10 Signs That Obamacare Is Going To Wreck The U.S. Economy

It is hard to find the words to adequately describe how much of a disaster Obamacare is turning out to be.  The debut of Healthcare.gov has been probably the worst launch of a major website in history, millions of Americans are having their current health insurance policies canceled, millions of others are seeing the size of their health insurance premiums absolutely explode, and this new law is going to result in massive numbers of jobs being lost.  It is almost as if Obamacare was specifically designed to wreck the U.S. economy.  Not that what we had before Obamacare was great.  In fact, I have long argued that the U.S. health care system is a complete and total train wreck.  But now Obamacare is making everything that was bad about our system much, much worse.  Americans are going to pay far more for health care, the quality of that care is going to go down, they are going to have to deal with far more medical red tape, and thousands upon thousands of U.S. employers are considering getting rid of the health plans that they offer to employees altogether due to Obamacare.  If the U.S. health care system was a separate nation, it would be the 6th largest economy on the entire planet, and now Obamacare is going to absolutely cripple it.  To say that Obamacare is an "economic catastrophe" would be a massive understatement. (Read More....) Of course we were assured that it wouldn't turn out this way.  We were promised over and over that we were going to pay less for health care, get better coverage, and be able to keep our current health plans if we were pleased with them.  The following is what Obama said at a rally in 2009...

"First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you."

Oh really?

That was such a dramatic lie that even NBC News is turning on him.  They discovered that Obama has known for three years that most people that rely on individual health insurance policies would not be able to keep them...

Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”

That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.

Pretty much everything that Obama told us when he was selling us on his plan has turned out to be a lie.

So what can we expect from Obamacare moving forward?  The following are 10 signs that Obamacare is going to wreck the U.S. economy...

#1 It is being projected that millions upon millions of Americans are going to lose their current health insurance plans thanks to Obamacare.  Most will be faced with the choice of either purchasing much more expensive health insurance or going uninsured.  This will put even more stress on a middle class that is already disintegrating rapidly.  The following is from the recent NBC News investigation mentioned above...

Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC News that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”

#2 The health insurance premium increases that some families are experiencing are absolutely mind boggling.  According to Mike Adams of Natural News, one family in Texas just got hit with a 539% rate increase...

Obamacare is named the "Affordable Care Act," after all, and the President promised the rates would be "as low as a phone bill." But I just received a confirmed letter from a friend in Texas showing a 539% rate increase on an existing policy that's been in good standing for years.

As the letter reveals (see below), the cost for this couple's policy under Humana is increasing from $212.10 per month to $1,356.60 per month. This is for a couple in good health whose combined income is less than $70K -- a middle-class family, in other words.

According to NBC News, an elderly couple in North Carolina was hit with a similar rate increase...

George Schwab, 62, of North Carolina, said he was "perfectly happy" with his plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield, which also insured his wife for a $228 monthly premium. But this past September, he was surprised to receive a letter saying his policy was no longer available. The "comparable" plan the insurance company offered him carried a $1,208 monthly premium and a $5,500 deductible.

Many Americans that were formerly in favor of Obamacare are now against it after they have seen what it is going to do to their budgets.  The following is one example of this from a recent Los Angeles Times article...

Pam Kehaly, president of Anthem Blue Cross in California, said she received a recent letter from a young woman complaining about a 50% rate hike related to the healthcare law.

"She said, 'I was all for Obamacare until I found out I was paying for it,'" Kehaly said.

#3 Obamacare actually includes incentives for people to work less and make less money.  The following is one example from a recent article by Sean Davis...

In California, a couple earning $64,000 a year would not qualify for health care subsidies. A bronze plan for them through Kaiser would cost them about $1,300 each month, or $15,600 a year. But if that same family earned just $2,000 less, it would qualify for over $14,000 in annual health care subsidies, dropping their premiums for that same Kaiser plan to less than $100 per month.

#4 Thankfully the employer mandate in Obamacare was delayed for a little while, but it will ultimately result in widespread job losses all over the country.  In fact, we are already starting to see this happen.  The following is from a recent article in the Economist...

