As 11,000 more Coloradans receive notice that their insurance plans were canceled, one has to ask why Colorado Insurance Commissioner Marguerite Salazar is playing politics with people’s healthcare. Salazar recently announced that she would be discontinuing certain health insurance plans that the feds planned to allow through the end of 2016, according to the Denver Business Journal.  Here’s the report:

Colorado Division of Insurance Commissioner Marguerite Salazar made the decision to end the continuance of certain plans despite a federal allowance that they could run through the end of next year. She says the cancellations will get people into plans that will protect them more, but insurance brokers and some business owners say they will end up spending significantly more to get fewer benefits.

If the plans would end at the end of 2016, those with canceled plans would start to receive cancellation notices right in the middle of the election season.  While Salazar above claims otherwise, this is clearly a political ploy to protect vulnerable U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.

Playing politics with healthcare did not work out well when it happened in 2014 with former U.S. Sen. Mark Udall.  When the cancellation notices went out, his staff tried to strong arm Salazar and her staff as well as the media into not reporting that nearly 250,000 Coloradans would lose their coverage, which turned into quite the kerfuffle.

Nonetheless, it’s easy to forget that these are real people who are losing their health insurance plans. The woman featured in the Denver Business Journal now has to pay $787 per month, up from $436. Her deductible increased from $3,000 per year to $6,350 per year. Why? Because her current plan doesn’t have pediatric dental insurance, which was just fine with her since she is a 57 year old woman without children.

Once again, Obamacare seems to be more along the lines of the Unaffordable Care Act instead of the Affordable Care Act.