Obamacare: all the world’s a stage anyway, isn’t it?
So why not stage an Obamacare photo-op, featuring people who may or may not have actually enrolled?
It’s all about the visuals.
And even if the entire group of thirteen had in fact enrolled, it would be meaningless. Obamacare’s success or failure won’t be measured by numbers like thirteen.
By the way, I’ve been spending many extra hours lately doing research on Obamacare and its actual provisions, and how those are likely to affect people. It’s been a fascinating but overwhelming task to try to order what I’m finding, and write about it in a coherent, focused way. For now I’ll just say that the anomalies and inequities are vast and perplexing. It’s not just the website that’s chaos; it’s the thing itself.
“. . . the anomalies and inequities are vast and perplexing.”
So an anomalous and perplexing legislature created an anomalous and perplexing law. Why am I not surprised?
In my view, there are several aspects of Obamacare that will likely turn out to be problematic:
1) They limited the maximum difference between young and old premiums to a factor of 3x. While at first this might seem like a reasonable way to prevent premiums for older people to skyrocket, it also means that younger people, who can least afford higher premiums, would be hit hardest by the changes. My feeling is that either allowing a larger factor (4x?) or providing more subsidy support for seniors not yet eligible for Medicare might have been a better approach.
2) There’s an obvious problem for states that opted not to expand Medicaid, for reasons that appear to be nearly entirely political and not rational policy-based. The law only works with the Medicaid expansion; without it, lots of other parts of it aren’t going to work well (in particular hospitals and doctors will be screwed in states that don’t have expanded Medicaid because their lower Medicare reimbursements won’t be made up by increased Medicaid).
3) The employer mandate might need to be rethought. It works in Hawaii, where it has been law for quite a while, but the subsidies to help businesses may not be adequate. Also, employers should be allowed to purchase insurance on the exchanges as well, why not? Ron Wyden of my former home state of Oregon tried to make this happen but failed.
Mitsu:
This is why not: the more people who can purchase on the exchanges, the more people who are eligible for subsidies from government, and that would raise the cost of Obamacare to the government.
People who can get insurance from employment, with employers subsidizing them at least partly, are only eligible for government subsidies on the exchanges if their employment-furnished insurance is deemed “unaffordable,” and the way the rules are currently written, few of them will qualify for the subsidies (I could go into this in detail and I plan to in some subsequent post, but for now perhaps you’ll just take my word for it).
The government needs company-employed people to stay off the exchanges and out of the subsidy market, or government will be footing the bill for a lot of them. And since the majority of people in the US get insurance throught employment, this is a huge figure.
Companies may end up forced out of the providing-insurance business, but that is a separate (and problematic) issue. But there was a good reason not everyone could shop on the exchanges and be eligible for subsidies (anyone can shop on them without being eligible for subsidies).
try to order what I’m finding
Isn’t it the other way around, where Obama orders you the care he thinks you deserve rather than the individual ordering what they find?
Of course, if you mean bringing order to chaos, that’s opposed to Obama’s bringing a gun to his knife fight.
Sarah Palin had this messed figured out three years ago.
Ymarsakar:
To order what I’m finding in the sense of organizing a post or posts about it.
Here’s an old but very informative article on who ObamaCare doesn’t care about despite their stated goals. It was a seminar for free clinics to assure them they will still be in business: http://volunteersinmedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Affordable-Care-Act-Professor-Jost-Notes1.pdf
I too have been doing a little research into ObamaCare.
Undoubtedly, in the 11.5+ million words of which the ObamaCare law and its regulations consist (and we can count on them adding more) there are other buried negatives that await discovery.
Here’s the highlights of what I’ve found so far;
ObamaCare increases taxes on individuals making over $200k and families earning over $250,000. The income threshold is not indexed for inflation, so more and more middle-income families will be hit by the tax hike as time goes on.
It adds a new tax to investment income.
It puts new limitations on those with HSAs and FSAs.
It penalizes marriage.
It violates religious liberty.
It puts Medicare decisions in the hands of an unelected board. Palin was right.