BEFORE the recession, Richard Clark’s cleaning company in Florida had 200 employees, about half of them working full time. These days it has about 150, with 80% part-time. The downturn explains some of this. But Mr Clark also blames Barack Obama’s health reform. When it comes into effect in January 2015, Obamacare will require firms with 50 or more full-time employees to offer them affordable health insurance or pay a fine of $2,000-3,000 per worker. That is a daunting prospect for firms that do not already offer coverage. But for many, there is a way round the law.

Mr Clark says he is “very careful with the threshold”. To keep his full-time workforce below the magic number of 50, he is relying more on part-timers. He is not alone. More than one in ten firms surveyed by Mercer, a consultancy—and one in five retail and hospitality companies—say they will cut workers’ hours because of Obamacare. A hundred part-timers can flip as many burgers as 50 full-timers, and the former will soon be much cheaper.

You can find a very long list of some of the employers that have either eliminated jobs or cut hours because of Obamacare right here.

#5 Even if you are able to keep your job, there is no guarantee that your employer will continue to offer health insurance as an employee benefit.  In fact, it is being reported that large numbers of employers have already decided to no longer offer health insurance to their employees because of Obamacare.

#6 According to CBS News, so far the number of people that have had their health insurance policies canceled is more than three times greater than the number of people that have signed up for new policies under Obamacare...

CBS News has learned more than two million Americans have been told they cannot renew their current insurance policies -- more than triple the number of people said to be buying insurance under the new Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

#7 If what is going on in New York is any indication, those that are signing up for health insurance under Obamacare are going to have a really, really hard time finding a doctor...

New York doctors are treating ObamaCare like the plague, a new survey reveals.

A poll conducted by the New York State Medical Society finds that 44 percent of MDs said they are not participating in the nation’s new health-care plan.

Another 33 percent say they’re still not sure whether to become ObamaCare providers.

Only 23 percent of the 409 physicians queried said they’re taking patients who signed up through health exchanges.

#8 Obamacare is turning out to be a gold mine for hackers and identity thieves.  The personal information of millions of Americans could potentially end up being compromised.  According to CNN, Healthcare.gov was found to be teeming with security holes...

The Obamacare website has more than annoying bugs. A cybersecurity expert found a way to hack into users' accounts.

Until the Department of Health fixed the security hole last week, anyone could easily reset your Healthcare.gov password without your knowledge and potentially hijack your account.

And according to the New York Post, Healthcare.gov has been designed so badly from a security standpoint that it might have to be "rebuilt from scratch"...

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said ObamaCare’s website, already a tangled mess, might need to be rebuilt from scratch to to protect against cyber-thieves because he fears it’s not a safe place right now for health-care consumers to deposit their personal information.

“I know that they’ve called in another private entity to try to help with the security of it. The problem is, they may have to redesign the entire system,” Rep. Mike Rogers said on Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” political talk show. “The way the system is designed, it is not secure.”

#9 As I noted in a previous article, approximately 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are related to medical bills.  Because millions of Americans are now losing their health insurance policies and millions of others will choose to pay the fine rather than sign up for Obamacare, more Americans than ever will find themselves overwhelmed with medical bills when they get seriously sick.  This will result in even more personal bankruptcies.

#10 In the end, the burden for paying for the subsidies that Obamacare offers is going to overwhelmingly fall on the taxpayers.  This is going to cause our nightmarish national debt to get even worse.  Peter Schiff recently explained why this is going to happen...

It is also ironic that high-deductible, catastrophic plans are precisely what young people should be buying in the first place. They are inexpensive because they provide coverage for unlikely, but expensive, events. Routine care is best paid for out-of-pocket by value conscious consumers. But Obamacare outlaws these plans, in favor of what amounts to prepaid medical treatment that shifts the cost of services to taxpayers. In such a system, patients have no incentive to contain costs. Since the biggest factor driving health care costs higher in the first place has been the over use of insurance that results from government-provided tax incentives, and the lack of cost accountability that results from a third-party payer system, Obamacare will bend the cost curve even higher. The fact that Obamacare does nothing to rein in costs while providing an open-ended insurance subsidy may be good news for hospitals and insurance companies, but it's bad news for taxpayers, on whom this increased burden will ultimately fall.

