“Death Spiral”: Obamacare Premiums May Soar As Much As 91% Next Year

This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

Residents of Maryland and Virginia face double-digit percentage increases in premiums for individual Obamacare plans in 2019, according to rate requests made by insurers.

The largest hikes are being sought by CareFirst, which is seeking a 64% increase in Virginia, and a whopping 91% increase in Maryland for its PPO. Other insurers are following suit in the two states, with Kaiser requesting hikes of 32% and 37% respectively, followed by CareFirst’s HMO offering.

In Maryland, CareFirst wants to raise rates by 91 percent on a plan covering 15,000 people, Insurance Commissioner Al Redmer Jr. said. If approved, premiums for a 40-year-old could reach $1,334 a month. –Bloomberg

That’s over $16,000 per year for an individual plan in a state with an average personal income of $59,524.

“We have folks in Maryland that are struggling, that are trying to do the right thing, and they’re paying more for their health insurance than they are for their mortgage,” Redmer said on a call with reporters.

Maryland is seeking permission from the federal government to create a reinsurance program that would use $975 million in state and federal funds over five years to lower rates. That would help only temporarily, Redmer said. –Bloomberg

“I believe we’ve been in a death spiral for a year or two,” he said, adding that a permanent solution requires Congress to fix the Affordable Care Act.

Virginia and Maryland are the first two states in which 2019 rate requests – which are subject to regulatory approval and may change – have been made public, however increases are anticipated across the country as insurers adjust to the post-ACA battle. Final premium increases will need to be approved ahead of the November 1 open-enrollment period.

The hikes are being blamed in part by the expectation that the elimination of the Obamacare stipulation forcing all Americans to have health coverage would leave insurers with a smaller pool of sicker clients.

Many health plans have stopped selling health coverage through the exchanges created four years ago under Obamacare. The Republican-led attempt to overturn the health law last year caused premiums to surge, as insurers expected that undoing the law’s requirement that all Americans have health insurance would leave them with a smaller and sicker pool of clients. –Bloomberg

While the repeal of ACA ultimately failed, the Trump administration overturned the provision penalizing uninsured Americans – something last week Trump’s former top health official, Tom Price, warned would raise the cost of health insurance for some Americans.

“There are many, and I’m one of them, who believes that that actually will harm the pool in the exchange market, because you’ll likely have individuals who are younger and healthier not participating in that market, and consequently that drives up the cost for other folks within that market,” Price said at the World Health Care Conference in Washington.

Price’s comments are in line with predictions from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which in November projected 13 million fewer Americans would have health insurance by 2027 as a result of the elimination of the individual mandate. The CBO also said average premiums in the exchanges would increase by about 10 percent in most years over the next decade, compared with a scenario in which the mandate had been left in place. –Washington Post

“Those effects would occur mainly because healthier people would be less likely to obtain insurance and because, especially in the nongroup market, the resulting increases in premiums would cause more people to not purchase insurance,” the CBO said at the time.

“The individual mandate is one of those things that is actually driving up the cost for the American people in terms of coverage,” said Price on last summer on ABC’s This Week. “So what we’re trying to do is make it so that Obamacare is no longer harming the patients of this land — no longer driving up costs, no longer making it so that they’ve got coverage but no care.”

In Virginia, the health insurance market is quite sick – with Charlottesville and neighboring counties suffering under some of the most expensive healthcare costs in the nation for people who don’t receive government subsidies.

A 40-year-old trying to afford a mid-level plan will pay around $1,048 a month.

“Carol Wise, a former nurse and social worker in Charlottesville who consults for nonprofits, paid about $640 a month last year for an individual plan from Anthem,” repoorts Bloomberg. “When Anthem pulled out of her area, the only plan available, insurer Optima Health Plan, had a premium of $1,800 a month.”

“I was blown away,” said Wise, 62.

Wise instead joined a health-care sharing ministry for $280 a month, which offers far fewer protections than traditional coverage.

