If you think the ObamaCare exchanges and premiums were bad …

… then Barack Obama’s hometown newspaper has news for you.  The initial shock of the premium increases and the incompetent use of $94 million [see update] to create the world’s biggest 404 exchange are just the starting shocks of ObamaCare.  Wait until people have to actually start using their new insurance, and perhaps the biggest surprise of all will be waiting:

Adam Weldzius, a nurse practitioner, considers himself better informed than most when it comes to the inner workings of health insurance. But even he wasn’t prepared for the pocketbook hit he’ll face next year under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

If the 33-year-old single father wants the same level of coverage next year as what he has now with the same insurer and the same network of doctors and hospitals, his monthly premium of $233 will more than double. If he wants to keep his monthly payments in check, the Carpentersville resident is looking at an annual deductible for himself and his 7-year-old daughter of $12,700, a more than threefold increase from $3,500 today.

“I believe everybody should be able to have health insurance, but at the same time, I’m being penalized. And for what?” said Weldzius, who is not offered insurance through his employer. “For someone who’s always had insurance, who’s always taken care of myself, now I have to change my plan?”

That’s right — not only have premiums doubled in the individual markets, the coverage has gotten worse in a very concrete way.  The new system has now opened a wide chasm between the employer and individual markets on actual cost coverage, too:

To promote the Oct. 1 debut of the exchanges, the online marketplaces where consumers can shop and buy insurance, Obama administration and Illinois officials touted the lower-than-expected monthly premiums that would make insurance more affordable for millions of Americans. But a Tribune analysis shows that 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.

Those deductibles, which represent the out-of-pocket money consumers must spend on health care before most insurance benefits kick in, are higher than what many consumers expected or may be able to stomach, benefit experts said.

By comparison, people who buy health insurance through their employer have an average individual deductible of just more than $1,100, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Bear in mind that Democrats claimed that the ObamaCare exchanges would make insurers treat individuals better in relation to group insurance plans.  Instead, they’ve made the markets for individuals even worse than before, thanks to the deluge of costly mandates imposed on insurers, who must pass the cost of risk pools to the consumers.

Via: Hot Air

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WI GOV. CALLS FOR $100 MILLION IN IMMEDIATE PROPERTY TAX RELIEF

This article originally appeared on watchdog.org.

MADISON – The tax cuts just keep on coming.

Gov. Scott Walker on Thursday proposed $100 million tax cut for property taxpayers. Walker said he would call a fall special session, and legislative leaders indicate the bill could pass in the next couple of weeks.

“That’s $100 million worth of tax relief for working families, senior citizens, farmers and small business owners all across the state,” Walker said. “For the third consecutive year (homeowners will) see a reduction of property tax levy for the median value home across the state of Wisconsin.”

Walker said property tax cut would be reflected in this year’s tax bill, but the total tax relief would be spread over the next two years.

“The more we looked at, the more we looked at the size of the surplus, we said if we’re going to do it, let’s go big and go bold,” Walker said. “Let’s have dramatic impact on the people of the state when they’re paying their property tax bill.”

The average property taxpayer figures to save $13 this December and $20 next year compared to current law, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

The $100 million in property tax relief follows a Republican-led budget that passed nearly a billion dollars in total tax relief — including a $650 million income tax cut.

The property tax cut comes out of an expected remaining general fund balance – or budget surplus – of nearly $200 million over the two-year budget.

Via: Human Events

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McAuliffe Short a Cool $14 Billion

Cuccinelli calls out 

the Party Animal 

on spending.

Ken Cuccinelli, Republican candidate for Governor in Virginia, has done the arithmetic and, as reported by Fred Kunkle of the Washington Post, says that his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, has made campaign promises totaling $14 billion in spending over four years, the length of a Virginia governor’s term of office. If the self-described Party Animal (the Democratic Party, that is) follows through on his promises, that would necessitate a tax increase of $1,700.00 on a typical family of four.

Back in July I had suggested that McAuliffe was careening, out of control, on spending:

McAuliffe may have a harder time practicing his Pavlovian Democratic politics in Virginia given the inability to practice deficit spending there like they do in Washington. He claims to be fiscally responsible while supporting almost any kind of spending program to solve every problem under the sun. I hope somebody in the Cuccinelli campaign is keeping a running tally of Terry’s promises and putting dollar figures next to them.

