Obamacare

A Credit Bubble Stocks correspondent writes about his experiences,

"I spent a lot of time researching health care plans for my son when he was born in 2011. I chose Kaiser Permanente. They had the best service, best plans and cool past of innovative and free market operations.

My son is 2 now.

On October 5th I received a letter from Kaiser saying my son’s deductible was going up by 20% and his premiums were going up by 85%.

On October 7th I called the number on the letter to inquire about the radical increase. I called at 5:30pm on my drive home from work. I was on hold for 14 minutes then a message came on, something like, 'On October 1st we notified all of our policy members that we were cancelling their current policy and issuing a new one, we are getting a crazy amount of calls right now, call back during our off-peak times 8a-9a and 7p-8p, thank you.' And then the computer hung up on me.

I called the next day at 8:05a. I got a nice lady on the phone, and the conversation went:

'Why is my son’s coverage getting worse and his premium nearly doubling?'

'It is due to the health care reform'

'Yes, I had a hunch, but this is very distressing and I’m curious as to why this happened.'

'It is due to the health care reform.'

'Yes, I get that, but I’m very sad that my coverage is getting worse, the price doubling and I don’t have any choice in the matter. (I could tell I got through to her humanity on my last comment)'

'Sir, Kaiser has hired thousands of new people to answer complaints regarding the new plans. In training they kept telling us 'they are going to yell at you and scream,' all we can say is this is the way it is and it is because of the health care reform.'

'Wow.'

'I'm really sorry.'

'Me too.'

'Is there anything else I can do to provide you service today?'

This experience was terrifying. 'Here is your new plan, SLAVE! – you’re welcome slave!'

It rated up there with having the 101 freeway in LA shut down for 25 minutes while the king’s motorcade went under the freeway on a side street - they were not even on the freeway! We are such scum the king won’t even dream of sharing a road with us. He doesn't even want to look at us when he is driving around. Imagine being in an ambulance on the way to the hospital and the king’s motorcade stopped your trip cold for 25 minutes. 'you can die before I will share my road with you!'

In these moments of terror I always think of that scene in Atlas Shrugged where John Galt is in a company wide meeting and the heirs of the company founder have just inherited the company and are announcing a new pay plan based on need and work load to be assigned by capability. He just stands up, walks to the door and says 'I’m out of here!'

Health care 'reform' is like dekulakization in the USSR. What is being 'reformed' is any actual delivery of medical care to class enemies.