Breakdown of each insurer’s proposed changes via Bloomberg: 

• Group Hospitalization and Medical Services Inc., which operates a CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, wants to raise premiums by 64 percent, on average, compared with 2018 premium levels, according to documents filed with Virginia regulators on May 4. The change would affect more than 4,000 customers.


• The Kaiser Foundation Health Plan is seeking an average rate increase of 32 percent on about 79,000 members in Virginia, while Cigna asked regulators to approve a 15 percent increase, projected to affect 103,000 members.


• Optima, which some Virginians have criticized for highest-in-the-nation premiums in some areas, said that on average its rates would decrease by 2 percent, and they would decline as much as 27 percent for some customers.


• In Maryland, CareFirst’s larger HMO plan covering 123,000 people requested a 19 percent increase. Kaiser is seeking a 37 percent hike. Both would put the new rates for a 45-year-old above $500 a month, Maryland officials said.


• Anthem Inc., which pulled out of many markets this year, is requesting a 6 percent increase for its HealthKeepers-branded plans in areas of Virginia where it remains.

“We’re still sky-high, and we still have a lot of concerns about the rates,” said Charlottesville resident Ian Dixon, who has helped organize Virginians to apply pressure on legislators and Optima for lower premiums. Even with a drop around 30%, he said, Optima’s 2019 rates come in at around double what residents were paying in 2017, when Anthem and other insurers were still offering plans.

After Using His Son to Beg for Socialized Medicine, Jimmy Kimmel Silent as It Kills Baby Alfie

The system of state-run health care, which is championed by many in Hollywood, is responsible for the death of a baby and now its champions are silent.

The post After Using His Son to Beg for Socialized Medicine, Jimmy Kimmel Silent as It Kills Baby Alfie appeared first on The Free Thought Project.

20 States Sue The Federal Government To ABOLISH Obamacare

A coalition of 20 states has come together to sue the federal government over Obamacare. The states say that the law is no longer Constitutional and it should be abolished.

Without the individual mandate (a provision in the Obamacare law that demanded all Americans buy health insurance that the government deemed acceptable or pay a fine) which has been removed, the law is supposedly unconstitutional. Often called the “teeth” of the Obamacare law, the individual mandate was highly controversial and should have never been shoved down the throats of people anyway.

According to Reuters, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel are leading the charge of 20 states standing up to the federal government. The lawsuit said that without the individual mandate, which was eliminated as part of the Republican tax law signed by President Donald Trump in December, Obamacare was unlawful. “The U.S. Supreme Court already admitted that an individual mandate without a tax penalty is unconstitutional,” Paxton said in a statement. “With no remaining legitimate basis for the law, it is time that Americans are finally free from the stranglehold of Obamacare, once and for all,” he said.

Texas and Wisconsin were joined in the lawsuit by 18 other states including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Utah and West Virginia. It was filed in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas.

“Obamacare was always designed to fail in order to usher in something worse,” says Melissa Dyke at Truthstream Media. But what could possibly be any worse than Obamacare? “Government-run, single-payer, socialist healthcare,” says Dykes.  And the evidence is in the leaked Podesta emails up on Wikileaks.

A Democrat supporting Republican legislation to destroy Obamacare on purpose. How many millions have they raked in on this deal and bilked the American people for in Obamacare penalties because they can’t afford the “affordable” health care? And the American people will look at this like a “victory” when it does unravel, even though it has been the plan all along. –The Daily Sheeple

It’s still difficult to comprehend that in the “land of the free” the federal government could, for any reason, tax and individual for NOT buying something. And we wonder why we’re constantly sliding down on the freedom index.  (The US is at #17 by the way, meaning 16 other countries have more freedom than those residing here do.) And the country had to claw their way to the #17 spot after being 7 places below that the year before.

