Court rRuling on Obamacare

[broncofan]

Sorry. That insult at the bottom of my last post seems to touch many people whose posts I like. So I don't mean it quite that way. I just prefer calling it PPACA, because saying Obamacare usually indicates a bias against it.

[Stavros]

I am not going to get involved in this debate yet since I want to see exactly how things pan out with the exchanges and ultimately the employer mandate. There is plenty wrong with that article since it supposes that a 2003 quote by Obama indicates a plan to undermine his own program to lead to a more comprehensive single payer system down the road. Typically people only tank something if they want it abolished (think Republicans working for regulatory agencies), not if they want to implement something even more sweeping.

One thing I don't understand is why critics of PPACA cannot seem to get the name right. How much literacy is required to remember those five letters or even the five words: Patient Protection Affordable Care Act.

When someone says Obamacare they sound about as intelligent as someone who calls the media the lamestream media.

You won't get much of a debate with Paul Clifford, he is only interested in making his points -based mostly on his imagination rather than the simplest of facts- and then moves on, or only replies to people he realises have not rumbled the fantasy world he lives in. PPACA is simple enough to reproduce, but we have heard it all before from people without any depth to their arguments -oblala, Tony Bliar, the EUSSR, Mrs Snatcher, Ronald Raygun, George Crash/Tush/Bash/ (and obscure to most but once brayed at me by an hysterical Tory: 'Stifford Craps'), not to mention 'the sheeple'....

[paulclifford]

>>>I am not going to get involved in this debate yet since I want to see exactly how things pan out with the exchanges and ultimately the employer mandate.

It's already clear how things are panning out with the employer mandate. There are articles every day on businesses, large and small, commercial and educational, that are laying people off, reducing employees' status from full-time (>30+ hours/week) to part-time (<30+ hours/week) to avoid having to pay a costly penalty per employee (if 50 employees or more). Additionally, the employer will no longer have to provide a mandated government-approved health insurance policy to these part-timers: they can buy their own insurance (if they can afford it); they can opt out of buying any insurance at all (by paying an individual penalty); or they can buy a subsidized policy online at one of the so-called Exchanges. Since the individual penalty is quite low, many individuals without employer health coverage will probably choose to opt-out entirely, and then jump back onto the system when they get sick, because the law now forbids any health insurance provider from denying coverage to anyone with a "pre-existing condition." So if you're young and healthy, there's very little incentive to get coverage. Better and cheaper to pay the opt-out penalty and get coverage when you get sick.

That, of course, is the exact opposite of what insurance is supposed to be. Insurance is the voluntary pooling of risk before something happens to you, not after. The time to buy fire insurance for your home is before it burns down, not after you have the pre-existing condition of a "burned home." If your home already has burned down, and you did not purchase fire insurance to cover this contingency, what you need now is not insurance but a helping hand — preferably by asking rather than by taking. But in any case, whether you ask or take, the help you receive for rebuilding your home should not be mislabeled "insurance for a pre-existing condition." It's charity, or welfare, or a "social safety net".

>>>There is plenty wrong with that article since it supposes that a 2003 quote by Obama indicates a plan to undermine his own program to lead to a more comprehensive single payer system down the road.

It's the exact opposite. Supporters of Obama, such as Barney Frank, admitted on videotape just after the law was passed by congress that what "we really want is a single-payer system"; "we" refers to the Obama administration, and frankly, Democrats in general.

>>>Typically people only tank something if they want it abolished

You're assuming a thoughtfulness and competency on the part of Obama that he has never shown. The man is an economics boob, and is simply driven by leftist ideology. His two chief economic advisors from his first term, Larry Summers and Christina Romer, both quit the Council of Economic Advisors before the end of his first term, claiming that he ignored all of their economic advice, and that he seemed to be driven purely by ideology rather than a pragmatic desire to get people employed in the private sector again.

And in any case, POTUS doesn't write bills; he only signs them into law. The bill originated in the House as a program to subsidize low-cost housing for returning veterans; when it got to the Senate, they gutted the whole thing and started over, morphing it into a comprehensive healthcare bill. Even then, it wasn't technically written by congressmen and senators, but by lobbyists and aides. No one single person had actually read the entire bill until after it had been passed. (That's why that great intellect of the House, Nancy Pelosi, quipped, "We have to pass the bill first to find out what's in it." Now that people ARE reading it and finding out what's in it, most of them hate it.)


