Obamacare Bombshell: Employer Plans will Also Drop Workers from Coverage

by Tim Brown

During testimony this past week on Capitol Hill, Health and Human Services Secretary dropped a bombshell. Being grilled about Barack Obama’s lie regarding people being able to keep their insurance plans and doctors, Sebelius also said that with the grandfathering process comes certain caveats, which means that the existing plans would have to meet the new standards or they would be cancelled. She then went on to say, “Employer based grandfathered plans will have the same caveats.”

We all know what Barack Obama actually promised, don’t we? In case you forgot, here it is:

The reality though, is that the “caveat” was spoken about earlier in the week and here’s how it sounded:

Barack Obama has tried to pull a fast one and snuck in a two letter word into his lie, “if.” “What we said was: You could keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed,” Obama said.

He immediately moved from that lie to another one, saying “The bottom line is we are making the insurance market better for everybody.”

No, they are not. They are attempting to move to a single payer system and this fiasco is the stepping stone to that goal. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told us that.

Obama has been lying all along, as we and others have documented. However, this lie wasn’t even to make people feel good. It was all about getting a sub-standard healthcare plan passed, knowing it would force millions of Americans from their current plans and put others on welfare. He knew it, lied about it and then when caught, did he repent? Nope. He lied again right to our faces and we all know it.

Because of his lie over half of Americans who have insurance through their employer will lose that particular plan. According to Forbes:

“The Departments’ mid-range estimate is that 66 percent of small employer plans and 45 percent of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfather status by the end of 2013,” wrote the administration on page 34,552 of the Register. All in all, more than half of employer-sponsored plans will lose their “grandfather status” and become illegal. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 156 million Americans—more than half the population—was covered by employer-sponsored insurance in 2013.

Another 25 million people, according to the CBO, have “nongroup and other” forms of insurance; that is to say, they participate in the market for individually-purchased insurance. In this market, the administration projected that “40 to 67 percent” of individually-purchased plans would lose their Obamacare-sanctioned “grandfather status” and become illegal, solely due to the fact that there is a high turnover of participants and insurance arrangements in this market. (Plans purchased after March 23, 2010 do not benefit from the “grandfather” clause.) The real turnover rate would be higher, because plans can lose their grandfather status for a number of other reasons.

How many people are exposed to these problems? 60 percent of Americans have private-sector health insurance—precisely the number that Jay Carney dismissed. As to the number of people facing cancellations, 51 percent of the employer-based market plus 53.5 percent of the non-group market (the middle of the administration’s range) amounts to 93 million Americans.

Will those cancellations be replaced with better coverage? It doesn’t seem so.

Blogger Bob Laszewski wrote a revealing post about his own cancellation of health coverage and what he discovered it was being replaced with:

Right now I have “Cadillac” health insurance. I can access every provider in the national Blue Cross network––about every doc and hospital in America––without a referral and without higher deductibles and co-pays. I value that given my travels and my belief that who your provider is makes a big difference. Want to go to Mayo? No problem. Want to go to the Cleveland Clinic? No problem. Need to get to Queen’s in Honolulu? No problem.

So, I get this letter from my health plan. It says I can’t keep my current coverage because my plan isn’t good enough under Obamacare rules. It tells me to go to the exchange or their website and pick a new plan before January 1 or I will lose coverage.

First, the best I can get in a Blue Cross network plan are HMOs or HMO/Point-of-Service plans. In the core network those plans offer, I would have to go to fewer providers than I can go to now in the MD/DC/VA market. And, the core network has no providers beyond my area. I can go to the broader Blues network but only if I pay another big deductible for out-of-network coverage.

Now, my plan covers about everything. Never had a procedure for either my wife or myself turned down. Wellness benefits are without a deductible. It covers mental health, drugs, maternity, anything I can think of.

The new plan would have a deductible $500 higher than the one I now have and a lot more if I go “out-of-network” inside the rest of the Blue Cross national network.

And, wait all you people telling me rate shock does not exist, the new far more restricted plan costs 66% more than our current monthly premium.

How are Obama supporters feeling now? Premiums will go up. Deductibles will go up. Healthcare plans and choices will go down. Some will continue to drink the kool-aid, but I’m guessing there are some who are waking up to the Frankenstein that Barack Obama and the Democrats created.

So, does anyone in this audience have an experience like Mr. Laszewski? Please share it in the comments section.

About Tim Brown

Husband to my wife. Father of 10. Jack of All Trades. Christian and lover of liberty. Residing in the U.S. occupied Great State of South Carolina. Follow Tim on Twitter.