With rate hikes announced by BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley Authority on Friday (when such bad news is sometimes off-loaded), clients and ratepayers don't have to look far too find the culprit.
In both cases, it's the administration of President Barack Obama.
With BlueCross, the 36.3 percent rate hike for plans on the federal health care exchange is attributable to the $141 million loss the company took in offering individual health plans through the Affordable Care Act.
The company had reported the loss in the spring, but a company official said the losses haven't moderated since the announcement, forcing the rate rise.
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* TVA boosts rates as it moves to add more nuclear, gas and renewables, cut coal generation * BlueCross gets 36.3 percent rate hike
Even with the rate increase, Roy Vaughn, vice president of corporate communications, told the Times Free Press, "it still doesn't reflect a sustainable pricing model at this point, but it does narrow it significantly."
In other words, to break even on the Affordable Care Act portion of the insurer's business, the company would have to raise rates even higher, perhaps much higher.
"We don't want to charge anyone more than what we have to," Vaughn said, "but pricing has to reflect medical costs we've committed to cover."
That makes business sense.
No one needs to feel too sorry for BlueCross, which still earned a profit of $199.7 million in 2014, but it should make taxpayers understand that the government health program is fiscally unsustainable.
BlueCross, after all, is not the only insurer which lost money on the individual health plans and not the only one asking its state regulators for, and getting, large increases that its customers must now pay to offset those losses.
Community Health Alliance of Knoxville, for one, asked state regulators for a 32.2 percent increase but had its request pushed up to 44.7 percent.
Clients should not forget that Obama emphasized that insurance rates not only would not increase under the Affordable Care Act but that his signature health program would save families an average of $2,500 per year.
U.S. Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., put it into perspective on Friday.
"Today's news is proof positive that Obamacare is built on a grand deception," she said. "The president repeatedly promised Americans that his health care law would save families [money]. Now Tennesseans are seeing once again that nothing could be further from the truth."
With TVA, according to President Bill Johnson, the 1.5 percent rate hike is partially attributable to the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan requirements.
That plan requires the country's power sector to cut carbon emissions by 32 percent, based on 2005 levels, by 2030.
The utility's rate increase matches those from the last two years for a total hike of 4.5 percent over three years, and ratepayers also are subject to hikes from provider EPB.
Johnson said the increase also helps allow TVA to decrease its debt more than $6 billion over eight years and pay for the expense of the Unit 2 nuclear reactor - the country's first to come on line in the 21st century - at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plan in Spring City, Tenn.
As with Blue Cross, it's not that the overall picture is dismal for TVA, which expects better profits this year and projects a 1 percent increase in power sales next year.
"We are making significant investments to keep rates affordable and stable for our customers under a variety of conditions," TVA Chief Financial Officer John Thomas said.
Even before the Clean Power Plan, TVA had begun reducing its reliance on carbon-heavy fossil fuels, but its reasonable draw-down timeline for those fuels may not prevent higher increases in the future.
According to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, Tennessee could be facing average electricity rate price increases - from TVA and other utilities - of 14 percent per year between 2020 and 2029.
With just these two examples, it's clear to see that Obama's policies are forcing hard-working taxpayers to shell out even more of their own money to underwrite unsound federal programs. And it's clear to see why so many are eager to put new leadership in the White House.