If you want to know at the human level why Obamacare is going to be a huge problem for the O-care supporters, watch this interview from Larry Kudlow’s CNBC program. The guest is a nurse, Joan Carrico, who lives in Michigan and has been fighting cancer for six years. She’s being dumped from her Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy – which she desperately wants to keep. (The details of her insurance struggle are infuriating. E.g., she can't even get on the Obamacare website.) She is only one of many real people who are going to be suffering real injury after 12/31. The casualty lists may total in the millions.
The website Red State borrowed a phrase from Stalin on Thursday to make a point. Stalin said the death of one man is a tragedy, but the death of millions is a statistic. So, if we have 10 million or 93 million victims of Obamacare, does statism win? In this case, I don't think so. Already Kudlow, Megyn Kelly, and Hannity are really focusing on these personal stories of loss. Other news outlets are being forced to as well. The Left knows the “optics” of this; this is how it pushes all its various agendas. Now, the tables are turned. That is why politicians like Senator Mary Landrieu are running for the hills.
Kudlow’s guests were: Robert Laszewski, Health Policy & Strategy Associates; Avik Roy, Manhattan Institute senior fellow; and, Scott Gottlieb, M.D. of American Enterprise Institute. Laszewski raises the possibility of using an “early renewal” for Mrs. Carrico – a little known insurance option that might allow her current policy to be extended into 2014. Health care bureaucrats hate this “loophole” because the cattle aren’t forced into Obamcare fast enough. So, many states have made it impossible to do this. Check with your insurance agent to see if it is possible for you.