It puts a premium tax on health insurers.
It creates a new unsustainable entitlement program.
It puts over half of all Americans on a government program.
A survey by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reveals that 74% of small businesses will fire workers and or cut hours under ObamaCare.
IMO, most disturbing of all is the ObamaCare Federal Data Services Hub.
“The federal government is planning to quietly enact what could be the largest consolidation of personal data in the history of the republic,” Stephen Parente, a University of Minnesota finance professor
Why is the left so determined to achieve single-payer nationalized health care? Which is the end goal with ObamaCare a planned transition step.
Well, a fellow by the name of Vladimir Lenin advised them to pay particular attention to it as, “Socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state.”
“A ‘keystone’ is the wedge-shaped stone piece at the apex of a masonry vault or arch, which is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stones into position” my emphasis
Everything is a photo op to Obama. There will never be a time when he is not in campaign mode, even after he leaves office.
I see Obamacare through the lense of a single guiding principle; give DC control over something as complex as the health care industry – 1/6th of the economy — and DC will spend trillions creating a FUBAR scenario. That is the nature of the DC beast. And there will be death panels… Palin is usually 100% inside the bullseye.
Well, there’s your problem.
“It’s not just the website that’s chaos; it’s the thing itself.”
The website is chaos because “the thing itself” is chaos.
What did Mitsu say about Sarah Palin back in 2009? I need some help remembering.
“Also, employers should be allowed to purchase insurance on the exchanges as well, why not? Ron Wyden of my former home state of Oregon tried to make this happen but failed.”
Blasphemy, go to an Obama cellpone reeducation camp and re-learn the party line. You are now labeled, by your choosen words, a traitor to the revolution that wants to re-educate 50% of the population via the guillotine. How do those Robespierre shoes fit? Are they comfortable, or a bit tight?
Parker, once Obama nationalizes IT and the internet, I’m sure Mitsu, given his job, will be forced to fall into line. But until then, there’s always Google backing the IT lobby. And Microsoft. And Warrent Buffet.
Ymar,
Mitsu was rabid 😉
Obsessed 😉
Was convinced of something – I can’t quite remember….
Obama has admitted that the website has “problems.”
If Obama, who always claims things are going just as he planned or says that someone else is at fault, is now claiming that there are problems then it must be bad – Real Bad – worse than we thought.
>here’s why not
The Wyden Amendment was actually not that employees could shop on the exchange with subsidies — it was that employers could offer employees a tax-free voucher for the amount that the employer would have spent on the employee in health insurance from their regular plan. Employees could then buy insurance on the exchange, using their employer’s funds, and if they found a plan that was cheaper than what their employer offered, they could pocket the difference. Or, they could buy a more expensive plan but they’d have to make up the difference with their own funds. In any event, the idea was to increase the pool of people shopping for insurance on the exchanges, and increase the competitiveness of the insurance exchange market.
I suspect the amendment failed because of the added complexity of administering it. However, I still like the idea in principle.
Well, well, well. I heard the loathsome Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (Rahm-boy’s brother, and chief advisor to Comrade Hussein on Things Medical) saying angrily that Of course! they are going to ration care.
And see this: “Obama’s Health Rationer-in-Chief —
White House health-care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the ‘overuse’ of medical care.”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203706604574374463280098676
Gee, it’s all that annoying “First, do no harm” stuff. BTW, on the radio, I was struck by how coarse, crude, and thuggish the guy sounds: like a mafioso.
ObamaCare is inherently evil, so going forward there will be no shortage of bizarre anomalies in the system. Unfortunately Andrew C. McCarthy is probably correct in that it will never be repealed as that would require several blow out elections for Republicans.
“Loathesome Ezekiel Emanuel”?
Wait. Look at his Old Testament names.
And he is Harvard-educated, was (is?) Harvard faculty, and is a certified bioethicist to boot ( when I see a ‘bioethicist’ I run away as fast as I can; they all have the same mindset: elitist dominance).
