Category: Health Care

#ObamaCare’s Past Schadenfreude, But The Democrat Wreckage Is Still Good

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

The cumulative damage the Democratic Party has suffered, as well as the casualty rate — half of the 60 senators who supported the bill are since deceased, defeated or retired — has brought its leaders to an unhappy inflection and reflection point. Two years ago, President Obama was reelected to the surprise and delight of Democrats who believed that, not only would his unique coalition provide them with dominance in presidential cycles for the foreseeable future, but that perhaps the ACA backlash had passed. After losing their Senate majority and watching the GOP cement gains across federal offices, statehouses and regions Democrats might have lost for generations, however, buyer’s remorse on healthcare reform has led to angry division inside the party.

The long term economic and societal damage from ObamaCare remains to be seen. It’s too grim and widespread for schadenfreude to be appropriate. Careers have been ended, but the worst perpetrators are still around.

And the fundamental behavior pattern of having legislation move through Congress with the suddenness and subtlety of a mudslide is still prevalent, as the CROmnibus showed.

The sad part is that the conceptual flaw of Progressivism–that any of this federal over-reach was a good idea in the first place–remains unquestioned. Maybe when he’s the last Dem standing, Chuck Schumer will reflect that maybe modeling the American people as a flock of sheep for planning purposes was too simplistic.

via Hot Air

I Do Not Think That Word Means What Gruber Thinks It Means

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

Via Hot Air, emphasis mine:

In an appearance on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Gruber was probed by Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) over his lamentation that the administration’s lack of honesty about the imposition of taxes both on those who do not purchase insurance and on those who do have insurance. Turner prodded Gruber over whether he had any conversations with members of the White House who perhaps shared his opinion that the ACA needed to be crafted in a “tortured” way to ensure its passage.

After much deliberation, Gruber finally answered: “I honestly do not recall.”

One does not condone torture, but occasionally one perceives the source of temptation to throw someone down the stairs, up the stairs, and then back down the stairs. Anything to enhance the likelihood of recollection.

Elections Have Consequences. Will GOP Victory = ‘Consequences’ Consequences?

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

You’ve got to love The Week: “Why the GOP must pass a real ObamaCare replacement after it wins the Senate“. That sounds like ‘bargaining’ on the Kübler-Ross Model.

Keep in mind that ObamaCare is the new plantation. To hell with this Commie thinking that we can’t reject this plantation without moving onto a new one.

The bigger danger is that the Republican reticence signals an interest in power, with no corresponding interest in reform. This could really blow the lid off of our single, Progressive Party system in time for Her Majesty’s coronation in 2017.

The #Ebola Media Epidemic

Posted on Comments

It was probably only a matter of time before CNN producers figured out that Ebola is cable-news ratings gold. Today I was babysitting my infant grandson and, on a whim, turned the TV to CNN and left it there all day, while they were wall-to-wall with URGENT BREAKING EBOLA UPDATES the way they do with a major news story — a school shooting, a missing Malaysian commercial jet or a Republican congressman talking about rape and abortion.

You get the idea, really, of a symbiosis between the media and the administration. Personally, I’m not panicked over Ebola, nor do I care to interpret the problem through the warped lens of a political blame game. But the White House and the Democrat-Media Complex? They’re sweating like a whore in church. Ace of Spades nails it cold:

Meanwhile, you know this is now officially serious, because President Golf n’ Fundraise has cancelled planned fundraisers in NJ and Connecticut to actually trouble himself to pretend to do his job for a day.
He’ll be having some briefings on ebola. Not a minute too soon,either.
Just the right time for briefings on ebola.
Any sooner? Premature, and signs of irrational panic.


You see, it’s always politics first with this administration. Everything is about polls and perceptions and — given that the Democrat Party just hit a historic low in terms of their popularity rating, three weeks before Election Day — the Competence Test Tag-Team of Ebola and ISIS have inspired . . . Well, DEFCON ONE: “We must look like we know what we’re doing and are busy as hell doing it!”

Please excuse my sarcasm. I’m not laughing at Ebola, I’m laughing at halfwits who think the most important thing about this deadly virus is its potential impact on the Democrat Party. Also, sarcasm is the only sane reaction to the Left’s “Ebola Racism” meme.

