…approaches its day of reckoning. As do its authors, in November.
Rarely has one law so exemplified the worst of the Leviathan state — grotesque cost, questionable constitutionality and arbitrary bureaucratic coerciveness. Little wonder the president barely mentioned it in his latest State of the Union address. He wants to be reelected. He’d rather talk about other things.
And no celebration of its two-year anniversary. I guess it wasn’t as much of a BFD as Joe Biden said it was. Or perhaps it is, but not in the way he thought.
[Update a few minutes later]
Happy second birthday, ObamaCare! “Now let’s destroy it, root and branch.”
[Update a while later]
Five things the Democrats (politically) got wrong on ObamaCare. Did they get anything right?
[Mid-morning update]
Heh: “Democrats so misjudged everything about Obamacare, you would think they never read the bill or something.”
[Late morning update]
WSJ: Liberty and ObamaCare.
Krauthammer at his best. Great read.
The Lefist simply lubes that incline and demands “free” health care for anyone at any time and buries their heads about the inevitable death panels.
As long as the death panels are free…
You pay at the end.
Politico… whatever:
Democrats have come to rely on their next best hope: waiting until the bulk of the law takes effect in 2014.
That’s when 30 million uninsured Americans will gain coverage.
What a crock. There was a good article in today’s wsj: Health Law Slow to Win Favor, Some Provisions Stumble in Practice (If anyone can find a non-paywall version please post a link.) Most states already have government-subsidized exchanges set up. The response has been… predictable. The entire state of California has gotten a grand total of about 6000 people to sign up. Mostly people with pre-existing conditions who don’t qualify for Medicaid.
6000. State-wide.
So in 2014 30 million uninsured Americans will gain “coverage”. What in bloody hell does that even mean? It’s kind of funny how the media’s incessant bleating about the 30/50/80 million people in this county without health insurance/care/coverage/fill-in-the-blank completely disappeared around November 2008. I think it’s fairly easy to imagine what could happen in November that would see a return of that whining. With a good dose of “homelessness epidemic” and “dog food/medicine” crap mixed in.
So in 2014 30 million uninsured Americans will gain “coverage”. What in bloody hell does that even mean?
There are a variety of reasons why so many people don’t have coverage today; in 2014 the ACA will address three big ones:
1. Some people want coverage, but are turned down for pre-existing conditions, or else charged very high premiums. I applied for coverage on the individual market last year and was turned down; in 2014 I’ll be able to get it, and pay the same premium as others of my age.
2. Some people can’t afford it. In 2014 there will be subsidies for lower-income households, making coverage much more affordable.
3. Some people don’t want coverage. In 2014 they’ll be required to get it, or pay a penalty.
We’ve been through this already in Massachusetts, and coverage expanded there just as projected.
The penalty will be much less than the cost of the coverage, so you can expect that a lot of these people will make the rational economic decision to forgo insurance. Then, if they get sick or hurt, they can apply for insurance and not be denied due to preexisting conditions. It’ll be like waiting to buy homeowners insurance until after the home has been destroyed by fire.
“in 2014 I’ll be able to get it, and the rest of you will help me pay the same premium as others of my age.
There, fixed that for you
We’ve been through this already in Massachusetts, and coverage expanded there just as projected.
We’ve? Hang on. You couldn’t get coverage in Mass?? Under RomneyCare?
There are a variety of reasons why so many people don’t have coverage today
Yeah, but HOW MANY? I keep waiting for the media to inform me. I guess they’re busy with other stuff. Or maybe there’s just too few of them anymore. We need a government program to increase their numbers. They’re overworked. Pity.
I can’t get coverage in Massachusetts because I live in New Hampshire. But two of my employees have gotten better coverage (for less) through the MA Romneycare exchange than I could get with our group coverage.
Of course Jim, that’s exactly what happens when you force other people to pay for services for your employees. That’s a good deal for you. Not so much for others.
You will find a startling corallation between the rise of people without health insurance and the rise in the unemployment rate. Would fixing the economy be better solution for increasing rates of people with health insurance?
