Ignore those practicing the soft sciences

Health Care reform is quickly starting to look like global warming with all the supposedly educated individuals talking way above their knowledge base. An Insurance broker that experiences something every day for 20 years is not reliable, an economist with zero experience writing a paper that makes no logical sense on the other hand is credible. It would be amusing if there wasn't millions of people reading this crap and making decisions based on it. Here is a recent example of a fallacy I see quit a bit;

"You’re right. There is no evidence one way or the other that Obamacare caused his premium to go up 30%. So don’t go there.

You can say that your premium went up. You can say Obamacare exists. There’s no causal evidence for the latter causing the former (especially since most of the regulations haven’t taken effect yet, and insurance went up pretty much every year WITHOUT Obamacare), so don’t say there is."

A slightly more honest version of this argument is that, according to academics, ObamaCare has only increased the cost of insurance a couple percent. That may or may not be true but that is little comfort to someone's who actual premium did go up 30%. If I have to pay 30% more at renewal I don't take much comfort in knowing everyone else only had to pay a couple percent higher rates.

Just a few examples of substantial rate increases I have personally seen;

1. Student plans that doubled in rates due to lifetime maximum increases. 
2. Limited/Mini Med plans that went away or had substantial rate increases to comply with limits on maximums.
3. Small group plans that picked up sick dependents under the age of 26, this can easily increase your rates 10-40% depending how close to the rate cap they already were. 
4. Self funded groups that increased the maximum annual reimbursement on their specific policies, I have seen increases from 3-13% to go to an unlimited annual reimbursement. 

 I am sure other agents could add considerably more. The point is; it is a fact ObamaCare has increased rates over 100% for some groups/individuals and I know first hand of groups that stopped offering benefits due to the increase directly caused by ObamaCare. This doesn't include the individual market for kids it wiped out. The propogandist on the left would prefer you now know this. Which is ironic considering all of the sob stories they ran for years prior to reform about those that couldn't get or lost coverage.