It seems my blog post of last week, “The Trouble with Sasse,” has sparked a nerve. 

In it, I explained why I believe that, based on US Senate candidate Ben Sasse’s public statements and writings, the former Bush Administration official:

1. Supports the basic principles of Obamacare, if not all the details.
2. Offered Obamacare’s authors advice on how to improve their bill while it was pending.
3. Prospered by advising health care companies how to implement it.
4. Wants to replace it with what may fairly be described as “ObamaCare Lite.”

I also noted that he praised Medicare Part D’s “premium support” model as an ideal model for revamping the entire US health care system, in pursuit of a goal of “universal health insurance coverage.”

I also noted that Sasse was for Part D before he was against it.

Obviously, these contentions run counter to the image he has been presenting as the most passionate, knowledgeable, and principled opponent of Obamacare in the race.

Which raises the question: What are his principles, anyway?

The pushback on my piece has been strong. His campaign has circulated a fund-raising email blasting me and FreedomWorks for mischaracterizing Sasse’s views (although all I've done is quote Sasse’s own words).

And Bill Kristol’s Weekly Standard has risen to Sasse’s defense, to attest that he does in fact favor repealing Obamacare (something I’ve never denied).

Now, I’ll be more than happy to withdraw any or all of my contentions when evidence is brought forward proving them inaccurate. 

But so far, no one has actually answered them, or really even tried to. 

The rebuttals so far have been essentially evasive. I cheerfully grant that Ben Sasse:

• Comports himself as a gentleman.
• Is deeply knowledgeable about about federal health policy.
• Wants to repeal Obamacare. 

That’s all wonderful. But those things by themselves are not good enough reasons to put a man in the Senate. As far as I can tell, every Republican wants to repeal Obamacare. So does more than half the U.S. population. These days, a candidate’s desire to repeal Obamacare tells us approximately zero about how he will behave in office. To know that, we also need to know his basic principles (not only his principles for national health care reform but also his principles regarding the role and purpose of government).

So what does Ben Sasse support? What are his reform principles? 

Taking my earlier contentions a step further, I would say that, based on his public statements to date, he would appear to be on the horns of at least three dilemmas (all three point to the same underlying issue, the proper role of government in health care):

1. Universal Coverage Dilemma. Either he: (a) supports bigger, more expensive, more coercive government to achieve “universal health insurance coverage” (as by an individual mandate, or alternatively by way of massively higher spending) or (b) is willing to live permanently with some significant portion of the U.S. population uninsured.
2. Replacement Dilemma. Either he: (a) wants to replace Obamacare with Obamacare Lite in some form (for example, with something akin to Romneycare, but expanded to the whole country), or (b) wants to replace it with a patient-centered health care system. 
3. Premium Support Dilemma. Either he: (a) supports government-regulated “premium support” schemes, which are built on coercion and mandates, or (b) favors dramatically deregulating the health care arena so doctors and patients can pursue their mutual goals in freedom.

(By the term “premium support,” I mean government-regulated pseudo-market programs like Romneycare, Obamacare, and the Medicare Part D program that Sasse has extolled. The latter can fairly be described as Obamacare Lite for seniors.) 

Where does Mr. Sasse come out on these dilemmas? His public statements make it pretty clear he opts for option (a) in all of them. If so, is that the kind of worldview that Nebraskans want in their next U.S. Senator?

I would be delighted to discover I’m mistaken. 

And by the way, if Sasse's ultimate goal is option (b) -- market-driven, patient-centered care -- you won't hear me criticizing him for favoring a transitional policy to move us toward that goal. All practical conservatives accept the need for transitions when change is potentially disruptive and affects millions of people. 

But the question remains: What is his goal? What are his reform principles? Where would he take us, post-Obamacare?

Or to put it more simply: Which Ben Sasse is the real one? The anti-Obamacare firebrand? Or the Part D-admiring technocrat? The Sasse who claims to reject the entire “Obamacare worldview”? Or the Sasse who extolled Medicare Part D as “the answer to health reform” and a “patient-empowering solution”?

Will the real Ben Sasse please stand up?

Until he anwers that question clearly, I'll have to go by his public statements and assume that he's a big-government technocrat posing as a small-government conservative.