1. Some people want coverage, but are turned down for pre-existing conditions, or else charged very high premiums. I applied for coverage on the individual market last year and was turned down; in 2014 I’ll be able to get it, and pay the same premium as others of my age.
Insurance isn’t for preexisting conditions. You need health care not health insurance at that point. Also, why aren’t you paying more than “others of your age” due to your health condition. Sounds like you’re shamelessly mooching to me.
2. Some people can’t afford it. In 2014 there will be subsidies for lower-income households, making coverage much more affordable.
Depends how much health insurance costs at that point. A subsidy doesn’t mean that 2014 insurance will be more affordable than 2008 insurance.
3. Some people don’t want coverage. In 2014 they’ll be required to get it, or pay a penalty.
This little nugget of tyranny is the primary reason that Obamacare risks extinction by US Supreme Court.
Insurance isn’t for preexisting conditions. You need health care not health insurance at that point.
I don’t need health care, my health care bills are trivial. I need health insurance. I need to know that if I get cancer, or heart disease, or hit by a truck, that I won’t bankrupt my family paying medical bills.
And even if I did have a serious illness, I would still need health insurance, because it isn’t as if having one illness precludes getting another.
I have insurance today because I own my own company, with a group policy, and group policies can’t discriminate. That’s been the case since the 90s, and you don’t hear complaints of “shameless mooching” because some people in group policies are sicker than others. It’s just when you want to get insurance as an individual that this discrimination is defended. The result is that people keep jobs they don’t want, or get or stay married when they don’t want to, just to hold onto group health coverage. The message is that you can’t stand as an individual, you have to be dependent on your employer, or your spouse and spouse’s employer. It’s very odd for libertarian types to be arguing for that dependence.
It’s very odd for libertarian types to be arguing for that dependence.
What dependence? The current and growing obsession on medical care doesn’t have anything to do with libertarians. They didn’t create it and nobody will implement their proposed solutions.
Jim wrote:
1. Some people want coverage, but are turned down for pre-existing conditions, or else charged very high premiums. applied for coverage on the individual market last year and was turned down; in 2014 I’ll be able to get it, and pay the same premium as others of my age.
Why should you pay the same price with a pre-exsiting condition that other people with no pre-existing condition pays?
Do you understand the concept behind “insurance”? Insurance is actuarial. They figure out the odds of the insured getting a condition and charge accordingly.
If you already have one, you’ve busted the odds. At this point you are not buying health *INSURANCE* you are buying health care.
2. Some people can’t afford it. In 2014 there will be subsidies for lower-income households, making coverage much more affordable.
There are many many different ways to lower the cost of insurance. Such things as various kinds that allow people to buy only catastrophy insurance, tort reform, allowing vendors to sell across state lines, disengaging insurance from jobs so that the insured gets the tax break.
3. Some people don’t want coverage. In 2014 they’ll be required to get it, or pay a penalty.
This is called a “coerced contract” and if the Constitution means anything it’ll be struck down hard.
Economically, as others have mentioned, by doing this, you have negated the whole concept of insurance. It’s no longer insurance it’s buying health care.
>We’ve been through this already in Massachusetts, and coverage expanded there just as projected.
What’s this “we” Kemo Sabe? You live in New Hampshire.
If SCOTUS does not overturn Obamacare, or at least its individual mandate, then we effectively have no Court to secure our constitutional liberties from the overreaching tyranny of the other branches of government. The Supreme Court might as well not exist. It has already let far too many bad rulings and precedents slip through, but this would be the most disastrous.
(this)^1000
After the infamous Kelo decision, I’ve come to the inescapable conclusion that the Constitution only means what 5 SC justices say it means. They might as well save everyone a lot of time and money by just asking Anthony Kennedy his opinion.
IMO, a lot of judges (and that’s at all levels) are little more than failed lawyers with political connections to land a lifetime employment gig.
The Supreme Court might as well not exist.
