Cash for Health Insurance

[Welcome Kaiser Network readers!]

Obamacare hit the wall today due to lack of funding. The Obamington administration announced today the wildly popular Cash for Health Insurance program is being suspended due to overwhelming demand. The program allowed insureds to trade in their old health insurance plan for a new, government issued plan and receive cash rebates up to $4500.

In less than a week the program ran out of money as people rushed to trade in their old clunker policies for the newer government approved plans with higher benefits and taxpayer subsidized premiums.

This is eerily similar to the Cash for Clunkers program that also fell apart after a week when the Obamington administration ran out of money.

Congressional officials say the government plans to suspend the popular "cash for clunkers" program amid concerns it could quickly use up the $1 billion in rebates for new car purchases.

The Transportation Department called congressional offices late Thursday to alert them to the decision to halt the program, which offered owners of old cars and trucks $3,500 or $4,500 toward a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle.

In less than 4 days 22,782 cars were traded in generating expected rebates of up to $96 million.

Cash for Health Insurance allowed people who had their own private health insurance to trade in those policies for newer ones approved by the government. These new policies included benefits such as free door to door shuttle services to the doctor or valet parking if you chose to drive your own government provided car. Pregnant women covered by Obamacare policies would be allowed to spend their last trimester in the resort spa of their choice at no charge to them. Babies born under Obamacare not only received free health and dental care for life but a full ride college scholarship.

One provision of Obamacare backfired. Psychiatric providers had lobbied hard for mental health parity provisions and won the right for patients to receive full, no limit mental health care for life. In an effort to make health insurance affordable for everyone, Obamacare policies were free to anyone earning less than 4x the FPL (Federal Poverty Level), about $88,000 for a family of four. The rich benefits of Obamacare coupled with free coverage relieved so much stress that psychiatric workers reported mass cancellations of scheduled appointments. Sales of anti-depressant and anxiety medication dropped overnight.

Clearly, no one wanted the older plans any more when they could get $0 deductible, $0 copay plans and best of all, $0 premiums.

Already protesters are gathering outside Capitol Hill and the Obama House. The National Guard had to be called in to quell the torch and pitchfork crowd carrying signs and shouting "tax the rich, tax the rich" in hopes of encouraging legislators in Obamington to reinstate the Cash for Health Insurance plan.

Meanwhile, the rich were watching all this from their private yachts and secluded islands. By voluntarily deferring income and liquidating assets on an as needed basis they avoided the surcharge on income in excess of $250,000 imposed by Congress as a way to fund bigger government programs. Members of Congress and the Obamington administration were baffled by this turn of events and they grossly miscalculated the response of the wealthy to punitive tax rates.

PresBO said Congress had acted stupidly by profiling the rich as easy targets for tax increases.

In an effort to make this into a learning experience, President Obama invited the wealthy to join him in the Obama House for a beer.

Smaller cars, bigger health insurance, Poppa Washington.