None of this is surprising.  The Dems knew it and the rest hid their 
heads in the sand.  Socialist efforts always has many negative 
consequences...

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870448300457552398046457351
8.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion

Healthamburglar 
McDonald's meets ObamaCare.

Among President Obama's core health-care promises was that Americans can 
keep their current coverage if they like it. Among the reasons that a 
new ObamaCare squall blows in every other day is that this claim simply 
is not true, as people are discovering. 

The latest fracas was incited by Janet Adamy's scoop in the Journal this 
week that McDonald's Corp. may be forced to cancel its current coverage 
for 29,500 employees as a result of ObamaCare. McDonald's told Health 
and Human Services regulators that new mandates will make its plans 
"economically prohibitive" and cause "a huge disruption" unless it gets 
a waiver.


 .At a Christian Science Monitor breakfast Thursday, HHS Secretary 
Kathleen Sebelius claimed that the Journal story was "flat-out wrong," 
adding that "I'm sorry that they were not more accurate in their 
reporting." If only for the sake of her own credibility, at some point 
Ms. Sebelius is going to have to try to persuade people who actually 
know something about the industries she regulates.

In a statement, McDonald's did say that it was "completely false" to 
suggest that "we plan to drop health care coverage for our employees," 
and "regardless of how the regulations evolve over the next several 
months, McDonald's is committed to providing competitive pay and 
benefits." No doubt that's true: McDonald's will still need to attract 
workers—not to mention that corporations of its size and brand 
recognition are very sensitive to political intimidation. 

But McDonald's didn't deny that the new rules will wipe out its existing 
plans. And that's precisely the point. The entire philosophical and 
policy architecture of ObamaCare is explicitly designed to standardize 
health benefits and how those benefits should be paid for. Those choices 
and tradeoffs will be made for everyone by Ms. Sebelius's regulators.


At issue in the McDonald's dust-up is a type of low-cost, low-benefit 
insurance known as "mini-med." These plans cover most medical services 
but generally have an annual deductible or benefit cap between $1,000 
and $10,000. Unlike more comprehensive plans, there's no catastrophic 
coverage. Essentially, the very low premiums—under $100 a month—amount 
to prepaying for routine expenses like office checkups and E.R. visits. 

Around 2.5 million consumers are covered by "mini-med" policies, most of 
them concentrated in low-wage industries like fast food, hospitality and 
retail that have large numbers of part-time or temporary workers. In the 
case of the restaurants, 75% of the workforce turns over every year and 
nearly half are under age 25. Mini-med plans are a temporary stopgap for 
businesses that have low margins and face high labor and health costs.

But Democrats hate mini-med and other skinny-benefit plans, calling them 
"underinsurance." ObamaCare is meant to run them out of the market by 
mandating benefits, eliminating coverage caps and certain technical 
rules about how premiums must be spent. This despite the fact that 
Arkansas, Connecticut and Tennessee sponsor their own mini-med plans for 
state residents as better than having no insurance at all.

In other words, the choice is between relatively affordable coverage 
that isn't as generous as Democrats think it should be and dumping 
coverage entirely. McDonald's may eventually offer the high-cost plans 
that Ms. Sebelius favors, or get its waiver, but many of its less 
profitable or smaller competitors won't. While subsidized ObamaCare 
options will be available in 2014, those costs will merely be 
transferred to taxpayers.

Ms. Sebelius facetiously called the Journal "my favorite newspaper" at 
the Monitor breakfast, and she'll no doubt continue to shoot the 
messenger. What everyone else should understand is that the almost daily 
damage we're seeing as this law takes effect is not unintended. It is 
the heart and soul of ObamaCare.

CMPQwk 1.42-21 9999 
Stop the Democrat party oil embargo ....

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