That is a strange, hysterical conclusion. Ruling that the federal government has the authority to regulate a unique national industry that affects the commerce and welfare of every citizen is one thing. Ruling that the federal government has unrestricted power over everything and anything is another. If you think about it for more than five seconds, you should be able to tell the two apart.
Ruling that the federal government has the authority to regulate a unique national industry that affects the commerce and welfare of every citizen is one thing. Ruling that the federal government has unrestricted power over everything and anything is another.
The former, being highly unconstitutional, is a stepping stone to the latter. And when the US Supreme Court no longer supports the US Constitution on such an important problem, when will they support the Constitution? There’s a legitimate concern here that we’re on a slippery slope to tyranny when a key government body which acts as a check on the other parts of government fails to do its job.
From a pure election strategy stand point, I think Democrats would want SCOTUS to overturn Obamacare. For certain, the law has many flaws that are recognizable to both parties. But having it overturned brings back a platform the DNC lost with the passage of Obamacare. If SCOTUS allows Obamacare to stand, it will mean the DNC has little to offer that they haven’t already delivered to their base. In the meantime, the GOP will have an excited base and a hook to attract independents unhappy with Obamacare.
If SCOTUS allows Obamacare to stand, it will mean the DNC has little to offer that they haven’t already delivered to their base.
By that logic they should hope for Social Security and Medicare to be struck down too.
The question for politicians is: are you in this to gain power for its own sake, or to use power to do things? Actually using power to do something, e.g. to expand health insurance coverage, may deny you an issue in your re-election campaign, but doing things should be the whole point.
The question for politicians is: are you in this to gain power for its own sake, or to use power to do things?
Why must a politician gain power?
Why must they do things with their power?
Why must a politician gain power?
Because politics is the way we distribute power. It’s messy, but it has to be done somehow, and (unlike in other systems) people don’t usually get killed.
Why must they do things with their power?
Obviously they can also prevent things from being done. But power that has no effect on the course of events is not power.
Obviously they can also prevent things from being done.
So you believe the purpose of politicians is to gain power to curtail freedom.
So you believe the purpose of politicians is to gain power to curtail freedom.
No. FDR used his power to, among other things, free Western Europe. Lincoln used his to free the slaves. Power is not the opposite of freedom, it can be used to enhance freedom, to restrict it, or exchange one person’s freedom for another’s (e.g. trading Woolworth’s freedom to run whites-only lunch counters for blacks’ freedom to sit at those counters).
Power exists. The question is: who will wield it? Politics is how we answer that question.
“FDR used his power to” round up all Japanese Americans and put them in camps. It was individual soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who used their lives and blood to free Western Europe. Which one is example of “prevent things from being done”?
Power is not the opposite of freedom
I didn’t suggest otherwise, I suggested using the powers to prevent things from being done is a restriction of freedom. Example, rounding up Japanese Americans to prevent them from doing anything against the US is a restriction of their freedom.
Power exists. The question is: who will wield it?
We live in a Republic, and the power is supposed to lie with the people, not the politician. The politician shouldn’t be wielding it against the people.
to expand health insurance coverage
You know full well that is not the intent of Obamacare whatsoever. If it had been, forcing Jesuit schools to cover birth control wouldn’t be in it.
Expanding coverage to 30 million people was the primary goal of Obamacare. Improving quality and cost-effectiveness by changing delivery systems was the other; there’s a good summary here.
Currently Medicare and most of the rest of the health sector runs on fee-for-service. If you need a knee replaced, Medicare gets billed for every doctor, nurse, bed, and gown that goes into the procedure. If your hospital does a lousy job with infection control, and you have to be re-admitted, Medicare pays the hospital more. It’s like a NASA or Pentagon cost-plus contract.
Obamacare pushes the system towards bundled services with quality standards, so the hospital gets one fee for the entire procedure, and has incentives to deliver the service more efficiently (read the link above for one example of how this has cut costs while improving quality). And if you’re re-admitted for a preventable complication, the hospital gets paid less. It’s like the COTS contract that SpaceX has for ISS cargo delivery: you pay for results, not just for effort.
