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The "Obamacare Shock" - One California Employer's Terrifying True Story
From a Zero Hedge reader:
My company, based in California, employs 600. We used to insure about 250 of our employees. The rest opted out. The company paid 50% of their premiums for about $750,000/yr.
Under obamacare, none can opt out without penalty, and the rates are double or triple, depending upon the plan. Our 750k for 250 employees is going to $2 million per year for 600 employees.
By mandate, we have to pay 91.5% of the premium or more up from the 50% we used to pay.
Our employees share of the premium goes from $7/week for the cheapest plan to $30/week. 95% of my employees were on that plan. Remember, we used to pay 50% now we pay 91.5% and the premiums still go up that much!!
The cheapest plan now has a deductible of $6350! Before it was $150. Employees making $9 to $10/hr, have to pay $30/wk and have a $6350 deductible!!! What!!!!
They can't afford that to be sure. Obamacare will kill their propensity to seek medical care. More money for less care? How does that help them?
Here is the craziest part. Employees who qualify for mediCAL (the California version of Medicare), which is most of my employees, will automatically be enrolled in the Federal SNAP program. They cannot opt out. They cannot decline. They will be automatically enrolled in the Federal food stamp program based upon their level of Obamacare qualification. Remember, these people work full time, living in a small town in California. They are not seeking assistance. It all seems like a joke. How can this be the new system?
Pelosi, pass the bill to find out what's in it? Surprise! You've annihilated the working class.
Q.E.D.
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From the numbers I have seen, it looks like almost anyone with a job will go bankrupt just trying to pay for this abortion.
Even paying no rent or buying no food will not be enough to pay for this scam. Millions of bankruptcies will begin next year.
Obviously, that is the overall plan, bankrupt and with hold medical treatment from 20-40 million citizens.
Is Q.E.D
bogus?
just sayin' cause the numbers he is providing don't pass a basic arithmetic test, either that or he failed to express hisself correctly
Dear Q.E.D
pls respond to the question I and others posed earlier
I must have missed what you are referring to. I can only find one claim in the article which can be tested with arithmetic and it doesn't seem to fail [regarding whether it really went up 2 or 3-fold, or so].
What did you notice?
#comment-4174811
a few comments above this one
look forward to the response
are you QED?
No.
'Just mathy and curious. ['And, apparently, not always all that fast.]
Oh wait, I got you.
Sounds like the author of the article mis-stated weekly for monthly or something like that [or was full of it].
exactly
for a headliner ZH article, that is highlighting the hardship for the downtrodden workers the numbers should add up within reason as in what other info is in error or complete political BS
you would think QED would have an interest in responding, moreover if his other numbers are somewhat reflective of reality costs actually did not go up that much (notwithstanding the deductible) but at this point my vote is that this is a Bogus politically motivated article worthy of the DailyKos but not ZH
Well . . . we're all "human", you know.
('If only we were all such critical thinkers.)
This story sounds like many that are false. A $150 deductible is probably a "cadillac plan" which I doubt this slave-driver provided (since the vast majority of his employees qualified for MediCAL, it is clear that he pays them next to nothing). There is no way that a person ends up with a $6350 deductible and qualifies for MediCAL and SNAP.
Could the ACA Bill have problems and mistakes? Of course!! Remember who wrote the bill: the insurance companies. Why do we suddenly trust insurance companies and their lobbyists?
I have little faith in the government or insurance companies. However, almost 90,000 people have signed up for the exchanges in CA (as of yesterday). So someone must be finiding plans that do not have $6350 deductibles.
This story sounds like it belongs on Fox News or the Drudge report.
The vast majority of those who have signed up (I think it has been reported), were signing up for Medicaid or other such subsidies. 'Those who actually had to pay for their own policy . . . not so much.
Historically, I believe I have read, they always sign up at the very last minute with these kinds of plans. So what will it be in about 38 days?
Agree, and i am surprised ZHers don't spot the phony story right in front of them. Sure Obama care sucks, but we are a company in Pa, we kept our plan, and i have yet to see anyone upset about anything. Same premiums, same everything. This story is a pack of lies.
Between pushing Bitcoin and this story i am worried about ZH lately.
Agreed.
Dear ZH,
I am junior a small midwestern college. I never thouught this would happen to me but when it did I knew I had to write in. I have never been a huge hit with the ladies but when these two co-eds stopped buy to ask for a cup of sugar, well...........
well considering it's overrun with right-wing extremists, i'd say it's time TD migrated again.
This story needs to be picked up by the mainstream media. Fox News needs to find this company and do the story.