He ‘served’ on the original Hillarycare Panel, the one that advocated single-payer, one-size-must-fit-all, in 1992, in which capacity he gratuitously and needlessly lied to a group of docs, of which I was one.
Yes, he is entirely loathesome, Beverly. He was born an immoral Leftist liar and remains so.
But today I did it: did not read one word by Mitsu.
Baklava,
Rabid it is then.
cArgo cult surface is everyting
substance is nothing
on that note
Shocking admission on Army preparedness: No training the last 6 months
http://news.investors.com/politics-andrew-malcolm/102213-676088-ray-odierno-army-combat-brigades-way-below-minimum-after-cuts.htm
you dont really need to train
and if you do train them, they can be dangerous
better to have them untrained, in fashionable stylish uniforms (desgned by the new gueer eye for the army guy branch), and have them march and just look good
you know how much money that will save when everything is just surface appearances with nothing behind it?
potemkin society..
for potemkin people…
living in paper mache ticky tack houses
or crawling into the ovens as ordered by rationed care
Gen. Ray Odierno told a Washington conference Monday that the U.S. Army had not conducted any training in the last six months of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
And, he said, there currently are only two Army brigades rated combat-ready. That’s a total of between 7,000 to 10,000 troops and less than one-third what the combat veteran regards as necessary for proper national security.
the war is going to be interesting…
or do you think that with economy pants down so you cant pay for defense by borrowing… a populatio of disenfranchised men who are not allowed to fight for their women, who want other women anyway… gays and lack of cohesion and training…. switching out old generatls with experience for new liberal ones… switching out heads of stuff all over the country… and dont forget, saving the time of an invasion by having the others troops already stationed here in washington to protect potus from his own people in case things get wacko…
gonna be an interesting winter.. .
a time when such is better to do given things
My wife and i have it all planned given their ideology and so on.
we will become islamic christian judaic secular people… no one said you HAVE to just pick one… under multiclturlism, tell me i cant be all of them, and as such, under islamic, i have a free ticket for obamacre.
now, to get grants and loans, we are thinking i declare myself transgendered… i am a lesbian trapped in a mans body and as such, i am oppressed… so i get to have those things. after all, one only needs to decide and declare what they are…
go ahead lefties, make the doctrine of proof…
that would be interesting, way before they ever get to me… my proof that i am a lesiban in a mans body is that i married a heterosexual woman so i could have unlimited lesbian sex and save on a sex change.
sorry… sarcasm was turned up too high
â€Mitsu†relies on short term memory failure
Noel Harrison, singer of The Windmills Of Your Mind, died
It’s amazing how many things have become “normal” under Obama, one of them being his need for human props. What message does he thinks he’s communicating with this?
I’d imagine that making sense of the healthcare law is especially difficult because so much of it has been left up to bureaucratic discretion (and not specified in the bill). Don’t know if this is a good resource, NEO, but Betsy McCaughey read the bill during its path to passage and had identified a lot of the key weaknesses buried within it. I think the most devastating parts of the law will be how people/entities who are involved in providing healthcare (doctors, pharmaceutical co.’s, hospitals) will react to the law.
It’s amazing how many things have become “normal” under Obama, one of them being his need for human props. – Lizzy
the term your looking for is “Normalized”
What message does he thinks he’s communicating with this? – lizzy
you might want to study lenny reifenstahl, and 1950s authoritarian commercials, along with other such dialoguing to consensus type behaviors
I’d imagine that making sense of the healthcare law is especially difficult because so much of it has been left up to bureaucratic discretion (and not specified in the bill). – lizzy
delegation of powers is illegal under the constitiuation, as an appointed someone with no power, cant delegate what is te discresion of the people. but under the soviet constitition, such delegation of power from the supereme soviet (committee), to the lesser committes by bueracratic assignment is NORMAL, and akin to kings giving gifts to court people for their loyalty under a despoticl system
I think the most devastating parts of the law will be how people/entities who are involved in providing healthcare (doctors, pharmaceutical co.’s, hospitals) will react to the law.
