Website: http://castle2016.com/
Donate: https://castle2016.nationbuilder.com/donate
Chad Koppie: Constitution Party US Senate Candidate for Illinois
Website: http://www.chadkoppie.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Chad-Koppie-Campaign-175035105892775
Donate: http://www.chadkoppie.com/donations.php
https://votevance2016.blogspot.com
Darryl Glenn: Republican Party US Senate Candidate for Colorado
Website: http://www.electdarrylglenn.com/
Donate: https://transaxt.com/Donate/6ECCUR/CommitteetoElectDarrylGlenn/?src=button
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CommitteeToElectDarrylGlenn/
Andy Biggs: Republican Party House of Representatives Candidate for Arizona Congressional District 5
Website: http://biggsforcongress.com/
Donate: http://biggsforcongress.com/contribute/
Mary Thomas: Republican Party House of Representatives Candidate for Florida Congressional District 2
Website: http://www.runwithmary.com/
Donate: http://www.runwithmary.com/index.php?contribute
Donate at Make DC Listen: https://secure.makedclisten.com/donate/d?c=c8c976b8a062bfcfa0d065e176ba3030
Note: [ ] = my additions
Petition: American Academy of Pediatrics do not subvert my parental role with my child
http://www.citizengo.org/en/fm/36011-sign-here-american-academy-pediatrics-tells-doctors-start-sex-ed-early-childhood-avoid?dr=4611658::7f7bb99f165b41387e6b94ba4e27cb2f&utm_source=email&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTm1JeE5HRmhOR0l3TVdJNSIsInQiOiJybzIwZ0xpQ08xbGhhb1hub09TVWFyKytXbzdRNFVUc2I4MEcyZnRkZlYxVTdlSUthcVVEVUZpampad2E3dUdtano0REpMdkk4Q1ZaZ1E0dmVLWFwvamhTXC9iOUx5YUFJVXo4OHhyNnNKWndVPSJ9
Petition: American Medical Association, babies do feel pain before 20 weeks!
Change your position on the issue.
http://www.citizengo.org/en/lf/36090-american-medical-association-babies-do-feel-pain-20-weeks
Petition: City of Ogden, Utah don’t take residents’ homes through the misuse of eminent domain
https://www.change.org/p/city-of-ogden-hands-off-my-home?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=629858&alert_id=BECeKvquyG_BLHpq5IE3yqpDveni3uGt5Em01yhNmo7Ru0rHgj9hOI%3D
Restore the Constitution
Take Back the Nation
I am a Christian, Constitutionalist, conservative.
Yesterday I receive an e-mail questionnaire from The Heritage Foundation. The first question asked was as follows: “Thinking about the top priorities of the next president, how important is each issue listed below?”
One of the issues was “Repealing and replacing Obamacare.” I could not answer the question. I am all in favor of repealing Obamacare. In fact, it is one of my top issues. However, I absolutely oppose replacing Obamacare at the federal level. The federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in healthcare and/or healthcare insurance. In fact, I propose abolishing eight unconstitutional Departments that are now in existence including the Department of Health and Human Services.
United States Departments
* Should be part of the federal government as provided by the Constitution. All others should not be. Below are a list of the various Departments and when the Department came into being. Note the Department of Defense is basically a name change. It began as the Department of War in 1789 along with the other original Departments.
*01) State 1789
*02) Treasury 1789
*03) Justice 1870 Attorney General created in 1789, no department until 1870
*04) Interior 1849
05) Agriculture 1862
06) Commerce 1903 Originally Commerce and Labor; Labor later separated
07) Labor 1913
*08) Defense 1947 Departments of The Navy and War (Army and Air Force).
09) Health and Human Services 1953 Originally Health, Education, and Welfare
10) Housing and Urban Development 1965
11) Transportation 1966
12) Energy 1977
13) Education 1980
*14) Veterans Affairs 1989 independent agency as the Veterans Administration
*15) Homeland Security 2002
I propose that Congress begins the process of dissolving those Departments which are not provided for by the Constitution. The Departments should be removed in reverse order of when created.
Even if it were constitutional, I would oppose any federal government program established to control healthcare. Governments in the long run are not capable of operating/controlling the economy. The best system for ANY economy is the free enterprise system. One reason is that only the free enterprise system allows for competition and competition is the “magic” formula the provides the most competitive prices, the most competitive service, and the most competitive products. In the long run, governments have never been able to compete successfully against the free enterprise system. Obamacare is a sterling example of the truth of the superiority of the free enterprise system.
http://dailysignal.com/2016/08/18/her-health-plan-was-257-a-month-now-her-obamacare-plan-could-be-650-a-month/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT1RneE9Ea3pZakkzTlRjMyIsInQiOiJxMEdSQllVSkhySCt1SDdZck1cL0dXaTFnaWc4ZE1oTlJad2hHOHM3emhyT3NHaE1NYkdIZzRzTVVsQXhIVnlyeXVvdHFNMmFkMmJJOHJkZk02T2RCXC95SWYzY0dXVExVUStYMXAydnhXd3AwPSJ9
“Ask 68-year-old Gavin Braithwaite how he feels about the amount he and his wife, Louellen, are expecting to pay for health insurance next year, and he’ll tell you he’s horrified, but not exactly surprised.
