Another Obama Supporter Shocked At The 88% Rise In Her Health Care Premium
As @MeredithJessup, who tweeted this, wrote, "These stories never get old."

The latest, by Steve Lopez, in the LA Times has a photo caption of Margaret Davis that says:

Margaret Davis of West L.A. wants a health plan that would ensure she wouldn't go broke in the event of a catastrophe. She has been paying $224 a month, but under the new Kaiser plan, her premium would rise to $420.46 a month.

There is this ridiculousness in the story:

She wrote to U.S. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) when she didn't hear from the others, and one of Bass' staffers called Davis to say she'll be looking into the specifics of her case.

"Any time you do a huge policy change like healthcare, there's going to be all sorts of problems and glitches that need to be worked out," Bass told me Tuesday from Washington, where she said there were new calls for allowing people to keep the policies they have, as President Obama had repeatedly promised they'd be able to do.

President Clinton has urged such a move, and Feinstein's office backed the idea Tuesday. She noted in a statement that her office had received 30,832 contacts from Californians, "many of whom are very distressed by cancellations of their insurance policies and who are facing increased out-of-pocket expenses."

The policies have been disappeared. What is the government going to to, invent a time machine and send us all back in it to before Obama and the congressional Democrats fucked up our health care system and crossed their fingers that it would all turn out okay?

You can get lower prices -- if you give up your high-quality doctor you could afford just fine until you started paying for everybody else:

Steve Jakowchik found Davis a deal at Anthem Blue Cross that essentially splits the difference between her current Kaiser plan and the replacement plan. Davis told me she's inclined to go with the Blue Cross deal unless there's a reprieve and people are allowed to keep existing policies.

Jakowchik, meanwhile, told me that among the roughly 100 clients he's assisting, about 30 are getting plans that are more comprehensive, cheaper or both. The other clients are paying anywhere from a little bit more to a lot more for plans that are inferior to what they had, better than what they had or about the same.

The most striking change he's seeing, Jakowchik said, is among clients who can get pretty good deals, but only if they give up access to the doctors and hospitals they now use. Because his practice is on the Westside, he's hearing from clients who aren't happy about losing Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and UCLA Medical Center as hospital options.

"I just ran into one of these today," said Jakowchik, who told me about a Marina del Rey family that has to decide between a big premium increase and access to Cedars, or much lower premiums but a choice between hospitals in Torrance or the San Fernando Valley.

Let's be real. This woman first mentioned in the article goes to my HMO. It's the Ford Fiesta of health care, which is to say it drives just fine, but it ain't no Cadillac. Kaiser is now unaffordable for her? That's sick. (It's become unaffordable for me, too, and I have to see about downgrading my care, but I'm terrified that I'll lose my grandfathered status and then they'll change or roll back Obamacare and I'll be fucked.)