An ObamaCare Thank You to my Senators

I wrote the letter below to my Senators, Warner and Webb, to thank them for their efforts on health care reform. You'll likely enjoy and appreciate it more than they do.

Senators Warner and Webb,

 Thank you very much. I just received the annual enrollment form for my 2011 medical insurance. My premiums will be rising by 31%, which my plan administrator attributes largely to the impact of ObamaCare. You both voted for ObamaCare, without the benefit of having read it, so I believe I have you to thank for this 31% increase in my costs. I’m not sure whose cost curve is getting bent downward, but it sure isn’t mine.

 My 31% increase in medical insurance premiums is not unique, of course. This is happening all over the country to all kinds of people (except you, I’m guessing, since Congress has a tendency to exempt itself from the negative impacts of its own decisions). Besides the dramatic increases in premiums, other reactions to ObamaCare include entire plans being eliminated and insurance companies leaving markets entirely. These actions will of course reduce competition and increase cost, the exact opposite of what Obama and his lapdogs in Congress cynically predicted. Is this the “economic fairness” and “social justice” that Senator Webb ceaselessly palavers about?

 It doesn’t take an actuary to forecast what ObamaCare will actually do. Options will be eliminated; costs will go up as more medical demand chases less supply; insurance companies will collapse as costs are shifted onto private insurance policies since Medicare and Medicaid reimburse below cost; and people will be forced into government-run health care. This is happening now, years before the most onerous and anti-capitalist provisions even kick in.

 So I have to ask you: was Congress (not having read the bill before passing it) really oblivious to the easily predictable consequences of ObamaCare, or was Congress actually on board with what Nancy-Ann DeParle has acknowledged was the White House plan all along – to collapse the private insurance market and force everyone into a single-payer system? Neither answer speaks well of you or your colleagues, but it would be nice to get an honest answer just once.

 Something you might want to consider: Obama and Congress are no wiser, no less greedy, no purer of motive, and no more worthy of trust and respect than the American people you treat with such condescension and disdain. Which is why you deserve no more power than the Constitution specifically grants you. Being Senators, and specifically Democrats, I have no expectation that you’ll actually take that to heart. But it needed to be said.

God Bless America