Dean Clancy is FreedomWorks Vice President for Public Policy. He has spent two decades working for health care freedom.

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BOUNTY: I will pay $1,000 to the first person who persuades an objective judge that all four of my main claims about Ben Sasse (above) are false. -- Dean Clancy 02/12/2014

Her status update caught my eye, but only because I'm used to seeing this friend write about her role in the latest play at the community theatre, or post about something hilarious one of her kids said.  She doesn't post much of anything political, and I can't remember ever seeing her complain.  But this post was different.

Kelly had just received a new premium quote to cover her family, which includes her husband and their five children. 

"...If you are a hard working, self employed family with a house full of children then you can get screwed just like us! I am so glad everyone gets healthcare now, OH WAIT! Except for those who opt out and get fined the $95.00 a year because they can't afford their premiums. I guess they don't get "affordable" healthcare either. Don't break a leg folks..or worse...This tirade brought on by the fact that I just got a premium quote of up to 1254.00 a month (not including dental) and I am mad about it."

That wasn't the only quote she received, she shopped around.  The lowest she could find was over $1,022 a month, and what she didn't mention in her self described "tirade" is not only is their insurance premium increasing by several hundred dollars a month, their deductible is doubling as well.  Each family member will now have to meet a $6,350 deductible before insurance kicks in.  

Kelly's husband owns a machinery businesses and is the sole provider for their family. They don't live an extravagant lifestyle and they've made a lot of sacrifices in order for Kelly to stay home and raise their children.  I asked her what this costly increase means for their family.

"Financially this will be devastating for us.  We will have to lower our grocery budget and who knows where the money will come from to keep this family clothed.  Feeding and clothing five kids is hard enough, but there are activities and other things they all want to be a part of that will have to be passed over because we simply can't afford it. Future plans for house upkeep and family vacations will all be put on the back burner as well. Basically our quality of life will be diminished."

She went on to talk about the anxiety the situation has caused.

"Our coverage was never really good at the lower rates. But now we have to pay more for the same or worse insurance. It actually causes me anxiety and makes me feel depressed when I try to think about where the money will come from."

In the past few weeks I've noticed several of my friends posting about huge increases in premiums and deductibles while also seeing a decrease in their coverage.  Many have reached out to me via social media or email to share their stories. 

Another friend, Michelle, recently commented on a Facebook status stating that the increase in premiums forced her to go back to work full time. 

"The real war on women is the fact I can no longer afford to stay home with my children.  That choice was taken away."

Only four years ago Michelle had a comprehensive plan covering her and her two young children for $181 a month, and a low $500 annual deductible.  In 2010 that plan jumped to $700 a month and the deductible doubled.  At the end of that year she was notified that her rates were about to increase by as much as 60%.

"That's a mortgage payment for us.  My husband's job provides insurance but adding me and the kids raises the cost to over $1000 a month. It's just not doable." 

She had to make the choice to either find a full time job that provides insurance or go without coverage.  Today, both her and her husband work full time primarily to afford a plan that carries a $5,000 per child deductible. Like Kelly's family, they don't qualify for subsidies under the income guidelines of ObamaCare. 

The promises of lower premiums, more choices, and being able to keep your plan, made to millions of Americans by President Obama continue to be broken by economic reality. It sounded to good to be true, and it is. Neither family I spoke to can afford insurance now that the "Affordable Care Act" is in effect.

These are just two families who have had their lives negatively impacted by ObamaCare. Unfortunately, there are nearly six million people who have had their plans cancelled already, and according to some estimates, tens of millions more to come. 

What will your family be forced to sacrifice? How will your family cope with dropped coverage and skyrocketing costs under ObamaCare?  

Photo purchased from iStockphoto

In order to get young people to buy the Obamcare Exchange health insurance plans, the Obama Administration dictated to insurance companies a new deadline of December 24, Christmas Eve, for policies to be effective January 1. At the same time, over the weekend the President went through a botched PR rollout of his own, enrolling in the DC Exchange. These games will continue, and probably become worse, once the law is in full effect next week.

The Obama Administration and other Obamacare backers have been trying for a long time to get young people to sign up for exchange-based insurance. The latest social media push urged supporters to talk to relatives at holiday gatherings.

