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***Confidential Report***

Underground Obamacare

Antidote

Underground Obamacare Antidote

*** SPECIAL CONFIDENTIAL REPORT ***


By Caleb Lee

© UGAR LLC 2014 and Beyond

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without express

written, dated and signed permission from the author.

DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES:

The information presented herein represents the view of the author

as of the date of publication. Because of the rate with which

conditions change, the author reserves the right to alter and update

his opinion based on the new conditions. The report is for

informational purposes only. While every attempt has been made to

verify the information provided in this report, neither the author nor

his affiliates/partners assume any responsibility for errors,

inaccuracies or omissions. Any slights of people or organizations are

unintentional. If advice concerning legal or related matters is

needed, the services of a fully qualified professional should be

sought. This report is not intended for use as a source of legal

advice. You should be aware of any laws which govern the topics

discussed herein in your city, country and state. Any reference to

any person or business whether living or dead is purely coincidental.




In 2010, the Democrat controlled Congress passed President Obama’s signature

legislation, the “Affordable Care Act,” commonly known as Obamacare.

This sweeping legislative reform of our nation’s healthcare system appears to have

permanently changed the way that American citizens will buy health insurance and

receive healthcare for all time.

Obamacare’s stated goal was to provide health insurance to those that weren’t

previously insured. This includes low income families, as well as those who have

been denied health insurance due to pre-existing conditions.

While insuring these people is a noble goal in and of itself; what has had to be done in

order to make it possible has caused a lot of consternation for a lot of people.

Two of the key parts to creating Obamacare are what are known as the individual

mandate and the employer mandate.

Essentially, these say that employers who have 50 or more full-time employees are

required to provide them with health insurance as a benefit.

For those who don’t have employer provided health insurance, the individual mandate

kicks in. This requires that each and every person in the country buy health insurance.

Yes, that’s right: in the land of the “free” there is now a law that says you MUST buy

health insurance ...

A large part of the reason why it is necessary for everyone to sign up for health

insurance is that the system is depending upon the young and healthy to foot the bill

for the healthcare costs of older people, as well as those who were previously denied

insurance due to pre-existing health problems.

According to Obamacare, insurance companies can’t charge people with pre-existing

health problems any more than they charge the healthy. It does allow for charging

senior citizens more, but even that is capped at three times the amount charged the

young and healthy.



However, when you compare the cost of healthcare for those who are at retirement

age to that for the young, you see that three times doesn’t even come close to paying

for the additional cost.

For those who can’t afford health insurance, the government has increased the earning

limit to receive Medicaid. Previously, only those who were under the federal poverty

level could receive Medicaid.

Now, under Obamacare, those who are making up to 138% of the federal poverty

level automatically qualify for Medicaid. In fact, they aren’t even offered the option

of buying a health insurance policy on the Obamacare website (www.Healthcare.gov),

but are sent directly to sign up for Medicaid.

http://www.healthcare.gov/



What’s Included in Obamacare Insurance?

There has been a lot said about Obamacare providing better insurance than what

people had available to them before.

According to various proponents of Obamacare, those “sub-standard” insurance

packages (which people were perfectly happy with) didn’t provide all the healthcare

services that people needed.

To make sure that everyone receives at least a minimum level of coverage,

Obamacare requires that all insurance policies cover these ten areas:

1. Outpatient care – Healthcare services given to patients, without the need to

check in to a hospital. This includes healthcare services at a hospital or doctor’s

office.

2. Emergency services – Trips to the emergency room for whatever reason are

covered under Obamacare.

3. Inpatient care – The cost of hospitalization, including hospital services and

treatment that is performed while the patient is in the hospital.

4. Pre-natal and post-natal care – Medical care for the mother both before and

after the baby is born, to include the cost of childbirth itself.

5. Mental health and substance abuse – Any mental health services, including

behavioral health treatment, counseling and phychotherapy. This also includes

treatment for substance abuse.

