Scott Walker, GOP, try to Vilify ObamaCare before public finds out about Lower Small Business Insurance premiums through Exchanges.

While the following is great news for Americans, the bad news is we’re still talking about INSURANCE COMPANIES. The rate savings below are insurance company rates, not the actual cost of care. We've still got to tackle rising doctor fees and hospital costs. 

So with that in mind, Obamacare, and not the phony un-passable proposals Republicans continue to churn out as a way to look like they’re doing something, continues to lower prices. The GOP’s summer home campaign in August will attempt to convince constituents they shouldn't buy health care coverage. It may sound ridiculous, but to their supporters, a vengeful attack on ObamaCare is worth freeloading off the responsibly insured. I guess freeloading is just another word for freedom. 

So when it comes to these supposed business friendly guys like Scott Walker, who has personally done everything he can to sabotage the new marketplaces (all the while whining that implementation has been slow), their efforts are falling short of angering and hurting small businesses. 

Washington Post: Obamacare driving down health insurance costs for small businesses in Washington, DC.: District officials last week announced that, for the third time since they started posting proposed plans on a new health insurance marketplace for small businesses, an insurer has lowered its initial prices for coverage. It is a sign, they say, that the marketplace will help bring down health costs for businesses, which have skyrocketed in recent years.

Kaiser Permanente is the most recent to drop its rates, lowering premiums by 4.4 percent. United HealthCare previously dropped its rates by more than 10 percent, and then again by about 5 percent, while Aetna has lowered its prices by more than 5 percent. “These lower rates are more incontrovertible proof DC Health Link is already bringing competition to the insurance market,” William P. White, the city’s commissioner of the Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking, said in a statement.

Scott Walker’s “business friendly” image also doesn't automatically mean small businesses will suddenly and magically save money. He would have to create policy, and Republicans aren't into that right now. And some small businesses (large too) don't want to provide health care for their employees.

This isn't the only success story either:

The District’s exchange isn’t the only in which prices are falling. The Department of Health and Human Services recently evaluated proposed insurance premiums in 11 states, reporting that prices … in those states have come in an average of 18 percent lower than the premiums employers were paying prior to the Affordable Care Act.

Again, don’t confuse free market competition between insurers to actual lifesaving health care, which isn't a market based consumable product, but a human necessity. Everywhere else in the world, it's a right. There’s even more savings coming for small businesses:

In April, the administration announced it would delay for one year a requirement that business owners be allowed to choose different plans for different workers through the health insurance exchanges, a feature meant to provide added flexibility and help drive down costs for employers.

Republicans and other critics of the law have (been) pitching them as evidence the legislation is not working. Mila Kofman, the executive director of the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority, suggested the opposite, noting the plummeting prices … “It is exciting to see that insurance companies in the District are already aggressively competing for business through the online marketplace,” she said.