So what do you think of Obamacare?

Has it directly affected your life yet?

Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below...

The Fastest Growing Religion In America Is Witchcraft

What is the fastest growing religion in the United States?  If you said Christianity, you would be way off.  In fact, the most recent numbers show that Christianity is in a serious state of decline in America.  If you said Islam, you are much closer to a correct answer.  Islam is the fastest growing major religion in the United States.  But there is a faith that is growing even faster than Islam.  It is called Wicca, and it is currently growing at an astounding pace.  Wicca emerged as a faith in the middle of the 20th century, but the origins of many Wiccan practices actually go back for thousands of years, and some researchers believe that certain aspects of Wicca can actually be traced all the way back to ancient Babylon.  According to Wikipedia, Wicca “is a modern pagan, witchcraft religion”.  It has been estimated that the number of Americans that are Wiccans is doubling every 30 months, and at (Read More....)

Elliott's Paul Singer Warns "Something Is Wrong And Dangerous"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 17:47

"The recent trading environment has felt something like walking into a place and having a sense that something is wrong and dangerous but not knowing exactly what will happen or when. “QE Infinity” has so distorted the prices of stocks and bonds that nobody can possibly determine what the investing landscape would look like, or what the condition of the economy and financial system would be, in the absence of Fed bond-buying."

-Paul Singer, Elliott Management

Where Is The US Labor Market Heading?

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 21:46

When will the U.S. labor market start to accelerate?  That is the single most critical question for global capital markets, for it speaks directly to both economic growth and Federal Reserve monetary policy.  But, as ConvergEx's Nick Colas notes, just as important, however, is the question "Where do people actually want to work?" Nick's key conclusions: there is no evidence of any faster pace of hiring, and the trend of hiring part time labor over full time is both strong (a 3:1 ratio) and accelerating.

Understanding Europe's Delusion, Dilemma, And Endgame In Under 9 Minutes

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 21:11

If one watches (or reads) any of the mainstream media, it might seem 'obvious' that Europe is doing well; it's recovering; and the crisis is over (almost over..). However, as Punk Economic's David McWilliams explains in this excellent overview of the European delusion and Merkel's dilemma, there is a "wedge" of unreality between the so-called "markets" and the reality of economic progress. From playing with Germany's money to moar bailouts, and from Merkel's enabling of Draghi's excess to the reality that nothing has changed across the European region, in under 9 minutes, McWilliams brief tour-de-force is a must-watch before you 'chase' more performance with the herd. McWilliams concludes, however, with a darker edge of the inevitable endgame of a "slow trudge" to federalization (and loss of sovereignty) that will likely see Nigel Farage (and many others) apoplectic.

Guest Post: 10 Signs That Obamacare Is Going To Wreck The U.S. Economy

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 20:36

The debut of Healthcare.gov has been probably the worst launch of a major website in history, millions of Americans are having their current health insurance policies canceled, millions of others are seeing the size of their health insurance premiums absolutely explode, and this new law is going to result in massive numbers of jobs being lost.  It is almost as if Obamacare was specifically designed to wreck the U.S. economy. Americans are going to pay far more for health care, the quality of that care is going to go down, they are going to have to deal with far more medical red tape, and thousands upon thousands of U.S. employers are considering getting rid of the health plans that they offer to employees altogether due to Obamacare.  If the U.S. health care system was a separate nation, it would be the 6th largest economy on the entire planet, and now Obamacare is going to absolutely cripple it.  To say that Obamacare is an "economic catastrophe" would be a massive understatement. Of course we were assured that it wouldn't turn out this way.

