{"id":11130,"date":"2013-10-15T18:44:29","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T18:44:29","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-10-15T18:44:29","modified_gmt":"2013-10-15T18:44:29","slug":"america_sees_the_obamacare_implosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/10\/15\/america_sees_the_obamacare_implosion\/","title":{"rendered":"America Sees the Obamacare Implosion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: To Marc Thiessen\u2019s piece<\/a>. “Obamacare is imploding. But thanks to the government shutdown, everyone is talking about the implosion of the GOP instead. The shutdown drama has distracted from the fact that Obamacare\u2019s debut is worse than many realize — and it threatens the fundamental viability of the law itself. The administration claims the Obamacare online exchanges crashed because the website got more than 8 million hits in the first week. Please. You know how many people visit Amazon.com every week? More than 70 million. The difference is: 1.) Amazon seldom crashes, and 2.) on Amazon, people actually buy something.” Or pick your favorite retail website. They handle many more than the Obamacare site did.<\/p>\n

“It appears virtually no one is buying Obamacare. While administration officials brag about how many visitors the site is getting, they refuse to divulge how many people actually signed up. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was asked that directly by Jon Stewart on ‘The Daily Show.\u2019 ‘Fully enrolled?\u2019 Sebelius stuttered. ‘I can\u2019t tell you. Because I don\u2019t know.\u2019 That is a frightening admission of incompetence. If the Obama administration can\u2019t even track how many people signed up, how on earth is it going to verify whether those people are eligible for subsidies? How will it protect against fraud?<\/p>\n

“The Post reported this past weekend that the failure of the website is worse than previously known: ‘Even when consumers have been able to sign up, insurers sometimes can\u2019t tell who their new customers are because of a separate set of computer defects.\u2019 It turns out that in some 99 percent of applications, the Obamacare site did not provide insurers with enough verifiable information to enroll people in their plans.”<\/p>\n

Now, is that incompetence or is that by design? I don\u2019t doubt that there is rolling incompetence here. But I think it\u2019s also by design when we learn what the regime\u2019s intentions are for healthy, middle class employed young people to find higher premiums and higher deductibles. That\u2019s what they\u2019re trying to keep secret right now. That\u2019s not what they told people was heading their way. That\u2019s not how they sold this. But that\u2019s how this program, even if it has a prayer of being funded, on paper that\u2019s how it happens. Middle class, that\u2019s where the money is, you get young middle class people, you make them sign up, you do not delay the individual mandate. You make them sign up or they pay the tax, the fine for a while.<\/p>\n

The idea is their premiums are going to skyrocket. And I think it\u2019s that that they programmed into the site so as to make it appear that nobody can sign up yet. They\u2019re just trying to delay the realization of what this really is. But if this is due to incompetence, if they can\u2019t manage a simple website, how on earth are they gonna manage the health care for millions of Americans? This rollout is far worse than anybody even realizes. It means that Obama may have no choice but to delay the individual mandate, Mr. Thiessen suggests here, and he quotes a colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who points out, how can Obama penalize people for not having health insurance if the government\u2019s website to provide that insurance doesn\u2019t work?<\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t go there and buy a policy, how can they fine you or tax you for not having one? Without the individual mandate, folks, Obamacare unravels. Without the jackbooted thug on your neck demanding that you buy it, it unravels. That\u2019s why, by the way, they\u2019re not gonna get rid of the individual mandate, because that\u2019s the guts of it, and that\u2019s what the Republicans ought to be focusing on in any deal, that that has to be delayed a year or two just like the employer mandate. They\u2019ve got to, in any deal that they\u2019re trying to strike.<\/p>\n

“The only way the law works is if the government forces young, healthy people into it by threatening them with penalties for not carrying health insurance. But if there is no penalty for not signing up, then fewer Americans will sign up. Even if the administration manages to fix the website and finally implement the individual mandate, people still may not join — because the plans being offered are so unattractive.” This gets to another bit of evidence where this implosion is worse than you think.<\/p>\n

“To entice people to join the exchanges, the [regime] forced insurers to offer low monthly premiums and cover people with preexisting conditions. Insurers have responded by increasing deductibles — the out-of-pocket costs people must pay before insurance benefits kick in — to stratospheric levels.” You got $8,000 deductibles on the bronze plan — $8,000 deductible, folks! That\u2019s before your policy kicks in.<\/p>\n

“According to an analysis this weekend by the president\u2019s hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune,” now, listen to me on this, “\u201921 of the 22 lowest-priced plans offered on the Illinois health insurance exchange for Cook County have annual deductibles of more than $4,000 for an individual and $8,000 for family coverage.” May I share that with you again? Quote: “21 of the 22 lowest-priced plans offered on the Illinois health insurance exchange for Cook County have annual deductibles of more than $4,000 for an individual and $8,000 for family coverage.”<\/p>\n

