Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite : Proudly Representing Florida's Congressional District

This has been a tough week for hundreds of thousands of Americans who learned, thanks to ObamaCare, their health insurance company will no longer offer their current healthcare plan.

In Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine more than 22,000 seniors who participate in Harvard Pilgrim’s Medicare Advantage plan recently learned that their policies will not be renewed because of the cuts made to Medicare by ObamaCare.  Harvard Pilgrim’s Vice President of Customer Service is quoted as saying, “We became concerned by the long-term viability of Medicare Advantage programs in general.  We know that cuts in Medicare are being used to fund national health care reform.”

Unfortunately, the bad news kept coming this week when Principal Financial Group, which currently covers about 840,000 people, announced that they are leaving the health insurance market.  This change will also affect Principals some 14,000 employer groups – many of them small businesses.  So why did Principal decide to stop offering health insurance?  They simply cannot afford to stay in business.  Industry analysts are predicting that more small insurers like Principal will exit the health insurance business because they too cannot afford the changes required by ObamaCare. 

Let’s briefly recap what ObamaCare means for us:  Higher insurance premiums for all, you can’t keep the health insurance plan you like, more expensive prescription drug premiums for seniors and less competition as health insurers flee the market.  When I think back on President Obama’s many speeches, I don’t remember him mentioning any of this, do you?