Midterm Elections & A Paradigm Shift (Return) to the Left

After the President was elected and inaugurated, I wrote several articles specifically stating that if he didn’t accomplish significant changes by the Midterm Congressional elections, he would not be reelected. We are seeing this on its way to fruition with the Alabama race to fill the seat of Jeff Sessions. The Democrat Doug Jones has won it, and the Republican-held majority in the Senate now shrinks by one seat.

Not that it really matters. Susan Collins was one of the three Republicans quashing the attempt to remove the provision making Obamacare mandatory. Olympia Snow was the Republican Senator from Maine that allowed Obamacare to come up on the Senate Floor in the first place. Roberts (the “conservative”) the Supreme Court justice enabled Obamacare to be kept as a law.

The parties are merely an illusion of a two-party system. All of them are Statists, elitists, and Marxist-Progressives determined to completely rend the Constitution and enslave all of the citizen-serfs while they assume the positions of “uncrowned” nobility. Will they remove the mandatory clause from Obamacare, or repeal the entire law? No.

In a pig’s eye will any of these imperial statists remove a law that has every American citizen by the throat…a law the lawmakers exempted themselves from, “stamped” with “King” Obama’s approval with the Supreme Court solidifying it.

In reality, the establishment obtained exactly what it wanted, as I reported before the election, and shortly thereafter: A President who is derailed at every effort and made to appear as a “loser.” Such will make Congress Democrat-controlled again and the President a one-termer. This is happening, before our very eyes.

The United States is one step above being a third-world country, almost ready to take the plunge into the pool of totalitarianism. Go ahead: try to leave the country without a passport if you owe any money…more than you make in a year. Go ahead: try and maintain any semblance of privacy when everything you do on the computer, every purchase you make, and every place you travel is monitored, recorded, and saved for…. for what?

Saved for the inevitable day when the country morphs into full-blown tyranny and every citizen is monitored and tracked 24 hours a day by the State. 

No need for a “mark of the beast!” Such would be counterproductive: it would be recognized and fought against. No need for that! No need: Almost everyone carries around their little chittering cell phones – personal tracking devices – all tied into the computer…and the CCTV cameras…and the fusion centers and police departments. Do you want to provide Google/Yahoo/Bing with your password, in case you forget? Can’t give your mobile cell phone number now? We’ll hit you with the term “Thanks, I’ll secure my account later.”

That is the option you have…a “choice” that forces you to indemnify…to make a pledge to do it later, and thanking them for doing it to boot!

CDs and DVDs are on their way out the door, and you’ll subscribe to music, subscribe to the movies the way you subscribe to Word and Windows, not owning the disc anymore. The way you subscribe to phone time. The manner in which you subscribe to e-newspapers and Kindle.

Hooked into everything and owning nothing…and all your habits, purchases, and proclivities continuously monitored: the perfect consumer, with all your paycheck accounted for via direct deposit…and always one paycheck away from disaster and ruin.

The “joke” of an election that changes the identity of the person in office, and nothing more. The Paradigm shift back toward the right was permitted because they knew they couldn’t get away with stealing the election for Hillary Clinton…there would have been a revolution.

The establishment gave conservatives their “champion” for now, and everyone on the conservative side of the house is taking a breather…when only the round ended, not the fight. Yes, it is just a pause as the left sets up for the next presidential election. You can bet it will be a shift back to the left this time…with the same demographics for the supporters as the two Obama elections.

The deliberate collapse of the country is being orchestrated from within. After 8 years of Obama weakening the defenses, we are goading nations into war and still pursuing a policy of imperial expansion. Van Jones: Top down, bottom up, domestically while we back North Korea, China, and Russia economically, diplomatically, and militarily.

Ben Franklin was once asked by a woman what form of government the founding fathers had created. “A Republic, madam, if you can keep it,” was his response. We lost it. We lost that Republic a long time ago, and the Alabama Senate victory for the Democrats is just the beginning. With a disapproval rating of more than 60%, it would stand to reason the President can rely on one tool to pull his ratings up and give him another term. That trump card (no pun intended) is war, and we are just a hair’s breadth away from it. The primary objective is not the welfare of the American people. The primary objective of an incumbent is reelection, at any and all costs…especially when those costs can be placed on us.

