Lily Dane
Activist Post
The Obamacare nightmare continues, complete with more negative poll results, declining support from the young, unauthorized debit card charges for premiums, and an outrageous advertising blitz.
An Associated Press-GfK poll showed that nearly 4 out of 5 people say Obamacare will worsen insurance coverage, Newsmax reports:
Nearly half of those with job-based or other private coverage say their policies will be changing next year — mostly for the worse. Sixty-nine percent say their premiums will be going up, while 59 percent say annual deductibles or copayments are increasing.
Only 21 percent of those with private coverage said their plan is expanding to cover more types of medical care, though coverage of preventive care at no charge to the patient has been required by the law for the past couple of years.
Fourteen percent said coverage for spouses is being restricted or eliminated, and 11 percent said their plan is being discontinued.
Disapproval of Obama’s handling of health care topped 60 percent in the poll.
In the poll, taken just after the revamped federal website was unveiled, 11 percent of Americans said they or someone in their household had tried to sign up for health insurance in the new marketplaces. Sixty-two percent of those said they or the person in their household ran into problems. About one-fourth of all who tried managed to enroll. Half said they were not able to buy insurance, and the remaining quarter said they weren’t sure.
Support for Obama and his signature healthcare law is diminishing among the crowd that has given him the most support- the millennials, according to a poll conducted by USA TODAY:
Forty-five percent of 18- to 29-year-old Americans say they approve of the way Obama is handling his job; 46% disapprove of his job performance, according to a year-end USA TODAY/Pew Research Center Poll. The president’s approval rating with young Americans — which stood at 67% just ahead of his second inauguration less than a year ago — now mirrors the general population, according to the poll.
That’s going to be a big problem for the success of Obamacare – that age group is the one the ACA is depending on to offset the higher risks and costs associated with insuring sicker and older Americans.
But of course, the administration has a plan for targeting those youngsters to get ‘em signed up: this weekend in D.C., officials showed up where young residents “party by night and shop by day.”
Officials on Saturday visited two Footlocker stores where Nike’s exclusive Air Jordan 12 “Taxi” sneakers were going on sale. And they are scheduled to visit two Denny’s restaurants from 2 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.
“My motto is ‘Get them health care while you get them Jordans,” DC Health Links representative Vanessa Brooks told Fox News outside a Footlocker in the city’s downtown.
“Get some health care to go along with them taxis, OK?” Brooks told those at the store. “You got to have it. And you need it.”
An Obamacare “ad spending blitz” is beginning, now that the exchanges are “working” and deadlines are looming. Forbes covered the new push to get people signed up, and the astronomical amount being spent on the campaign:
Extrapolated across the entire U.S., the cost of marketing and advertising to get Americans to sign up for coverage is expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Here’s a link to all of the federal grants, including marketing funds, allocated to states across the country by the Obama administration to set up marketplaces and educate consumers.
Private insurers are also spending big bucks on advertising through channels including radio, TV, billboard, direct mail, and the Internet.
While the government and private insurers are busy spending millions on promoting Obamacare, consumers are getting hit with unpleasant surprises like higher costs than expected – and early debits for premiums.
Consumers in Washington state are reporting billing problems with the Washington Healthplanfinder website.
KING 5 reports:
Shannon Bruner of Indianola logged on to her checking account Monday morning, and found she was almost 800 dollars in the negative.
“The first thing I thought was, ‘I got screwed,’” she said.
The Bruners enrolled for insurance on the Washington Healthplanfinder website, last October. They say they selected the bill pay date to be December 24th. Instead the Washington Healthplanfinder drafted the 835 dollar premium Monday.
Josh Bruner started his own business this year as an engineering recruiter. They said it’s forced them to pay a lot of attention to their bills and their bank accounts.
“Big knot in my gut because we’re trying to keep it together,” said Shannon Bruner. “It’s important to me that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen.”
They aren’t the only ones experiencing billing issues. Others have been billed early – and at least one case of a consumer being double-billed has been reported.
Can we scrap this whole thing now and go back to how things were?
Lily Dane is a staff writer for The Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared. Her goal is to help people to “Wake the Flock Up!”
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