Hate to say "I told you so", but, like, I told you so:
Veteran House Democratic aides are sick over the insurance prices they’ll pay under Obamacare, and they’re scrambling to find a cure.“In a shock to the system, the older staff in my office (folks over 59) have now found out their personal health insurance costs (even with the government contribution) have gone up 3-4 times what they were paying before,” Minh Ta, chief of staff to Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), wrote to fellow Democratic chiefs of staff in an email message obtained by POLITICO. “Simply unacceptable” [...]
[T]he premiums for gold-level Aetna HMO plans in D.C. cost an average of $684.40 per month for a 55-year-old. A similar plan would cost an average of $287.11 for a 27-year-old. The gold-level CareFirst HMO plans have an average premium of $573.07 for a 55-year-old---more than double the $240.41 average for 27-year-olds. That’s before the federal employee contribution toward the premium.
None of this needed to happen, and there is a very simple cure. But it would have required political leadership that was willing to tell insurers that since they're not needed in the UK or in Sweden or in The Netherlands or in Canada, they're not needed here, and that they should find some other products to insure. It would have required telling hospitals and doctors that billing their patients $500 for a stitch or $10,000 for a 15-minute colonoscopy were no longer permissible. It would have required telling pharmaceutical companies that they would need to negotiate prices of their products with the government as they do everywhere else. It would have required, in a nut, genuine political courage to push back against the profiteers, rent-seekers and middlemen who are bankrupting the country, and to push for legislation that would have benefitted patients and consumers first. But obviously, we don't have that kind of political leadership in America.
These people carried the water for Team Democrat, and now they're getting their just rewards. Pardon me if I have trouble manufacturing any sympathy for them.
---Baron V
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