there are a host of ways to express your views on-line. Here are a few.

• NCPA has been promoting a “Free our health care now!” (http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com/) petition that already has 400,000 signers. It also has an “action pack” (http://actionpack.ncpa.org/) so you can spread the word even further.
• The Galen Institute has put together a “Do no harm” (http://www.donoharmpetition.org/) petition calling on Congress to follow the Hippocrates oath to “First, do no harm” when it tries to heal health care.
• This one calls on Members of Congress to sign up (http://www.healthtransformation.net/cs/public_plan_petition) for any government-run insurance program it may come up with. Just imagine getting Congress to put itself on Medicaid.
• And the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest says Keep your “Hands Off my Health!” (http://www.handsoffmyhealth.org/)
• And here is a terrific resource for physicians but together by our friend Dr. David McKalip, “Take Back Medicine.” (http://www.takebackmedicine.com

Paul Ryan speaks on the radio about spending, debt, and healthcare reform

www.house.gov/ryan/audio/111th/71509jws.htm 

The big lie…. keeping your current private healthcare plan in the new Obamacare system! 

The current Medicare / Medicaid system underpays physicians by 20% and hospitals by 30% which is offset by charging more to private insurance plans. If more people are transferred to a new public plan, then the cost of private care will be increased dramatically. This will not allow real competition. This will in fairly short order eliminate all private health plans.

Reconciliation rules don’t allow filibuster in the Senate.  The votes are already there.  The actual 1000+ page bill was just released last night, yet congress is to vote on it next month.

WAKE UP AMERICA!

For more information visit www.heritage.org/LeadershipForAmerica/health-care.cfm

Remember to contact your representatives before it’s too late!

Finally… a common sense healthcare solution out of Washington!

As Washington continues to steamroll private businesses under the assumption that the last election results created a mandate for “change” healthcare reform is the ultimate target. Yesterday it was banks and the auto industry, today is credit cards, tomorrow is socialized medicine. For those of us that feel that Washington meddling in the private sector rarely (if ever) has positive results, what can we do to stop this?

There are a few people in Washington that are working towards a free market cure based on empowering physicians and patients to make healthcare decisions instead of forming a new Washington bureaucracy that will ultimately end up rationing healthcare.

An Alternative to Obamacare  

Congressman Paul Ryan unveils the Patients’ Choice Act at a May 20, 2009 press conference in the U.S. Capitol:

So why does our current healthcare delivery system focus on employer based plans? This common sense solution is based on portable privately owned health insurance plans.

If you feel the best healthcare solution lies within empowering individauls to control their own healthcare plans and healthcare dollars with Health Savings Accounts along with lower cost health insurance plans, now is the time to act… before it’s too late!

If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it’s free!

For those of you that are captivated by the eloquent speeches out of Washington telling us the primary reason for healthcare reform is to cover the millions of uninsured in America, listen up!  …

Washington is treating healthcare as if it’s a right.  Just when did the historical revisionists rewrite the Declaration of Independence to say, “The Right to Life, Liberty, and Health Insurance”?

I agree we have a problem with our healthcare system in America.  It is WAY too expensive.  I have said many times I am an insurance agent that doesn’t like insurance.

Co-pay based healthcare plans are doomed to failure by design.  When you incentivize people to spend money, don’t act so surprised when they overspend!  The way to change utilization is to give every American a vested interest in NOT spending their healthcare dollars.  Every time I pull out my Health Savings Account debit card, I’m spending MY MONEY!

Where is personal responsibility in this conversation?  How many uninsured people are actually spending more money on cell phones, cable tv, alcohol, tobacco, eating out, movies, and other entertainment than what an HSA qualified health insurance plan would cost?  You might be surprised at how affordable these plans can be.  Go to www.myHSAguy.com and see for yourself.  You do need to be healthy enough to qualify, but most states have guaranteed issue plans available that will cover any health condition.  So why doesn’t Washington put a few more dollars into these state plans and make them more affordable?

Now THAT’S a healthcare reform plan I would support!