Obamacare Compilation in order of publication
(from most recent)
Obamacare’s Winners
Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com
In our compilation on Obamacare last year (read here) we identified a few of the real winners associated with this vast government intrusion into our lives. One of them was Stephen Hemsley, President of UnitedHealth Group (UNH ticker) and other grossly over-compensated employees. Hemsley himself was paid more than $48 million in 2011. His compensation is tied directly to the company’s stock performance.
Who stood (and stands to continue) to benefit?
Here’s a graphic of UNH’s stock fluctuation since before and after Obama’s Affordable Care Act announcement in early 2009, from 2004 to 2014 to-date:
The dip in the middle of the chart represents the stocks lowest value as of February 2009. From there it was all up hill.
Who benefits from Obamacare? Need you ask?
In related news, the AFL-CIO has released its latest compensation figures for America: Average CEO Compensation for all industries in 2012, $5,222,474.
Average income of all occupations for the same period, $34,635.
From us: Average Walmart compensation for all workers, $12 per hour for fulltime; less than $9 for part-time.
A True Obamacare Story
Editor
Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com
Friends of the Editors recently reported the following:
“We are retired...and up until two years ago were insured through Blue Cross who were continually raising our monthly premiums beyond all reasonableness: We rarely visited a doctor or the emergency room at the local hospital, and if we did we paid the bill ourselves.
“Blue Cross never had to even consider a claim regarding us, let alone pay anything. So, since we were financially able to pay our own way, we elected to drop coverage and save the premium to a savings account to defer any future expenses.
“We’re only a year away from qualifying for Medicare now.
“Our perspective on the Health Care industry is that it is rife with corruption, fraud, incompetence, and dominated by Pharmaceuticals, rather than the actual practice of Medicine.
“We were pretty content until completing our taxes this last year and being reminded and forewarned by TurboTax that we faced a likely fine of $61 at that moment in time, for failing to follow the prescribed Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) guidelines.
“TurboTax directed us to the relevant site - one you (http://TheIndependentDaily.com) had written about last year as being non-functional - and although it remains still filled with glitches and malfunctions, we were able to complete and enroll in a health plan considered “Catastrophic” whereby we would pay a part of whatever expenses were incurred (but not much).
“The premium for this mediocre coverage? More than $12,000 per year. How much do we pay monthly for this coverage? Nothing. Will we use the provided coverage? No: From our perspective, the Cure is worse than the Disease today. We are not takers of drugs, either legal or otherwise. We have both lived our lives in a remarkable way (particularly by today’s standard) and when it’s done...it’s done.
“So, rather than face the $61 fine, our government now provides more than $12,000 annually in premiums to our health care provider. (Emphasis added.)
“And we wonder why our country is in such a state today...”
The above is, I have no doubt, an absolutely true account of this couple’s experience. We told you last year that Obamacare was intended to accomplish one primary goal: to enrich those involved in Healthcare. What further proof does even the simplest mind need?
Read, Obamacare: A Ravenous Wolf in Socialists Clothing (in our compilation on the subject here). Read it yourself, and learn.
More than that, when you vote this November, remember who was responsible for this added, fiscally irresponsible cluster fiasco.
-Ed
Two News Items Worth Repeating
Editor
Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com
Unitedhealth Group has increased its dividend payment to shareholders, and we’ll guess will also bestow millions more on its CEO, Stephen Hemsley, as a direct benefit of Obamacare: Read, A True Obamacare Story, below, and read, Obamacare: A Ravenous Wolf in Socialists Clothing (in our compilation on the subject here). Read it yourself, and learn.
April’s Trade Deficit has increased to a record high of more than $47 billion. We cannot - cannot - re-stabilize our economy if you continue to buy Made in China junk. Read, Herro Amelica, here, and read, All About Chinese Products, here.
Overall it begs the (rhetorical) question,
“How goddamn stupid are you, America?”
White House Announces 8 Million Victims in Consumer Fraud Scam known as Obamacare
Editor
Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com
On April 1 2014, coincidentally April Fool’s Day, the White House announced that enrollment in Obamacare had topped 7 Million, or about 1/6th of the uninsured in America, according to their figures.