>>One thing I don't understand is why critics of PPACA cannot seem to get the name right. How much literacy is required to remember those five letters or even the five words: Patient Protection Affordable Care Act. When someone says Obamacare they sound about as intelligent as someone who calls the media the lamestream media.

I usually use the term "Dinosaur Media" to describe the entrenched leftwing fossils comprising ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. I don't call them the "Lamestream Media."

And critics certainly do have the name right: since the program is clearly one huge cluster-fuck for patients, the poor, employees, small businesses, medical-device entrepreneurs, private insurance providers, doctors, and the economy in general, an inside-the-beltway, alphabet-soup name like the "PPACA" is too polite and safely bureaucratic to identify its salient features: that no one asked for it; that no group of people demonstrated in the streets with signs declaring "We demand government healthcare! We demand an end to private insurance! We demand fewer full-time employees!"; that what people clearly needed first, above everything else, were JOBS; and that Obama — glued as usual to his mysterious BlackBerry and his teleprompter — bulldozed past all of that and pushed a multi-trillion dollar deadweight program on a fragile economy that is now impeding recovery — and it's not even fully implemented yet! Since all pundits on the left and the right have called this "Obama's 'signature' legislation", the one for which he really wants to be remembered, I think we should honor that by connecting his name to the program and repeating it, so that people never forget who stuck them with it.

"Obamacare" is the accurate and proper name for it; not the neutral and bureaucratic "PPACA," which is just a euphemism for what it can never be: it'll can never be affordable and it can never provide patient protection.

A more relevant question is this:

Why do supporters of the program constantly claim that Obamacare is a form of health insurance. It's nothing of the kind, and bears no relation to any traditional understanding of "insurance". It's actually an attempt — a failed attempt — to offer a kind of "guaranteed minimum health care". It's a social safety-net program; it's a kind of medical welfare program.

It's actually irrelevant if we call such a program "Obamacare" or the "PPACA". The main thing is not to call it "insurance." It ain't!

Right, now most of the private-sector labor unions hate it (they recently sent a letter to congress complaining about the whole program, even though they had supported it while it was being drafted); the union that represents IRS employees hates it (even though the IRS is tasked with forcing everyone else to comply with the program); congressional staffers hate it; doctors hate it; small businesses hate it; medical device manufacturers hate it; and so on. Personally, I don't think the program can actually be fully implemented; Obama will have to grant "special waivers", "special extensions", "special delays," to friends, bundlers, big donors, special interests, etc., by playing King, in order to get even some of the program in place. As he grants more and more arbitrary special favors to special interests, the monstrous unfairness of the whole thing will begin to dawn on people — if they're not already in denial, that is.

The main reason the proverbial man-in-the-street might have originally supported the program was the same reason that the famous "Obamaphone Lady" on a viral YouTube video claimed she was voting for Obama: "Mitt Romney? He suck! I votes Obama because he gonna give me a free phone!"

See:



So she voted Obama because Obama gonna give her a free phone; others voted Obama because they believed (incorrectly) that they would get free forgiveness from paying off their school loans; and others voted Obama because they believed (also incorrectly) that Obama would give them something called "free health care."

In economics, this is known as the free-rider problem: "I need, I want, I desire, therefore, make someone else pay for it so I can get it for free, or for a greatly reduced price." A more accurate (if less politically correct) name for these special interest groups is "moochers" and "looters."

While it might, at present, be politically impossible to abolish the legislation, I believe that it can be completely defunded — like Frankenstein's monster without his electricity. We can let it stand dormant in a dark closet somewhere and worry about torching it at a later date, in a future, saner, administration.

(For more on how Obamacare will likely affect you, your health, your job, and the rest of the economy, buy the inexpensive Kindle version of a recent New York Times beststeller, "Obamacare Survival Guide." See:

ObamaCare Survival Guide: Nick Tate: 9780893348625: Amazon.com: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51NyVp3NJKL.@@AMEPARAM@@51NyVp3NJKL

[hippifried]

Why would anybody be stupid enough to pay money for some lame book telling them how much better off they'll be going bankrupt for getting sick without insurance?

BTW: The President hasn't had a blackberry since he took office.

Keep up.

[paulclifford]

>>>Why would anybody be stupid enough to pay money for some lame book telling them how much better off they'll be going bankrupt for getting sick without insurance?

I guess because they proved they were already stupid enough to vote for Hussein Obama because "He gonna give me free medical care!" At least the book explains why that won't happen, and how one can protect oneself from some of the consequences of a bad piece of legislation.

