Healthcare report on rising premiums gives more evidence of GOP lies, deception

The Republican leadership on Capitol Hill has made no secret about their intentions to repeal the Healthcare Reform legislation passed by Congress earlier this year.  Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and soon-to-be House Speaker, John Boehner (R-OH) have vowed to to repeal both FinReg and 'Obamacare' claiming the costs will 'destroy' the U.S. economy and is prohibiting business from hiring  and is therefore, the reason for persistent high unemployment.  On November 3, Reuters reported Boehner as saying,

I believe that the healthcare bill that was enacted by the current Congress will kill jobs in America, ruin the best healthcare system in the world, and bankrupt our country," That means we have to do everything we can to try to repeal this bill and replace it with common sense reforms to bring down the cost of health care.

However, as Scot Kersgaard of the Colorado Independent wrote in his article, 'Obamacare' Not the Cause of Colorado Rate Hikes, the Colorado State Innurance Commission released a report earlier this week which clearly indicates that insurance companies are raising premiums for in a fashion consistent with premium increases in years past - and not because of additional costs attributed to the new healthcare provisions that took effect on September 23.   The full report, released on November 4, 2010 by the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) is titled "Federal Health Reform Accounts for less than 5% of Health Rate Increase in Colorado" can be read by clicking here.

Insurance companies must submit a request before they can raise premiums; the Colorado Division of Insurance requires companies to explain the reasons for raising premiums - and are required to specifically define the impact on costs attributable to the new legislation.  In his article, Kersgaard quotes State Insurance Commissioner Marcy Morrison as saying, “What we found isn’t surprising: health insurance premiums continue to rise but what may be eye-opening for some people, is that the cause is not reform."

Ken Buck, the Tea Party-backed Republican who was recently defeated by Democrat Michael Bennet in the race for the U.S. Senate in Colorado, was among those who distorted the truth and ran on a platform to appeal the Healthcare Reform Act.  The following was taken from Ken Buck for Colorado website:

...health care is neither an absolute right nor an absolute privilege.

Congress needs to repeal Obamacare and enact free-market reforms that will preserve our freedom and drive down the costs that are breaking both government and business budgets. 

Fixing what's wrong with healthcare does not require a $2.5 trillion solution enforced by the IRS. We need to let the market work, make people responsible for their own insurance, and restore Americans' freedom to decide for themselves whether and how much insurance to buy.

Colorado voters made a very wise decision in re-electing the Democratic candidates Michael Bennet, Jared Polis and Ed Perlmutter. This is particularly true for the nearly 220,000 unemployed in our State (many of whom no longer have health insurance) - a state that continues to underperform the nation's anemic levels of economic growth and job creation.  Colorado's employment is down 5.8% over the last 12 months (CO HUD, Nov 4).  As noted in a previous article, while President Obama has called for renewing federal unemployment compensation (EUC) benefits, Republicans, including Ken Buck, refuse to support the needs of unemployed workers with EUC extensions.  Michael Bennet's success, along with that of Ed Pelmutter, was due to in large part to the grassroots efforts of many groups and housands of volunteers across the state.  Disbelievers and politicians shold take notice:  The unemployed are a constituent group that is organizing and fighting to win.
 

Betsey Markey, on the other hand, lost her bid-for re-election.  As Kersgaard put it, "Certainly Health Care Reform has been both political and controversial, and is no doubt part of what cost Democratic Representatives Betsy Markey and John Salazar their jobs."  Markey voted against EUC extensions not just once, but four times.  For the 218,000 unemployed in Colorado, she might as well have been on the Republican ticket and lost, in part, because of her unwillingness to help the unemployed.  As Arthur Delaney of the Huffington Post reported, along with 11 other Democrats who voted against U.I. extensions, Markey is now among the employed - the very people she turned her back on. 

Hmmm.  What comes around...goes around.  It will be interesting to see how Markey votes in the lame duck session; you might want to call her DC office and ask if she intend to support the unemployed with an upcoming (potential) vote to extend benefits (1-888-245-0215).

The Kersgaard article and the DORP report provide more evidence that the GOP does nothing but lie, distort the truth and create rhetoric for the sole purpose of destroying the Obama administration - and destroying the middle class, working-class America in the process.  As one person stated in the comments section of the article, calls to Colorado A.G. John Suthers (R) asking him to drop his lawsuit against healthcare reform are warranted.