By AGXIIK

Mish Shedlock wrote an excellent piece on the costs of health care insurance premiums for seniors and people who have to use ACA/Obamacare.  It’s linked below and it’s well worth the few minutes you’ll take to read it.

The premium increases really shocked us. When the 3.5% inflation flag is waved around it looks more like one of surrender. Inflation won while we lost.

The real inflation rate is a continuing and ever present danger to all of us and has been since 1970.  Ford’s War on Inflation was as big a con as Nixon’s on Drugs and LBJ’s war on poverty.

His WIN-Whip Inflation Now war buttons were abject signs of surrender which we wore on our lapels not realizing we were nothing more than Inflation’s POWs.
The wars on poverty, drugs and inflation were lost. Those losses speak volumes about the feckless ineptitude of every president in the last 70 years. They were all as worthless as buckets of warm spit

The cost of medical coverage insurance, especially Obamacare ACA premiums, will be bankrupting a lot of people. What’s even more annoying is the SS COLA of 2.8% is 20% less than the Fed’s inflation calculation of 3.5%. Seniors will always be taking 4 steps back for every one forward.  The working class is more hobbled as they try to get a little bit ahead.

There are  around 70 million seniors on social security and Medicare. 49.4 million people are covered by Obamacare with more applying for ACA coverage on a daily basis.  My proficiency at math tells me that’s just about 120,000,000 people who rely on these insurance premium systems. In other words that’s half of the working population.

 Like Houdini,  Medicare Parts B and D premiums are taken directly from our SS payments.

 Poof, now you see it now you don’t.

Part B is pegged at a 9.7% increase while Part D is  5.8%. B and D are 246% and 107% higher respectively than SS COLA inflation adjustment of 2.8%. The thing that really chaps my hide is how the Chapwood Index noted in our October 8 2025 article clearly shows inflation is between 9-15% in the 50 largest 50 US cities.

The Part B and D premiums are more reflective of that inflation statistic than some stumblebum dweeby government drone’s edict that inflation is 2.8%. Here’s your pennies, nickels and dimes. Pay me mine in silver.

The actuarial staff and bean counters at the OASDI/Social Security fumbled around for an COLA that represented the tiny stipend we’ll see in 2026.  After consulting a rigged Magic 8 ball their magnanimity resulted in the 2.8% increase we Dole Geezers will see in our pay envelopes. Whoooop Te Dooo!.  That’s a 4 Happy Meal inflation adjustment nirvana makes me want to go out and celebrate.

If you think the Part B and D premium increases are outrageous, Obamacare is slated to rise by 26%.  When measured against the substantial drop in Average Joe’s pay check that’s pushed Joe even further to insolvency, ACA will create a whole new cadre of health care premium bankruptcies.  Obama’s promises that you can keep your doctor and see a $2,500 savings in premiums was as fake as a counterfeit Morgan dollar you’ll find on Flea Bay.

If there was a reason to continue with investing and stacking the color silver,  Mish’s bombshell is it. I don’t know the demographics of SilverTrade readers but it’d be easy to assume we are all getting up in years.  Medicare for many is part of our lives and has been for years.  Those people who are either employed by others or self employed must really be in for a serious sticker shock when Obamacare jacks the $494 a month premium of a 21 YO budget and $1,263 a month for a 60 YO and tacks on 26% next year.
Tally these premiums for a family of 4 and it’s easily $3,000 plus a month with that double digit rise scheduled for 2026.

The healthcare inflation boondoggle must be viewed as apolitical because it’s hitting everyone no matter their political voting records.

Is this an indicator of TEOTGKE?  Oh, heck yes.

Which will implode first is my question?

Is this situation also BOHICA?  Absolutely.

The question that must be answered is how long a person can remain liquid or just bent over for the rest of their life while the government and insurance companies perform their modern version of Jus Primae Noctis with the proles while inflation runs rampant through the land.