DECEPTION, DECEPTION, AND MORE DECEPTION BY OPPONENTS OF OBAMACARE

Talking Points Memo reveals the latest schemes by health insurance companies to deceive policy holders about their options under the Affordable Health Care Act.

Across the country, insurance companies have sent misleading letters to consumers, trying to lock them into the companies' own, sometimes more expensive health insurance plans rather than let them shop for insurance and tax credits on the Obamacare marketplaces -- which could lead to people like Donna spending thousands more for insurance than the law intended. In some cases, mentions of the marketplace in those letters are relegated to a mere footnote, which can be easily overlooked.

The extreme lengths to which some insurance companies are going to hold on to existing customers at higher price, as the Affordable Care Act fundamentally re-orders the individual insurance market, has caught the attention of state insurance regulators.

The insurance companies argue that it's simply capitalism at work. But regulators don't see it that way. By warning customers that their health insurance plans are being canceled as a result of Obamacare and urging them to secure new insurance plans before the Obamacare launched on Oct. 1, these insurers put their customers at risk of enrolling in plans that were not as good or as affordable as what they could buy on the marketplaces.

I read this statement recently on Facebook:

"Just heard a WH Advisor on the news say if your health insurance isn't changed or cancelled you can keep it...said it with a straight face."

I agree that the White House could have phrased the statement better. Certain people with private health insurance policies will receive cancellation notices from their insurance companies because their policies will no longer be sold, as they do not meet the MINIMUM standards under Obamacare (or Romneycare, if you will). In other words, the policies are SHIT and do not adequately protect policy holders from the cost of health care for catastrophic illness or accident.  The policy holders who have received cancellations will be able to find policies which provide adequate coverage at reasonable cost through the Affordable Health Care marketplaces. 

Pardon the vulgarity, but I am beyond anger at the deception by insurance companies and Republicans who do not want Americans to have affordable health care. Their actions are despicably evil. To paraphrase Joseph Welch at the Army-McCarthy hearings:

"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir]s and mesdames], at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"