Readers sound off on Malkin column

ON YOUR MIND

Speak Up

Editor’s note: We asked readers what they thought about Michelle Malkin’s provocative Sept. 27 column (“Obama, Democrats lied and my health plan died”). Here’s a sampling of readers’ reactions:

Michelle Malkin, among many other naysayers, is claiming President Obama and Nancy Pelosi lied when they said you could keep your insurance plan. Anthem is canceling on her, not Obama. There is no reason that Anthem couldn't continue that policy. Anyone can offer plans and buy insurance outside of the Affordable Care Act. Anthem just doesn't want to — for financial reasons.

I am on Social Security, but I buy my supplemental insurance on an individual plan that costs me $224.79 per month. I have not received any notice of cancellation and probably will not — because of the ACA. Michelle Malkin has a disease called hatred and no amount of insurance can cure that.

My insurance was not canceled but the premiums went up a whopping 25 percent. Not only that, but my benefits were reduced and my out-of-pocket expenses increased. I can't afford this triple whammy so I opted out of health insurance completely and allowed my policy to expire. I'll bank the premiums and use it to pay out of pocket when I need to see my doctor.

For about 20 years, I have been getting my health insurance either with a small business plan or by buying personal insurance directly from an insurance company. Virtually every year, I receive a notice that they will no longer offer the plan I have, and I must switch to another plan that costs more and provides less coverage. This began long before Obamacare even existed, and has nothing to do with the ACA. The notion that an insurance company is compelled to do this by the new health care law is simply false.

I lost my doctor of 20 years when he retired at 50 because he did not want to deal with Obamacare. He retired Dec. 31, 2012.

You have no real case against the ACA with this column from a very biased conservative writer. I have heard of states, where the ACA is already in place, actually seeing a decline in rates as insurance companies have to compete now. The GOP is resorting to hysterics, as usual, in an attempt to derail a program that Americans will like once it has gotten a foothold — like Social Security and Medicare. My feeling is, as always, if a conservative says it is raining outside, you had better go look out the window.

Someone needs to explain to Malkin that it's not lying if you are telling the truth at the time of your statement. Obama and Pelosi were telling the truth about their intent for affordable health care when it was submitted. It was the personal self-interest of the partisan politicians who added or made hundreds of self-serving changes that resulted in a bill that is way off the track of original intent. The same people, by the way, who are now traitorously shutting down the government. I think that's called "reverting to anarchy."

I received a letter from Anthem regarding my health care. I have been self-employed for more than four years and insured by Anthem for two years. Anthem will continue to cover me, but the premium will 50 percent more than I am paying now — for the same coverage. I am stunned by the increase. …

Malkin knows very well that Obama and Pelosi did not lie. They innocently assumed that insurance companies would not go to the dramatic extent of discontinuing all of their own businesses in PPOs in order to defeat Obamacare. Insurance companies are desperate to destroy the ACA and are willing to take extreme measures, including discontinuation of their own coverage plans.

Here are other Speak Up comments for the day:

President Obama points out isolated cases to justify this huge government takeover of health care. All of us agree that there should be programs to help people who are doing the right thing, but get in a jam. What we don't want is the government seizing more control of our lives, increasing the burden we already bear, and handing out even more assistance to those with no intention of helping themselves. Republicans could have introduced sensible legislation to deal with this long ago, but chose not to. Both parties have failed the country.

The Republicans are correct. President Obama should not be allowed to change the law as it was written and exempt the White House staff and members of Congress and their staffs from having to follow the rules of Obamacare — just as the rest of the country must do. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Thank you to our Congress for making the United States the laughingstock of the world.

How would the Republicans react if President Obama said he will not sign a budget bill unless it includes an assault weapons ban? They would call it traitorous extortion and blackmail against the American people; yet, somehow, when they do it, it's OK? Only in the warped minds of the far right is it morally acceptable to commit extortion and blackmail against the American people to get what you want when you cannot do so legally.

A government shutdown only results in an impact on the people who put these idiots into office — we the voters.

Only a Democrat would consider it rational behavior to close the Air Force Museum and the World War II Memorial, yet allow the EPA and Department of Energy to continue to operate.

During the government shutdown, I wonder who will watch over us if no drones are flying?

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