Now, you rich people, you may not know what a deductible is. That\u2019s what people have to pay in any clinic. If they go to a doctor and if the procedure costs $7500, they gotta pay it. No insurance kicks in. It\u2019s telling you, when this hits… This is one of the things I\u2019m convinced they\u2019re trying to delay. Now, “‘Plans with the least expensive monthly premiums — highlighted by state and federal officials as proof the new law will keep costs low for consumers — have deductibles as high as $6,350 for individuals and $12,700 for families.\u2019<\/p>\n

“Even with federal subsidies, few Americans will bother to buy insurance with a $4,000 to $12,700 deductible — and millions won\u2019t even be eligible for the subsidies. If enough Americans don\u2019t join the exchanges, Obamacare collapses. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the [regime] needs at least 7 million people to join the exchanges for Obamacare to be financially viable.” Do you know what\u2019s wrong or what\u2019s weird about that number? Obamacare mandates that everybody have it.<\/p>\n

So what difference does it make how many they need to make it viable? Okay, you run the math, and you find out you need 7 million people to join to be financially viable. What does that mean when the law is, everybody has to. That\u2019s what the individual mandate is. “While the administration won\u2019t reveal sign-up rates, London\u2019s Daily Mail reported that total sign-ups in the first week were just 51,000 people. If accurate, that would mean they have just 6,949,000 more to go to break even.”<\/p>\n

In other words, they basically have to get New York City enrolled.<\/p>\n

<\/a>“Bottom line: It turns out Obamacare is blowing itself up just fine without Republican help. Far from a few ‘glitches,\u2019 the president\u2019s signature program is in free fall after only a week. But instead of focusing on the Obamacare debacle, the news is filled with stories about … the government shutdown,” and what an rotten SOB Ted Cruz is and all the Republicans<\/a> are. “The irony is, the shutdown was intended to stop Obamacare. Instead, it is rescuing Obama from his own incompetence.”<\/p>\n

So Thiessen\u2019s ultimate point is if the thing would just start implementing, people would see what an absolute disaster it is. They\u2019re gonna see this soon enough, unless they delay the individual mandate, and if they do that, then they\u2019re delaying the guts of it. They are taking it right out. By the way, according to Bloomberg News<\/a>… Let me pile on, here. according to Bloomberg News, doctors and hospitals are now insisting that patients pay all of their deductibles up front before they will treat or even see you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a Bloomberg story. Look it up if you doubt me. “Patients Pay Before Seeing Doctor as Deductibles Spread,” is the slug line. Bloomberg News: “Doctors and hospitals are now insisting that patients pay all their deductibles up front.” Why do you think they\u2019re doing that? Because they know these patients don\u2019t have that money, and they\u2019re not gonna give free treatment. They\u2019re just not gonna do it. So they\u2019re saying, “Pay that deductible up front, or I don\u2019t treat you when the time comes.”<\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t have it! I don\u2019t have it!”<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s exactly right, you don\u2019t have it, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m not gonna sit here and treat you for free.”<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s a debacle, folks. It\u2019s an implosion. It\u2019s another reason why the media doesn\u2019t want to talk about it. It\u2019s an absolute disaster. There\u2019s nothing to be proud of. The truth is, Obamacare doesn\u2019t care about any of this. Don\u2019t doubt me. He doesn\u2019t care. This is minutia to him. That\u2019s are little details for other, you know, wonks and minions to figure out. He doesn\u2019t care. All he knows is, he got “health care.” He got socialized medicine, nationalized health care. He did it, it\u2019s done, he gets to control people.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all that matters to him.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: There\u2019s just one thing about Thiessen\u2019s piece I just read to you that I take issue with. I don\u2019t think people are missing what\u2019s happening with Obamacare just because of the shutdown and the Republicans did what they\u2019re doing. Republicans are not distracting people from what is happening with Obamacare because they\u2019re living it! It\u2019s happening to them. They can\u2019t get in. They\u2019re finding out what it\u2019s gonna cost.<\/p>\n

Wait\u2019ll this Bloomberg News story reaches \u2019em that they\u2019re gonna have to pay their deductible up front to certain hospitals and doctors. It doesn\u2019t matter what the Republicans are doing! People are living this. It\u2019s already being implemented. You know, just sit around and let the whole thing collapse? I\u2019m just tired of these excuses. “You know, the Republicans, if they weren\u2019t doing the shutdown, and people would really see how bad it is.” They already do see how bad it is!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: To Marc Thiessen\u2019s piece. “Obamacare is imploding. But thanks to the government shutdown, everyone is talking about the implosion of the GOP instead. The shutdown drama has distracted from the fact that Obamacare\u2019s debut is worse than many realize — and it threatens the fundamental viability of the law itself. 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