My inbox includes this from the man who apparently is my Congressman:

U.S. Rep. Kind (D-WI) harshly criticized the release of misleading “estimates” from Governor Scott Walker’s Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI), claiming insurance rates for consumers will rise under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

“It’s disappointing, but not surprising, that the Walker Administration would release this misleading information aimed at undermining the Affordable Care Act,” said Rep. Kind. “For purely political reasons, Governor Walker has kept trying to derail the new health care reform law and the benefits it offers to consumers, and the release of this faulty data fits that pattern.”

The “analysis” by OCI attempted to compare rates being paid today by Wisconsin consumers to projected costs after ACA implementation in 2014. The Insurance Commissioner himself acknowledges that “the truth is that comparisons are difficult” between current plans and exchange plans, but then presents the misleading comparison anyway. The actual impact on premium rates and out-of-pocket costs for individual consumers will not be fully apparent until October 1, when the Health Insurance Marketplace opens.

(Kind’s first name is Ron, by the way. That may be news to his news release-writer(s), because the first paragraph omitted Kind’s first name.)

What “analysis” is Kind (actually, whoever writes Kind’s news releases, including the quotes from “Kind”) referring to? From Wisconsin Reporter:

The state Office of the Commissioner of Insurance on Tuesday announced premiums for health care plans with $2,000 deductibles and drug coverage would increase anywhere from 10 percent to 185 percent depending on a consumer’s age and location in the state.

In the release, the OCI acknowledged it didn’t account for premium subsidies, which will vary by consumer, and that an apples-to-apples comparison was difficult because of the variables involved.

For example, the news release cautions:

•  It is important to note a number of factors will impact how much of an increase an individual consumer will pay.
•  The best way to determine how much you will pay is to review the exchange when it goes live on Oct. 1.
•  It should be noted some consumers will be eligible for a taxpayer-funded subsidy, which will offset the actual premium being charged for low-income consumers.
• It is important to note that any increase will not impact every consumer or group in the same way.

After summing up these factors, OCI asserts the rates will rise.

“(F)rom our analysis, it appears premiums will increase for most consumers,”Commissioner Ted Nickel said in a statement. “And while there is no question that some consumers will have subsidies and may not pay these higher rates, someone will pay for the increased premiums whether it is the consumer or the federal government.” …

If the Wisconsin press had bothered to verify the numbers, they may have found a similar actuarial analysis of Obamacare’s impact on Wisconsin’s individual market has been around since 2011.

That study, conducted by Gorman Actuarial and MIT economist Jonathan Gruberfound that, overall, premiums on the individual marketplace would increase 30 percent after Obamacare. However, 41 percent of the individual market would see a decrease in premiums due to taxpayer subsidies.

Overall, Gruber has in recent weeks said he expects insurance costs, after subsidies are factored in, to decline by 5 percent in the individual marketplace.

But the broader point is this: Somebody is going to have to pay for those subsidies.

As OCI points out, the premiums are what they are — regardless of final cost to an individual consumer. In other words, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Taxpayers will pay $729 million for health care subsidies in Wisconsin, according to the early Gorman-Gruber analysis.

Without the subsidies, 12.6 percent on the individual market would enjoy lower premiums, while 87.4 percent would face increases. Forty-one percent of Wisconsinites on the individual market will face premium increases of 50 percent or more.

A Society of Actuariesreport earlier this year projected Wisconsin’s underlying claims costs could soar by as much as 80 percent by 2017.

Kind is channeling various left-wing groups who claim the Walker administration is overestimating the cost of ObamaCare’s implementation. These are the same people, of course, who have been blasting the Walker administration for not taking the supposed free money from Washington to expand Medicaid, despite no evidence that (1) expanding Medicaid improves recipients’ health or (2) that the federal government, with $16 trillion in debt, will be able or willing to follow through on its funding commitments. And no one in Kind’s party should be lecturing anyone in the Walker administration about fiscal responsibility, given their respective records of fiscal responsibility.

The news release concludes::

“Clearly, this so-called ‘analysis’ presents incomplete information for the purpose of furthering a political agenda,” concluded Rep. Kind. “Instead of offering up distortions and misinformation, it would be nice to see the Walker Administration accept the fact that the ACA is the law of the land and start helping Wisconsin consumers get affordable health care coverage.”

Because no one in Congress is interested in “furthering a political agenda,” right, Ron? Kind’s agenda is to make people ignore the steep increases already taking place in health insurance premiums, the businesses cutting back employee hours and not hiring new employees because of the spiraling-upward costs of health insurance, and other signs of the coming disaster ObamaCare will be. Not that Kind has to worry about that, since Congress is exempt from ObamaCare.

(That appeal to authority thing is clever given that Kind’s party pioneered civil disobedience. Kind has apparently never heard of what happened to the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.)

If you had to make two bets — that ObamaCare would cost far more than estimated and result in people losing insurance coverage, with associated bad economic effects, or, well, the opposite — given the Obama administration’s record of screwing up everything it touches, which would you bet? If you had Kind’s childlike, uncritical, unobservant, mindless faith in the federal government, you’d choose the latter. (Similar to Kind’s mentor, former U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl.)

There is, of course, an answer for the political games Kind thinks Walker is playing. Kind can run for governor next year. Of course, Kind lacks the guts to do that, since he would have to give up his safe Congressional seat (and meet the rest of Wisconsin, most of which has never heard of Kind) and would have no better than a 50–50 chance of winning.