That means that when and if these new enrollees begin paying premiums, Stephen Hemsley of Unitedhealth Group, read Obamacare’s Winners, below, will likely see a nice jump in his annual income of around $50 Million. Good for him; good for Obama. Unfortunately, it doesn’t change the fact that the Affordable Care Act isn’t.
Read, Obamacare, a Compilation, here. And, no, it isn’t a “Done Deal” as he qualifies this act of fraud. The only Done Deal is that this president will be recorded in the annals of history as a charlatan and liar.
Doctor, Doctor, Give me the news...
I got a bad case of loathing you.
Staff
Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com
Sorry Robert Palmer. The fact is that if you missed the Washington Post exposé on medical care in America, you missed a lot, and probably the obvious. Read it and learn how the American Medical Association (AMA) has striven to change the face of medical care by boosting physician compensation to obscene and, most important, fraudulent new highs.
Physician pay being far in excess of reality is nothing new: America’s doctors make three times that of those in any other developed country because you have bought into the cult built around this profession of pill-pushing mostly glorified diagnosticians.
When combined with hospital billing practices, such as those I encountered with Kingman Regional Medical Center, locally, where they billed for a second, invisible and ultimately incapable physician, elusive procedures that did not occur, and medication not provided, Obamacare is sure to be a financial windfall for physicians and other Health Care professionals, facilities, as well as for America's primary insurers.
Read what follows, and don’t miss the Washington Post article.
Obamacare: A Foreword
In an obscure article on July 18, 2013 you would have read that UnitedHealth Group has posted record profits of $30 billion for the Second Quarter yielding a 12% increase from the prior year as a result of increased enrollments (those anticipating Obamacare’s at-present deadline for coverage in order to avoid the government’s penalty).
Follow these simple words: Obamacare’s purpose is to transfer what little wealth you have left to people like Stephen Hemsley: read, A Ravenous Wolf in Socialist Clothing, below.
What can you do about it? For that matter, What may one do about the NSA and the myriad other actions taken by Democrats and Republicans alike to further denigrate America?
Obamacare: A Ravenous Wolf in Socialist Clothing
Editor
Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com
Indisputably, at no time in history has a plan to so vastly enrich the few been more carefully crafted than the Affordable Care Act (ACA): A more clever and deceitful orchestration is unimaginable, and Obamacare, as it is sometimes called, will become the textbook example of how to gather up to 50 million additional consumers at the checkout line for a product that many of them do not want or need.
50 million at an average of $2,000 per consumer, or total annual revenue increase to America’s Health Care Insurance Providers of at least $100 Billion. That’s $100,000,000,000.00 in added sales every year to, among others:
Our Nation’s #1 Health Care Insurance Provider is UnitedHealth Group, Inc., headed by Stephen Hemsley: Annual compensation, not including stock ownership returns, more than $48 million in 2011. Hemsley also saw a 42.3% increase in the value of his personally-held company stock following the Supreme Court’s ruling permitting Obamacare to continue. In 2011, two of his underlings, George Milkan and Gail Boudreaux were compensated $14.8 million and $13.9 million, respectively. $80 million in compensation during 2011, alone, for just these three employees.
The Nations #2 Health Care Insurance Provider is WellPoint, whose name accurately describes CEO Angela Braly’s compensation that, during 2011, exceeded $13 million. She owns 476,503 shares of WellPoint, too. Today’s value, at about $82 per share, puts her investment in Obamacare at a net value of more than $39,000,000.00. Braly also holds a position on the board of Proctor & Gamble. Total 2011 compensation, $281,262.00. She owns 13,820 shares of P&G. Value? A little more than $1 million.
Kaiser Foundation Health’s George Halverson was compensated a total of $6.7 million in 2009, the last year for which data is available. Kaiser is America’s #3 insurance carrier.
Mark T. Bertolini – CEO of Aetna Group – the Nation’s #4 Health Care Insurance Provider, was compensated $8.8 million in 2010. He also owns $26 million in today’s value of Aetna stock.
#5 in the US: Humana Group’s Mark McCallister was compensated $3.3 million in 2010. He owns more than $20 million in stock.
