Tag: policy

The definitive guide to how Obamacare is destroying American lives

11:04 am

The definitive guide to how Obamacare is destroying American lives.

The author asked people to write him, describing to him the consequences of Obamacare. This article provides us those stories, and they are not good. In fact, they are routinely horrible. As he says:

This is about people who can no longer afford their health coverage, their mortgages, their lifesaving medication. This is about doctors and nurses leaving medicine behind, driven away by destructive bureaucratic interference. This is about moms and dads losing their jobs so that their employers can compensate for the financial burden of Obamacare. This is about people without insurance because of Obamacare, now being fined for not having insurance because of Obamacare. This is about business owners driven to the edge of bankruptcy. This is real. We heard a lot of fantasies about what Obamacare was “supposed” to accomplish, now it’s time to talk about what it’s actually doing.

So when they say you are “heartless” for opposing Obamacare, show them why it’s heartless to support it.

But don’t worry! Those Democrats will save you all from those evil Republicans who want to delay or repeal Obamacare.

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A D.C. businessman faces two years in jail because he happens to own guns and stores them legally in Virginia.

8:44 am

A D.C. businessman faces two years in jail because he happens to own guns and stores them legally in Virginia.

The story also describes a SWAT team raid on the man’s home, which included barging in on his 16 year old son while he was taking a shower.

Read the whole thing. You will discover what it is like to live in a fascist state, where an unelected official can make your life hell, merely because he doesn’t like you.

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Why the shutdown was a total victory for conservatives, both in the short and long runs.

9:48 am

Why the shutdown was a total victory for conservatives, both in the short and long runs.

The shutdown/debt limit imbroglio wasn’t a defeat. Defeats leave the losers feeling defeated. But the designated losers, the conservative base of the GOP – which, more accurately, now is the GOP – is more eager and excited than it has been in a long time.

Why? Someone fought. Finally.

Sure, we didn’t win the repeal of Obamacare. The only people talking about actually repealing Obamacare as a direct result of the tactical moves of recent weeks were the doddering dinosaurs and their media accomplices trying to put out the notion that Ted Cruz and his band of merry marauders had suckered us numbskull conservatives with promises of total victory right here and right now.

Being very familiar with the Constitution, we realize that it’s kind of difficult to pass a law when we only hold the House. We’re clear on that. We were always clear on that. What Ted Cruz did – and what the go-along, get-along gang of Republican stegosauruses hate – is that he fought. He fought. There’s a huge value to drawing a line, to taking a stand, to rallying the troops.

Real leaders – which the GOP establishment lacks – know that. We’ve had two presidential elections in a row with a demoralized base. That’s bad. Just ask Presidents McCain and Romney. [emphasis in original]

The key for determining which side is winning this battle is to look at the positions that new politicians are taking. That tells you the trend. And what I see is that the challengers all want to be Ted Cruz, not John McCain.

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Even when they admit that Obamacare isn’t working, liberals still refuse to recognize that they are now agreeing with Ted Cruz.

9:27 am

Leftwing bigotry: Even when they admit that Obamacare isn’t working, liberals still refuse to recognize that they are now agreeing with Ted Cruz.

I call it bigotry because that is what it is. No matter what you say to these types of liberals, no matter what they experience or conclude, they remain incapable of considering the possibility that a conservative or Republican might have the right idea. Instead, they believe that conservatives or Republicans must be opposed at all costs because conservatives or Republicans must be evil and wrong.

And such close-mindedness is nothing short of downright bigotry.

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“Let me be clear, there is no option to keep my current plan.”

9:06 am

Finding out what’s in it: “Let me be clear, there is no option to keep my current plan.”

We were promised that under the ACA, we would be able to keep our present insurance plan if we liked it, and we could keep our own doctor, according to President Obama. This is absolutely not true. My current insurance plan is very affordable and has no deductible. This plan has been found to be noncompliant under the new federally mandated insurance law. So my insurance is going to cost nearly 50 percent more and will now have a $1,200 deductible.

The businessman who wrote this has a Democratic congressman who has repeatedly voted for Obamacare.

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Progressives made their beds; it’s time they lay in it.

8:41 am

Progressives made their beds; it’s time they lay in it.

