From the Folks Who Brought You Double Digit Increases in Your Health Care Premiums…



obamacare-rotator-720x480Heading into the final two weeks of the 2016 elections, the bombshell news is that health insurance premiums are set to spike next year. For those covered under the federally managed HealthCare.gov, the average increase will be 25 percent, with a ripple effect that is likely to affect everyone in the United States who has health insurance.

That’s not what was supposed to happen. The legislation that created this system was, after all, called the Affordable Care Act. The promise was that it would deliver quality health care to everyone at premiums people could afford. Very few people can afford a 25 percent increase, much less the 116 percent rate hike projected for some people who live in Arizona.

The next big government program that promises big benefits for everyone is the Gang of Eight immigration “reform” bill, version 2.0 (G8 2.0). That’s the one that promises to deliver amnesty for millions of “rigorously vetted” illegal aliens, millions more legal immigrants and guest workers, more prosperity for everyone, huge boosts to GDP, endless streams of revenue flowing into the Treasury, airtight borders, and every other good thing you can conjure up.

Many of the same members of Congress who were instrumental in getting the Affordable Care Act enacted, and who are still around, are gearing up for a big G8 2.0 push in 2017. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) who, depending on what happens in the elections could be Senate Majority Leader come January, told CNBC that passing a massive amnesty bill would be the first item on his agenda.

Unlike the battle over Obamacare, Schumer is counting on the support of a significant number of Republicans to seal the deal on so-called immigration reform. Four of the original members of the Gang of Eight were Republicans and the bill cleared the Senate with a 68-32 majority.

The possibility of another serious effort to pass an immigration bill that allows Congress to claim credit for action now while sticking the American public with massive unintended consequences a few years down the road, falls squarely within parameters of what New York Times columnist Ross Douthat described as “the dangers of elite groupthink” that grips most major policy debates. “Almost every crisis that has come upon the West in the last 15 years has its roots in this establishmentarian type of folly,” he observed.

An almost unblemished record of being wrong about pretty much everything will in no way deter the ruling classes in Congress, the media, and in corporate board rooms from pushing full speed ahead with the next great folly: mass amnesty and unchecked immigration packaged as “reform” and “compromise.”

As was the case in 2013 and 2014, it will be up to the American public to push back.

About Author

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Ira joined the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 1986 with experience as a journalist, professor of journalism, special assistant to Gov. Richard Lamm (Colorado), and press secretary of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. His columns have appeared in National Review, LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, and more. He is an experienced TV and radio commentator.

5 Comments

  1. avatar

    Medicaid under Obamacare is TOTALLY Diluted Now

    With ACA poor [about 70% of Obamacare recipients] diluting it….it now covers almost nothing. Even Medicare is causing doctors in droves to quit because they can’t make a living paying for federal billing costs with Medicare. Retirees and disabled are screwed unless they get their own, like $1600/mo private insurance.

    • avatar

      Hillary’s pandering has reached comical heights. In a just broadcast interview on the Latin network Univision she was asked her favorite food and she replied “Mexican”. But earlier this year she wrote on the website ThrillList about her favorite restaurants in the state of New York. Most were Italian and some bbq but not one Mexican.

      And last April she was on some hip hop morning radio show when she was asked what one item she keeps in her purse and she said hot sauce. Even one of the hosts was like come on. You can just hear the gears turning in her head. I’ll make them think Hillary “gets down”. But hey she does say you have a “public” and a “private” position. Maybe her private fallback is oyster crackers. Does she have a list for every network she goes on? Beyond laughable.

      And you notice how it’s the Trump campaign that gets criticized for inciting violence but the media is ignoring that video where a Democratic operative, subsequently fired, claims the Clinton campaign was funding the violence through laundered money to his group.

      And suppose a Republican appointed Supreme Court justice said she wanted to hit another justice with a baseball bat. That in fact happened several days ago. Sonya Sotomeyer said of Antonin Scalia: “There are things he’s said on the bench where if I had a baseball bat, I might have used it.” Crickets from the media. This is a fine example of the Third World culture Hillary wants to bring us.

  2. avatar

    The (UN)ACA was a tragedy before it was even implemented, thanks to the lowlife Barack, his mentally challenged Dems, and a demented Judiciary, that lied and scammed this law into existence.

  3. avatar

    Remember you can keep your doctor and your premiums will go down? He knew those things were wrong when he said them and there were numerous experts who testified so. But the media ignored all that and just went right along with the propaganda.

    As for Chuck Schumer, the media does not point out that he was one of the leaders in the House, personally thanked by Reagan at the signing ceremony, for the 1986 amnesty and that he promised it would be a “one time” deal. The only thing you can depend on is if their lips are moving they’re lying. Just like Hillary saying in 2003 she was “adamantly against illegal immigrants”. She has no morals or scruples, just whatever will get her votes.

    There’s more than a bit of hypocrisy about a lot of the people criticizing Trump’s talk about women. Howard Stern, a Hillary supporter, says he is not aware of any such “locker room talk” like that. Please. I listen to his show and I hear far worse from him about women and yet a lot of women go on his show.

    A couple years ago there was widespread discussion of Joe Biden putting his hands on women at public ceremonies and a lot of them clearly looked uncomfortable. Then you have the Kennedys. Ted, another “one time amnesty” liar, left a woman to drown while he went off to sober up until the next morning. Then there was Jack and Bobby who passed around an emotionally fragile Marilyn Monroe, something that quite possibly contributed to her suicide.