I am pleased that the Cuccinelli campaign has done this. But it is disturbing that the mainstream media, the Fourth Estate, did not do its job and connect the dots on what was an evolving story of magical liberalism in the platform of Terry McAuliffe.

Cuccinelli’s calculations are based on sources such as Chmura Analytics, an economic forecasting firm, and the left-of-centerCommonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, a Richmond think tank.

Via: American Spectator

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Rep. Brown Blames House for Shutdown: ‘Don’t Confuse Nobody With The Facts’

(CNSNews.com) -  “Let’s don’t confuse nobody with the facts,” Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) said during a congressional committee hearing where she made it clear that she blames the House for the government shutdown.

Rep. Brown made the comments during an Oct. 9 House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs hearing on the impact the shutdown is having on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

“Let me be clear, I keep hearing the Senate, the Senate, I put the responsibility straight here with the House. We could pass a clean CR and you would not be sitting here,” Brown told Veterans Affairs Secretary Gen. Eric Shinseki.

“I don’t blame the Senate,” Brown continued, “I thank God for the Senate. The bad politics of this House - and at some point let’s don’t confuse nobody with the facts," she added.

Via: CNS News

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Beck Tears Into ‘Sanctimonious Piece of Crap’ Bob Costas for Redskins Commentary

The last time NBC sportscaster Bob Costas weighed in on an issue of national controversy during Sunday night football, he admitted it was a “mistake,” but it clearly did not deter him from doing it again, this time with the controversy over the Redskins’ team name. This latest batch of commentary did not sit well withGlenn Beck, who had some tough words for Costas and his racial awareness.

RELATED: ESPN Columnist Defends ‘Washington Redskins’ Name, Outrage Ensues

Beck suspected Costas was going “senile” and maybe “it’s time for him to be wheeled down the hallway by the nurse,” before letting loose with what he really thought.

“You sanctimonious piece of crap. Why is it that all white people think that they have to correct all of the ills of–and protect everybody else? Because everybody else is so little-childlike needs-to-be-taken-care-of. What do these arrogant people think?”

Beck and his co-hosts touted a poll showing 90 percent of Native Americans don’t consider the term to be offensive, and Costas is just the powerful white man who feels he “needs to teach the poor little Indian that you should be offended.”

Beck said this was all part of the “progressive way,” though to date there have been at least two bigconservative voices (one of them a congressman) expressing their discomfort with the name.

Watch the video below, via BlazeTV:

Via: Mediaite.com

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No compromise for you, says soup-kitchen Obama

President Barack Obama interrupted the Senate budget talks Oct. 14 by publicly repeating his no-compromise demands shortly before Democrats and Republican leaders were slated to meet in his Oval Office.

“If Republicans aren’t willing to set aside their partisan concerns in order to do what’s right for the country, we stand a good chance of defaulting, and defaulting could have a potentially have a devastating affect on our economy,” Obama declared during a lunchtime photo-op at a soup kitchen in D.C.

Shortly after Obama’s super-sized partisanship, the White House announced that the pending Oval Office meeting was put on the back burner.

“The President’s 3:00 pm meeting with the bipartisan leadership has been postponed to allow leaders in the Senate time to continue making important progress towards a solution that raises the debt limit and reopens the government,” said the statement.

The statement did not say whether the Senate’s GOP and Democratic leaders are getting closer to agreement, of if the talks had broken down again.

Since September, Obama has repeatedly declared that the GOP must give up its demands for Obamacare reforms and for spending cuts, before he’ll provide his signature for the 2014 federal budget bills.

That strategy is likely designed to starve the GOP of political support prior to the 2014 midterm election.

Obama and his Senate allies have blocked numerous GOP funding bills, including some bills that do not cut spending or do not require popular reforms of Obama’s troubled takeover of the nation’s health sector.

Via: The Daily Caller

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GALLUP: OBAMA APPROVAL NEARS HISTORIC LOWS

Gallup's latest Presidential tracking poll finds that only 41% of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing. A solid majority, 53%, disapprove of the job he is doing. Obama's poll numbers are approaching the lowest of his Presidency, reached in October 2011, in the aftermath of the last debt ceiling debate. Gallup's latest numbers also show a dramatic drop in Obama's approval since immediately before the partial government shutdown. 

Obama's lowest approval ratings in the Gallup survey were in October, 2011. Just 38% of Americans approved of his job performance, while 54% disapproved. The results reported Monday are well within the poll's margin of error of that low. 