In short: Obamacare is a massive wealth “spreading” from the young and struggling to the old and well off. Add to that Obamacare’s devastating impact on the economy and part-timing of the American workforce, and you can almost see the train flying off the rails.

There will be attempts at bi-partisan “fixes” to some of the more visible problems caused by Obamacare. Republicans and Democrats have been working together to delay or repeal the medical device tax and change the definition of a full-time employee back to 40 hours per week from Obamacare’s 30 – to name just two.

Republicans must resist the urge to help with these “fixes.” We just spent a month being lectured by arrogant know-it-alls about how Obamacare is “settled law.” So keep it settled. Obamacare is failing already, and it will continue to fail in more spectacular ways as we move forward, let it.

Democrats wrote the bill, Democrats voted for the bill, a Democrat president signed it into law. It’s theirs. Make them live with it. As is. [emphasis in original]

I would add that Democrats just re-endorsed the law aggressively during the government shutdown battle. Rather than revise it by the smallest amount, they insisted instead on shutting down the government to defend it.

When the 2014 elections roll around, the responsibility for this Obamacare disaster must fall on the perpetrators of that disaster: The Democrat Party and President Obama.

In related news: Thousands get health insurance cancellation notices. Actually, that’s “Hundreds of thousands,” but who’s counting?

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A person on twitter has threatened both Ted Cruz and his family, posting his home address as well.

8:51 pm

Evil: A person on Twitter has threatened both Ted Cruz and his family, posting his home address as well.

A person identifying himself as Troy Gilmore Jr., posted on Twitter Friday morning: “Take down Ted Cruz, at his home” and listed Cruz’s home address in Houston. “What goes around comes around CRUZ!!” the person wrote.

The person has also done this several times this month, using threatening language each time.

This is a case of an unstable person making violent threats. However, it would be nice if members of the left stood up to condemn it. Sadly, I don’t expect that to happen.

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Extreme weather events in 2013 are at an all time low.

9:53 am

Another global warming prediction fails: Extreme weather events in 2013 are at an all time low.

There have been many forecasts in the news in recent years predicting more and more extreme weather-related events in the US, but for 2013 that prediction has been way off the mark. Whether you’re talking about tornadoes, wildfires, extreme heat or hurricanes, the good news is that weather-related disasters in the US are all way down this year compared to recent years and, in some cases, down to historically low levels.

As I wrote back in April,

Global warming scientists have spent the past two decades telling us that we were all gonna die from increasing temperatures caused by the increase in CO2. Now that this prediction has proved false, they apparently are shifting gears. Instead, it is extreme events — big storms, long droughts, intense heatwaves — that are going to kill us.

But not only have they no evidence that the increase in CO2 will cause these extreme events, there is no evidence that more of these extreme events are even occurring.

In other words, these stories are mere political advocacy. They have nothing to do with science, but with propaganda, based on fantasy with the goal of trying to convince everyone that we are all gonna die if we don’t do exactly what these scientists say. [emphasis in original]

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New York doctors express their strong reluctance to participate in Obamacare.

9:37 am

Finding out what’s in it: New York doctors express their strong reluctance to participate in Obamacare.

Despite a much publicized rollout, many other doctors said they haven’t decided whether to become ObamaCare providers, because they haven’t been notified by insurers or the state about ­reimbursement rates. “I have not spoken with anyone who has made a decision to participate in the exchanges. We simply don’t have any information about which we can make a decision,” said Dr. Paul Orloff, president of the New York County Medical Society. “We have no idea what the reimbursements will be or what the claims-form process will entail.”

This is another problem for Obamacare: If doctors end up refusing to accept the insurance plans and go freelance, then the law cannot work.

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Maryland’s Obamacare exchanges will not be functional until December.

9:15 am

Fail: Maryland’s Obamacare exchanges will not be functional until December.

A week into its launch, the Maryland exchange had reportedly enrolled only 326 people. A week later, the number had improved to just a little over 1,000, and O’Malley told reporters it could be six weeks before the exchange website was working smoothly. “My sense of it is, probably for the next month or so, month and a half, we will be working out glitches in the portal,” he said.

Maryland was enthusiastic about Obamacare and attacked the problem from the beginning. The result is still pitiful. Even though you are required to get a health plan under Obamacare, you might have no way to do it before the deadline arrives next year.