There's more to this than you're explaining.
As someone that has looked for affordable insurance in the last 5 years, I know you're missing out some information.
These policies are typically catastrophic policies, meaning the deductible is waived for catastrophic care. And also the deductible is waived for certain preventative care, like yearly phsycials, blood tests, etc.
I realize your main goal is to demonize Obama and ACA, so I can understand why you'd leave out relevant information that may hinder your propaganda.
These are the best policies for poor folks.
Just in case we all forgot with all this Obamacare drama...
BENGHAZI SCANDAL
NSA SCANDAL
IRS SCANDAL
AP SCANDAL
FAST & FURIOUS
*insert latest scandal here*
*insert latest scandal here*
*insert latest scandal here*
*insert latest scandal here*
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
Sure but the guys all get free birthcontrol, breast exams and abortions. Whiner.
If you have pre-existing conditions-you can keep them...
Oh...almost forgot: If you like your President-you can keep him too....
The appropriate question to ask at this stage is 'how the fuck is it still alive?' I think this is where the economists ought to gracefully bow out and let the theoretical physicists take over.
Obviously worthy of a False rating on Snopes, this article is a big pile of garbage. And i agree O-care sucks, but don't make shit up.
Pelosi is from California right? Well, I heard, that she said,
“When People See What’s in the Bill They Will Like It”GEE WHIZ, Guess you dumb liberal fucks from California should vote smarter!
wow, what a thoughtful, intelligent, and enlightening post. thanks!
what if you divided your 600 person company into 13 different llc. have each llc as a vendor to the main company. it would require a lot of thought and paper and etc. but i think it could be gotten away with. say 40 people work in the department that ship and track. make that into one llc. pay them for their services as a vendor. have that llc take care of its 40 employees, paychecks workers comp, insurance. etc. etc.
just trying to use my head for thinking,
could this possibly help out our fellow zhers that have more than 50 employees?
also allows for a lot of shell=game sort of shuffling that can be very helpful with all sorts of things.
okay, now commence to call me stupid, go on, i can take it
Obamacare is proof that Obanana supporters are even stupider than everyone thought.
Obama Say's that Bitcoin's will bring you freedom ...
"That's all good, but Bitcoin is important for far more than money-making. It is crucial for FREEDOM." - Obama
It is a stake that we can put through the hearts of our barbarian overlords. ( He's talking about the Republicans )
Get Bitcoin, USE it, take it as payment, tell your local stores that you won't buy unless they accept it. (Take your gains by buying things with it.)
The more value that flows through the Bitcoin economy, the less that flows through the slave economy ( black market ).
ACT for FREEDOM!
***"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose" - janis joplin
Put your USD into BTC and you will lose all, ...then you will KNOW real freedom.
From top to bottom the BTC pools and exchanges are ran by the lowest creeps on the planet. Russian Mafia, Japan Mafia, Chinese Mafia they're all majority investors in all the closed pools that are doing all the real 'mining'.
I hate the USA too, but giving your money to this mafia just makes them stronger.
The USA is collapsing and a new MAFIA is getting rich, and you can be sure they will be BUYING GOLD with their BTC's, cuz the MOB knows that when this CON is over, they know to be holding land or gold.
It's a scary thought that post USA collapse that we can look forward to the fact that criminal enterprises that make team-bush/obama look like fairy's will be ruling the world.
Insurance is a 'racket', its meaningless, Buffet ( berkshire ) got rich by changing the model from actuarial to 100% profit, by creating the modern insuranace model.
"DENY CLAIMS, COLLECT PREMIUMS"
All insurance now follows this model, from house to auto to medical to death.
None of this is surprising, its only logical that if you can't deny claims in court, then you make the deductible so high that payout by an insurance company never happens.
Again, thank Buffet for this modern model, and all those who invested in BERK.A, for they got rich, by destroying America.
Cant speak to the rest of the story, but qualifying for a state program and automatically getting enrolled in a federal program that has just had its funding cut, is flat out bullshit.
Which means of course you have to question the rest of it.
While I didn't read all the comments, I read hundreds, and while there is lots of bitching about "Obamacare" there isn't any bitching directed at the points of Control... imagine all the energy wasted when Congress is effectively given a pass.
If you like your form of government, you can keep your form of government.
But you must focus.
haha. You've all been trolled. I just signed up for the silver plan through Blue Cross. My premium is $246/mo and $500 deductible. The last time I shopped healthcare last year, the lowest quote was $784/mo $500 deductible.
Oh my, so many new faces and names in this place. Good times back in the day. This shit is just sad.
"Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!"
Crash Overide
_________________
One man's hope and change strategy is another's man's scandal. Try as I may since Eliot Janeway on Wall Street Week around 1981 said he advised the President to export as much as possible of the #1 commodity of the world -- long term US bonds I cannot find deception as to US monetary policy as enacted by Congress and ratified by the Administration and Judiciary.
By 1987 US was no longer a creditor country but a debtor country. Monetary policy became one of little, zero or negative savings rates with MMT monetizing debt. I listened to dozens of wrap-ups by the most awarded US historians on the Bush 43 administration. Less than 5% mentioned the US debt growth as being his crowning achievement. More presidential historian Pulitzer Prize winners thought reading a children's book to a class of children after he was briefed on the initial 9/11 attack would be remembered more in history than the toxic synthetic derivative driven global credit freeze.
IMO Obama's strategy was an open book based upon "The Corporation" documentary for those preferring watching TV or movies to reading. There is a mission and strategies that most voters want for America including 55% of Virginians earning over $200,000 annually who voted in the mid-term election.
Clifford Stoll in "The Cuckoo's Egg" (1989) reported the three levels of understanding for code writers:
Surface includes the birthplace SCOTUS drama to the PPACA stuff-up as "scandals" rather than as base tribal/anti-establishment instinct appeals to confuse, divide and conquer those opposing what you call "scandals".
Subsurface is to not just beat the GOP but to bury the GOP to stack the Judiciary to approve the very things the FT says about ZH.
Hidden meaning or understanding is the paternalistic premise of The Corporation espoused by philosophers and Conquerors before they fall whom we know since Babylonia.
OK. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I just don't give a fuck anymore. People bitch about details, when the fkn problem is that they bitch about details. They just can't seem to grasp that their particular issue amounts to a grain in a wheat field.
There are people here that I love, and I hope they know that.
Shit.
premium went to $850 from $575. Deductible went to $6,350 from $3,000. THROW ALL THE INCUMBENTS OUT.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/578/
The English Parliament of 1688 did a certain thing, which, for themselves and their constituents, they had a right to do, and which it appeared right should be done. But, in addition to this right, which they possessed by delegation, they set up another right by assumption, that of binding and controlling posterity to the end of time. The case, therefore, divides itself into two parts; the right which they possessed by delegation, and the right which they set up by assumption. The first is admitted; but with respect to the second, I reply there never did, there never will, and there never can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the "end of time," or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; and therefore all such clauses, acts or declarations by which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void. Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or of any other period, had no more right to dispose of the people of the present day, or to bind or to control them in any shape whatever, than the parliament or the people of the present day have to dispose of, bind or control those who are to live a hundred or a thousand years hence. Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. When man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing who shall be its governors, or how its government shall be organised, or how administered.
I am not contending for nor against any form of government, nor for nor against any party, here or elsewhere. That which a whole nation chooses to do it has a right to do. Mr. Burke says, No. Where, then, does the right exist? I am contending for the rights of the living, and against their being willed away and controlled and contracted for by the manuscript assumed authority of the dead, and Mr. Burke is contending for the authority of the dead over the rights and freedom of the living. There was a time when kings disposed of their crowns by will upon their death-beds, and consigned the people, like beasts of the field, to whatever successor they appointed. This is now so exploded as scarcely to be remembered, and so monstrous as hardly to be believed. But the Parliamentary clauses upon which Mr. Burke builds his political church are of the same nature.
The laws of every country must be analogous to some common principle. In England no parent or master, nor all the authority of Parliament, omnipotent as it has called itself, can bind or control the personal freedom even of an individual beyond the age of twenty-one years. On what ground of right, then, could the Parliament of 1688, or any other Parliament, bind all posterity for ever? . . .
We are now got at the origin of man, and at the origin of his rights. As to the manner in which the world has been governed from that day to this, it is no farther any concern of ours than to make a proper use of the errors or the improvements which the history of it presents. Those who lived an hundred or a thousand years ago, were then moderns, as we are now. They had their ancients, and those ancients had others, and we also shall be ancients in our turn. If the mere name of antiquity is to govern in the affairs of life, the people who are to live an hundred or a thousand years hence, may as well take us for a precedent, as we make a precedent of those who lived an hundred or a thousand years ago. The fact is, that portions of antiquity, by proving everything, establish nothing. It is authority against authority all the way, till we come to the divine origin of the rights of man at the creation. Here our enquiries find a resting-place, and our reason finds a home. If a dispute about the rights of man had arisen at the distance of an hundred years from the creation, it is to this source of authority they must have referred, and it is to this same source of authority that we must now refer.