At the end of September, on the eve of the government shutdown and launch of ObamaCare, 44% of Americans approved of Obama's job performance, while 48% disapproved. Gallup's latest poll finds an 8-point swing against Obama since the start of the partial government shutdown. 

The conventional wisdom in DC and across the media is that the current fiscal stand-off hurts Republicans exclusively. Unfortunately, many Republican lawmakers seem to believe this as well. This belief prompted them last week to offer major concessions to end the fiscal stalemate. 

Obama rejected those offers, preferring to leave the threat of possible default on the table to extract more concessions. The Gallup poll, however, shows that this strategy is risky for Obama. If the stand-off exclusively hurt Republicans, one would have expected Obama's numbers to rise in the wake of the partial government shutdown. 

That clearly isn't the case today. 

Via: Breitbart

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[VIDEO] Gibbs: Obamacare Rollout ‘Excruciatingly Embarrassing’

​Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Monday described the rollout of Obamacare as “excruciatingly embarrassing” for the Obama administration.“This was bungled badly​,” he said. 

“I hope they’re working day and night to get this done and when they get it fixed, I hope they fire some people who were in charge of making sure this thing was supposed to work,” Gibbs told MSNBC. “This is excruciatingly embarrassing for the White House​ and the Department of Health and Human Services.” 

Gibbs dismissed the administration’s claim that the an influx of traffic has caused the websites’ glitches, and called on the president to fire those responsible for sites’ design.​ “This is not a server problem, like too many people came to the website — this is a website architecture problem,” he said. 

Via: NRO

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Retirement roulette is the new American normal

Deciding when to retire is one of the most important, and difficult, decisions an individual has to make, and it's not supposed to be a decision based on fear. That's exactly what's happening, though, across the United States. Fears of vanishing benefits have become a key factor for public sector workers nearing retirement age.

At the height of the recession in California, 9,500 public workers opted for retirement in 2010 rather than take the risk that budget slashing by the state capitol would leave them with less the longer they stayed in the system. That number has dropped to 8,000 through the first three quarters of 2013, but it's a "positive" economic data point that points to a larger, longer-term economic issue. California has recovered nicely from the financial crisis, reducing concern about an immediate legislative threat to benefits—California last year saw through changes in public sector benefits for new employees, which was a relief to existing, older workforce members.

Shires' family experienced the decision firsthand: his wife, a former city planner, was one of those eligible to retire but put off the decision once Governor Jerry Brown's retirement proposal was clearly only going to affect new hires. She faced a tradeoff between getting a lower annual payout by retiring earlier and the risks associated with the potential retirement reforms. Once those risks went away, she chose to delay her pension and to allow it to mature.

Via: CNBC

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CONSUMERS WARNED OF MISLEADING INSURANCE WEBSITES

Insurance regulators and an industry trade group warn that this month's rollout of the health insurance marketplaces created by federal law opened the door for bad actors at the same time that it gives brokers and agents a business opportunity.

New Hampshire's insurance commissioner sent a cease-and-desist letter last week to an Arizona company he accused of building a website that could mislead health care coverage shoppers into thinking it was the official New Hampshire marketplace. The site was taken down on Friday.

Regulators in Washington state and Pennsylvania also have told private agents to change websites that seemed likely to convince consumers they were connecting to government-run sites. Connecticut's insurance department warned agents and brokers this summer that it will take action against agents who mislead consumers or design sites to replicate the state-run exchange.

Via: AP

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Boxer Accuses GOP of Acting Like Domestic Abusers

(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Sen. Barbara Boxer likened GOP lawmakers to people who abuse their spouses on Monday when discussing the current government shutdown and the looming debt limit deadline.

The California Democrat, who, like most in her party, blames the lack of government funding and current impasse over raising the debt ceiling on Republicans who have insisted on passing measures aimed at dismantling the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

First she compared the current budget crisis to walking down the street on a nice day and then deciding to bash yourself in the head with a rock.

Then she said:

“It’s a self-inflicted wound. I never questioned, never questioned the fact that Republicans, Democrats, and independents love this country. Love this country. I never questioned it. But I have to say, when you start acting like you’re committing domestic abuse, you’ve got a problem. ‘I love you dear, but you know, I’m shutting down your entire government. I love you dear, but I’m going to default and you’re going to be weak.’ Something is dreadfully wron

Via: Roll Call

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