Consider how this sham was foisted on the American consumer:
Foremost, most of us have come to believe that there are evil diseases, just as there are Terrorists, everywhere, and all of our behaviors are potentially lethal. Only one thing can prevent our premature death: America’s Health Care system wherein we must undergo extensive radiological tests and diagnostics, chemical rehabilitation, and sustained on-going “life-saving” treatments offered through Pharmaceuticals. And, although there are numerous, serious side effects associated with the drugs being compounded in our digestive tracts and bloodstreams, we are likely to, perhaps, live a bit longer as a result. This pleases us: It makes us feel part of a system and important in a world where our individuality is lost in a sea of anonymity and technology; where relationships have fallen to the wayside; It’s a very good thing to be seen by anyone as important, and we are...to America’s Health Care profitability.
As an aside, this is why Obamacare does not penalize alcohol and drug use as it does tobacco: Alcohol and Drug dependencies both require extensive intervention and care by today’s treatment schema using numerous Health Care resources, thus adding to its profitability. If you drive while drunk or under the influence of drugs, or commit any number of other criminal acts, all the better because you are then supporting the Criminal Justice System, remembering that no other country in the world imprisons more of its citizens than the United States. If you smoke while driving, there is a probability that you will ash on yourself, and at the moment that is not a crime.
So, since we manufacture little in America today, and recognizing that there is a vast pool of potential profits lying untapped in the ocean of uninsured or self-insured (a term not recognized in Health Care, but legitimate in all other functions of commerce), Democrat Obama, criticized as Socialist, advances the idea of universal health coverage for all Americans (idealized amongst the muddle-headed masses as Socialized Medicine), who thus lend their support believing that the result will be something akin to the open, relatively free-of-charge medical coverage afforded citizens of many countries elsewhere in the world.
The Republicans in both the House and Senate feign indignation charging that the ACA is un-American, whatever that may mean by today’s convoluted standard, recognizing that those CEOs and others listed above, and many others in America’s corpulent Health Care Industry – who have generously given to their campaigns – are the ACA’s beneficiaries: Political theater for the American public.
In clear violation of the Constitution, flying in the face of Democratic Freedom of Choice in fact, the plan wins approval by the US Supreme Court who have been thoroughly lobbied by both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and House who are in support of the ACA, notwithstanding what you may have heard or understood, because their actual constituency - the people who genuinely matter to either party’s leadership - are those listed above: not the average Health Care consumer.
In a recent AP article, Kelli Kennedy describes how Francois Louis, a young black American male who falls into the additional demographic of 18-24 year old, has elected to pay the penalty next year rather than secure coverage under the mandated ACA. Working two jobs, while attending college fulltime, he earns about $40,000 per year before taxes. Under the provisions of the ACA he will have to pay, after federal credit for his income status, about $2,900 in premiums for insurance he “won’t use” owing to his perspective on today’s spiraling Health Care costs and for a myriad of other well thought-out reasons.
Kennedy also describes the Health Care Insurance Industry’s desperate cries for equity citing that young people, who use only one-fifth of the services of the more elderly, per the Health Insurance Industry, must participate to ensure balance and profitability, offsetting the costs of sustaining we “older” people.
Profitability? How does one condition profitability on the basis of any demographic when the CEO of the company is paid $48 million in one year?
An older demographic: Seeking early retirement, an Arizona couple elected to remain self-insured, footing any health care bills without insurance company assistance. In the seven year period preceding the ACA mandate they had accumulated a little more than $22,000 in health care costs, paying the providers without benefit of insurance, in full.
Premiums under Obamacare would have been in excess of $5,000 per year for what is termed Catastrophic coverage, meaning that the deductible, $10,000 would have to be paid out of pocket, along with 30% of the actual costs. Total seven-year premiums, $35,000, plus $10,000 deductible, plus $4,500 representing 30% out of pocket, for a total of $49,500 under the ACA, rather than the actual $22,000 incurred. This couple has denied the Health Care Insurance system of potential profits, and they are, therefore, acting in the best financial interests of themselves rather than America. They are Insurance Terrorists.
