Tag: policy

Here’s some evidence that in trying to spin his earlier lies, Obama has only lied again.

4:44 pm

Here’s some evidence that, in trying to spin his earlier lies, Obama has only lied again.

Yesterday, the President said in Boston that the millions of people who are getting cancellation letters ending their coverage in the individual health insurance market are being saved from “substandard plans” that were sold to them by “bad apple insurers.” …

Are health insurance plans in the individual market substandard? Not the overwhelming bulk of them. How do I know that? Because individual health insurance policies have been regulated for decades by the states. Every policy sold in a state has to be approved by that state’s insurance commissioner. Have you heard about the longstanding debate over whether or not states over regulate this market with too many state health insurance coverage mandates and policy requirements?

In other words, Obama lied about Obamacare allowing you to keep your plan. Now that millions are having those plans cancelled because of Obamacare, he has made up a new lie: Your plan stinks, and only he knows the right plan for you.

Not you. Not your state government. Not the insurance company. Only he knows what’s best.

How nice of him.

9 comments

Another young Obamacare supporter finds out what’s in it.

2:29 pm

Another young Obamacare supporter finds out what’s in it.

My old plan was as bare-bones as they came, so I assumed that even though the new plan would cost more, my coverage would improve under Obamacare, at least marginally. It did not.

Under my old plan, my maximum out-of-pocket expense was $4,900. Under the new plan, I’m on the hook for up to $6,350. Copays for my doctor visits will double. For urgent-care visits, they will quadruple. Though slightly cheaper plans exist if I decide to shop around on the exchange, I will lose my dental coverage should I switch.

Needless to say, I am not pleased.

He is also shocked that the burden for paying for this hellish law will fall on him and other young citizens. What I am amazed at is how surprised he is. And I think this statement by one commenters sums things up very well:
» Read more

2 comments

One expert estimates that 129 million people, 68% of those who buy health insurance, will lose their plan by the end of 2014 because of Obamacare.

9:46 am

Finding out what’s in it: One expert estimates that 129 million people, 68% of those who buy health insurance, will lose their plan by the end of 2014 because of Obamacare.

I am sure all those people will be grateful to Obama and the Democrats for standing strong and shutting down the government rather than allow any changes to this law.

Note: I keep repeating this point about the government shutdown because it is important to remember the real cause of that shutdown: The Republicans objected to Obamacare and the Democrats endorsed it. We mustn’t forget this very fundamental fact as we watch Obamacare roll over the country like a bulldozer.

4 comments

Obama and the Democrats solve the terrible terrible problem of the terrible name of the Washington Redskins.

9:21 am

Obama and the Democrats solve the terrible terrible problem of the terrible name of the Washington Redskins.

In a move certain to delight most of official Washington, D.C., it has been decided to change the name of the Washington Redskins football franchise to the Washington Reds. President Obama, himself, voiced his approval of the decision, as did Harry Reid, who was practically giddy upon hearing the news. The stadium will be painted red, in keeping with the new name, and its own name will be changed to Red Stadium. All players who play for the Reds, as well as all Red staff, Red cheerleaders, and Red coaches, will be asked to pay a 60% surtax on their exorbitant salaries and to divest of their pension plans entirely in order to share their wealth more equitably with all of the people of the District of Columbia. Any profit-sharing from games played by the Reds will be placed into the general coffers at Treasury Department and administered by Jack Lew.

Click on the link. It is worth it.

2 comments

IRS official Lois Lerner illegally provided private tax information to other government agencies.

9:16 am

Working for the Democratic Party: IRS official Lois Lerner illegally provided private tax information to other government agencies.

A conservative government watchdog says it has obtained emails revealing that the Internal Revenue Service sent conservative groups’ private tax exemption application and tax return information to the Federal Elections Commission, in violation of federal law.

According to Judicial Watch, the emails from Jan. 2009 to the present, provided by the FEC in response to an August 2013 Freedom of Information Act request, yielded a “revealing email chain” between former Internal Revenue Services (IRS) Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner and enforcement attorneys at the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

2 comments

Obamacare does not provide patients or doctors or hospitals any way of finding out who is in or out of network.

9:07 am

Not finding out what’s in it: Obamacare does not provide patients or doctors or hospitals any way of finding out who is in or out of network.