Never mind, for a second, how uncomfortable that would be -- having cousin Chad show up as the Instant Expert on Obamacare to lay down the White House talking points. Consider when people actually get together for the holidays: it's usually only Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Sure there are extended visits, but the mother lode of extended family interaction is on those two days. 

The White House finally figured out that after all of the hype pushing people to talk to their families, they'd be past their already extended deadline by the time most people gathered to enjoy each other's company. Awkward! It would be far better to extend that deadline into the prime holiday time.

At the last minute, they even went to the trouble of enrolling President Obama in the DC exchange, even though as Commander-in-Chief he and his family have a health care staff at beck and call.  

The President didn't sign up himself, mind you. His staff did it for him.

“Like some Americans, the complicated nature of the president’s case required an in-person sign-up,” the official said. “As you’d expect, the president’s personal information is not readily available in the variety of government databases HealthCare.gov uses to verify identities.”

The only way the President's staff would know that his enrollment wouldn't work is if someone tried it. 

The President or his staff must have attempted to sign the President up for the Obamacare exchange and found that they couldn't do it. Just as for many other Americans who face the mandate tax, the President couldn't sign up on healthcare.gov, either. 

But it's good to be king; you can sign up in person. Normal people who sign up "in person" are simply walked through the web site or paper signup. Where did this particular "in-person sign-up" take place? It can't be in just some random Navigator's office, since even they just use the web site. Ace guesses White House staff went to Health and Human Services IT offices and had them do it:

And they mean that he didn't use the website, though that's supposedly "fixed" and he's telling everyone else to use it. "Signed up in person" means he utilized top HHS IT officials, entering data directly into the system, to execute this symbolic gesture.

And why is the President's information not available to healthcare.gov? Surely the security at that site is sufficient to prevent disclosure, isn't it?

Actually, it's not. 

So while the President waits past the deadline to enroll, extends the deadline again and again, and finally cuts through the bureaucracy in a way ordinary people could not, to sign up for insurance he isn't even going to use, insurance companies have got to be wondering what life will be like once they rely on Obamacare for their income.  I'd be worried if I were in their position. 

What have we done?  Let me start by saying that I do not believe we didn't have problems with the health care system in America prior to ObamaCare - we did - big problems. But, what I want this post to highlight is what we have done, in order to solve the problems. When I say "we" I actually mean them: Democrats, Barack Obama and every technocrat and central planner who decided it would be a good idea to try to "fix" a system which was providing affordable access to care for over 94 percent of Americans. 

The third party payer system (employer based coverage) has disguised actual health care costs from consumers since its inception during World War II. It's a left over product of price controls, implemented primarily by progressives, and is one of the chief factors in the rise of health care costs.  

ObamaCare was supposed to fix rising costs and address these issues through private "marketplaces," also known as state exchanges, and provide affordable care for the 46 million Americans reportedly without health insurance. Keep in mind, health insurance doesn't equal access to care.  

First, let's take a look at that number, the 46 million without insurance. In 2009, FreedomWorks did an analysis of who is actually without coverage in America. I encourage you to read the entire report.

The primary conclusion of the detailed report was that around 16 million Americans, or roughly five percent of the population struggled to either afford health insurance, or were not eligible and already covered under a private plan or public plan. That's a number far lower than the 46 million the Obama Administration touted during the push for the "Affordable Care Act. 

"They have an unfailing belief in their technocratic brilliance." 

On today’s edition of the FreedomCast, Charles Cooke joins me to discuss the numbers game that the Obama administration is playing with ObamaCare enrollment, how expanding Medicaid may sound compassionate but has not proven to enhance health or longevity for its recipients, and why the smartest guys in the room keep getting it wrong. 

Related Links:

Obama's Numbers Racket

The Single Payer Fantasy

How many are really uninsured?  The FreedomWorks Issue Analysis from 2009

Humility vs. Conceit - Will Cain 

Subscribe to The FreedomCast on iTunes here.

Follow FreedomWorks on twitter and on Faceboook.

Follow today's guest, writer at the National Review @CharlesCWCooke on twitter. 

Our podcast is fabulously produced by @BradWJackson.