6. Prescription drugs – All medications prescribed by a doctor.

7. Disability and injury therapy – If therapy is needed for pre-existing

conditions or due to an accident, the costs of therapy are fully covered. This not

only includes physical therapy, but speech or language pathology, psychiatric



rehabilitation and other types of therapy.

8. Lab tests – All lab tests ordered by a doctor, whether performed in his office,

at a hospital or by a separate laboratory.

9. Preventative medicine – There are a wide variety of preventative healthcare

services covered, including vaccines, counseling and screening. Basically,

anything to keep you healthy or care for a chronic disease.

10. Pediatric services – All medical costs for children. This also covers dental and

vision care for children, which are not covered for adults.

This exhaustive list is included in all health insurance policies issued since Obamacare

was implemented, which has caused many insurance companies to cancel pre-existing

policies.

The patient has no choice about purchasing these, as they must be included.

Catastrophic policies, which just cover major medical expenses have been largely

eliminated, except in very specific cases. This eliminates the most cost-effective

option for the self-employed and low income families who are still above the

maximum level to receive Medicaid.

And again, the young people suffer ...

Most young people would do better with a catastrophic policy because they don’t get

that sick often and don’t need much medical care. They simply need “insurance” in

case the unthinkable accident or life threatening injury happens.

Let’s talk about how Obamacare is changing the lives of us all now ...



Early Effects of Obamacare

While it is too early to tell what the end results from Obamacare will be, we can

already see it making a huge impact on our society.

More than anything, it has taken health insurance, which is an afterthought for many

people and catapulted it to center stage.

By making health insurance a requirement, Obama and his henchmen in Congress

have made that a higher financial priority for families than their other needs.

The Supreme Court has declared that forcing Americans to buy health insurance is

legal, citing it as a tax. Even though Obama swore many times that it wasn’t a tax, by

definition it now is.

That eliminates the possibility of opting out of health insurance, at least without

having to pay penalties.

Higher Premiums and Deductibles

If we look at prices for insurance policies on the government insurance exchange, we

find that premiums have skyrocketed.

While the actual amount of increase varies from state to state, everyone is stuck with

increased health insurance costs. For some, this increase means that they will be

paying as much as double what they were paying before.

Not only have health insurance policy premiums skyrocketed, but the deductible on

these policies have skyrocketed as well. We will take a careful look at that later, as it

is an important part of understanding Obamacare.

Lower Work Hours

The employer mandate is hitting small to mid-sized businesses severely. It requires

that all businesses which employ 50 people or more full-time employees provide

health insurance coverage. While the employer is not required to pay all the entire



premium cost for the family, they are required to make a healthy contribution to the

cost.

The IRS further defined this provision of Obamacare by providing a new definition of

“full-time employment.” Before someone was considered full-time if they worked 40

hours per week; some employers dropped this to 35 hours for the purposes of benefits.

However, Obamacare defines full-time employment as working an average of 30

hours per week or more.

This has caused a lot of businesses to reevaluate their employment practices. Retail

stores and restaurants especially have had to reconsider their hiring and personnel

policies.

In many cases, they have reduced the number of hours that part-time employees were

allowed to work, in order to avoid having to pay for health insurance coverage for

these people.

So, many of the country’s lowest wage earners have found themselves losing a portion

of their income, as their hours have been dropped.

Other companies are reclassifying jobs that were previously considered full-time to

being part time. This is happening in a wide variety of businesses, even businesses

which traditionally used only full-time employees.

This is purely a business decision on the part of these companies; many of which

couldn’t stay in business if they had to pay health insurance for all their employees.

Canceled Insurance Policies

Originally, the individual mandate for Obamacare was to kick in as of January 1st,

2014. At the same time, insurance policies that did not meet the ten requirements

listed above had to be upgraded or replace by policies that did.

There was a grandfather clause built into the law, but insurance policies regularly

change, which essentially negated the grandfather clause and invalidated millions of

policies.



Over five million people had their insurance policies cancelled across America due to

the implementation of Obamacare. This happened at a time to coincide with the

federal government’s rollout of their health insurance exchange, www.healthcare.gov.