“In many cases, consumers are shopping blind when it comes to what doctors and hospitals are included in their Obamacare exchange plans,” said Josh Archambault, senior fellow with the think tank Foundation for Government Accountability. “These patients will be in for a rude awakening once they need care, and get stuck with a big bill for going out-of-network without realizing it.”

All of this represents a larger problem with the Affordable Care Act, said Archambault, who has extensively studied the law. “It reflects deeper issues in implementation,” he said. “Some hospitals and doctors don’t even know if they are in the network.”

In addition, this story indicates that many major hospitals are opting out of Obamacare, with no way for patients to find out beforehand.

Aren’t you glad the Democrats and President Obama shut down the federal government earlier this month to make sure Obamacare went into effect?

3 comments

A physicians organization has filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration’s decision to delay Obamacare employer mandate by one year.

9:26 am

A physicians organization has filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration’s decision to delay Obamacare employer mandate by one year.

The AAPS lawsuit, which was filed today in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, asks the Court to enjoin the Obama Administration from imposing its “individual mandate” while delaying the “employer mandate.” The law that was passed by Congress in 2010 requires that the employer mandate go into effect at the same time as the individual mandate: Jan 1, 2014.

“The U.S. Constitution requires a strict separation of powers between the three branches of government, such that the executive branch cannot change laws passed by Congress,” AAPS’s lawsuit explains. By imposing the individual mandate in 2014 without the protection of the employer mandate, the Obama Administration has changed the legislation passed by Congress.

9 comments

70% of Americans want to delay the Obamacare individual mandate.

9:07 am

Poll: 70% of Americans want to delay the Obamacare individual mandate.

One, I suspect that many of those polled really think they are asking for a delay of Obamacare entirely, and do not understand that delaying the mandate will do nothing to save their present insurance plan. If Obamacare requires that plan to die, it will die, regardless of when the mandate goes into effect.

Two, this is strong evidence that, when the next budget deadline arrives in a few months, the Republicans should once again demand to either delay, defund, or repeal Obamacare. They should force the Democrats to once again vote for this law. If the Republicans do this, they might actually be in a position to force Democrats to agree to a repeal.

Leave a comment

“If you like your plan you can keep your plan.”

8:50 am

I am posting the video below mostly as a marker, so that I can find it again easily when I am confronted by Democrats who can’t seem to understand what a lie is and what a liar looks like.

But watch it anyway. I knew it was a lie when he said this repeatedly in 2009 and 2010, but it is even more infuriating to see it now, especially considering the wreckage that lie is causing across the country as people find they no longer can afford any health insurance, no matter how minimal.

One comment

According to insurance executives, the White House is threatening them with “retribution” if they don’t keep silent about the problems Obamacare is causing them.

8:32 am

Fascist thugs: According to insurance executives, the White House is threatening them with “retribution” if they don’t keep silent about the problems Obamacare is causing them.

“What is going on is a behind-the-scenes attempt by the White House to at least keep insurers from publicly criticizing what is happening on this Affordable Care Act rollout,” reports Andrew Griffin of CNN. ”Basically, if you speak out, if you are quoted, you’re going to get a call from the White House, pressure to be quiet.”

According to Griffin’s sources, Bob Laszewski of Health Policy and Strategy Associates – a prominent consultant for insurance companies with a history of criticizing ObamaCare – says he’s getting calls from the executives he works with, asking him to speak out on their behalf, “because they feel defenseless against the White House PR team.”

Laszewski told Griffin, “The White House is exerting massive pressure on the industry, including the trade associations, to keep quiet.” Industry sources confirmed “they fear White House retribution.”

3 comments

The president and the Democrats lied us into a bad law.

9:19 pm

“The president and the Democrats lied us into a bad law.”

The Right opposed the law on principle. A single party — the Democrats — own this law in a way that no party has had complete ownership of any major social legislation in a century. They bought this legislation with deceit and the GOP said so. Now that it is going into effect, the facts on the ground are confirming that deceit. Moreover, the same haughty condescending bureaucrats and politicians who told us they were smart enough and tech-savvy enough to do just about anything are being exposed as incompetent political hacks.

And remember: This same President and those same Democrats re-affirmed their support of Obamacare less than one month ago by insisting on shutting the government down rather than agree to even the slightest revision of this disaster of a law.

17 comments

The reasons Obamacare makes health insurance much more expensive.

8:55 pm

The reasons Obamacare makes health insurance much more expensive.

All of these reasons were expounded in great detail by conservatives back in 2010 in their effort to get Democrats to negotiate the law. The reasoned response from the left: “You’re a racist!”

