"If you already have health insurance, the only
thing that will change for you under this plan is the amount of money you will
spend on premiums. That will be less."
Barack
Obama, University of Iowa, May 29, 2007

The president continued to make this type of claim just
last week in a backyard in Des Moines, Iowa: "If you’re happy with what
you’ve got, nobody’s changing it."

My colleagues at the John Locke Foundation who are insured
through the group plan are among this week’s victims of ObamaCare. Principal
Financial will stop selling health insurance leaving managers and their
insurance agents scrambling to find answers. United HealthCare has said it will
provide coverage to Principal subscribers, but even if the policies are as
affordable as the existing plans, they will effectively be short-term plans
expiring on January 1, 2014. Number of people who won’t be able to keep their
insurance: 840,000.

McDonald’s became the first retail establishment to doubt
its ability to provide insurance to its high-turnover part-time workers. New
rules, as yet unwritten, dictate how much insurance companies are allowed to
spend on administrative costs. McDonald’s wants to pre-qualify for a waiver
from rules that may be too onerous. The Wall
Street Journal article that broke the story listed CVS, Disney, and Home
Depot among the numerous other companies that may be affected by these rules.
"Sen. [Jay] Rockefeller asked for five years of data explaining how much
the carrier charges in premiums and spends on care, as well as the number of
workers who reach the plans’ annual benefit caps," according to another Journal story. Number of people who won’t be able to keep their
insurance: 30,000 at McDonald’s, potentially millions more.

Sooner than either of the other changes, the Boston Globe reports, Harvard
Pilgrim Health Care told subscribers in New England it would no longer offer a
Medicare Advantage plan at the end of the year. Number of people who won’t be
able to keep their insurance: 22,000.

These people join the 215,000 of us with individual
policies through Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina who will not be able
to keep our policies for long.