Unfortunately, the healthcare.gov website was a total disaster. The site had never been

properly completed; people couldn’t sign on; you couldn’t’ get prices without

providing the website with all your personal information first and even if you did

manage to sign onto the website, you couldn’t be sure that your selections would go

through and you would really be signed up for your new health insurance policy.

That meant that many of those people who lost their insurance were unable to sign up

for new policies.

For some, that wasn’t a big deal; they could wait. But there were those for whom that

was a disaster; especially people who had chronic conditions needing regular,

consistent healthcare.

Obama responded to this problem by unilaterally changing the law (which he doesn’t

have the authority to do by the way) and allowing those people who lost their policies

to sign up for a catastrophic plan to tide them over until their new insurance would be

available.

While that helped some people, it wasn’t successful in helping everyone.

Understanding the Plan “Tiers”

Obamacare provides for four levels of insurance coverage; labeled by four precious

metals:

Platinum

Gold

Silver

Bronze

The idea behind naming them in this manner is based upon Olympic medals, a system

that almost everyone is familiar with.

The difference between these different tiers isn’t that one level of insurance offers

more service than another level does, because all Obamacare insurance plans are

http://www.healthcare.gov/



required to provide the same ten areas of coverage. Rather the tiers define the

expected financial participation by the insured.

Theoretically, a family with a bronze plan will pay for 60% of their medical costs.

One with a silver plan will pay for 70%. This difference is created by the difference in

the deductible that the plan offers. So, a gold level plan will have a much lower

deductible, but the premiums for that level plan will be much higher.

While the actual deductible varies by policy, company and the state you are living in,

we can see a definite difference in the deductible as we look at the plans offered on

the exchange for any one part of the country. The following is a fairly good basis of

comparison of the deductible levels for a family, looking at the various tiers:

Bronze plan - $7,000 - $12,700

Silver plan - $3,000 - $9,000

Gold plan - $2,500 - $6,000

Platinum plan - $0 - $2,000

As you can see, the deductibles for the bronze plans are very high.

That means that if you select a bronze plan, your family will be expected to pay

somewhere between $7,000 and $12,700 of your own medical expenses, before your

insurance company pays for anything.

So, all those “freebies” that people have been talking about receiving under

Obamacare are really a lie. They’re only free, once you’ve paid for a lot of your own

healthcare expense.



Obamacare and Low-Income Families

Low income families are one of the winners under Obamacare.

One of the many provisions of the law is that it increases the maximum earnings that a

family can have and still be able to have and be eligible for Medicaid.

Under the new rules, a family can make up to 138% of the federal poverty level and

still receive Medicaid. This chart shows the federal poverty levels for 2013 and 2014.

They are adjusted annually, based upon the inflation rate.

Household

Size

100% of

Federal

Poverty

Level

138% of

Federal

Poverty

Level

1 $11,490 $15856

2 $15,510 $21,404

3 $19,530 $26,951

4 $23,550 $32,499

5 $27,570 $38047

6 $31,590 $43,594

7 $35,610 $49,142

8 $39,630 $54,689

Each

additional

person

$4,020 $5,548

This qualifies many more people for Medicaid than ever before.

There is a stipulation in the law however, which allows states to opt out of this

increase in Medicaid levels. Not all states have chosen to participate.

For individuals and families under 30 years of age, who are low income, but do not

qualify for Medicaid, Obamacare allows for the purchase of “catastrophic health

insurance.”



This was the most popular type of health insurance for young and healthy people

before Obamacare was enacted. It provides coverage for major illnesses and injuries

only, without providing any coverage for day-to-day medical expenses.

The Subsidies

The light at the end of the tunnel as far as Obamacare sticker shock is concerned is the

subsidy system.

This system is a means by which the government (the taxpayers in reality) is

subsidizing the insurance premiums of everyone who make less than four times the

poverty level.

The subsidies are based upon income, so that families who earn less receive more of a

subsidy, while those who earn more receive less of one.