Well it now turns out that a lot of very liberal pundits, politicians, and Democratic supporters are racist too, as they are discovering that the conservatives in 2010 were right.

Leave a comment

Steny Hoyer, #2 Democrat in the House, admitted today that Democrats knew that Obamacare would cause the cancellation of millions of health plans.

9:48 am

Steny Hoyer, #2 Democrat in the House, admitted today that Democrats knew that Obamacare would cause the cancellation of millions of health plans.

The Democrats really think Americans are stupid. This is how Hoyer tried to explain away Obama’s often-repeated lie that “if you like your plan you get to keep it”:

Asked by another reporter how repeated statements by Obama to the contrary weren’t “misleading,” Hoyer said “I don’t think the message was wrong. I think the message was accurate. It was not precise enough…[it] should have been caveated with – ‘assuming you have a policy that in fact does do what the bill is designed to do.’”

9 comments

Unnamed healthcare officials admit that the Obama administration specifically wrote the Obamacare regulations so that millions would have to lose their healthcare plan.

7:35 pm

He lied: Unnamed healthcare officials admit that the Obama administration specifically wrote the Obamacare regulations so that millions would have to lose their healthcare plan.

Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”

That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.

Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”

These regulations were written in the executive branch, which is the complete responsibility of Obama. So, the agency he controls wrote regulations they knew would force the cancellation of millions of healthcare plans, and Obama went around the country lying about it. It is as simple as that.

But remember! Obama and the Democrats forced a government shutdown so Obamacare would go into effect now. Shouldn’t we all be grateful?

Update: The quote above is from the original version of the story. The article itself disappeared from the web on Monday night and then reappeared at a new url (which I have linked to above) with some changes to some paragraphs, none of which did much to change the essential content.

10 comments

Why governments can’t do it

10:46 am

A government official today unwittingly revealed a fundamental and unpleasant truth about how governments: operate. In an interview today, the head of India’s space agency denied that his country is in a space race with anyone.

Mr. Radhakrishnan, Secretary in the Department of Space and Chairman of Space Commission, said each country — whether it’s India, the US, Russia or China — had their own priorities.

“There is no race with anybody. If you look at anybody, they have their own direction. So, I don’t find a place for race with somebody. But I would say we are always on race with ourselves to excel in areas that we have chalked out for ourselves,” he told PTI here in an interview.

How typical. By denying the reality of the competition that India is part of Mr. Radhakrishnan illustrates for me and everyone once again the basic reason all government efforts eventually fail.
» Read more

4 comments

The 13 Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2014 who voted for Obamacare, both in 2009 and last month.

10:43 pm

The 13 Democratic senators up for re-election in 2014 who voted for Obamacare, both in 2009 and last month.

Here are the Dirty Baker’s Dozen:

  • Mark Begich (Alaska)
  • Mark Pryor (Arkansas)
  • Mark Udall (Colorado)
  • Mary Landrieu (Louisiana)
  • Al Franken (Minnesota)
  • Max “Trainwreck” Baucus (Montana)
  • Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire)
  • Tom Udall (New Mexico)
  • Kay Hagan (North Carolina)
  • Jeff Merkeley (Oregon)
  • Tim Johnson (South Dakota)
  • Mark Warner (Virginia)
  • Jay Rockefeller (West Virginia)

It is time for these politicians to find other work.

2 comments

Half a million Californians to lose their health insurance because of Obamacare.

5:19 pm

Half a million Californians to lose their health insurance because of Obamacare.

We are learning now that Obamacare was very specifically designed to eliminate many health insurance plans, especially the ones that cost less and provided fewer benefits (the kinds of plans that young, healthy people prefer). Considering the blatant promise by Obama, repeated over and over again before Obamacare was passed, that if people liked their plan they would get to keep it, these appalling numbers and the fact that Obamacare is very clearly designed to eliminate these low-cost plans, Obama either knew his statement was an outright lie, or he is truly one of the most incompetent presidents ever.

In the first case he was dishonest and corrupt, intending to force a change that people did not want. In the second, Obama was pushing for the passage of a law to which he literally had no understanding. I’m not sure which is worse.

11 comments

The Washington Times is preparing to take legal action in connection with the raid of a reporter’s home by government officials.

8:20 am

The Washington Times is preparing to take legal action in connection with the raid of a reporter’s home by government officials.