Meanwhile In Japan... "The BoJ Is Swallowing Everything"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 20:01

The Bank of Japan's governor Kuroda proudly told the world "long-term yields are bound to rise at some point, but we can curb it when it happens," and on a grand scale - that is what they have done (for now). But market participants are growing increasingly concerned. As we have warned numerous times, the suppression of 'normal' volatility in teh short-term can only lead to larger uncontrollable moves in the future. As The FT reports, some worry, too, that the BoJ has pushed up JGB prices to the point where interest rates no longer bear any relation to the government’s creditworthiness - "effectively we have removed the light from the lighthouse." Some say the transition has been unsettling as many analysts talk more openly of the risks inherent in what the BoJ is trying to pull off. For one thing, liquidity has evaporated... "volatility looks low now, but if some investors start selling, the impact on the market could be much bigger than expected. That is a big risk."

Guest Post: US #1 in Oil: So Why Isn’t Gasoline $0.80 Per Gallon?

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 19:15

While the White House spied on Frau Merkel and Obamacare developed into a slow-moving train wreck, while Syria was saved from all-out war by the Russian bell and the Republicrats fought bitterly about the debt ceiling… something monumental happened that went unnoticed by most of the globe. The US quietly surpassed Saudi Arabia as the biggest oil producer in the world. You read that correctly: "The jump in output from shale plays has led to the second biggest oil boom in history," stated Reuters on October 15. "U.S. output, which includes natural gas liquids and biofuels, has swelled 3.2 million barrels per day (bpd) since 2009, the fastest expansion in production over a four-year period since a surge in Saudi Arabia's output from 1970-1974." After the initial moment of awe, pragmatic readers will surely wonder: Then why isn't gasoline dirt-cheap in the US?

Is There A Radioactive Waste Land In Your Back Yard?

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 18:38

While nearly three years after the Fukushima disaster the world is finally focused, rightfully so, on the epic ecological and radioactive clusterfuck unfolding in Japan, where in a desperate effort to distract the population from what is going on in its back yard, the Premier has launched the most ridiculous monetary experiment doomed to failure, the reality is that the US itself harbors a veritable waste land of radioactive fallout, much of it hidden in plain sight. As the following interactive map from the WSJ shows, of the 517 active sites in the continental US, found on the Department of Energy's listing of facilities "considered" for radioactive cleanup through its Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, some 43 have a "potential for significant radioactive contamination" through the time of the study. Find out if your state, city, or town is located next to a potential dormant and largely secret Fukushima, using the following handy interactive map.

Guest Post: Obamacare's Fatal Flaw

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 17:17

The big question is whether it will function as intended and survive permanently. There is a serious risk that it will not. The potentially fatal flaw in Obamacare is the very same feature that appeals most to its supporters: the ability of even those with a serious preexisting health condition to buy insurance at the standard premium. The biggest danger to Obamacare’s survival is that many individuals who do not receive insurance from their employer will choose not to insure themselves and will instead pay the fine of just 1% of income (rising permanently after 2015 to 2.5%). The preferred alternative for these individuals is to wait to buy insurance until they are ill and are facing large medical bills. The “wait-to-insure” option could cause the number of insured individuals to decline rapidly as premiums rise for those who remain insured. In this scenario, the unraveling of Obamacare could lead to renewed political pressure from the left for a European-style single-payer health-care system.

Top 10 Facts About The U.S. Illegal Drug Market

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 16:47

Recent surveys and research studies by sources from the UN to streetRx.com put the size of the illegal drug market in the U.S. at anywhere from $200 to $750 billion. The market is notoriously hard to track by design, and it is constantly evolving as prices and usage fluctuates; but as ConvergEx's Nick Colas notes, there’s a plethora of data on the topic: formal surveys by the CDC and user-submitted blog posted on websites like Hightimes.com trace price, usage, and traffic stats for marijuana, powder and crack cocaine, d-methamphetamine, and heroin. Legalized dispensaries now allow us to estimate potential tax revenue from marijuana sales, while incarceration rates for drug offenders reveal the economic impact of the illegal drug trade. In short, while the illegal drug market might be hard to track – if only by virtue of its illegality – Colas points out that we can learn a lot about its size and scope by aggregating these formal and informal data. Most surprising of them all: illicit drug use is no longer the realm of just the youth.

