by Daniel Gardner

How does Obamacare affect folks like us?

A friend who has a small business shared with me an interesting story about providing healthcare for his employees. He contacted Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of Mississippi to get an estimate of costs. All he had to provide was generic information about his employees, i.e. age, gender, etc. On a lark he snuck in his own generic information anonymously.

BCBS returned estimates of around $350+/month for individual employees' health insurance under Obamacare restrictions and minimum standards! Prices skyrocketed to more than $1,000 if any of the employees wanted to cover children or other family members.

Interestingly, my friend has had BCBS as his personal healthcare insurance provider for years. He's currently paying around $470/month to cover himself and his children. According to the estimate, his generic "employee" who matched his demographics would have to pay around $1,450/month for family coverage! That's 3-times the amount he's currently paying for essentially the same coverage!

When he pointed this out to the agent who had given him the estimate, the agent apparently was stunned to learn about such a huge difference in cost of coverage.

We may not understand or care about all the squabbles going on in Washington, but all of us begin to take notice when our paychecks decrease or we have to pay much more for things like health insurance.

Progressives, those who believe government should meet everybody's needs, have been working to garner control over healthcare for generations. Obamacare is a big deal to them because it represents a major step toward government controlling our economy.

Progressives started debate over Obamacare by promising to cover the 30 - 45 million Americans who didn't have health insurance for whatever reason. The easiest and most obvious solution would have been to expand Medicaid to cover those who couldn't afford health insurance.

However, progressives wanted something that included all Americans…except those in Congress and the White House…oh yeah, and those groups that supported progressives in elections should get exemptions from Obamacare, too.  From the beginning Obamacare was never about providing insurance or healthcare to the neediest among us, but about controlling all Americans' access to healthcare.

My friend who has the small business has recently learned his premium is jumping 40 percent higher for healthcare coverage for him and his family due to Obamacare. He's been satisfied with his coverage, but this huge increase due largely to mandates in Obamacare and not due to any changes in his life is another reason we should care about what they're doing in Washington.

What about those 30 - 45 million among us who didn't have health insurance? Apparently a significant percentage are not bothering to sign up for Obamacare, instead trusting to the "system" that's always covered them when they've needed help.

Meanwhile hundreds of thousands who were satisfied with their health insurance coverage are seeing huge increases in monthly premiums, and doubling or more of out-of-pocket deductibles, from $1,000 to more than $8,000 per year in some cases. Some are having their plans cancelled because the plans don't meet new "standards" under Obamacare.

Claiming to help those without health insurance, progressives have oppressed middle class Americans and thrown the health care system into a cesspool of counterproductive and ill-conceived mandates and regulations.

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