Though I mean not to touch upon any sectarian principle of religion, yet it may be worth observing, that the genealogy of Christ is traced to Adam. Why then not trace the rights of man to the creation of man? I will answer the question. Because there have been upstart governments, thrusting themselves between, and presumptuously working to un-make man.
If any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by which the world should be governed for ever, it was the first generation that existed; and if that generation did it not, no succeeding generation can show any authority for doing it, nor can set any up. The illuminating and divine principle of the equal rights of man (for it has its origin from the Maker of man) relates, not only to the living individuals, but to generations of men succeeding each other. Every generation is equal in rights to generations which preceded it, by the same rule that every individual is born equal in rights with his contemporary.
ACA isn't even in place... wait until this clusterfuck really starts to roll in gov't waste. When I look at what I pay in taxes including ACA tax, I could sit on the beach in another country and never pay another tax.
well, of course they qualify for SNAP 18-20k a year gross (which winds up being, what, 14-15K after taxes?) is impossible to live on even for one person in california.
You might want to remind your employees that elections have consequences. I do not in the slightest feel sorry for the sheeple in CA. You keep sending total morons like Nan to Congress, so what do you expect? You allowed them to "run the ship"; now like rats it's time to jump.
http://vegasxau.blogspot.com
That's why Obamacare tries to force you into health insurance. Because it's worthless. After paying the premiums and the deductible for 2 years I just said fuckit and dropped it. If I get in an accident I'll go into emergency and get patched up and then as soon as possible I'll fly overseas to a country with reasonable care and prices. In the meantime I run 4 miles 3 times a weak and stay really healthy. In the end if I die from this stupidity of a health care system then I just die and I accept that.
Now people are getting it through their lame ass heads. That's one part of it the other recent development is that Obama or the bamks that tell him what do have decided to have the US support Iran, roll out the stazi and have the rest of the world nuke the US for our atrocities.
Welcome to the revolution M'Fers.
The author thinks he's making a shocking statement when he says that Obamacare will kill the middle class. Well, wasn't that the point?! If Obamacare puts huge increased financial burdens upon employers to provide medical care to its employees, businesses will either have to cough up the $ (therefore cutting into profits) or start dumping employees to avoid the increased financial burden. Those dumped employees will most likely end up a "ward" of the government (iow, they'll be on food stamps, get housing assistance, medicaid, etc). Some will say that you can't have a society where a vast swath of the population exists on the dole of government (or rather taxes from the employed minority). Civil unrest will ensue insofar as those working will become outraged at having to pay for the "feeders" (the majority who are now unemployed or underemployed). Government will propose multiple solutions such as telling those receiving housing vouchers that these are no longer available and that if formerly vouchered individuals want free roofs over their heads they are more that welcome to stay at any one of our decommissioned military bases, prisons, or FEMA Camps (you know, the ones which don't exist but do). Others who don't comply with Obamacare and fail to pay their "tax penalty" will also be put in these facilities after being arrested for tax evasion. Of course, these facilities will be managed not by the US Govt but control will be handed over to some private outfit which will be paid by the government to supervise the "feeders" and tax deadbeats. The private company will soar on Wall Street (due to its new found revenue source) and the markets as a whole will soar because government expenditures on entitlements will be rock bottom hence various economic indicators should start upon positive trajectories (er um, the unemployment rate should fall for one since these people will not be filing claims). Eventually the remaining working public will demand to know why their tax dollars are continually paying for the upkeep of the now much hated "feeder" and tax dodging population. The ultimate and most cost effective solution comes into play at this point for government: extermination of the non-working, "feeder" population and the tax dodgers. Quick, easy, and a huge savings of tax dollars once no one is left to be taken care of. Fantasy? Maybe not. A little German guy was quite successful in his implementation of a version of this scheme and he didn't work half as hard at the set up as this Administration has.
PS If govt wants to get rid of the burdens of Social Security and Medicare, all it has to do is set up the same rules: If you want your SSI benefits and/or Medicare, you can get them only if you move into these facilities. Those that do, will eventually be exterminated just like the other "feeders" on the system.
...and so the merry go round of setting up parameters for a group to receive something from the govt and the eventual extermination of the recipient group until all groups who'd ever take a cent from govt coffers are gone and the remaining population will exist for no other reason than to feed the hungry monster of government via taxation or face extermination themselves.
Despite this, it would appear that the Democrats will be returned to office in 2016. So what is next on the step to nationalised control?