FB Reports 18% Increase In Monthly Active Users To 1.2 Billion: Stock Explodes

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 16:21

Surprised why FB stock is soaring higher by 15% after hours on results that were a beat but nothing all that spectacular, with $2.02 billion in revenues ($1.91 billion expected), and EPS of $0.25 ($0.19 expected)? Because according to the company, it will soon need to colonize a new planet as it will promptly run out of real, bot-based, imaginary and potential users on planet earth following a ridiculous 25% increase Y/Y in daily active users to 728 million, and a mindblowing 18% increase in Monthly Active Users to 1.19 billion (however look at the charts below to see just where the bulk of the growth comes from).  Putting Facebook's numbers in perspective: it has 199 million Monthly Active Users in the US, where the average revenue per user is highest. This is 44 million more than the entire labor force, and 63 million more than the number of employed people in the US.

Stockholders Stunned As Trannies Tumble Most In 3 Weeks

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 16:12

But, but, but... was the common refrain heard across mainstream media - perplexed that i) stocks could close anything but green, and ii) stocks could close green after the FOMC kept the dream alive. Markets broke everywhere (stock and options) and VIX saw flash-smashes a number of times as the great rotation from stocks to levered stocks (i.e. options) continued (in what smells a lot like the 'what could go wrong' 'portfolio insurance' days of yore). Stocks slid lower into the FOMC, knee-jerked up to VWAP, then skidded to 2-day lows, bounced towards VWAP once again then slumped into the close for the worst day in 3 weeks (down a measly 0.6%). Treasury yields had fallen notably into the FOMC statement and snapped higher after (30Y +4bps on the week). The USD had been rising all week and was smashed higher on the FOMC news (+0.7% on the week). Gold and silver kneejerked lower but bounced back (-0.5% and +0.75% respectively) on the week. Bear in mind that credit markets are now at the worst levels in 2 week as stocks hover just below all-time highs.

Citi Now Sees Odds Of A December/January Taper Announcement Doubling From From 35% to 65%

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 15:53

The most succinct post-mortem summary of the FOMC announcement comes from Citi's Stephen Englander.

President To Re-Pitch Obamacare - Live Webcast

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 15:51

Following Tavenner and Sebelius self-sacrifice in the last two days - despite the grossly partisan questioning (and congratulating) - it seems its time for the Presidential pitchman to take the stand once again. We are sure we'll be told that you can keep your plans (kinda sorta), that it's not about the website, and just how great it is for a few hand-picked kids with diabetes, moms with cancer, and veterans that the rest of Americans should be happy to pay up for. We will also be keeping an eagle eye open for any feinting...

Guest Post: Larry Summers Admits The Fed Is In A Liquidity Trap

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 15:35

"A liquidity trap is a situation described in Keynesian economics in which injections of cash into the private banking system by a central bank fail to lower interest rates and hence fail to stimulate economic growth. A liquidity trap is caused when people hoard cash because they expect an adverse event such as deflation, insufficient aggregate demand, or war. Signature characteristics of a liquidity trap are short-term interest rates that are near zero and fluctuations in the monetary base that fail to translate into fluctuations in the general price levels." Importantly, this evidence is mounting that the Federal Reserve has now become trapped within this dynamic. The important point is that, for the first time that we are aware of, someone (of apparent note to the status quo) has verbally stated that we are indeed caught within a liquidity trap.  This has been a point that has been vigorously opposed by supporters of the Federal Reserve actions.

How The NSA Spies On Your Google And Yahoo Accounts

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/30/2013 - 15:17

In an NSA presentation slide on “Google Cloud Exploitation,” however, a sketch shows where the “Public Internet” meets the internal “Google Cloud” where their data resides. In hand-printed letters, the drawing notes that encryption is “added and removed here!” The artist adds a smiley face, a cheeky celebration of victory over Google security.

Head of Congressional Intelligence Committee: “You Can’t Have Your Privacy Violated If You Don’t KNOW Your Privacy Is Violated”