>>>BTW: The President hasn't had a blackberry since he took office.

BTW, you're wrong.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/28780205/n.../#.Uf4MUxZM6og

Obama gets to keep his BlackBerry
President's favorite tech tool will be allowed for personal use

By Suzanne Choney

msnbc.com

updated 1/22/2009 3:18:23 PM ET


Barack Obama gets to keep his beloved BlackBerry with him in the White House for personal use, a victory for the man considered the country's first high-tech president.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said today that "a pretty small group of people" — some senior staffers and personal friends — will be permitted to have the e-mail address that reaches Obama's smartphone.

The president has been adamant about continuing to use a BlackBerry, which has Internet and e-mail access, despite concerns that likely have made the National Security Agency as nervous as the Secret Service on Inauguration Day when Obama left his presidential limo twice to walk and wave to crowds along Pennsylvania Avenue.

[Ben in LA]

Another link sent to me...

http://www.eclectablog.com/2012/02/r...dicine-in.html

[Ben in LA]

...and a link about so-called "Obamaphones".

http://aattp.org/debunking-obamaphone-lies/

[trish]

I guess because they proved they were already stupid enough to vote for Hussein Obama because "He gonna give me free medical care!"

What a stupid-assed characterization of the overwhelming majority of the American electorate that voted for Barrack Hussein Obama. Oh my God! Is his middle name really Hussein!! How horrible for you!

If there's any reason we won't get an efficient system of national health care it'll be because the republicans are obstructing it and delaying it at every turn. How many times has Congress tried to repeal it now?

[Ben in LA]

If there's any reason we won't get an efficient system of national health care it'll be because the republicans are obstructing it and delaying it at every turn. How many times has Congress tried to repeal it now?

40...

[paulclifford]

>>>If there's any reason we won't get an efficient system of national health care . . .

I've already shown that there's no such thing as an efficient system of national health care. By definition, as long as government runs something — the postal service, the department of motor vehicles, Amtrak, Medicaid, etc. — that something will never, and can never, be "efficient." Health care is no exception.

You just want to claim that government is gifting you with something "free", even if it stinks. "I votes Obama 'cause he gonna give me a free phone!"

>>>it'll be because the republicans are obstructing it and delaying it at every turn.

The big bad Republicans in congress (specifically, the House, in which they're the majority) were voted in by their constituents . . . in other words, by people. It's not the big bad Republicans vs. the good, kind, giving Barack Hussein Obama. It's Barack Hussein Obama vs. a growing majority of people who simply hate what he's doing, especially with health care.

You're also in denial (why am I not surprised?): an increasing number of Democrats, in both the House and the Senate, are turning against Obamacare:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-on-obamacare/

The Washington Post

Moderate Democrats are quitting on Obamacare

By Scott Clement, Published: July 23

The landmark health-reform law passed in 2010 has never been very popular and always highly partisan, but a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that a group of once loyal Democrats has been steadily turning against Obamacare: Democrats who are ideologically moderate or conservative.

Just after the law was passed in 2010, fully 74 percent of moderate and conservative Democrats supported the federal law making changes to the health-care system. But just 46 percent express support in the new poll, down 11 points in the past year. Liberal Democrats, by contrast, have continued to support the law at very high levels – 78 percent in the latest survey. Among the public at large, 42 percent support and 49 percent oppose the law, retreating from an even split at 47 percent apiece last July.

As King Obama grants "special waivers" and "special favors" and "special extensions" to groups of his choosing who don't want any part of the program, the moral unfairness of the program will be understood by every larger groups of people. And as the injurious effects of Obamacare begin to be felt by widening circles of people in the economy — especially King Obama's original supporters — more and more Democrats will turn against Obamacare, and possibly, against Obama himself, for either having lied to them ("If you're happy with your current health insurance, you can keep it!"), or for being grossly incompetent, or both.

Here's a copy of an email posted online, sent to Greg Mankiw, a very well known professor of economics at Harvard University:

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2013/...s-faculty.html

GREG MANKIW'S BLOG
Random Observations for Students of Economics

ABOUT ME
GREG MANKIW
UNITED STATES
I am a professor and chairman of the economics department at Harvard University, where I teach introductory economics (ec 10). I use this blog to keep in touch with my current and former students. Teachers and students at other schools, as well as others interested in economic issues, are welcome to use this resource.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 03, 2013

Obamacare versus the Faculty

I don't know how widespread this phenomenon is, but I thought I would share an email I received this morning:

I have been teaching multiple sections of economics for four years now at several Colleges and Universities in the State of Indiana. I have also been a frequent user of your texts in the classes that I teach.