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Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne).  Mr. Johnson is also a Gunsmith, a Certified Master Herbalist, a Montana Master Food Preserver, and a graduate of the U.S. Army’s SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape).  He lives in a cabin in the mountains of Western Montana with his wife and three cats. You can follow Jeremiah’s regular writings at SHTFplan.com or contact him here.

This article may be republished or excerpted with proper attribution to the author and a link to www.SHTFplan.com.

“This Is Absolutely Crazy”: Obamacare Signups Start As Americans Increasingly Balk At Surging Premiums

This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

After years of surging premiums and deductibles, will 2018 finally be the year that America’s middle class throws in the towel and brings the whole scheme crashing down?

While we won’t know the answer to that question for at least a couple of months, one thing is certain…if it happens it will most definitely be the result of the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the legislation and not the culmination of years of soaring costs that has rendered healthcare unaffordable for most American families. Well, at least that’s the The Wall Street Journal‘s assessment of the situation:

Consumers will begin signing up Wednesday to take part in the Affordable Care Act next year, kicking off a crucial six-week stretch that could test the law’s durability amid Republican leaders’ continuing desire to see it repealed.

This year’s annual open-enrollment period, the fifth in the ACA’s history, faces more uncertainty than previous years, since the Trump administration has opted to cut the sign-up period by half and pull back $116 million that had been designated for advertising and outreach.

Health analysts widely expect the number of people who purchase insurance through the law’s exchanges to dwindle as a result, fueling a partisan debate over whether the Obama-era law is sinking of its own accord or being undercut by the administration’s actions.

About 12 million people selected or were re-enrolled in the exchanges last year, with about 10.3 million of those actually paying premiums and obtaining coverage in 2017. Analysts expect the number of sign-ups to fall by at least one million during this open-enrollment period, which extends from Nov. 1 through Dec. 15.

Of course, as Bloomberg crisply demonstrated by highlighting the health insurance experience of Richard Taylor, Obamacare’s surging premiums had already rendered the product completely unobtainable for a broad swath of the American middle class long before Trump moved into the White House. As Bloomberg notes, Taylor is one of the unfortunate Americans who makes too much money to qualify for subsidies but is self-employed and thus forced to purchase insurance on the private exchange.

For some lower-income people in Obamacare, the rising premiums President Donald Trump has talked so much about will barely be felt at all. Others, particularly those with higher incomes, will feel the sharp increases when insurance sign-ups begin Wednesday.

Richard Taylor is one of the people on the wrong end. The 61-year-old, self-employed Oklahoman has meticulously tracked his medical costs since 1994. In 2013, he signed up for an Affordable Care Act plan for the law’s first year offering coverage to millions of Americans.

Four years ago, annual premiums for a mid-level “silver” plan to cover his family totaled $10,072.44. For 2017, they were $21,392.40—up 112 percent.

“This is crazy. This is absolutely crazy,” Taylor said. “All I’m waiting on is to get on Medicare.”

Alas, fixing a broken system is hardly the concern of Washington D.C. politicians who will inevitably continue to ignore the consequences of a failed piece of legislation and focus instead on clever media attack ads and tweets designed to make sure the blame falls on the opposite party.

Democrats complain that President Donald Trump’s actions are prompting the very problems Republicans cite as evidence of the law’s failure. “In the end, if Republicans can tank open enrollment, they can get more momentum to try repeal again,” said Brad Woodhouse, executive director of protect Our Care, a Democratic advocacy group.

The Trump administration has pared funds for publicizing the open-enrollment dates and for paying on-the-ground assisters who help people shop for coverage. The Department of Health and Human Services also plans to take down the law’s main website, healthcare.gov, from midnight to noon on nearly every Sunday of the sign-up period.