The standard subsidy level is determined by the cost of the next to the cheapest silver

level plan in your area and for your family.

If you are just above the 138% of federal poverty level, putting you in the position of

not being able to apply for Medicaid, you would receive this level of subsidy.

As your income increased to four times the poverty level, the amount of subsidy you

would receive will taper off.

To provide some idea of subsidy levels, let’s look at a family of four, with various

income levels, to see how much their subsidy would be.

Income as a

% of Poverty

Level

Annual

Income

Premium

Contribution

as a % of

Income

Premium

Subsidy

138% $32,500 3.3% $11,430

150% $35,325 4.0% $11,090

200% $47,100 6.3% $9,530

250% $58,875 8.1% $7,760

300% $70,650 9.5% $5,790

400% $94.200 9.5% $3,550



This subsidy is technically a tax credit, meaning that it is applied to your annual

federal income taxes, in the same way that the Earned Income Credit is applied to

your taxes. You would then receive it as part of your tax return.

However, if you buy your insurance on the health insurance exchange, you can apply

this credit directly to your premium, lowering your monthly bill.

Take care about doing this as any change in your family’s status could affect your

subsidy. A divorce, death in the family or having a child grow up and move out of the

house would mean that you would no longer receive the same level of subsidy.

If you didn’t make the appropriate adjustment to your health insurance plan, you

could end up owing the IRS a considerable amount of money at the end of the year for

subsidies that they have paid, which you are no longer eligible for (or no longer

eligible for the same level).



What Does Obamacare Mean to You?

Each of us is going to have to find some way of dealing with Obamacare, so that we

can financially survive the next several years.

That is going to require some adjustments in our lifestyles and budgets.

More than anything, it’s going to require that we adjust the way that we look at

healthcare.

There are a number of different ways that we can approach Obamacare. A lot of this

depends upon how we are currently insured, as well as our income level.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services:

49% of people have been insured through their employer (this includes family

members of the insured)

17% of people have been insured through Medicaid (this includes CHIP)

13% of people have been insured through Medicare (mostly the elderly)

5% of people have been self-insured, meaning that they buy their own health

insurance directly from an insurance company or through an insurance broker

16% of people have been uninsured

Please note that these figures are pre-Obamacare, so they will probably change as

Obamacare is implemented.

Not all employers will be continuing to offer healthcare insurance to their employees,

choosing to pay the penalty, rather than the high cost of health insurance under

Obamacare.

This is purely a business decision for these companies. In many cases, the increase in

healthcare costs would make the business unprofitable, causing them to close the

doors.



Even businesses that want to be compassionate to their employees and provide a good

benefits package may find themselves in this trap and be forced to cut benefits.

For those whose companies continue to provide insurance coverage, you can be sure

that the employee participation for those insurance policies will increase, especially

for those who have their families covered through their employer provided insurance.

Some companies may choose to stop providing insurance coverage and instead give

their employees a cash payout or pay increase to cover what the company had been

spending on their health insurance. These people may actually end up better off,

especially if they buy their health insurance on the government exchange.

The government expects everyone who is not insured by their employers to buy their

insurance on the exchange and has structured the implementation of Obamacare to

push them that way.

I’m sure that you’ve heard all the hoopla about the lack of security on the insurance

exchange. I’m not going to say that it has been exaggerated, because I don’t think it is.

There are some serious security issues, making the site extremely easy to hack.

The state exchanges may be better than the federal exchange for that. They were not

designed by the same contractor, so probably don’t have the same issues. However,

they do offer the same benefit that the federal exchange does.

If you buy your insurance directly from an insurance company or through an agent,

you are required to pay the full premium yourself. Any subsidy that you may receive,

will be dealt with as a tax credit at the time you file your federal income tax.

However, if you buy your health insurance through the insurance exchange, you can

apply this subsidy directly towards your premium, lowering your monthly premium

bill.

If you are making an average income ($50,000 per year household income), then the

subsidy will probably cover most of the cost of your monthly premium, meaning that

your out-of-pocket expense for your family’s health insurance will be extremely low.