With the implementation of the ACA (Affordable Care Act) these institutions are giving notification to their part-time faulty that their individual teaching schedules will now be limited to three sections. At the college this will likely result in the cancellation of 20-25% of the class sections in economics, and I would assume other areas will have a similar result. The students are not fully aware of the situation and many will be surprised that their desire to get a college education is now being impacted by the need to avoid the full implementation of the ACA.

Regardless if you are a Republican or a Democrat I would hope full-time faculty would voice their concern regarding the impact the implementation of the ACA could have on the attainment of higher education for the current student population and upon the lives of the dedicated part-time faculty that have been devoted to serving this student population.

My hope is that if faculty across the nation brought this to the public attention that we as a nation could have a more open and complete dialogue regarding the course we wish to set as a nation.

[End Mankiw excerpt]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A number of educational institutions have already fired staff, or reduced them to part-time status to avoid either having to provide them with very pricey government-mandated insurance, or to avoid having to opt-out of providing them with anything by means of paying a penalty per employee ("penalty" is the intellectually honest word for it. Obama originally insisted on calling it a "mandate" and the Supreme Court hedged by calling it a "tax".)

Max Baucaus, a very powerful Democratic senator from Montana, was one of the chief architects of Obamacare. He recently called it a "train wreck":

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch...implementation

Baucus warns of 'huge train wreck' enacting ObamaCare provisions
By Sam Baker
04/17/13 12:33 PM ET

Baucus, the chairman of the chamber's powerful Finance Committee and a key architect of the healthcare reform law, said he fears people do not understand how the law will work.

"I just see a huge train wreck coming down," he told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a Wednesday hearing. "You and I have discussed this many times, and I don't see any results yet."

Baucus pressed Sebelius for details about how the Health Department will explain the law and raise awareness of its provisions, which are supposed to take effect in just a matter of months.

"I'm very concerned that not enough is being done so far — very concerned," Baucus said.

He pressed Sebelius to explain how her department will overcome entrenched misunderstandings about what the healthcare law does.
"Small businesses have no idea what to do, what to expect," Baucus said.
Citing anecdotal evidence from small businesses in his home state, Baucus asked Sebelius for specifics about how it is measuring public understanding of the law.

"You need data. Do you have any data? You've never given me data. You only give me concepts, frankly," he said.

Sebelius said in response that the administration is not independently monitoring public awareness of specific provisions but will be embarking on an education campaign beginning this summer.

"Educational campaign" is a government euphemism for "propaganda campaign."

King Obama, influenced by former henchmen like Cass Sunstein, is now using your tax money to pay for a centralized propaganda unit within the government called "The Nudge Squad."

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...ma-nudge-squad

OBAMA ADMIN TO CREATE 'NUDGE' SQUAD TO SHAPE AMERICANS' BEHAVIOR

On Tuesday, Fox News obtained documents showing that the federal government is initiating a program designed to “nudge” Americans toward particular behaviors. The “Behavioral Insights Team” to be formed would work with the White House, as well as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture, among others. The document, emailed by White House senior adviser on social and behavioral sciences Maya Shenker to a university professor, states, “Behavioral sciences can be used to help design public policies that work better, cost less, and help people achieve their goals.”

The document names several behavioral changes brought about by British “nudging,” including “sending letters to late taxpayers that indicated a social norm,” resulting in higher tax receipts. Another British policy promoted “adoption of attic-insulation.”

Dan Cruz, spokesman for the US General Services Administration, told FoxNews.com, “As part of the Administration's ongoing efforts to promote efficiency and savings, GSA is considering adding some expertise from academia in the area of program efficiency and evaluation under its Performance Improvement Council.”

Richard Thaler, who along with former Obama regulatory czar Cass Sunstein wrote the book titled Nudge, said, “The goal is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government by using scientifically collected evidence to inform policy designs. What is the alternative? The only alternatives I know are hunches, tradition, and ideology (either left or right.)”

The Obama administration has not been shy about attempting to use its influence – or taxpayer money – to push enthusiasm for its agenda, including Obamacare, nutrition, and gay rights.

