Host Neal Asbury opened his nationally syndicated “Neal Asbury’s Made in America” show on Radio America (now on 70 stations) with the observation that as more and more Americans delay re-enrollment in Obamacare, the lack of enthusiasm and the resulting hike in premiums could doom its future.
“Last week key Democrats admitted that passing Obamacare was a mistake. But now the always clueless former United States Secretary of Health and Human Services,
Kathleen Sebelius, suggested that Obamacare merely had a ‘branding issue.’ It’s more than a branding issue if 48 percent of the doctors that are supposed to be delivering care are unavailable for new patients,” maintained Neal, who added that premiums and deductibles are rising faster than wages, which could make it unaffordable for millions of Americans.
Co-host Dr. Rich Roffman suggested that if any Democrats still think that Obamacare is a successful program, they should look around Congress and notice that half of their Democratic colleagues are missing after the Midterm elections.
Joining Made in America was Sarah Hurtubise, a reporter for The Daily Caller, who revealed that a majority of last year’s Obamacare customers aren’t planning to purchase their coverage again in 2015. A Bankrate Health Insurance Pulse survey found that fifty-one percent of respondents in a survey of last year’s Obamacare exchange customers don’t plan to purchase an exchange plan this year.
“Although the administration claims that there are 1.3 million people enrolled in Obamacare, only 15 percent have indicated that they plan to re-enroll, which is going to be a big problem for Obama. It’s hard to get any enrollment information from the White House, but the signs are pretty strong that people aren’t re-enrolling because they can’t gain access to their preferred physicians, and many are waiting for the Supreme Court to decide if Obamacare is even going to last,” reported Hurtubise.
Dr. Roffman noted that the administration is so concerned that they are trying to enroll people at shopping malls and even at 7-Elevens.
Neal and Dr. Roffman segued to a discussion on the ongoing fiction being spun by the Obama administration that the economy is humming along.
“The number of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck has increased by 33 percent since 2012, but the White House continues to trot out low unemployment numbers while knowing full-well that most of these jobs are seasonal or part-time. They are not sustainable jobs with good salaries that can support a family,” noted Neal.
Dr. Roffman agreed, adding that the U-6 unemployment rate is at a 36 year high despite what the White House numbers suggest.
“Even the New York Times has written that the American Dream is out of reach for most Americans. It’s gotten so bad that the Times has written that the nation is facing a vanishing male workforce, brought on by men who don’t want to go from a job where they were being paid $30 per hour to one that pays $10.00. In many cases, their wife or significant other is bringing in the money and they are living off this wage, supplemented by the money they can collect from government benefits,” proposed Dr. Roffman.
Neal noted that 65 percent of American children are living in households that are collecting federal aid; leading to a culture of dependency.
In anticipation of their next guest, Neal and Dr. Roffman discussed the EPA’s ongoing war on coal that is destroying coal mining communities and raising the price of electricity.
The next guest on Made in America was the always informative Seton Motley, a consultant and the founder and president of Less Government, who proposed that the EPA has expanded its war on coal to a war on farmers.
“Ever since the FDR administration passed the terrible farm subsidy bill, government uber-regulates farmers – and the price of food skyward. Government then sets a price for food – and subsidizes farmers when the crops government made way too expensive to produce don’t meet the government-set price. There are strong signals from regulators that they are about to severely restrict or completely eliminate some of the most important tools in the farmer’s toolkit—banning the use of tobacco based insecticides–the most popular and widely used insecticide in the world today–that kill harmful insects–but are largely environmentally safe,” suggested Motley.
Motley noted that the new EPA regulations are so restrictive that farmers can be fined for just having standing water on their farm.
The final guest on Made in America was James Higdon, the author of The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate’s Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History.
Higdon has been evaluating the recent elections in Kentucky, which saw Democrats get trounced for their ties to an administration that has gone to war on coal. “Even the Democrats were surprised by the 15 point blowout they experienced in Kentucky. The coal-producing areas in eastern and western Kentucky significantly pushed the vote to Republicans. The unique thing about Kentucky Democrats is that they have historically tried to distance themselves from the current White House, especially when it comes to energy. They always relied on union support to help them win elections,” revealed Higdon.
As part of his ongoing segment on the rise in the development of robots to replace human workers, Dr. Roffman noted that despite Google’s embrace of robotics, their management staff is still apprehensive about riding as a passenger in the driverless car being developed by TESLA, with cooperation from Google.
Dr. Roffman sent a cautionary warning based on the film 2001-A Space Odyssey that depicted an onboard computer named HAL that took over a spaceship and killed most of the crew.
On the cronyism front, Dr. Roffman was baffled the City of St. Louis gave a job to Darian Johnson, the eyewitness who falsely claimed that Michael Brown called out “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” while he was being arrested and subsequently shot for a shoplifting crime as well as attacking a policeman; in which Johnson also participated.
“People jumped to conclusions without knowing the facts, even some members of congress and congressional aides who protested on the steps of the Capitol,” concluded Dr. Roffman. .
Each week Neal Asbury’ Made in America provides Neal’s insights into the week’s top news stories and their impact on the worlds of entrepreneurship, small business ownership and the overall economy. Neal’s analysis, together with co-host Dr. Richard Roffman, a veteran 30-year publisher with extensive domestic and international experience, takes a non-biased approach based on real life experience in business as an American manufacturer and exporter. Made in America airs nationally each Saturday from 7-8:00 PM on Radio America. Link to Made in America at http://www.nealasburysmadeinamerica.com.
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