Advocates also say the ACA’s online window-shopping tool, which allows customers to compare plans ahead of open enrollment, has been malfunctioning, sowing further confusion. Federal health officials have acknowledged the issues.

For those who missed it, before you rush out to buy your Obamacare plan today you should probably take a peak at the preview below of how much your premiums are going to increase in 2018…

* * *

A new study conducted by Avalere and released earlier today found that Obamacare rates will surge an average of 34% across the country in 2018. Of course, this is in addition to the 113% average premium increase from 2013 and 2017, which brings the total 5-year increase to a staggering 185%.

Meanwhile, and to our complete shock no less, Avalere would like for you to know that the rate increases are almost entirely due to the Trump administration’s “failure to pay for cost-sharing reductions”…which is a completely reasonable guess if you’re willing to ignore the fact that 2018 premium increases are roughly in-line with the 29% constantly annualized growth rates experienced over the past 4 years before Trump ever moved into the White House…but that’s just math so who cares?

New analysis from Avalere finds that the 2018 exchange market will see silver premiums rise by an average of 34%. According to Avalere’s analysis of filings from Healthcare.gov states, exchange premiums for the most popular type of exchange plan (silver) will be 34% higher, on average, compared to last year.

“Plans are raising premiums in 2018 to account for market uncertainty and the federal government’s failure to pay for cost-sharing reductions,” said Caroline Pearson, senior vice president at Avalere. “These premium increases may allow insurers to remain in the market and enrollees in all regions to have access to coverage.”

Avalere experts attribute premium increases to a number of factors, including elimination of cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments, lower than anticipated enrollment in the marketplace, limited insurer participation, insufficient action by the government to reimburse plans that cover higher cost enrollees (e.g., via risk corridors), and general volatility around the policies governing the exchanges. The vast majority of exchange enrollees are subsidized and can avoid premium increases, if they select the lowest or second lowest cost silver plan in their region. However, some unsubsidized consumers who pay the full premium cost may choose not to enroll for 2018 due to premium increases.

Of course, not all residents are treated equally when it comes to premium hikes.  So far, Iowa is winning the award for greatest percentage increase at 69%, with Wyoming, Utah and Virginia close behind.

On an absolute basis, Wyoming wins with the average 50 year old expected to drop nearly $1,200 per month (or roughly the cost of a mortgage) on health insurance premiums.

So what say you? Have we finally reached the tipping point where enough full-paying Obamacare customers will simply forego insurance that they can no longer afford and cause the whole system to come crashing down?

37 Percent Rate Increase In 2018??? Obamacare Is Imploding And It Must Be Repealed Now!

This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse

Are you ready to pay 37 percent more for health insurance in 2018?  Obamacare is imploding faster than most of us imagined, and these rate increases are absolutely killing hard working middle class families all across the country.  I wrote about the steady erosion of the middle class yesterday, and health insurance is one of the main reasons why the cost of living is increasing at a much faster rate than our paychecks are.  It greatly frustrates me that we have given the Republicans control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives and Obamacare still has not been repealed.  The truth is that should have happened on day one of the Trump presidency.

Monday’s news was dominated by headlines about the indictments of Paul Manafort and Robert Gates, but a new round of Obamacare rate increases is going to have much more of a direct impact on the lives of ordinary Americans.  According to CNN, premiums for silver Obamacare plans will increase by an average of 37 percent next year…

Premiums for the benchmark silver Obamacare plan will soar 37%, on average, for 2018, according to federal data released Monday.

And remember, this 37 percent increase is on top of all of the other yearly increases that we have seen so far.  Many families have already seen their health insurance premiums more than double since Obamacare became law, and now things are going to get even worse.

The silver plans are the most popular, and this is especially true among younger people.  According to that same CNN story, a 27-year-old will now be paying almost five thousand dollars a year for one of these silver plans…

The steep rate hike means a 27-year-old will pay nearly $5,000 a year, on average, for the benchmark silver plan, upon which premium subsides are based. That’s up from $2,600 when the Obamacare exchanges opened in 2014. This is before subsidies are factored in, however.