Government has no business engaging in "behavior modification" for the sake of "nudging" people to their policies . . . thus keeping themselves in power, of course. In a democracy, it's the other way around: the people "nudge" the government by voting them in or voting them out. The people modify the government's behavior, not vice-versa.

For more on "nudge theory," see:

http://the-future-economist.blogspot...-figure-1.html

Nudge Theory and the Nanny State

Justification of Nudge Theory

The main justification of Nudge Theory is that people have "reasoning failure". This is when people make judgements which damage lifetime happiness and so the state intervenes to prevent this.

Wow! So "people" have "reasoning failure" but politicians and government bureaucrats do not?

Amazing! We're back to the pre-democracy times when propagandists worshipped the monarch and the aristocracy — our "betters" — who simply "know best" what is in our self-interest. Except instead of worshipping a monarch and a class of aristocrats, they worship the State and class of technical "experts" who get to define what each individual's "lifetime happiness" is supposed to consist of!

One last post on your favorite "efficient" program of national health care:

http://benswann.com/premiums-skyrock...re-provisions/

PREMIUMS SKYROCKET 198%: CONGRESS EXEMPTS THEMSELVES FROM OBAMACARE PROVISIONS
August 4 | Politics, US | Posted by Michael Lotfi

In a letter to the US Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS), Ralph Hudgens, insurance commissioner for the state of Georgia, reports that Georgia insurance companies have filed new rate plans under Obamacare that will increase insurance rates up to 198%. Hudgens goes on to demand that the USDHHS delay implementation so that Georgia may get its house in order before the massive hikes take place. He also requests that the department justify the massive increases, as they are directly contradictory to what the President had promised. Finally, he demanded a prompt response to this “emergency situation”.

Georgia isn’t alone. A recent report from the Ohio Department of Insurance states that under Obamacare the average increase will be around 88%. Ohio and Georgia are certainly not unique. This story is repeated again and again all over the country.

Because Congress never read the bill, they had no idea how hard this would hit them. The law still remains unclear. Many threatened to quit their jobs on the Hill and move to the private sector because they could be forced to give up their subsidy. It seems odd that lawmakers threatened to abandon their constituents in a fit because they had to be included in a law that they forced upon us all.

All due to an amendment, which GOP lawmakers added to the Patient Care Act that required all lawmakers and their staff to be covered by plans “created” by the law or “offered through an exchange before 2014. The amendment reads:

“Section 1312(d)(3)(D): The only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and their congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are created under this Act…or offered through an Exchange established under this Act.”

As of now, taxpayers pay almost 75 percent of premium payments for Congress as part of government employee benefits in Washington. Republican lawmakers believed that if America had to be a part of this then lawmakers and staff could not be allowed any exemptions. The law should apply to all Americans equally. Right?

Not so fast… Democrats had another plan. It was reported by Politico months ago that democrats in Congress were attempting to give themselves and staff an exemption. However, they quickly dismissed it as rumor. Harry Reid’s spokesman Adam Jentleson flatly denied a report that the democrat majority leader had sought an exemption for lawmakers and their staffers:

“There are not now, have never been, nor will there ever be any discussions about exempting members of Congress or Congressional staff from Affordable Care Act provisions that apply to any employees of any other public or private employer offering health care.”

There were even reports that some legislators would attempt to change the legislation by attaching an amendment to a must-pass funding bill.

“I don’t care what the answer is,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R, Okla.). “Give us an answer so that if we want to do a legislative fix to take care of the people who actually work for us,” we can. “I mean, they’re going to be the only set of federal employees that actually get paid by the federal government that have to go into the exchange. (OPM knows) the answer—they just won’t share it. And I want time to legislate on it before we lose half our staff.”

As the 2014 deadline approaches, in plutarchy fashion, the President and Congress moved to exempt themselves and staff from provisions of the law, which would have possibly made them lose their subsidy. Obama told a group of democratic senators in a private meeting last Wednesday that he would find a solution for them. He came through. Lawmakers and their staff will now be exempt from a provision, which could force them to buy into the system the same way we do. They will continue to receive the subsidies they currently get regardless of the amendment, which could now make this against the law set forth in the Patient Care Act. Now lawmakers and staff will not feel the swift kick in the gut that the rest of us will. For now, Congress won’t have to leave their jobs on top of the Hill.

I predict that some private citizen will sue the federal government over one or more of its Obamacare provisions, and that the entire thing will have to be looked at again by the Supreme Court. People of good will should hope that, on the second time around, SCOTUS finds the program unconstitutional.