Geez Jim, did you even read that thing?
The program launched in June 2009 with a checklist of quality metrics.
So before page one of 2000 had even been laid down, the MARKET had already been at work reducing costs. It had already been “pushing the system”. And you’re now trying to paint Obamacare as something that “pushes the system” in a way that it already was headed? You think maybe the market might have additional improvements up its sleeve? You think Obamacare will have an effect on the markets ability to create those improvements?
Jim: “Obamacare will help the market create those improvements.”
You’ve definitely got two of ’em Jim.
How many Democrats profited from their close ties to big pharama and health insurance companies?
What would you pay someone to get the government to pass a law that forces you to buy your product with the bonus of the government footing the bill for people who can’t afford it?
Why does the left’s outrage at bribery and big business end when the leaders of the left get rich from it?
Leland,
I agree with you about the Dems possibly wanting to see the PPACA overturned to give them a platform plank to try to use again. I disagree that they see it being upheld as not much of a positive. I believe they agreed to fast-track this to SCOTUS because the Dems see a potential win-win scenario. If overturned, it’s as you said above. If the PPACA mandate is decreed constitutional by SCOTUS, I believe that gives the Dems an opening to say, “See, the law is constitutional, as we said, but if you do not keep a Democrat in the White House or have a Dem majority in either the House or Senate, those evil Republicans will follow-through on their pledge to overturn this fabulous and constitutional law we enacted for you.”
BlueMoon
Good point BlueMoon. Right now, polling is against Obamacare, but not enough to prevent swaying people back.
Both sides do extensive private polling before they roll out anything as policy or proposed policy. I doubt it is a coincidence that the “free” contraception for women directive was announced not long before the SCOTUS arguments, followed (with some unintended help by Limbaugh) with the claim anyone against the directive is conducting “a war against women.”
It’s been clear for a long time the Dems are targeting younger single women, with and without children, as a key demographic group to capture now and in the future. So I think they plan a big campaign this fall to appeal to that group to keep Dems in current status (POTUS, majority of Senate), tailored to match the way SCOTUS ruling goes (as only one of many appeals targeted on that demographic group).
From a pure election strategy stand point, I think Democrats would want SCOTUS to overturn Obamacare.
I think that’s whistling past the graveyard. Sure, they’d get a few nuts and such to go to the voting booth for this, but against that, you have to weigh the loss of prestige that comes from this monumental incompetence. Who will vote for a party that allowed the best run that the Democrats have had since 1992 to fail so hard?
I reject Politico’s notion that the reason the Obamacare debate dragged on was because they were trying to get Republicans on board. Obama and the Democrats were never negotiating in good faith. They did not view Republicans as partners but instead as enemies. They operated under the “I won” mentality and any concession to Republicans was minimal and designed to shield the Obama and democrats with a fig leaf of cooperation.
What caused the Obamacare debate to drag on so long was the resistance from the Democrats. It took a long time to get the bribes and threats of loss of federal funds for states lined up for the Democrats who were reluctant to pass a bill they knew the country was against.
But Wodun, if we don’t allow the left to rewrite history, how are they always going to be right [all of the time]. You’re just mean [sulking like a lefty.]
George Will wrote a pretty good article describing one aspect of Obamacare that the SCOTUS will consider, and which is the one that just might be it’s undoing:
Obamacare’s contract problem – “Now the Institute for Justice (IJ), a libertarian public interest law firm, has focused on this fact: The individual mandate is incompatible with centuries of contract law. This is so because a compulsory contract is an oxymoron.”
“In 1799, South Carolina’s highest court held: “So cautiously does the law watch over all contracts, that it will not permit any to be binding but such as are made by persons perfectly free, and at full liberty to make or refuse such contracts. . . . Contracts to be binding must not be made under any restraint or fear of their persons, otherwise they are void.” Throughout the life of this nation it has been understood that for a contract to be valid, the parties to it must mutually assent to its terms — without duress. “