Since 1992, Gavin said, he’s watched the cost of their coverage increase over the years.
In the past few years, the Braithwaites say they’ve seen the cost of their premiums go from $257 per month in 2014 to $285 for the first nine months of 2015—their policy changed the last three months of the year—to $494 per month in 2016.
So Gavin wasn’t surprised to learn that his wife’s insurer, Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, asked for a rate increase of 32.5 percent for next year [Almost 1/3rd], which would bring the cost of her premiums to more than $650 per month [To cover one person].
But, he said, he is horrified.
Gavin and Louellen have lived in Delaware for 24 years, first in Wilmington and now in Lewes, where they started a retail gift shop after leaving the corporate and academic worlds.
The couple retired last year.
In 2013, Gavin turned 65 and enrolled in Medicare. But his wife is 12 years his junior, and she won’t become eligible for Medicare until 2025 [if it is still around!] So, Louellen has an individual market plan available on the exchange through Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Louellen doesn’t qualify for a subsidy.
A spokesman for Highmark could not confirm or deny that she is a customer [Confidentiality rules].
‘Yikes,’ Gavin told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. ‘When it went up last year, we were saying to ourselves we didn’t know what we’re going to do next year. And would you believe it? Another 32 percent.’
Rate Increases Nationwide
The Braithwaites are not alone.
Across the country, insurers have slowly been submitting their proposed rates for 2017 to state insurance commissioners, and most are seeking double-digit increases.
Large insurers including Aetna and Humana joined UnitedHealthcare in deciding to leave Obamacare’s exchanges altogether. And 16 of the 23 co-ops started under the Affordable Care Act have failed, leaving health policy experts questioning the impact dwindling insurer participation will have on rates beyond 2017.
In Delaware, two insurers will sell coverage on the exchange next year—Highmark and Aetna.
While Highmark asked for the average rate hike of 32.5 percent for next year, Aetna customers may see their premium costs increase between 23.9 percent and 25 percent.
Whether those increases become finalized, though, is up to Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart.
‘These large rate increase requests are occurring in many states across the country, and I know they will be a burden for many Delawareans,’ Stewart said in June.
The insurance commissioner said she recognized the proposed increases were ‘substantial’ and promised to work to reduce them [How? What will be given up?].
Still, consumers living in Delaware expressed outrage at Highmark and Aetna’s proposals in public comments to the state Department of Insurance.
Andrew Edmonds of Wilmington, who has coverage through Highmark, told the state his family’s insurance premiums will rise as much as 35 percent in 2017.[The truth is that businesses HAVE to make a profit. If not, they go out of business. The MORE regulation there is the more difficult it is to make a profit. If no profit, they go out of business. Then, no one has insurance!]
Edmonds said his family doesn’t qualify for subsidies [Subsidies are simply someone being forced to pay for someone else. If not done by government, it would rightly be called theft. Since done by government, it is still theft. It is just not identified as theft!], and he said he worries that if the state approves the insurer’s requested rates, ‘there will soon come a point where we will no longer be able to afford health insurance.’
In documents filed with state regulators, insurance companies pointed to the end of federal programs implemented under the Affordable Care Act as well as high medical costs as the reason for increased rates.
Aetna, which requested average rate increases of up to 24.9 percent for those with coverage on the exchange in Delaware, said the end of the transitional reinsurance program December 31 will cause premiums to rise 5 percent, according to documents filed with the Department of Insurance.
The reinsurance program was one of three designed to transfer risk among insurers. Insurance companies selling coverage in the individual market collectively received reinsurance payments totaling $6.7 billion for 2014.
Highmark, meanwhile, said in a public information session held in June that many of its customers, most of whom were newly insured, had significant medical costs.
Frank Haver, the company’s actuarial director, told attendees that ‘several’ customers in Delaware incurred more than $100,000 in medical claims and continued their coverage for only a few months out of the year.
‘This behavior drives up the cost to insure the entire pool, as people use benefits and then discontinue paying for coverage once their health care needs have been temporarily met [They are allowed to do this under the rules and regulations and they are following sound economic practice for themselves. They are legally gaming the system because they are allowed to under the law. The most unfair systems for the most people are government imposed systems because the government chooses the winners and losers. Right now, the federal government is mandating that all of us pay for transsexuals to have operations to change their outward appearance. Of course, these operations will accomplish nothing because females will still be females and males will still be males since we can not yet change their chromosomes!],’ Haver said.
