2013 October/November IFAPAC

If Insurance is your profession, politics is your business.

Even if you are not involved directly with selling health insurance you cannot escape hearing about and seeing the problems with the debut of Obamacare. It is a perfect demonstration of why government should not be trusted with our health care.

People with common sense and reality-based principles understand that government programs are by definition political. Politicians and bureaucrats are not personally accountable for failure, as in the private sector, so failure is acceptable to them. Thus we get cost overruns, fraud and poor service.

Political consideration number one in the launch of Obamacare was the 2012 presidential election. Defenders of the incumbent did not want voters to know there would be a huge jump in the price of insurance for most people not being subsidized. They didn’t want supporters or critics to know about the rectal exam that would be required by the exchange website. They didn’t want the masses to know about the four, five and up to eight thousand dollar deductibles. They didn’t want people to learn of the limited (skinny) networks that may not include THEIR hospital, doctor or pediatrician. They knew that revealing those details too early would tip voters toward the challenger who promised to stop it.

Federal agencies sat on a pile of major health, environmental, and financial regulations that lobbyists, congressional staffers, and former administration officials later admitted were being held back to avoid providing ammunition to the critics.

The explosion of federal regulations was already crushing our economy and disgusting citizens who care about freedom. So before the election, Nanny did a slow-mo partial shutdown, if you will, throwing every Obamacare deadline years behind schedule. And yet nobody accepts any blame for their actions

When you are never blamed for failure, failure is acceptable. All that matters is political advantage. The worse your performance, the more important politics becomes.

It is now looking like the system is so broken that only a few thousand people have been able to sign up.  At this rate, it will take 20 years to implement.  Experts are saying it will take many months to fix, way after the deadline for penalties for not signing up.

Another political consideration: Voters would freak out when they logged on and discovered that being affordable was not a real goal of ObamaCare.  Instead, voters would discover that the law had devised a system of redistributing bad luck, and in this case, the bad luck was going to fall on the young, people on Medicare Advantage, people working in small business, union workers, and the middle class.  The good luck was going to fall on a small slice of supporters in a narrow income bracket, plus people in ill health.

While not all will agree with these thoughts (gleaned mostly from an article in American Thinker), it should be painfully obvious to all readers of this newsletter that POLITICS IS YOUR BUSINESS. And the business stinks right now. If change is to happen, we must get involved to make the changes. Nobody is pleased with what is happening to our country, our clients, our families and our freedoms.

What have YOU done to make a difference in your world? Have you been pro-active by uniting with other like-minded professional insurance advisors by contributing to the PAC? If not, why not? Are you letting others carry the water for you? Let me tell you, we need more water bearers! We need every NAIFA member to participate in the strongest political action committee for producers – IFAPAC. We are fortunate to have some of the top lobbyists working in Olympia and in Washington, D.C. Our own Mel Sorensen is fighting for you in our State Capitol to explain your value to the constituents of elected officials. In the real world, campaign contributions help us in seeking redress in congress. Your future is on the table and you are on the menu. Join IFAPAC now. It’s about your business.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/obamacare_a_planned_disaster_for_political_reasons.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook#ixzz2iQHy4hJ3

Richard Ek, LUTCF
State IFAPAC Chairman