 

#ObamaCare River of Lies Rolls On

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

So, after all the Individual Mandate faffing about, Hot Air reports that as many as 90% may not get nicked with a penalty (for now):

The Obama administration has provided 14 ways people can avoid the fine based on hardships, including suffering domestic violence, experiencing substantial property damage from a fire or flood, and having a canceled insurance plan. Those come on top of exemptions carved out under the 2010 law for groups including illegal immigrants, members of Native American tribes and certain religious sects…
. . .
Critics have assailed one exemption for people who “experienced another hardship obtaining health insurance” as too broad. That exemption asks for documentation if possible but doesn’t require it.

To summarize, Obama is taking your liberty and training you to accept being spared the whip as an ersatz liberty substitute.
In defense of Obama, if the American people are retarded enough to stand for this, then DOOM ON US.

Just Relax In Your ‘Fundamentally Transformed’ Country, Americans

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

Pres’ent Obama has simply carried through:
In the pre-transformed America, it was understood that the Commies had infiltrated Hollywood and academia. No one really expected subversion of the IRS:

To summarize: The IRS (famed for nitpicking and prosecuting the tax law), chose to authorize hundreds of billions of illegal subsidies without having performed a smidgen of legal due diligence, and did so at the direction of political taskmasters. The agency’s actions provided aid and comfort to elected Democrats, even as it disenfranchised millions of Americans who voted in their states to reject state-run exchanges. And Treasury knows how ugly this looks, which is why it initially stonewalled Congress in its investigation—at first refusing to give documents to investigators, and redacting large portions of the information.

These dots on the financial rigging side connect just as we hear that, on the drafting side, the shenanigans were just as wretched:

The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn reached out to Jonathan Gruber to get his reaction to the emergence of the Nobilis video in which the architect of ObamaCare explains that the restriction of subsidies to states with their own exchanges was a rational attempt to coerce states into creating those exchanges, rather than shifting the burden back to the federal government. Gruber calls that “a speak-o — you know, like a typo”

In defense of the Democrats, we have tolerated and permitted our politics to reach this sordid state. The sovereignty of We the People is being migrated over to the executive branch in two ways:

  • initially burying decision making in a series of multi-ream legislative reamings, of which the Affordable Care Act is merely the most infamous example, and,
  • subsequently rewriting those words as required either through regulation or, in the unusual case of the ACA, at the SCOTUS.

It’s a cliché to say that the impending election is the most important of our lifetimes. It’s no longer about avoiding the disaster; it’s about mitigating the effects and minimizing the recover time.

ObamaCare: Fake It and Take it

Posted on Comments

“Healthcare reform” as a massive fraud on taxpayers:

Undercover government investigators were able to obtain thousands of dollars in taxpayer subsidies under ObamaCare using fake identities, according to findings presented to Congress on Wednesday.
The probe by the Government Accountability Office has raised fresh concerns about the ability of the sprawling health care program to prevent or intercept costly fraud schemes. In the case of the GAO investigation, 11 out of 12 applications submitted using “fictitious identities” were accepted, resulting in subsidized health coverage.
“For each of our 11 approved applications, we paid the required premiums to put policies into force, and are continuing to pay the premiums. For the 11 applications that were approved for coverage, we obtained the advance premium tax credit in all cases,” the report said.
According to the GAO, the total amount for these credits was $2,500 monthly, adding up to $30,000 a year.

How’s that Hope and Change workin’ out for ya?

(Hat-tip: Memeorandum.)

 

Did ObamaCare Just Die?

Posted on Comments

This seems to be the consensus interpretation of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision this morning:

Court Rules That Subsidies in Obamacare’s
Federal Exchange are Illegal, Dealing
Huge Legal Blow to Health Law
— Reason

In Blow to Health Law, Appeals Court Limits Subsidies
— New York Times

BREAKING: Two Republican Judges
Order Obamacare Defunded
— Think Progress

Court’s Decision Strikes Huge
Blow to Pro-Abortion Obamacare
— LifeNews

So, whether they are liberals or conservatives, for or against ObamaCare, everybody seems to agree that this decision bodes ill for the program’s continuation. That’s good news for America.