no, the most devastating part will be boomers, who are mostly white and will be demographically short given feminsts and the other games, that they wont be able to vote in numbers large enough to prevent their care being rationed and their being pushed off faster into the choir triumphant as an after birth abortion.
why make ovens? the pulib doesnt side with you as they thought it would. after all a paranoid about guns thinks the public understands their paranoia, so why would not the paranoid about other people and their ability not be paranoid and think that the rest of the world would agree with their fixes? when they didnt, they got paranoid of their contrmporaries, they brecame the enemy, and now, they are convincing them in many ways to self immolate..
so the boomers, thanks to the ladies, will have self exterminated by the fruit of their own policies.
then the upcomein generatio is going to be so good at defense it will be pure comedy for the Gods to watch
Why are our Military Leaders being Purged?
This strange chain of firings from the Military is so bizarre and so unheard of that even Dianne Sawyer of ABC news reached out to cover it when the 9th, yes 9th, Military Commanding Officer was relieved of duty in less than a year. This doesn’t include the long list last year, this is just the nine individuals this year alone.
as i said, all over the world, armies and military groups are being reorganized and rejiggerd.
from the destruction of the whole military of a ex soviet bloc state, to the cutting of the internet cables moving dat ato satellite whihc can spy, to launching missiles off of california (how many since then did we mistake a plane contrail for a missile. zero before, zero after, right?) and dont forget the chinese EMP test on a cruise ship.. and the other stuff…
why not put it in a list and let the list speak for itself?
the amazing spell checker that kills dialoge about what we shouold not be allowed to talk about…
General Carter Hamm, United States Army-Served as head of the United States African Command – Gone
Rear Admiral Charles Gaouette/ United States Navy-Commander of Carrier Strike Group Three.- Gone
Major General Ralph Baker, United States Army- Major General Baker served as the Commander of the Joint Task Force-Horn at Camp Lamar , Djibouti , Africa – Gone
Brigadier General Bryan Roberts, United States Army-General Roberts took command of Fort Jackson in 2011. – Gone
Major General Gregg A. Sturdevant, United States Marine Corps-Director of Strategic Planning and Policy of for the United States Pacific Command and Commander of the aviation wing at Camp Bastion , Afghanistan – Gone
Major General Charles M.M. Gurganus, United States Marine Corps- Regional Commander in the Southwest and I Marine Expeditionary Force (a forward or frontal division) in Afghanistan – Gone
Lieutenant General David Holmes Huntoon Jr, United States Army-Served as the 58th Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. – Gone
Vice Admiral Tim Giardina, United States Navy-Deputy Commander of the United States Strategic Command. Commander of the Submarine Group Trident, Submarine Group 9 and Submarine Group 10, where every single one of the 18 Nuclear Submarines with Nuclear Trident Missiles of those three groups were in his command. – Gone
Major General Michael Carry, United States Air Force-Commander 20th Air Force in charge of 9,600 people and 450 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) at three operational wings and served in both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. (dismissed within 48 hours of the other nuclear gardian) – Gone
that is just this year…
there is a lot more…
Cmdr. Derick Armstrong, commanding officer of the guided missile destroyer USS The Sullivans
Cmdr. Martin Arriola, commanding officer of the USS Porter
Capt. Antonio Cardoso, commanding officer of Training Support Center San Diego
Capt. James CoBell, commanding officer of Oceana Naval Air Station’s Fleet Readiness Center Mid-Atlantic
Cmdr. Joseph E. Darlak was replaced as the skipper of the USS Vandegrift on Nov. 2
Cmdr. Franklin Fernandez, commanding officer of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 24
Rear Adm. Charles M. Gaouette was replaced as commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis
Cmdr. Ray Hartman, commanding officer of the amphibious dock-landing ship Fort McHenry
Cmdr. Jon Haydel, commanding officer of the amphibious transport dock USS San Diego
Cmdr. Diego Hernandez, commanding offer of the ballistic-missile submarine USS Wyoming
Cmdr. Lee Hoey, commanding officer of the Navy Drug Screening Laboratory, San Diego
Cmdr. Dennis Klein, commander of the submarine USS Columbia
Capt. Marcia “Kim” Lyons, commander of Naval Health Clinic New England
Capt. Chuck Litchfield was relieved from command of the USS Essex
Capt. Robert Marin, commander of the USS Cowpens
Capt. Sean McDonell, commander of Seabee reserve unit Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14 in Jacksonville, Fla
Cmdr. Corrine Parker, head of Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 1
Capt. Lisa Raimondo, commander of Naval Health Clinic Patuxent River, Md
Capt. Jeffrey Riedel, program manager of the Littoral Combat Ship program
Cmdr. Sara Santoski, commanding officer of the Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 15
Cmdr. Sheryl Tannahill, commanding officer of Navy Operational Support Center Nashville
Cmdr. Michael Ward, commanding officer of the USS Pittsburgh
Capt. Michael Wiegand, commanding officer of Southwest Regional Maintenance Center in San Diego
Capt. Ted Williams, commanding officer of the Mount Whitney in Italy
Cmdr. Jeffrey Wissel, commander of Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron 1
Gen. Joseph Dunford -the Marine Corps’ 2nd in command- is also suddenly ‘stepping down’
TONS more
but Neo doesnt cover any of it
no one does..