Regardless of how the Supreme Court has ruled, the ACA is beyond un-Constitutional: it is patently offensive. Its intent is to reward those who honored Obama and all Republicans and Democrats in both Houses with their financial and vote-garnering support during their last successful campaigns.
It’s purpose is to bring an additional 50 million Americans to the butcher block of America’s Health Care Insurance companies allowing them to gorge more deeply on those of us who believe in Freedom of Choice and have hitherto remained beyond the grasp of their claws and the glint of their fangs. It is the ultimate corruption in a society that has gone desperately wrong.
Recall the popular phrase used by the prior administration to garner support for a war based on profits: Never Forget. The Revolution is at hand and could take place on November 4, 2014. On that date all 435 seats in the House will be on the ballot and 33 of 100 in the US Senate.
Two-Party politics brought us to where we are today.
Vote Independent or it will only get worse.
Obamacare: Opting Out
Editor
Editor@TheIndependentDaily.com
Ever think about converting to one of America’s lesser-known religions? Have you ever contemplated the many financial benefits of being an American Indian? Do you strongly disagree with the provisions of Obamacare and see it as a just another Constitution-crushing government intrusion in your life? Do you have a few friends with whom you might agree on a charter on which your very own religion might be based?
Let’s say that tonight, as an example, an angel bathed in a divine golden light (very important imagery: Angelic Light) visits you in your darkened room. (Visitations do not occur in highly illuminated work areas or in the middle of Walmart, as an example, owing to the starkly overwhelming glare of fluorescent lights, so make certain that it was very dark - the darker the better.)
Record in your journal that at that moment you were appropriately dressed and not in the middle of some obscene act with another person or, worse, deriving Onanistic pleasure. (Also, Visitations do not occur while one is reading or playing Yahtzee on an iPad on the toilet: No angel would be that unthoughtful.) The angel says that he is a Messenger from God. His name is The Angel Murray. (Murray is only a suggestion.)
Since one must always refer to angels by their full and complete names in the religion’s various tracts or treatises, The Angel Murray directs you to the base of a tree somewhere near a recently landscaped Starbucks at a strip mall not far from your home, and tells you to dig at the base of the tree to a depth of three feet. And it shall come to pass that in that hole will be buried the ancient history of a people who really originally populated North America - prior to either our Indians or Lehi or whomever. (Archaeological or other scientific evidence is not necessary: we’re talking religion here.)
From this beginning premise it’s entirely up to you. The creative individual may write whatever they wish and, after running a government gauntlet or two you’ll have a certified belief - an organized religion: The Church of Latter Day Believers of The Angel Murray, as an example, or the Church of Murrayology. Be advised, though, and this is very important, at some point in whatever you fabricate within this translated ancient treatise ought to be the words, “And thou shall not subscribe to, or pay into, a plan for the care of one’s health other than His, God, the Almighty, and the Curer of all Things that plague thee, through Prayer, Meditation or sitting about watching a good DVD and getting Baked.” (Note: The rules of capitalization and grammar are suspended when scripting religious tracts. Also, Pot, like Peyote and wine, is fashionably acceptable in approved religions.)
Congratulations. You’re now likely exempt from the ACA along with a string of other groups and individuals who had the foresight to do what you just did a few decades ago, some during the 19th Century when America was experiencing a vast growth in worship-related bullshit - the Great Awakening.
You do know that the ACA (Affordable Care Act, or affectionately, Obamacare) provides for specific guidelines to opt-out of this convoluted, bureaucratic scheme to substantially enhance revenue for America’s Health Care Providers and Insurers, don’t you?
It does. Currently, the new guidelines issued by Health and Human Services (DHHS) may be found in a 139 page document, available online as a .pdf file here. American Indians and those individuals and religious groups who object to its provisions may file a request to be exempted. For Hardship reasons, too.
The application is sent to a very low-level bureaucrat somewhere in the bowels of DHHS who is also a Murrayologist, where after some time, It shall come to pass...
As an added bonus, should you find yourself in an embarrassing situation at some point following certification (id est, Doing something or somebody you ought not be doing) remember that The Angel Murray is always available to provide you with a revelation from God wherein it was commanded that you do whatever or whomever you were doing ultimately legitimatizing your act. The Word of God has final authority in the United States.