Premiums are skyrocketing for a second year in a row. Rates rose 24% this year in the states using healthcare.gov.

Do you know any 27-year-old that can afford to pay $5000 a year for health insurance?

I don’t.

And because deductibles are so high, most of them are quite afraid to go to the hospital anyway.

As Obamacare plan premiums go up, so do the subsidies.  At this point more than 80 percent of all those enrolled in Obamacare plans receive subsidies, and that means that much of the burden for paying these rate increases ultimately falls on the taxpayers.

And by taxpayers, I mean you and me.

Here in Idaho, the rate increases are going to be even higher than the national average.  In fact, it is being reported that silver plan rates will be going up by an average of about 50 percent in 2018…

Idaho Statesman reporter Audrey Dutton reports that the largest increases are proposed in the “silver” plans, which are the most popular ones on the exchange, falling mid-range in pricing and benefits between the lower-level “bronze” plans and the high-end “gold” plans. Silver plans are showing average increases of 50 percent in premiums; they range from a low of 40 percent at Blue Cross to 69 percent at SelectHealth.

Needless to say, Idaho families cannot afford these sorts of rate increases, and I am for a 100 percent repeal of Obamacare immediately.  In my new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters”, I touch on some of the things that we need to do to start fixing our deeply broken healthcare system.  We once had the greatest system of healthcare on the entire planet, and I believe that we can get there again, but we desperately need to return to free market principles.  I am very much in favor of the kinds of association buying groups that Rand Paul has proposed, and I would like to see exciting new concepts such as direct primary care implemented much more extensively.

Doing nothing is not an option.  The longer that Obamacare is allowed to exist, the more financial damage it will do to middle class families.

Today, we learned that the U.S. savings rate has fallen to a 10 year low.  Most families cannot save much money because they are just scraping by from month to month.  The middle class is now a minority of the population, and as health insurance rates continue to rise the financial stress on American families is only going to intensify.

We also just learned that real disposable income per capita has been declining since May.  The following comes from Wolf Richter…

But consumers don’t feel that. What they feel is their slice of the pie, but that pie got cut into more slices as the US population expanded. And this leaves disposable income “per capita,” which the BEA also discloses, but mercifully buried in the data.

This real disposable income per capita — a function of income, taxes, inflation, and population growth — peaked in May and has been declining ever since.

A 37 percent rate increase is going to be absolutely devastating to those that are on silver plans.  We were promised that Obamacare would make healthcare cheaper and more affordable, but instead the exact opposite has been true.

By the time the 2018 mid-term elections roll around, there are going to be tens of millions of Americans that are deeply angry about health insurance rates, and many believe that they will take that anger out on Democrats and on establishment Republicans that blocked the repeal of Obamacare.

But the Democrats are hoping for a different result.  They are hoping to retake either the House or the Senate in 2018, and if Republicans have not repealed Obamacare by then the Democrats will completely block any further attempts to do so.

The clock is ticking, and the Republicans need to get something done.  Up to this point they have completely fumbled the football, but there is still time to recover if they can get their act together.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years.Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The American Dream. 

If you want to know what is coming and what you can do to prepare, read his latest book Get Prepared Now!: Why A Great Crisis Is Coming.

Welcome to the Age of Fury: “This Simmering Anger of the Populace Is Going to Start Boiling Over”

This article was originally published by Chris Martenson at PeakProsperity.com

Are You Infuriated Yet?

by Chris Martenson

More and more, I’m encountering people who are simply infuriated with how our “leaders” are running (or to put it more accurately, ruining) things right now. And I share that fury.

It’s perfectly normal human response to be infuriated when an outside agent hurts you, especially if the pain seems unnecessary, illogical or random.