Which is why the real conservatives in Congress had a shutdown battle: They want to repeal Obamacare, but were willing to offer a compromise whereby the mandate was delayed one year. Considering the problems Obamacare is having, what is so unreasonable about that?

And then there’s this: Insurance companies complain that the ObamaCare website is providing them faulty data, even with its low success rate in enrolling anyone.

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A long and detailed assessment of the present technical problems of the Obamacare exchange website.

9:41 pm

A long and detailed assessment of the present technical problems of the Obamacare exchange website.

It is worth the long read. The author appears to have asked the right questions of a lot of the right people, and appears to have approached the issue honestly. Key quote:

In a couple of ways, then, the severe user-interface problems at the front end of the federal exchange has actually had some advantages from CMS’s point of view, because by keeping enrollment volume low it has kept some other huge problems from becoming instantly uncontrollable.

But that low volume is mostly a very bad thing for Obamacare, of course, since the viability of the exchanges depends on a certain size and demographic mix which cannot be attained unless these problems are resolved very quickly. I couldn’t get enrollment numbers from any of the people I spoke with, but I was told that the uptake model that HHS built (using CBO projections) to predict how the exchanges would work made a low-end estimate that just under half a million people would enroll nationwide by October 31st, and that enrollment would then accelerate dramatically between November 15 and December 30th. The October 31 target, which was thought to be modest, now looks essentially impossible to reach, but their bigger worry is that period in November and December.

If the problems now plaguing the system are not resolved by mid-November and the flow of enrollments at that point looks like it does now, the prospects for the first year of the exchanges will be in very grave jeopardy.

As I said, read the whole thing. Whether you support or oppose Obamacare, this article appears to give an honest appraisal of the present situation, which is not good.

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Bankrupt Detroit has dumped the health insurance of all its retirees, forcing them into Obamacare.

4:46 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Bankrupt Detroit has dumped the health insurance of all its retirees, forcing them into Obamacare.

Effective Jan.1, retired city workers under age 65 will no longer receive full coverage from the state and will instead receive a $125 stipend to shop in Michigan’s health-care exchange under the newly-rolled out Affordable Care Act.

The stipend does not come close to paying for the cost of any insurance plan.

These were all government employees in a blue state in a very blue city. Thus, almost all of them were likely Democrats who voted for and strongly supported Obama. Well, they are now finding out what that support has gotten them. For one thing, just because they like their health plan they aren’t getting to keep it.

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Want to send your child to school with a lunch you prepared yourself? The federal government now forbids it, unless you get a doctor’s note.

4:39 pm

Want to send your child to school with a lunch you prepared yourself? The federal government now forbids it, unless you get a doctor’s note.

When I was a kid it was assumed your parents would provide you the lunch you liked. Today, every kid is fed by the federal school lunch program. And it appears that this federal program has decided that only it knows what is good for your child.

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Some comments from people trying to use the Obamacare website.

3:25 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Some comments from people trying to use the Obamacare website.

Note this important point by the author of the post:

As with our last visit to the HealthCare.gov Facebook page, I’ve tried to avoid all ideological objectors and instead present only comments from people who seem to be genuinely trying to purchase insurance from the website.

As tea party and conservatives noted in 2009, Obamacare was putting the equivalent of the DMV in charge of the health insurance business. It appears that this prediction was right on the money. The comments are horrifying. No private business would dare operate a website this poorly designed.

I repeat: Obamacare was what the government shutdown was all about. The Republicans wanted to revise or repeal it, the Democrats refused to consider any changes at all. Which do you think was the better policy position for the American people?

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The major news networks blamed the shutdown on Republicans 41 times, Democrats 0 times.

12:48 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: The major news networks blamed the shutdown on Republicans 41 times, Democrats 0 times.

In Congress the shutdown was a team effort, involving both parties. To pin the blame on one party is to reveal your partisanship.

But then, this really isn’t news. The major news networks have been unabashed Democratic Party operatives for years. This detail just provides another one of thousands of illustrations that prove it.

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A House hearings yesterday, the partisan tactics of the director of the National Park Service was clearly illustrated by comparing what this government official did during the Occupy Wall Street protests versus his actions during the government shutdown.

