In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Obamacare Hits a Bump," Paul Krugman begins:
"More than two and a half years have gone by since the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, went fully into effect. Most of the news about health reform since then has been good, defying the dire predictions of right-wing doomsayers. But this week has brought some genuine bad news: The giant insurer Aetna announced that it would be pulling out of many of the 'exchanges,' the special insurance markets the law established."
Whoa, Aetna is the only bad news? As reported by Javier E. David in an August 6, 2016 CNBC article entitled "Obamacare users in New York brace for double-digit 2017 premium hikes":
"Come 2017, thousands of New York's Obamacare users will wake up to double-digit premium hikes, the latest group of consumers affected by Affordable Care Act cost increases as insurers hemorrhage money from healthcare exchanges.
In a statement on Friday announcing 2017 premiums, NY's Department of Financial Services (DFS) said after weighing insurer requests, the state settled on an average hike of 16.6 percent for individual exchange users in the state, while small group users will see a lower average increase of over 8 percent."
This comes on the heels of a July 19, 2016 Los Angeles Times article entitled "California Obamacare rates to rise 13% in 2017, more than three times the increase of last two years" by Melody Petersen and Noam N. Levey.
Problems only in New York and California? I don't think so. As we are told by Sally C. Pipes and Thomas W. Smith in an August 17, 2016 CNBC piece entitled "Aetna's Obamacare pullout means the 'insurance death spiral' has arrived":
"Insurers that haven't pulled out of Obamacare are requesting premium hikes averaging 24 percent next year. And some states have it far worse. Many Georgians could see a hike of 65 percent. The 600,000 Texans enrolled in Blue Cross Blue Shield may face a 59 percent premium increase."
Krugman goes on to say in his opinion piece:
"This doesn’t mean that the reform is about to collapse. But some real problems are cropping up. They’re problems that would be relatively easy to fix in a normal political system, one in which parties can compromise to make government work. But they won’t get resolved if we elect a clueless president (although he’d turn to terrific people, the best people, for advice, believe me. Not.). And they’ll be difficult to resolve even with a knowledgeable, competent president if she faces scorched-earth opposition from a hostile Congress."
Ah yes, a "knowledgeable" and "competent" Hillary, who has suddenly decided that the Clinton Foundation will no longer accept foreign and corporate donations if she is elected president.
Got it: It was okay for the Clinton Foundation to receive foreign and corporate donations while she was secretary of state, and it is okay for the Clinton Foundation to receive donations while she is a candidate for president, but these donations will no longer be accepted after January 20, 2017.
Or stated otherwise, if foreign governments and corporations wish to influence the executive branch of America's government after Hillary's election, they had best make their donations NOW.
Disgusting.
