File it under irony or justice, but Obamacare is pushing up premiums at AARP.  AARP recently announced that AARP employees would see health insurance premiums go up partially due to the impact of Obamacare.

AARP sent an email to its employees stating that premiums would increase between 8 and 13 percent.  AARP also added to avoid a 40% tax imposed by Obamacare on high-cost Cadillac insurance plans, employees would see an increase in co-pays and deductibles.  Adding costs to the employee helps avoid the additional Obamacare tax.

According to an AP article by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar,  “Although the tax on so-called “Cadillac” health care plans doesn’t take effect for years, employers are already beginning to assess their potential exposure because it is hefty: at 40 percent of the value above $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for a family plan. The tax is intended as a savings measure, to prod employers and workers into more cost-efficient plans.”

I irony and justice in this is that the AARP pushed for and endorsed the passage of Obamacare which included the Cadillac Insurance Tax that is pushing up AARP employee’s health care costs.

The interesting thing here is that Obamacare was supposed to lower our health insurance costs.  To help pay for Obamacare, the government impossed the Cadillac Insurance plan tax.  With employers passing on the cost of that tax to employees, not only will the costs to employees go up, but the government will fall short on paying for the massive cost of Obamacare.  Heck of a job federal government.

According to a post by Michelle Malkin, we can probably expect to see AARP request a waiver to the Obamacare plan that AARP helped jam down our throats.  The question is, where do we get our waivers from Obamacare?

The latest Obamacare support polls show 58% of Americans against with 37% in favor.  As Americans begin to understand how “unintended consequences” of Obamacare will impact all American families, support will continue to fall.

The healthcare reform bill extended the power of the Federal Government to determine how healthcare insurance companies are run.  Obamacare implemented a mandate that 85% of insurance company revenue is paid outer for healthcare coverage, leaving only 15% of health insurance company revenue to run the company.  The current average runs between 65% and 75%.  Congressional Democrats and other anti-capitalists consider anything over 15% representative of waste and overhead inherent in the greedy capitalist system.

The absurdity of those arguments aside, there is an unintended consequence with the Federal Government mandating the expense ratios of private companies.   Federal bureaucracies are now having to determine what services are covered within the 85% of revenue that must be paid out.

As healthcare insurance companies seek to be more competitive by covering services that may actually reduce costs, the government gets to decide if those services count toward the 85% that must be paid out.  Anything that the government decides does not count toward that level of spending will most likely not be covered.

According to a recent healthcare reform article in the Wall Street Journal, “…how to classify a program to double-check doctors orders to avoid one of the unnecessary surgeries that kill some 12,000 people every year? Or counseling, calls, emails and other types of case management to make sure patients comply with their diabetes regimen? Or investments in electronic medical records? Obviously these programs aren’t the same as an O.R. visit, but they still cost money, often a lot of it, and many insurance programs pay or are starting to pay for them.”  If a healthcare insurance company can not include those costs in the 85% federal mandate, they will not continue to pay for those programs.

Once again, Congress provides an example of why the government is not competent to run the lives of Americans or dictate how private companies can and should be run.  As Americans begin to understand and the negative impacts government overreach into our daily lives and voice opposition, will the government listen?  In the case of healthcare reform, the Congress proves that it is unwilling or unable to listen the American people.

The problem is that most Americans agree that some steps need to be taken for health care reform, but do not agree with Democrat healthcare reform bill.  The American people basically all want 5 things:

• Lower health insurance premiums
• Lower healthcare costs
• More choices
• Coverage for existing issues
• No life time caps or being dropped when serious illnesses occur

The problem is that the current versions of the healthcare reform bills either ignore some of these things or enact trillions in new spending that won’t achieve the things that are the most critical to the American people.

The first thing that congress can do to lower costs is to allow people to buy insurance across state lines.  This is true competition that would force companies to offer the best mix of coverage and prices.  It would also increase the risk pools allowing for lower premiums.