During the Obamacare sales pitch we heard from President Obama that "If you like your insurance you can keep it," but Americans have been finding that the reality is far, far and away from what the President promised. First let's rewind the tape back to 2009 when the Obama Administration was spoon-feeding us the wonders and joys of the coming Obamacare utopia.

Remember, "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."

A 56-year old woman in Florida told CBS news this week that she cannot keep her plan and in fact the new one will cost ten times what she currently pays. Ten times!

"When I got this bill, I was outraged," CBS quotes a 56-year-old Florida resident who got dropped from her health care plan.

Her new plan will be 10 times higher than what she's paying now, jumping from $54 a month to $591.

"What I have right now is what I'm happy with, and I just want to know why I can't keep what I have," says the woman. "Why do I have to be forced into something else?"

Don't forget, "If you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you."

Let's take a look at how many people have not been able to keep their plan, because that poor woman in Florida is not an isolated case.

David Hogberg did a tally of those who have lost their plans so far, however, as he notes, this is not an exhaustive list.

But how many people have received these notices? Let’s do a tally:
-800,000 in New Jersey.
-119,000 from Blue Shield in California.
-160,000 from Kaiser in California.
-300,000 in Florida.
-24,000 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
-13,000 in central and eastern Pennsylvania.
-76,000 from CareFirst in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

That adds up to 1,492,000 cancellations. And that number is low as similar cancellation notices have gone out in Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina. We also know that Humana has cancelled policies in Maryland. Unfortunately, no numbers are available thus far in those cases.

But wait, "If you like your insurance you can keep it."

This estimate of roughly 1.5 million Americans being cancelled may just be a drop in the bucket though. A doomsday scenario puts the potential total of Americans who could lose their individual insurance plan at 16 million people. Now that may be a little high, but you get the point. This panacea of health care affordability has turned out to be anything but that for millions of our fellow citizens, and the tally is just beginning.

Millions of Americans have been hurt, not helped by Obamacare.

But we were promised! “Let me be exactly clear about what health care reform means to you. First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”

Turns out that the Obama Administration knew this wasn't true all along. That's right, they knew that because of new requirements under the ACA that as many as 67 percent of individuals who purchase their own plans would not be able to keep them. In other words; they lied. 

Rusty Weiss, a fellow blogger here at FreedomWorks, has done a great job of cataloging the damage caused by Obamacare in his Obamacare Job Graveyard. Thousands of Americans have already lost their jobs because of the President's signature legislation. Thousands more have had their hours cut so they can fall under the 30 hour mark set as the level where employers must begin offering health care coverage under law.

Now we find out that President Obama knew what he was saying all along wasn't true.  You were never going to be able to keep your plan.  Once again, we told you, but it doesn't feel a bit good to be right. 

Follow Brad on Twitter

The broken promises of ObamaCare are almost too many to count.  We've seen ad nauseum the clips of President Obama stating, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan." Anyone who knows simple economics knew, even before seeing numerous reports of dropped coverage, that simply was never going to be the case.

The headlines are finally becoming saturated with the realities of ObamaCare, and the liberal talking heads are doing their best to now spin the president's remarks.  They've pivoted from you being able to keep your health care plan to claiming that you really shouldn't have liked what you had, because it wasn't what the government prescribed. 

Josh Barro stated in a recent piece for Business Insider:

"One of the key reasons that America needed health care reform is that a lot of existing health plans were bad.  There are a lot of health plans that Americans shouldn't be able to keep."

Yes, that's right...you shouldn't be able to keep. Because government knows best?  Talk about a bait and switch. Is that what the American people were told by Obama, or anyone else trying to sell the Affordable Care Act? No. What if you actually did like your plan?  Too bad.

Natalie Willes, a sleep consultant in California who buys her own insurance stated in a recent interview with CBS news:

"I was completely happy with the insurance I had before," Willes said.

When she tried to renew her policy through Kaiser Permanente, she found out that her plan had been terminated since it was not ACA compliant.