so we completely ignore things like that
http://law.onecle.com/constitution/article-1/03-delegation-of-legislative-power.html
in all that, I never read that the president can delegate the powers of congress to agencies under his control, then and so on and so on…
The National Security Soviet (a Council or Committee) and Homeland Security Soviet, in conjunction with the National Economic Soviet, shall serve as the integrated policymaking forum for consideration and formulation of national defense resource preparedness policy and shall make recommendations to the President on the use of authorities under the Act.
Sec. 401. Delegations. The authority of the President under sections 708(c) and (d) of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2158(c), (d), is delegated to the heads of agencies otherwise delegated authority under this order. The status of the use of such delegations shall be furnished to the Secretary of Homeland
Security.
Sec. 403. Regulations. The Secretary of Homeland Security, after approval of the Attorney General, and after consultation by the Attorney General with the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, shall promulgate rules pursuant to section 708(e) of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2158(e)
napolitano out with acting person in with obama replacing him soon.
then there is Edith Ramirez, who has just replaced head of FTC…
San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association Latinas in the Law Present FTC Chairperson Edith Ramirez
Thursday, March 21 at 6:00 p.m.
Warren Hall, Grace Courtroom
Join Latinas in the Law for an inspiring Q&A session with Edith Ramirez, recently appointed chairperson of the Federal Trade Commission.
nothing like Blood and Soil from an organizatio called “The Race”….
yes, its ok to stomp out whites, they protected the jews instead of helping, and racists tend to lump in lovers with the actual groups when deeming punishment
so you have racialist obama, with racialist holder, with racialist FTC, and another (want to guess) whoa re going to make the new laws for the US if things go bad…
vunderbar!
During the photo op, the preggers woman swooned. Two things:
1. Why should we believe it really happened? As opposed to being planned and faked for the cameras? We have ZERO reason to be credulous about anything which happens around Barack.
2. Two persons assisted the woman, then Barack turned, put a hand on her shoulder, and then turned his head back towards his microphone and announced “I’ve got you.” Barack is so accustomed to taking credit for the work of others (“Osama Bin Laden is dead!”) that he does so in every instance, even when it is visually obvious that he deserves no credit.
gcotharn…
Barry used professional swooners during his election campaigns.
They were always swooning in a camera ready position.
He may have recruited them from the diabetic population.
In which case, his sweet rhetoric would cause them to buckle.
but Neo doesnt cover any of it
no one does..
Are you somehow incapable of spreading the word by yourself and need the talents and resources of other humans?
If so, it’s a strange way you think to yourself of gathering allies and favors.
Before you try to change others or change the world, Art, try changing yourself. It’s the better philosophical answer.
With two decades in software development, I have written about the Obamacare website fiasco: The Trainwreck: HealthCare.gov Meets The Mythical Man-Month. The last section, “Systems Recapitulate the Real World”, would be of special interest on this thread.