Second, Congress can allow people to form groups to purchase insurance the same way that corporations and unions can.  Large groups can negotiate better coverage and prices.

Third, Congress can end junk law suits that lead to unnecessary tests and defensive medicine.  Doctors often are forced to take steps to cover themselves by ordering procedures and tests that aren’t necessary to cover themselves from lawsuits.  This would also lower malpractice premiums which would lead doctors to lower prices.

Fourth, congress can end the practice of life time caps, dropping the sick, and not covering pre-existing conditions.

All of these steps would cost the American tax payers nothing and achieve many of the goals of health care reform.  These steps can be accomplished without raising taxes, creating hundreds of new departments and commissions, or giving favors to large donors and special interest groups.

These common sense steps would allow for drastic improvements to the American health care system without adding to the deficit and creating new large government bureaucracies and controls.

These steps are all contained in a draft bill proposed by house and Senate Republicans.  The question is, will the Democrat controlled congress and the President listen to these ideas and include them in health care reform?

One of the easier ways to reduce costs have been left out of most of the bills penned so far this year.  However, the newest House bill that Nancy Pelosi introduced does include a provision for Tort reform.

According to many estimates, common sense tort reform could save America $54 billion over the next 10 years.  However, the Democrat party receives millions from trial attorney special interest groups every year.  Tort reform makes sense in that it can reduce costs and would cost tax payers billions of dollars to implement.

The current version of the bill that Pelosi unveiled provides insight into the type of tort reform that Democrats support.

According to a post at HotAir.com, the Health Care Reform bill  on pages 1431 – 1433 provides for states to enact “alternative medical liability laws”.  However, the restricts the states to only allowing tort reform that requires that ”the law does not limit attorneys’ fees or impose caps on damages”.

You can expect to hear all about how the Democrats have addressed the need for tort reform in their most recent bill.  However, you need to remember that this tort reform will allow for anything but actual reform.

The president said ”We have the AARP on-board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors.” He added, “AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare.”

AARP: “Indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.”

However, Tom Nelson of the AARP described the president’s assertion that AARP has endorsed any plan currently being discussed as “Inaccurate”.

Some have even gone on to say that the president’s statement is not only inaccurate, but constitues a lie.  It would seem that Obama saying that the AARP is behind the plan should be reported as “fishy disinformation” to his web site collecting such inaccuracies about health care reform.

Look for the AARP to be summoned to the White House in the next few days for a “meeting”.

The president plans two more health care town halls in the next few days in Montana and Colorado.  It will be interesting to see if he continues to assert the AARP’s support.

The Whitehouse blog is telling supporters of Obama’s health care reform that there is disinformation about health care reform out there and they want your help in finding it.

These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.  Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help.

They ask that if you get any emails from friends or see things on the Internet that are “fishy”, please report it to flag@whitehouse.gov.  If I hadn’t seen this for myself, I would have thought somebody was trying to push some crazy conspiracy theory.

Here is one of those “fishy” things you can send them.  The president continues to assure the American people that you can keep your current coverage if you like it.  However, the text of HR 3200 clearly states that you can keep your coverage unless your insurance company adds anybody new to the plan or changes anything about the plan.  You can see the text on page 16 of the 1,018 page document.  Note that the link is to the official House document site and not another blog or website.

They way it is stated it would seem that if your employer hires another employee, they can’t enroll them in the same plan that you have or the plan is no longer grandfathered which then pushes you to the public plan.  It would seem that it would be the same if the insurer tried to change any of the terms of the plan such as adding or removing things that are covered.

I’ve sent a link to the house bill to White House blog stating that I found this “fishy” document on the Internet that seems to contradict many of the things that the president is saying in the daily television appearances.  I expect to be visited by uniformed ACORN police or men-in-black later today.

I would suggest that if you receive any email or find a web site supporting the take over of our private health-care system, you report it to the government as some sort of “fishy disinformation”.