"My insurance was going to be completely different, and they were going to be replaced with 10 new plans that were going to fall under the regulations of the Affordable Care Act,"

It's okay that the government took her plan, because she could have ten other plans to choose from right? Yay, the government is giving her more choice, right?  Sure. Choices she didn't want or need. But maybe the government knows best and can give her more affordable plans as promised by the president ? Right? No. Willes stated:

"Before I had a plan that I had a $1,500 deductible.  I paid $199 a month.  The most similar plan that I would have available to me would be $278 a month. My deductible would be $6,500 dollars, and all of my care after that point would only be covered 70 percent." 

The cheapest plan now available to Ms. Willes will cost her as much as $5,948 more a year and cover less treatment once she's met her deductible.

Dean Clancy, Vice President of Public Policy for Freedoworks appeared on CNBC the other night, also pointing out the bait and switch:

Back to Barro... He goes on in his piece to note that some of the plans that are being dropped had small lifetime limits, and could leave people footing the bill in the event of a major illness.  Does Barro know what people's finances are?  What if they're able to pay for other expenses with savings or investments? Does he know what assets they have, or what their other options in the event of a health care crisis would be?  No, and neither do bureaucrats in Washington DC who have chosen to take these affordable plans away.

When policy payers choose their plan, they do so because it is the one that most fits their needs, as well as their budgets.  Now government is mandating plans that far exceed what many people need, or can afford.

In recent years, fewer health care plans have been brought to market for the most part because of mandates and stifling regulations, not because people didn't want alternatives.  The plans that were meeting the needs of millions, like HSAs (health savings accounts) and high deductible catastrophic plans, will largely be priced out of the market and destroyed under ObamaCare.  The answer to Barro's concerns are not going to be found in ObamaCare exchanges, which provide little choice, or by taking over once sixth of the US economy with this monstrosity of a law.  The answers are largely going to be found in real reforms that offer choice, competition, and address the real problems regarding subsidizing care.  

If nothing else, the failure of ObamaCare shows that once again technocrats have no idea what the masses want or need, nor can they provide it to them at a cost the masses can afford. 

The reality of ObamCare is that more people could actually lose coverage than gain it through exchanges.  Oh sure, we're going to push millions onto Medicaid, and some who had pre-existing conditions will get coverage, but the promise of affordable health care for everyone was never anything more than a lie to buy votes.  

The end result, unfortunately will be the destruction of our health care system in its entirety to provide terrible care under Medicaid and force young, healthy people into a system to buy a product they didn't want, or need, or could afford. 

Well done Mr. President, well done. 

Photo credit Forbes.com

In his effort to try to convince Americans that the Affordable Care Act was going to be affordable, and that benevolent big government cared, President Obama exclaimed, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. Period." 

We are not even two weeks into the implementation of the state exchanges, which are part of the president's signature health care law, but even long before now millions of Americans began finding out that they cannot in fact keep their health care plans. 

Today, I was contacted by another victim of ObamaCare. Her email to me simply stated "I do not get to keep my plan."  She enclosed a copy of the letter she received from her insurance company, BlueCross BlueShield, explaining that her plan was no longer going to be available since it was not in compliance with the ACA.

The letter goes on to state that though her out of pocket costs will go down, her monthly premiums will increase.  She shopped online through their website, and the statement in the letter about costs was only half true.  Her premiums will in fact increase, but so will her deductible and out of pocket costs.

The options posted today are far less affordable than what she had before. For a plan covering much of what her previous plan covered with a $3500 annual deductible, she will now pay $180 a month.  Just a few short months ago she paid $350 every three months for a plan with more coverage and a $1500 annual deductible.  The cost increase is a staggering 95.1 percent.  If she actually gets sick or has to go to the hospital, she could be paying $5,660 a year, that's $2,760 more than the year before. 

"I can't afford that," she responded when I did the math with her during our phone interview.

"That's almost 15 percent of my take home pay.  I'm going to be paying almost double for a plan I doubt I'll even use. They told us this law was going to help insurace be affordable. They lied. I'm being responsible and paying for my own care and I don't know how long I'll be able to afford to do that now."  

She's a 32 year old healthy female with no pre-existing conditions, and has been paying for her own health insurance since she graduated college.  As a research assistant who works on contract, she does not have an employer sponsored plan.  She shopped for the plan that best fit her needs, and her budget, and she had one, but now it's gone. 

