Here in Colorado, there are almost no employers offering health insurance since 2012 when the 2nd phase of Obamacare kicked in. Starting in March this year (2014) any company that has 50+ employees of more than 32 hours per week has to pay health insurance for them: as you can imagine, the employment of full-timers has taken a major dive this year from that one. All over the country, there is now a "new" tracking number called "semi-employed", who used to have 40-hour/week jobs, now don't. It's a staggering number, too, being more than 55% of the workforce as of June 1 this year. In the last 7 years of tracking, the "new jobs created" number, which historically has always had to be AT LEAST 240,000 per month to make it a 0% growth number, has not once made it that high since Obama's economic plan hit. In December and January last, it hit less than 68,000 total jobs, and this administration actually blamed it on a major snowstorm that hit New York (no place else, just there...).
My favorite story under it all: in 2007 August I was part of a 320-person Engineering team that was opening up both the Pinedale natural gas field (HUGE) in Wyoming and re-opening the world's largest, richest, molybdenum mine in Colorado. In November 2008, when Obama won that election, the next week there was called a big Press conference at the firm, with the local newspaper and 2 TV channels coming to show it to the country. It wasn't quite what they had expected: instead of moving forward with all the designs and plans we were all finished with, and had started implementing, the financiers announced, "Due to the declining price of moly around the world, we are closing the mine" (that we were just 2 days from opening!). We were stunned. The Press left, and some of us Engineers went to the bankers to ask "WTF"? Moly was/is skyrocketing, as is/was natural gas. Two of the financiers took a few of us off to the side and said, quietly, "Look. This guy who won the election is a raging liberal supported by "green" billionaires who want to create a whole industry of solar and wind power with tax monies. We are not going to even try to operate in that environment, because they will sic the EPA on everything we do." This has become completely true, too. Three weeks later, the company laid off 300 of the 400 engineers, including me, because all the contracts were suddenly closed.
The next day after the Press conference, the brand-new giant Mill we had just finished manufacturing for the mine arrived at the brand-new building in Fremont Pass (near Leadville), and the workers backed the specially-built flatbed truck into the brand-new building, unloaded the new Mill onto the brand-new floor in a convenient place, pulled out the truck and locked the brand-new doors after turning off the lights. Today, there is still a brand-new facility there with 3 people inside (security guards) who patrol the area. I saw it just a few weeks ago. Totally idle.
The gas field in Wyoming is all shut down, except for the privateers who operate a few sites here and there and truck their gas out. The pipelines we built are all shut off, waiting for another day.
"Pissed off" doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about THIS, either...
Um....here's this:
However, Freeport-McMoRan announced in November 2008 that it had deferred plans to reopen the Climax mine, due to lower molybdenum prices.[9][10] The company had spent about $200 million preparing for a restart of the mine, with an estimated $350 million more needed to reopen.[11] After a 17-year shutdown, the Climax mine has reopened and resumed shipment of molybdenum on May 10, 2012.[11] [12]
Funny how everything is all Obama's fault for some. In the days of google you can't just make things up. The mine is in operation and there are approx. 400 people employed there.
Then there is this form Shell Oil:
Pinedale Anticline Project Area (PAPA)
In the Pinedale Anticline gas field, Shell is applying best practices for our operations. That includes implementing innovative technologies and working collaboratively to build effective relationships in Sublette County. Today on the Anticline, we have drilled more than 400 natural gas wells, operate on more than 21,000 acres and produce approximately 350 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. Shell’s Pinedale Anticline leasehold is predominately federal minerals, underlying federal (Bureau of Land Management) surface.
While I find it extremely unlikely that your insurance rates are anywhere near what you claim, I would not doubt that they have increased. Mine have been increasing every year for the 22 years of full time employment. I currently pay about $7k/year for my family of three. It seems you may have the worst insurance policy the world has ever seen. You should consider shopping Colorado Connect, the exchange set up because of Obamacare. Seems you might be able to get under $900/month with a $2500 deductible.
http://cohealthinitiative.org/sites/cohealthinitiative.org/files/attachments/Individual%20Silver%20Plans.pdf Maybe you should consider being pissed off at the insurance companies that are raising the rates. Maybe you should be pissed off that insurance companies and corporate hospitals are raking in 100's of billions of dollars while you are struggling to maintain a normal life. Obamacare is not socialism, communism, or universal government healthcare. It is a giant give away to for profit health insurance companies.
Geez, I've really got to figure out how to get over there to OZ. Not only is this country broken, a big chunk of the population has gone completely nuts. Even though I voted for him twice, I'm looking forward to the day Obama leaves office because even though W was disastrous for our economy and country, at least I didn't have to listen to people complain about imaginary things everyday.
