Obama Shows Up in Someones Elses Backyard: This Time to Sell Health Insurance

I think these backyard talks are getting kind of tacky.

Just six weeks before midterm elections expected to punish Democrats, the president surrounded himself in a Virginia backyard with people who benefited from the law — a hemophiliac fearful of lifetime coverage limits that will now be eliminated, a senior citizen who got help with her heart medications.

Acknowledging that the economy is the foremost concern, Obama nonetheless insisted, "Health care was one of those issues that we could no longer ignore."

I hope that hemophiliac isn't covered by a doctor that doesn't accept Medicaid or his preferred form of treatment doesn't get the Cost-Effectiveness panels "seal of death." Also that senior citizen might have to pay more for that medicine (or get it denied if the Cost-Effectiveness panel gets their way) depending on how her insurance works out. She will also get to see her Medicare cut to "bend the cost curve." What is really interesting is to see how much insurance companies will jack up rates in the next 3 years to cover all of the free stuff they will have to account for:

Among benefits taking effect this week:

_Young adults can remain on their family's health plan until they turn 26.

_Free immunizations for kids.

_Free preventive care, like mammograms and cholesterol screenings.

_No more lifetime coverage limits, and annual limits start to phase out.

_Plans can't cancel coverage for people who get sick.

_No denial of coverage to kids with pre-existing health conditions.

Remember that they are not going to get all the new health insurance customers until 2014 so they will jack up rates between now and then. I wonder how the White House is going to fight against them other then just ramping up the rhetoric. I mean all the insurance companies will have to say is that Obamacare is making us raise your insurance by 15% and since people hate it already (40% disapprove) they will deflect the blame from themselves.