10:27 am

Working for the Democratic Party: A House hearings yesterday, the partisan tactics of the director of the National Park Service were clearly illustrated by comparing what this government official did during the Occupy Wall Street protests versus his actions during the government shutdown. Watch:

The man should be fired. But he won’t be. Obama’s outrage over such activities is pure theater. He actually likes what Jarvis did, as it wholly supports the agenda of the Democratic Party.

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Obamacare might well be imploding.

8:44 am

Obamacare might well be imploding.

In other words, the elites in Washington might have signed a corrupt budget deal, but meanwhile the cause of the shutdown, Obamacare, continues to show itself to be an abject failure, justifying the efforts of the more honest Republicans to try to stop it.

The Democrats endorsed this law again during the budget standoff. Had they be willing to even consider minor changes the shutdown could have been averted. Instead, they stood firm as a party, supporting this unworkable law, as it stands.

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The Senate budget deal that the House will vote on today includes some really nice pork.

4:48 pm

The Senate budget deal that the House will vote on today includes some really nice pork.

The bill includes extra funds to fix flooded roads in Colorado, a $3 million appropriation for a civil liberties oversight board and a one-time payment to the widow of Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who died over the summer. It also includes a more than $2 billion increase in funding for construction on the lower Ohio River in Illinois and Kentucky. Current law authorizes $775 million in spending for related projects, and the bill increases it to $2.918 billion.

The last appears to be a kickback to Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) to get him to buy into this crap.

The bill also has this crap:

The legislation broadly re-opens the government through Jan. 15, and extends the ability of the government to borrow money through Feb. 7. It does so by allowing President Obama to waive the debt ceiling, a move that can be overridden by a resolution of disapproval by Congress that Obama could still veto. [emphasis mine]

In other words, Congress is now ceding this budgetary responsibility and power to the President, who will then rule by decree.

Update: The bill passed both houses of Congress and has now been signed by the President. Note that the only opposition came from Republicans, but even here the opposition was a minority. The Democrats strongly endorsed this bill, and for good reason. It gives them (and the Republicans who supported it) lots of pork and greater power for Obama. Americans meanwhile are screwed. The day of reckoning still looms.

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“Let’s don’t confuse nobody with the facts.”

9:03 am

A Democratic Congresswoman speaks her mind: “Let’s don’t confuse nobody with the facts.”

But don’t worry: I guarantee she will be re-elected forever. She is a black representative, in a black district. What matter that she appears to be as stupid as a brick, she’s black!

When your only criteria for voting for someone is their race, then you are the bigot. And sadly, this description appears to apply to too many blacks voters today.

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“I wanted the Affordable Health Care Act. The problem is, is it’s not affordable,”

9:24 pm

An Obama supporter finds out what’s in it: “I wanted the Affordable Health Care Act. The problem is, is it’s not affordable.”

I would laugh except that I am crying. Moreover, the article is from a San Francisco media outlet, which is as surprised as this Obama supporter at the cost of Obamacare. Too bad these liberals all considered conservatives and tea party people terrorists, murderers, and hate-filled killers of small children and therefore not worth listening to back in 2009. Had they listened, they would have found out about the unworkable nature of this law then, instead of now, and the law would never have been passed.

They should maybe consider this reality and recognize that this is why there are Republicans putting up a fight now to delay or defund the law.

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No budget deal: The Democrats continue to refuse to give in at all, and the bulk of the Republican caucus has shown some spine and refused to cave.

5:42 pm

Well hallelujah and amen! No budget deal: The Democrats continue to refuse to give in at all, and the Republicans have shown some spine and refused to cave.

This deadlock has been a team effort, from both sides. To say it is entirely the fault of one party or the other is to reveal your partisanship.

Nonetheless, legislation requires negotiation, and the only ones refusing to negotiate at all have been the Democrats. In the real world outside of government, such pig-headedness always results in no deal at all.

Right now it looks like 17% of the government will remain shut for quite awhile. And with the debt ceiling kicking in, the federal government will find its hands tied even more. The American people are about to find out that life will go on quite successfully without their big daddy to boss them around.

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Tennessee and North Carolina have agreed to reopen Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

3:23 pm

Tennessee and North Carolina have agreed to reopen Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Like other states, they will pay the operating costs of the National Park Service, then get reimbursed when the government shutdown ends.

I wish they weren’t paying anything. They could have made sure the parks were open and available to all using state resources, and let the National Park Service throw a temper tantrum when it discovered it couldn’t control the parks.

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