Imagine if your neighbor enjoyed setting off loud explosives at all hours of the day and night. Or if he had a habit of tailgating and brake-checking you every time he saw your car on the road. You’d been well within your rights to be infuriated.

Or to use a much more common example from the real world : When your politicians repeatedly pass laws that hurt you in favor of large corporations — that, too, is infuriating. Especially if those actions run directly counter to their campaign promises.

There’s a lot of be infuriated about in the world today, so go ahead and embrace your rage. By doing so, you’ll be in a better mindset to understand things like Brexit, Catalonia, and Trump, each of which is a reflection of the fury of your fellow citizens, who are finally waking up to the fact that they’ve been victims for too long.

An easy prediction to make is that this simmering anger of the populace is going to start boiling over more violently in the coming years. Welcome to the Age of Fury.

‘Over The Top’ Dumb

Do you ever get the sense that, as a society, we’re being dangerously reckless? Perhaps so dumb that we might not recover from the repercussions of our stupidity for many generations, if ever?

There are economic and financial idiocies in motion that are, by themselves, unsolvable predicaments without a peaceful solution. But when combined with resource depletion and declining net energy, they’re positively intractable.

Take for example the hundreds of trillions of dollars-worth of underfunded entitlement and pension promises. Those promises cannot be kept and they cannot be paid. Everybody with a basic comprehension of math can conclude as such.

Yet we continue to operate as if the opposite were true. We comfort ourselves that, somehow, all the promised future payouts will be made in full — even though the funds are insolvent, their returns are much lower than the actuarial projections require, and payout demand mercilessly rises each year.

Spoiler alert: This isn’t some future disaster lying in wait. It’s unfolding right now.

Take these headlines spanning the past several years:

• Congress approves plan to allow pension cuts (Dec 2014)


• 273,000 union workers and retirees brace for pension cuts (May 2, 2016)


• In unprecedented move, pension plan cuts benefits promised to retirees (Jan 27, 2017)  — note the laughable use of “unprecedented” here


• Teamsters face 31 percent pension cut (Mar 7, 2017)


• New York State Teamsters pension fund cuts approved (Sept 13, 2017)

When it comes to broken retirement promises, the future is now. It will be with us for a very long time.

Why? Because the math simply doesn’t work. It’s broken, it’s been broken for a long time. You can’t put too little in the piggy bank at the start, then raid it over time, and still expect to have enough at the end.

And yet we, as a society, have preferred to pretend as if that weren’t the case. Which, it turns out, was a terrible “strategy.”

But if you think that’s bad, you’re going to positively hate this chart:

The pension liabilities now blowing up are contained within the thin green smear in the middle of this chart. Think on the nation’s inability to handle that single crisis, and now reflect on how overwhelmed it’s going to be by the far larger predicaments that lie elsewhere on the chart.

The Infuriating Plunder-fest That Is Health Care

The Medicare liabilities (the orange and largest band on the above chart) are immense, and will only become more so as our largest demographic, the baby boomers, further ages. But they become especially infuriating when seen in the larger context of the racketeering that drives the health care system in the United States.

Instead of doing anything constructive about the high number of IOUs building up within Medicare, Washington DC politicians are sidestepping the most obvious elements that contribute the most to the problem. Enormously wasteful, the “healthcare” system is entirely out of control and spiraling deeper into an abyss that threatens to literally destroy the most productive segment of the US social structure: the middle and upper middle classes.

That should be a topic of serious discussion in the halls of power. But none is being had.

Literally each day brings worse news on the skyrocketing costs of healthcare. But, as with most topics, the media mostly focuses on the symptoms (prices) rather than the causes of the issue.

The real culprits here are the insurance cartel and a hospital system that has the most unfair, incomprehensible, and inhumane billing process ever devised. One easy to grasp feature of both the insurance companies and conspire to pay the executives far more than they actually deserve or are truly worth.

