Well, I was expecting it, but seeing the actual numbers in black toner on white paper still pisses me off.

Look, I don’t believe in whining much, but this will be a bitch session.

As a bit of background, I’m now on my second insurance company in the last ten years (and count myself lucky, some friends are on number four), because the company I’d used for most of the last ten threw in the towel last year and decided they didn’t want to be in the business anymore.

Also, by way of background, my rates under that prior company, which had stayed fairly stable for the first few years (going from low $400’s to the higher end) until 2008, whereupon, until they finally decided they didn’t want my money anymore, they still jacked it up by over 50% to nearly $800.

Switching to a (slightly inferior) BC plan ran it up to the middle 900’s.

And sure enough, I get the expected rate hike letter, the insurance next year will run an additional $300 a month.

Yes, you got that right. The change in my health insurance premiums is a car payment for a reliable used Honda or Toyota, or cheaper new car.

I’m self-employed, so I don’t get this absorbed by anyone else. And I’m in that limbo where I neither make enough to shrug and go “eh, what”, nor get a subsidy of any sort.

So, yeah. I can make it work. Likely by upping my billing rate, and a few cost-cutting measures – though there’s damn little fat to trim. But there are going to be a lot of people for whom that money means having to move into a smaller place, or missing a needed car repair, or putting off dental work or glasses, or not saving up $3600 over the course of the next year.

It’s easy to get pissed at the useful idiots who voted for Obama, but largely useless. In their own words the Democratic leadership made sure they were left ignorant by the school system and the media.

No, it’s the Democrats who finally caved to the pressure of their party leaders in opposing their constituents. It’s all of the “conservatives” who refused to mount an effective defense against voter fraud and got the Democrats in the senate their filibuster-proof majority. Ditto being totally unable to find a way to shut down Obamacare later, or unwilling to go to the fucking mat over reigning in the budget.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for clarity. My anger towards the GOP #cucks surpasses not only that of the useful idiots who at least had some claim to ignorance, but also the Democrats who had some pretense of sticking to party platform.