There are several things that can affect the actual premium rate you pay:

Your ages



Number of children on the policy

Your annual household income (you must include children’s income as well)

What state you live in

Plan tier you select

The higher your family’s income, the smaller the subsidy you will receive and the

more you will pay out of pocket for your health insurance premium. However, for a

family of four making $50,000 per year, the subsidy is enough to just about cover the

premium cost.

Let’s Look at Deductibles

I mentioned deductibles earlier and said that we’d get back to them.

The deductibles under Obamacare are much higher than they were before, especially

for people who choose the bronze level plans. In some cases, the deductibles are so

high, that it is almost as if you didn’t have health insurance at all.

While it varies from state to state, the average individual deductible on a bronze plan

is $6,000 per year and the average family deductible is $12,000 per year. This means

that you have to pay for $12,000 worth of out-of-pocket healthcare costs before the

health insurance kicks in and starts paying for your healthcare needs.

That’s right; all those things they’ve been saying are “free” are only free after you pay

12 grand!

Even with the high cost of healthcare, it is difficult to spend a thousand dollars per

month on your family’s healthcare needs ...

The average cost of a visit to your primary care physician is $104. If you have to see a

specialist, the average cost is about $171. Delivery of a baby runs about $9,600 and

the cost of setting a broken arm is about $3,000. So, if have a baby born, an older

child who breaks their arm falling off the bike and your family made an average of

three doctors visits per month, all in the same year (totaling $16,334), you need that

health insurance.

But if you don’t, you might not gain any benefit from your health insurance at all.



But don’t worry – Obamacare has the answer! (I hope my sarcasm was noted). You

can lower the deductible by choosing a higher tier plan and paying the additional

monthly premium.

A gold level plan will drop your deductible to somewhere around $5,000 per year; but

you’ll have to pay a premium of about $600 per month to get it.

So, to receive a $7,000 reduction in your deductible level, you’ll have to pay about

$7,000.

If you’re thinking that this doesn’t sound so great ... I’m with you.

Let’s talk about opting out all together ...



The No Insurance Option

While Obamacare requires that everyone in the United States have health insurance,

not everyone is going to obey that law.

In fact, many are choosing to not buy health insurance. Those people are going to

have to pay the IRS a fine for not buying health insurance.

However, the fine is much cheaper for most people than paying for the insurance

could ever be.

The fine for not buying health insurance in 2014 is $95 per person or 1% of your

income, whichever is higher. This increases to 2% of your income or $325 per person

in 2015 and 2.5% of your income or $695 per person in 2016. After that, it increases

incrementally to match the inflation rate.

While these fines may seem steep, especially after a few years, they are considerably

cheaper than paying health insurance premiums.

People are justifying choosing to opt out of Obamacare based upon the high cost of

the premiums, along with the high deductibles.

To most people, the high deductible means that the health insurance would only be

applicable in the case of a catastrophic health problem.

Of course, if one doesn’t buy health insurance, then they have to cover all of their own

healthcare costs. Depending upon the health of family members, this could end up

being quite high.

So, taking the step of not buying health insurance is something that should be thought

about thoroughly before deciding.

Other Options if You Don’t Buy Health Insurance

There are a number of options you can use to assist with your healthcare costs, should

you decide to opt out of Obamacare and not buy health insurance.



While none of these options are for everyone, you can probably find a system that will

work for you.

Join a health care sharing ministry – These organizations are made of

members who voluntarily help each other out by sharing each others’

healthcare costs. Each month, members send their membership dues to another

family who has applied for assistance from the ministry.

Purchase short-term health insurance – Some companies are still offering

short-term health insurance policies. As these policies don’t last over a year,

they are not subject to the same regulations as Obamacare. Since they do not

offer the same level of coverage, they are considerably cheaper.

Buy an alternative insurance plan – These plans pay cash to you, the insured,

in the case of a medical emergency. The amount they pay doesn’t always cover

medical expenses fully, but can help. A related option is to increase the medical

insurance portion of your automobile insurance, so that it pays for more of your

medical expenses in the case of an accident.

