Obamacare: Where is the Adult in the room?

 

The news is full these days of the debacle of the Obamacare  implementation.  Millions of people are learning their policies are being canceled, employer mandates were delayed, but apparently when resumed tens of millions more Americans will find their employer will force their employees into the exchanges for their insurance.

 

Aside from all that, as well as the deception through a series of repeated lies from the President and his Administration, the law is forcing millions of American citizens to purchase insurance products from private providers for products the government has decided the individual needs, even when the individual does not want the product.

 

Now, even the democrats who voted for the law are trying to walk back from their actions.  Especially those who are trying to get re-elected next year.  Why are they trying to distance themselves from their law?  Because the law is toxic and they didn't have to read it first to know that.  The first flaw was the fact they passed it without having read it.  That alone indicates they didn't provide due diligence in the interest of those they were elected to represent.  Blind trust and allegiance to one's party affiliation and the "promises" made by those whose political ambitions will likely profit by passing certain legislation is not leadership nor representation, it is haphazard stumbling into a morass of ever-sinking quicksand.  Our current situation seems to be proving this as a fact.     

 

Even beyond all of that, the President has a long list of scandals basically unaccounted for.  Benghazi, fast and furious, circumventing the laws such as deportation of illegal immigrants by exempting certain classes of those he wants to keep in America even though under the law they would be deported.  He has also changed the Affordable Care Act by exempting many classes of people from the law, all outside of Congressional involvement, and now making promises to the American people they could keep their policy if they liked it, knowing all the while it was an untrue promise; and this was done prior to his re-election during his own campaign.  Through that deception he led the American people who voted for him to vote under a false pretense that led to a possible outcome built on a false promise he knew he couldn't keep.

 

In other circumstances if a person promises people certain levels of services or particular products that are not based on the truth, and do not deliver what has been promised, a crime is committed and the person making such claims and taking people's money based on that claim is usually arrested, indicted, tried, and if found guilty, sent to prison.  In this case, not only are millions of people being vacated from their insurance policy, it is happening because the federal law has precluded those policies because they have failed to meet the standards established by the Affordable Care Act.  Insurance companies are being forced to cancel those policies because the government declared they are sub-standard and in the words of the President, "lousy policies."  This, despite the fact, that the individuals who purchased those policies chose the coverage they wanted based on their preference and budget; notwithstanding the government's mandated requirements.  Consequently they have "changed" and are thereby exempted from being "grandfathered" as was promised.  

 

Each day some new revelation emerges that reveals another building block of information that exposes his promised plan of initiating a "fundamental change" for America leading toward building massive governmental control and socialism.  We are now learning that as the waiver for the employer mandates are lifted, it is likely that the larger majority of insured who receive their insurance through their employer will likely have their policies canceled as well.  The employer will be unable to continue with the premiums since they will rise to a cost-level that will be unsustainable by the employer.  Therefore, the individual employee will likely be forced into the exchange established by Obamacare.  At that point people will not be able to keep their policy, they will not be able to keep their doctor or clinic, but will be subject to the prescriptive healthcare established by the dictates of the various plans designed and implemented by the government.

 

It is time for Congress to take hold of this issue and either delay or appeal the law and formulate a bi-partisan select committee to develop a system that is fair and affordable that allows the individual to have direct input into their personal plan that outlines the provision of their personal healthcare managed in concert with their physician and themselves.  Provisions for portable plans across state lines and pre-existing illnesses should be a part of those plans as well.

 

It is time for the adult in the room to stand and take charge of this situation.  Past events have proven neither the President, his staff, nor the democrats in Congress have the qualifications to be that adult in the room. 

 

Jim Killebrew

Retired citizens...promises broken

Retired citizens of Illinois who dedicated their lives by working for the state are disappointed.  The State made a promise to those people who began their career back in the 1960's and 70's.  That promise stated if you agree to work at a lower salary than most of the other states in comparable jobs, to work in the positions that take care of people with developmental disabilities, guard prisoners, administer countless programs built to improve the lives of those in poverty, make sure the court system in Illinois administers justice for each citizen, lead orphaned children through the maze of foster care, looking after the requirements of service providers to furnish the highest quality of services to Elder adults, build and repair highways, implement policies generated by the administrations, and obey the laws established by the lawmakers, then the lower salaries paid will be compensated by the state providing the cost of insurance during your retirement.

The Illinois Speaker of the House who put forth the Bill said, "We have no contract" with those people.  I believe that says it all.  We didn't have a contract; what we had was a promise.  What we had was a promise with politicians.

This article is not meant to decry the loss of the retiree benefit of state-paid health insurance.  Most reasonably prudent people realize the state is hopelessly in debt and will need to do something to right the ship before it sinks entirely.  The current group of retirees are those people who were born in the 1940s and 1950s who were born to a generation of parents who were called the "Greatest Generation."  We have been labeled as "War Babies" or the "Baby Boomer" generations.  We learned from our parents not only that we should love God and country, but we learned our responsibilities for family, neighbor and our community exceptionalism that drives us to dependence on God and each other as well as our own self-reliance.  By-and-large the majority of current state Retirees will grumble, but move on, pick themselves up and make the best of it just like our parents taught us to do.  So, again, this article is not meant to complain about the loss of the insurance specifically.         

It is meant to sound a warning.  A warning that something far more important has been lost along the way...integrity "the quality of possessing and steadfastly adhering to high moral principles or professional standards."  We are in this financial mess because of past plundering of taxpayer resources and actions of those few, or more than a few, who have seen the open troughs of public monies and have apparently engaged in a feeding frenzy for themselves and their friends.  "Earmarks" they have called them, "pork-barrel" is another name we have heard over the years.  Programs, tax-breaks, incentives, lavish life-styles; all at the public expense.  People who have won elective offices, some of whom, over the years who have been granted that voter-public trust and given fair salaries for their service, have somehow found ways to leave their office as millionaires.  We have shaken our heads and wondered how that had happened.  For evidence of misuse we need not look any further than two federal prisons where former State of Illinois governors sit incarcerated for trashing the public trust.

Now, although this is a problem we face in Illinois, we can see it is a problem throughout the nation as well.  So for everyone in America I say, "Take heed"!

This warning is meant for the ears of the generations who belong to our posterity:  take heed what politician's promises mean as you look at the final outcomes of those promises made in the past.  Examine closely not only the promises, but the integrity of the person who makes that promise.  Today's politicians, as aptly pointed out by the Illinois Speaker of the House, work only from "contracts" because the promises made are readily broken.

Jim Killebrew