ObamaCare is hurting the very people it was supposed to help. ObamaCare relies on the young and healthy to buy plans they may not even need and can't afford, in order to subsidize the costs of health care for older, sicker Americans.  Even if she signs up for a state exchange, there's no guarantee the subsidy (around $30 per month) will come anywhere close to covering the increased costs.

When asked during the interview if she'd continue paying for her own care she responded,

"Look, I want to continue to be responsible and pay my own way, but I'm only going to be fined $95 if I don't have health care right?  I can also opt in after I'm sick because they can't deny someone with pre-exisiting conditions.  Who would pay these rates for insurance they may never need?"

Exactly.  ObamaCare is filled with perverse incentives, and yes, incentives matter.  Instead of crafting health care legislation which increased competition, reduced costs and offered high risk pools for those with pre-existing conditions, Democrats in Congress passed a law that raises rates and encourages people to make less money in order to get free goodies from the government. 

Bravo Mr. President, bravo. 

Follow Kristina Ribali on twitter for updates and more health care news. 

There will be an attempt, and probably a concerted effort, to attack as selfish and even unpatriotic people who do not wish to participate in Obamacare.  If people choose to behave rationally and react to perverse incentives, expect the Left to cry foul.

But as long as the wrong-headed and unjust law continues to remain in effect, all of us, one way or another, will be forced to endure the consequences. The only questions are how we can protect ourselves from it, and how much blame we're willing to accept for the damage it causes. 

Predictably, we're now seeing it more: leftists are blaming corporate greed for employers cutting hours and changing operations in response to Obamacare. But as young people refuse to waste their money on the overpriced and overly restrictive Obamacare insurance, they too will come under attack.

UPS will be dropping some spouses from the health insurance plans of 15,000 employees, saving $60 million per year. The company is doing that as a direct result of a specific provision of Obamacare and a decision by the IRS that the definition of "affordability" for employer-run plans includes only the employee, not the employee's family.

But according to the memo announcing the move, 

We believe your spouse should be covered by their own employer -- just as UPS has a responsibility to offer coverage to you, our employee.

Spouses not offered coverage by their own employer will continue to be eligible.

That doesn't sound like greed. That sounds like a company responding to government incentives. As Ben Domenech wrote in The Transom Friday, (lightly edited):

Professor Richard Burkhauser at Cornell figured this all out almost two years ago – along with the possibility that this will lead to all sorts of impacts on employers down the line. So the IRS had to rule on the issue. They did so in January, and they opted for the “more fiscally responsible but less coverage” option – but one which angered liberals, because they knew it would lead to more workers receiving individual-only coverage.   

Companies have a legal responsiblity to their shareholders to maximize return on investment. The board of UPS could be sued by shareholders for failing to take advantage of all means to maximize return, and $60 million per year is not an amount that can be ignored.  

Unfortunately for the purveyors of the "corporate greed" spin, universities, school districts, local and municipal governments across the country are also dropping employees down to part time status to avoid penalties associated with Obamacare. These entities are not subject to "corporate greed", being government organizations. 

This is all par for the course: leftists push a policy such as the minimum wage or a tax increase. When it is implemented, the market reacts in ways that are utterly predictable, but also in other ways that are unforeseen, in an attempt to maximize efficient use of scarce resources. Leftists then blame the market players, especially for the unintended consequences.

Avik Roy writes in Forbes about one such dislocation, at Delta Airlines, which is looking forward to paying an additional $100 million next year, when Obamacare kicks in.  

Individual young people are going to be assailed as irresponsible or as not caring about their fellow man for refusing to buy overpriced health insurance. 

Even with the Obamacare subsidies, if they're available, the price for a policy with a deductible may be in the neighborhood of $150 per month. Why should a young person use their last $150 every month to pay for insurance, when all that it may buy them is $10 worth of contraception? When they go to the doctor, they still have to pay 40% of their bills, up until their $3250 deductible is met. Most of them won't ever meet the deductible -- but they still have to pay the premium. It's not rational. 

For those who can afford it and have the medical expenses to justify it, health insurance is a useful way to pay ahead on medical costs. But if you can't afford it and don't often get sick, don't accept being labeled as irresponsible. Save your money. It makes no sense to pay for something you probably won't use when you can opt in after if you need to.