Health care premiums for 2018 set to go up by as much as 50 percent

Oct 5, 2017

Several states have announced rates for health insurance premiums on the Obamacare exchanges for 2018. Topping the list is Georgia, with rates that are 57 percent higher than last year, while Florida said some premiums will be 45 percent higher.

Among the reasons for these increases is the uncertainty about the future of the Affordable Care Act. President Donald Trump has vowed to repeal and replace the health care law, which was passed under his predecessor President Barack Obama.

Insurers are raising premiums in the face of repeated threats from President Trump to stop funding so-called cost-sharing reductions, payments to insurers that cover out-of-pocket costs for some low-income consumers. Trump previously referred to these payments as “bailouts” for insurance companies and threatened to stop making the payments so as to “let Obamacare implode”. (Source)

That’s the story the health insurers are going with: they have to raise rates because they’re uncertain whether they will get AS MUCH LOOT under the new rules being considered as they did under the utterly disastrous Obamacare provisions.

How much loot are we talking about? Look at this chart of the stock price of United Healthcare (UNH) since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare):

If this chart showing massive near-4x gains in just 5 years, coupled with your steep annual premium increases, doesn’t infuriate you, you are just not getting it.

Even if your employer pays for your health care (somewhat obscuring the true impact of premium increases), the cost to you is fewer and lower pay increases, as well as steady yearly reductions in covered services along with higher co-pays and deductible amounts.

Still not infuriated? Ok, maybe this will do the trick. Here how much executive compensation at the major insurers was last year:

(Source)

The average family health care insurance premium in 2016 was $18,764, meaning that Mark Bertolini from Aetna alone required 100% of the premiums from more than 2,200 families just to pay him in 2016. Of course, the “C-suite” of these health care insurers are loaded with other high-paid parasites who are just as busy gouging the young and old alike.

This is a complete travesty and joke. Congress and the Senate, sitting on their deservedly low approval ratings, pretend they cannot do anything about it. Too complicated they say. Bullshit I say. Go after the obscene pay packages and profits of the insurance industry as a first matter of business. Then make it a crime for hospitals to bill people differently for the exact same services.

That’s a no-brainer. Can you imagine if your mechanic had a secret pricing formula for every customer that was, literally, based on their maximum ability to pay? Nobody would stand for it, it’s disgusting that we tolerate this when it comes to something as vital and necessary as our health and even lives.

Fury, not tolerance, is what’s needed now.

Conclusion (to Part 1)

The future has arrived. The pension losses are here and just getting started and the future will have a lot more of those sorts of broken promises.

The health care insurance crisis has been with us for 20 years or so now and Obamacare just put some extra accelerant on that fire, which is now consuming middle class households by the tens of thousands.

Both the pension and health care crises are infuriating and self-inflicted wounds. We could have avoided them by making wiser choices in the past. We didn’t. We could limit their damage by making better choices today. We almost assuredly won’t.

Current conversations and proposals are thinly disguised sleight-of-hand movements whose purpose is to deflect attention from the thefts underway. Anybody who studies the system and its math comes to the same conclusion: the corporations have all the power and they are misusing it for private gain.

Why there aren’t more politicians willing to call a spade a spade and actually protect their constituents is a real mystery. But the next wave of populist candidates certainly won’t be. People are sick and tired of being asked to give more and more while corporations and wealthy elites keep taking more and more.

It’s simply infuriating.

But that’s not the worst of it. The mistakes we are making right now in terms of energy policy and ecological destruction are far more dangerous to your personal health, liberty and future prospects than a simple market crash.

In Part 2: It’s Time For Action, we uncover the hidden downside risks in today’s financial markets and explain how, as destructive as a coming market crash will be, the longer-term damage to society and risks to your well-being are rooted in the potential breakdown of the systems we depend on to live.

As with pensions and health care, we are pursuing similar dangerously misguided policies in our farming & food systems, extraction of industrial resources, and ecological management — to name just a few.

There’s an appropriate time for fury. And that time is now — provided we use the anger to spur us into constructive action. Get your fury on.

Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)