The warrant was narrowly written to limit the raid to a search for weapons owned by the reporter’s husband. Instead, the raiders carefully picked through the reporter’s files and took those pertaining to her stories about the TSA. The man in charge of this search also happened to be a former TSA employee who apparently had a direct interest in those files.

That her private files were seized, says Mrs. Hudson [the reporter], is particularly disturbing because of interactions that she and her husband had during the search of their home, as well as months afterwards, with Coast Guard investigator Miguel Bosch. According to his profile on the networking site LinkedIn, Mr. Bosch worked at the Federal Air Marshal Service from April 2001 through November 2007.

It was Mr. Bosch, Mrs. Hudson says, who asked her during the Aug. 6 search if she was the same Audrey Hudson who had written the air marshal stories. It was also Mr. Bosch, she says, who phoned Mr. Flanagan a month later to say that documents taken during the search had been cleared.

During the call, according Mrs. Hudson, Mr. Bosch said the files had been taken to make sure that they contained only “FOIA-able” information and that he had circulated them to the Transportation Security Administration, which oversees the Federal Air Marshal Service, in order to verify that “it was legitimate” for her to possess such information.

“Essentially, the files that included the identities of numerous government whistleblowers were turned over to the same government agency and officials who they were exposing for wrongdoing,” Mrs. Hudson said.

In other words, Bosch used the search to obtain the files so that the TSA could identify Mrs. Hudson’s sources within the agency. Expect those individuals to be punished in the coming years, for the crime of telling the truth about America’s KGB.

5 comments

Data from the Census Bureau reveals that in 2011 the number of people working full time was outnumbered by those getting government aid.

9:40 am

The day of reckoning looms: Data from the Census Bureau reveals that in 2011 the number of people working full time was outnumbered by those getting government aid.

Many of those getting aid according to these numbers could also be full time workers. Nonetheless, the data is stark and depressing, as it illustrates how American culture has declined. Once it was considered shameful to be “on the dole.” Now everybody does it. You can’t have a robust healthy society under those conditions.

3 comments

The number of Democratic senators calling for a delay in the Obamacare mandate has now grown to nine.

9:33 am

The number of Democratic senators calling for a delay in the Obamacare mandate has now grown to nine.

So, where were these fools only three weeks ago, when the Republicans offered this very same proposal? Had they voted with the Republicans then, they might have put sufficient pressure on Obama to sign the budget bill. The shutdown wouldn’t have happened and the delay would have gone into effect then.

In other words, three weeks ago this position might have made a difference. Now, it is merely political posturing, intended to give them cover in next year’s election but allowing them to support and keep Obamacare in effect. The voters in their states should note this and dump them accordingly.

Update: The number of Democratic senators calling for a delay has now grown to ten.

3 comments

Thousands of elderly New York patients have been told by their insurance company that, because of Obamacare, they will have to find another doctor.

9:25 am

Finding out what’s in it: Thousands of elderly New York patients have been told by their insurance company that, because of Obamacare, they will have to find another doctor.

And I am sure that these blue-state seniors, most of whom are usually knee-jerk Democrats, are pleased that the Democratic Party shut the government down rather than revise Obamacare even a teeny-weeny bit.

One comment

The rise of government-sanctioned home invasions

12:00 pm

The rise of government-sanctioned home invasions.

These incidents underscore a dangerous mindset in which civilians (often unarmed and defenseless) not only have less rights than militarized police, but also one in which the safety of civilians is treated as a lower priority than the safety of their police counterparts (who are armed to the hilt with an array of lethal and nonlethal weapons), the privacy of civilians is negligible in the face of the government’s various missions, and the homes of civilians are no longer the refuge from government intrusion that they once were.

Plain and simple, every single one of these SWAT raids is illegal under the Constitution. They are an abuse of power, and are exactly the kind of abuse that helped inspire the American Revolution in the first place.

One comment

The White House has now delayed the deadline for signing up for health insurance by six weeks.

9:38 am

The White House has now officially delayed the deadline for signing up for health insurance by six weeks.

Gee, didn’t Obama just force a 16 day government shutdown when some Republicans suggested he delay the Obamacare mandate?

Note that this is only the first delay. Before they are done I predict the Obama administration will do exactly what those evil Republicans suggested: delay the Obamacare mandate for one year. Which will essentially prove that the Republicans were right in the first place.

3 comments
1 … 262 263 264 265 266 … 304