Use cash-only clinics – As Obamacare has been being implemented, cash-only

clinics have been sprouting up around the country. These do not accept

insurance, only cash customers.

Go out of the country – Many medical services are available in Mexico (and

other countries) for considerably lower costs than here in the United States. For

example, my wife once got sick in the Dominican Republic and we spent three

nights in the hospital there. She had constant care including IV’s and medicine.

My total bill was slightly over $1,000 USD at the end of the stay. I doubt

$1,000 would cover one hour in the U.S. much less three days. There are many

private hospitals and clinics which offer excellent care. You are expected to

pay cash for whatever services you receive and a family member needs to stay

with the patient. The cost savings more than makes up for airfare in most cases.

Negotiate fixed price rates for hospital stays and surgery – The additional

costs are often the worst part of any hospital bill. Negotiate a fixed price or use

a negotiation service to do this for you. That lowers your overall cost and



provides you with a real number that you can work with for planning your

budget.

The real risk in going without insurance is if something catastrophic happens to a

family member.

While hospitals are still required to accept all emergency patients, the cost of an

emergency room visit can be quite high. Without insurance, you will have to pay this

yourself.

Again, before Obamacare, you had the option of paying a low price to receive

protection in case the “worst” happened and you had to go to the emergency room for

catastrophic care ... Now, that’s not really an option for most folks.



Lower Your Medical Care Costs

There are many things you can do to lower your own healthcare costs.

We have become a society that largely ignores these costs, simply because we are

used to having our insurance cover them. With the new higher deductibles, we can’t

count on that.

Therefore, it is most beneficial to find ways of making sure that you aren’t paying

anything extra.

The first thing to do is to take care of your health.

As a society, we cause many of our own health problems by not taking care of

ourselves. A healthy diet makes a difference, especially as you grow older.

Likewise, obesity and stress both cause a considerable amount of serious health

problems. Lose weight and learn how to deal with things, so that you don’t need to go

to the doctor.

Learn how to properly self-diagnose minor ailments. There are many people who go

to the doctor for every cough and sniffle. The doctor tells them to go home, drink

plenty of fluids and get lots of rest, and then charges them $100 for that advice. I

don’t think we need doctors for that.

With the information available to us on the Internet, we should be able to deal with

many things at home. There is an inherent risk in this, in that a particular set of

symptoms can mean more than one thing. When most people self-diagnose, they pick

the worst of the options and decide that’s what they are afflicted with. Be careful;

make sure you read the symptoms carefully and that you have all of them. If you are

missing one, you probably don’t have that horrible disease.

The greatest part of the average person’s health costs are incurred in the last two years

of their lives. The heroic efforts of the healthcare industry to prolong life are

expensive. While this might seem calloused, we all need to look at this realistically

and decide what we think is reasonable for our own lives.



Like many people, I have life insurance. I pay for that so that my wife will be taken

care of, should I die early. At a minimum, she’ll have enough money to pay off the

house and pay for her living expenses for a few years after I’m gone.

Yet, in many cases, whatever value one has in their life insurance is spent, paying for

that heroic healthcare at the end of a person’s life. A quarter million dollars worth of

health insurance can disappear in a few months of care.

This is the old quality of life debate. Personally, I have signed the necessary

paperwork to instruct the doctors not to use heroic lifesaving methods to extend my

life. Why should I live suffering for a few months more and leave my family with

bills that cause them to lose the security I have worked to give them? I would much

rather go when it is time and have my family taken care of.

I’m not saying that you have to make the same decision that I have. All I’m asking is

that you think about it and make your own decision. Don’t let the doctors make it for

you. Their decision will be to do everything they can to extend your life, even if that

means you’re living like a vegetable connected to machines in the hospital and your

family has to become poor to pay for it.

Hopefully we all have a number of years left before we have to make those types of

decisions ...

And I sincerely hope that the information shared in this report helps you to find the

correct solution for yourself and your family to survive Obamacare.

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