The real issue is not this system, but what will follow. My suspicion is that the burden will be moved from insurance to general federal taxation - mainly due to the unafforability issue. The weight will be instantly spread again and the immediate feeling will be one of relief by the working classes who will find that the middle classes will now shoulder the burden of paying for their healthcare much more heavily.
But then you have to control the costs at source, so how do you stop the drugs companies and hospitals simply charging what they like? You create a national pricing structure - i.e. you largely outlaw private medicine and move to a command system where the vast majority of work is carried out under a federal pricing structure, paid by the government from taxation.
Will this make medicine cheaper? It will for the people at the bottom who pay little tax, but it will reduce the quality of the offering if the UK experience is anything to judge by. Healthcare, once in the grip of politicians will always be an election issue, and therefore a 'Democrat' issue where they can promise more and more (and no-ne can be elected promising less). You can simply scare the population into voting for you by implying that the other side will 'let you die'.
It's madicaid (politically) with knobs on.
At the same time, the US system has been an absolute mess for years by the sounds of it, with the insurance companies making a killing. Why did government allow it to become so expensive?
This is precisely what we have been planning here for now for two full years.
The middle class in the West is being systematically destoyed by corruption and cronyism and it is not about to stop.
It cannot stop, as far as the deviants are in power are concerned, because to attempt to try to do will destroy many of them. They truly believe it can last as long as the middle classes an the SME's have to make a living, then they will forever be under their control.
After all, they surmise, whats your alternative.
Well we do have an alternative for SME's.
We offshore into a private corporation owned by the directors and owners on the US SME, whereby they can effectively outsource to thier own captive private outsourcing company.
It is and never wll be accounatble to the US authoritys in any way as it is entirely under a foreign jurisdiction.
This is where you can outsourse to your own private outsource company all the back office jobs, the non customer facing jobs and save an average of between 65 and 75 % of US costs.
Thats an average of $700,000 pa just to offshore 25 jobs. or another way if you believe your SME has a value of 5x P / E then it can add $3.5 million to valuation.
It effectivley removes the need to downsize to get under the obummer limit, it effectively helps you from needing to cut hours as much as you may do. It helps you retain the best staff to keep ypour business growing. and it saves you from bankruptcy if you are close to the wire.
It cuts cots dramaticaly and it provides a sheter and an offshor store of wealth.
Please see www.ukasiagroup.biz for more imformation.
Contact point is also there
This is serious, those SME's who fail to take action now will get truly hammered and only those making serious plansds now could survive if you already find business depressing.
We are also looking for smart people who can understand this and talk to SME's and in the process earn a very very high income.
Its time to take the fight to them
This story seem's fake, and it originated here on ZH, and then spread like wildfire all over,
I searched all over the internet and found no permutation of this story older than the original ZH post
So the question beg's on what basis does ZH OP's decide to post this shit? How does it help Ron Paul?
**
The USA medical system eats donkey-sperm, all know that.
Want to be taken care of when sick? Go to CUBA or Venezuela where medical is so cheap its almost free, cuz there they 'coin' doctors by the zillion, and they don't make shit,the way it should be NO AMA, and NO INSURANCE racket.
To put it simply, ashes, ashes, they all fall down.
That is a real horror story!
But what this employer doesn't understand is that this was all done by design. It was INTENDED to "annihilate the working class".It was intended to create a permanent dependency on the state.
Obama learned at Columbia that they must intentionally bring "fiscal collapse" (their words, not mine) to the US government. He was literally steeped in plans throughout his years there to bring an intentional collapse of the US government. They PLANNED it that way. Others who were there have testified of those plans, and that they were widespread and well-known at Columbia. Frances Fox Piven and Peter Dreier were two collaborators. Obama HIRED Dreier for his campaign staff because of Dreier's plan for "fiscal collapse".
The real endgame is to 1) collapse the US government, and 2) to incite Obama's booboisie to an American Bolshevik Revolution to impose a permanent Marxist state in America. That's not my opinion; it's THEIRS!
Exactly.
One wonders how much the Reds may have led on the banksters. Lots of money there, and Reds like money, too. Especially if nobody else has any.
The banksters thought they controlled Hitler until they did not.
Always watch the other hand.
William Ayers has invested his whole life to overthrow America. There are many, many just like him.
"OK, Mr Smith, your income is 30K/year. With generous Obuttfuck subsidies, your Obuttfuck Care (TM) comes to 35K/year. Oh, and there is a 6500$ deductible."
"Thanks. I guess I will kill myself now."
"We have guns or cyanide pills, your choice. Only 20$."
A real shocker, but not really a surprise shocker. Got lube?