We have always known there would be Obamacare victims – people who will be worse off under the Affordable Care Act than they were before the law passed – but the President and Democrats in Congress were always careful to downplay or hide just who there were.
Now there’s no hiding.
With each passing week more Americans are learning about the growing list of people who are finding themselves worse off under Obamacare, and every week more people are worried they, their families or their friends will end up on the list.
Here are examples of the growing list of Obamacare victims:
- Walgreen employees – Walgreen Co, the largest U.S. drugstore, is moving 120,000 employees to a private health insurance exchange where they can choose a plan from multiple insurers, a sign of the shifting landscape for corporate healthcare because of rising costs. (Reuters)
- UPS Spouses – UPS announced it is dropping coverage for the spouses of 15,000 employees because of Obamacare costs. (Puget Sound Business Journal)
- University of Virginia – officials announced plans to drop working spouses of its faculty members and other employees because of the cost of Obamacare. (National Journal)
- Delta Airline pilots – Delta officials cancelled a health care plan for its pilots because it would be hit by Obamacare’s “Cadillac tax.” (Jason Pye, R Street)
- Middletown, N.J. employees – town officials cut the hours of 25 part-time workers “to avoid providing insurance required under the federal health care reform law.” (Asbury Park Press)
- Trader Joe’s part-time employees – Trader Joe’s part-time employees have been notified that, under Obamacare, they will be losing their health plans. Part-timers are being given a $500 bonus and being told to seek coverage on the federal health care exchange. (HuffPost Business)
- Now shoppers on Washington’s much-touted health care exchange are finding their doctor or neighborhood clinic may not be included in the provider list covered by the new insurance policies they are requiring to buy. (King 5 News)
All of this is a long way from President Obama’s promises that, “If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan,” (August 11th, 2009) and “My health care plan would save the average family $2,500 on their premiums,” (May 5th, 2008), as people across the country receive cancellation letters from their insurance companies. CBS News is reporting that up to two million people are being told their current health care policies will become illegal on January 1st.
Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation puts it succinctly: “What we’re seeing now is reality coming into play.”
Washington Democrats continue to proudly promote the Affordable Care Act, to the point of spending $26 million in tax money advertising it. Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler and other state Democrats pushed hard for early implementation, mostly for ideological reasons, without bothering to see whether the new law actually serves the public interest in our state.
Meanwhile, Washingtonians who simply wanted to keep their health care plan in 2014, or at least buy a new plan that lets them keep their doctor, are finding that the Obamacare law won’t let them do either.
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