In Montana, insurers requested average rate increases ranging from a high of 62 percent (Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana) to a low of 20 percent (PacificSource).
Like Aetna in Delaware, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana also pointed to the end of the reinsurance program as a contributing factor for its proposed 62 percent rate hike.
In a presentation given during a hearing last month, the company said that alone increased individual rates by 3 percent.
The company, though, also experienced high medical claims for insured customers. It said it paid out $1.26 for medical care for every dollar it brought in during 2015 [That is known as losing money!].
‘Cost is really what’s driving our rate increases,’ Michael Frank, president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana, said during the July 26 hearing in Helena [When I was on the Marana School Board, we decided to turn our cafeteria program over to a private company because we were losing $200,000 a year operating it ourselves. We put it out for bid as required by law. We received two bids. State law required us to accept the low bid unless we had a substantial reason not to. I opposed the company with the low bid because it was obviously a lowball bid. However, a majority of the Board voted in favor of the bid. Sure enough, half way through the year the company came back and asked to immediately raise prices. We said no and the company bailed. Fortunately, the second company agreed to take over the program based upon its original bid. Companies can not lose money and stay in business.].
PacificSource, which requested an average rate hike of 20 percent for 2017, said the end of the reinsurance program will cause premiums to rise by 5.2 percent.
According to the Office of the Montana State Auditor, roughly 80,000 Montana residents purchase insurance in the individual market, with 52,358 of those consumers buying coverage on the exchange. More than 45,000 Montanans receive a subsidy [Which means you and I helped pay for their insurance!], but roughly 35,000 do not.
Aaron Albright, spokesman for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the average monthly premium for consumers purchasing coverage on the federal exchange increased just $4 per month last year, going from $102 to $106 ‘despite headlines suggesting double-digit increases.’
‘People understand how the marketplace works, and they know that they can shop around and find coverage that fits their needs and budget [Or just their budget and not their needs],’ Albright said in an email to The Daily Signal. ‘In addition, the vast majority of consumers qualify for tax credits that reduce the cost of coverage below the sticker price [Which means you and I helped pay for their insurance!].’
But consumers who don’t qualify for subsidies, like Gavin in Delaware, are worried.
‘My family, like many middle-class families who make just enough not to qualify for subsidies, is paying increasingly unaffordable premiums,’ a woman from Silver Spring, Maryland, who is covered through CareFirst said in comments to regulators at the Maryland Insurance Administration. ‘Insuring two members of my family now costs more than $1,000 a month.’
In Maryland, most consumers purchasing coverage through the state’s exchange face double-digit rate increases.
Cigna Health and Life Insurance asked the state to raise rates for individual market plans by nearly 30 percent, according to filings with the Maryland Insurance Administration. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic requested a 25 percent increase.
Evergreen Health Cooperative, one of seven co-ops remaining out of 23 that launched under Obamacare with federal loans, requested the lowest rate increase at 8 percent.
To remedy these rate hikes, Ed Haislmaier, a senior fellow in health policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, said the government would need to change insurance rating rules and allow insurers, rather than the exchanges, to verify customers.
‘The point in which you do some of these things, you’re making very fundamental changes to the (Affordable Care Act) [which the Obama Administration already has illegally done!],’ he said.
Digging Into Savings
After learning of Highmark’s request to raise rates an average of 32.5 percent, Gavin and Louellen Braithwaite realized they had three options: the couple could dig into their retirement savings to help pay premiums; Louellen could go without insurance and pay the annual $695 fine; or she could change to a ‘less luxurious’ plan.
Gavin said it’s too risky to go without insurance—if his wife twists her ankle on the sidewalk or she gets into a car accident, they worry the cost of paying for health care out of pocket would likely exceed the cost of premiums.
And the couple can’t downgrade Louellen to a lower metal-level plan, which would be cheaper, since she currently has a bronze plan, the bare bones option [At over $600 a month for one person!].
So they’ve decided to dig into their retirement to pay for coverage.
‘All you can do is keep digging into savings,’ Gavin said.
Though the cost of their premiums has gone up, the 68-year-old said, he and his wife haven’t seen a change in the quality of their insurance. And they’ve been able to keep their doctor, whose practice is less than 2 miles from the couple’s home, he said.”
One of the first orders of business in the new Congress is to REPEAL Obamacare. It has NEVER worked. How could two thousand pages of rules and regulations written by Congress which completed ignored the importance of the free enterprise system and competition be successful? Government regulation of industries over the long term NEVER works. NEVER!
It is time to return healthcare to the free enterprise system and competition! Repeal Obamacare!
You can not win the election if you do not run for the office. You can not win the election if you do not get on the ballot.
Vote Darrell Castle for President. The Constitutional Conservative!
I am a Christian, Constitutionalist, conservative.
Restore the Constitution
Take Back the Nation
For Life, for liberty
Don L. Vance
“With a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
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