The insurance market was “unregulated before ObamaCare“?
Really?
Actually, this is a typical tactic of the left. Decry and lie about problems caused by a “lack of regulation” that are actually caused by overregulation, then demand more regulation to fix them. It’s the same playbook they used in the financial crisis.
By the way, since Sebelius doesn’t seem to think that security is important, you’d be a fool to use it any time soon.
[Update a few minutes later]
I expect a plethora of campaign posters featuring the word, “Whatever.”
Imagine it said as two separate words, accent on the second, Valley-Girl style, like one of Bart’s girlfriends in The Simpsons. “What Evar.”
Hell, we may ever hear it in the opening of SNL on Saturday.
[Update a few minutes later]
HHS knew that it was a security risk, but plunged ahead anyway.
Of course.
[Update a few minutes later]
Of course not: “The system has never crashed.”
[Update a while later]
Five things we learned from today’s hearing: “Sibelius doesn’t seem to know anything about the law she is implementing.”
[Bumped]
The country’s in the very best of hands.
Your second link is the same as the first.
Sebelius makes Dilbert’s Pointy Haired Boss look good. She’s like one who believes Government is Magic.
Fixed, thanks.
I see some weird stuff which might be web or server caching issues. For example, when I read this article on the front page of Transterrestrial, it showed a lot of additional commentary and claimed there were two replies. But when I opened the story, I get the oldest version of the post, stopping at “used in the financial crisis.” and no replies appear. Even when I open the link in a web browser I haven’t used for months, I still see the same older version. Another case is when I browse to “transterrestrial.com” instead of “www.transterrestrial.com”, I see a two week old version of Transterrestrial ending with the story “Fool Me Once, Shame On You”.
Now I see the current page and the two missing replies.
I swap between mobile and desktop mode to see the missing comments. Then often a couple more times because the first switch reveals comments but stays on desktop but then will switch to mobile after posting a comment or opening a new tab.
Von Mises and Hayek explained it all decades ago: the State intervenes in the private sector, causing bigger problems than any its intervention was ostensibly intended to solve; then uses the bigger problems it created as an excuse to intervene again, only this time more radically; causing in turn bigger and more radical problems; and so it goes.
Yes, I call that strategy “failing forward.”
Alas, if only there was a sword to catch them:
Operative: “You know, in certain older civilized cultures, when men failed as entirely as you have, they would throw themselves on their swords. ”
Govt. Dork-up Dude: “Well, unfortunately, I forgot to bring a sword. “
If only the people in power were as good as finding solutions as they are at blaming others when those solutions fail! Of course, Bilwick, you’ve hit the fundamental dynamic, there’s no incentive to actually fix something as long as blame doesn’t stick to you.
“Hayek’s Recursion”.
It just keeps getting better:
http://24.media.tumblr.com/a3c7a00ec381ecc778495d1cfd8e7fbb/tumblr_mvaxrmKrzy1sn4zrpo1_1280.jpg
Oops! Not the link I was going for:
http://minx.cc/?post=344608
“It’s just like employers trying to shaft their workers by cutting hours and benefits and blaming it on the Affordable Care Act”
We keep hearing from Obamacare evangelists that these things are not even happening.
They are happening — in any big economy you will have some employers cutting hours and benefits. But economists don’t see any evidence that Obamacare has caused more employers to do so.
800,000 Jobs. That’s what Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf estimated in 2011 that Obamacare will destroy, and the day of reckoning has begun.
Read more: here
You are wrong. And the only economists blind enough to speak inanities such as yours are ones like Krugman.
People with common sense believe their eyes and ears.
bad business people are cutting staff hours,
Most organizations that cut workforce hours to avoid Obamacare are
regretting the decision
That’s your opinion
The level of contempt coming out of this administration surrounding obamacare has been astounding. And contempt for everything, the voters, the public, the law, the press, congressional oversight. Most of it can be summed up with the phrase “stop complaining, we know what’s good for you better than you do.”
Though I don’t think that aspect of the administration is restricted to health care issues, but the problems with the obamacare rollout have merely revealed the true character to a greater degree. Compare Hillary’s remarks to congress on Benghazi, for example.
“Whatever” is a good summation of the way this administration approaches policy. It’s fortunate that there are no serious issues in domestic or foreign policy that demand competent execution at the moment.
“Actually, this is a typical tactic of the left. Decry and lie about problems caused by a “lack of regulation” that are actually caused by overregulation, then demand more regulation to fix them. ”
This is exactly right. As far as the regulatory environment is concerned, everything that exists now or came before is the “Wild West” according to liberals.
This is actually a corollary to a broader axiom of lefty political theory which holds that the failure of any liberal policy is that it didn’t go far enough. So the failure of regulation denotes the need for MORE regulation. The failure of the Stimulus denotes the need for MORE Stimulus. The failure of government to solve our problems denotes the need for MORE government.
Another big lefty tactic, popular of late, is to set up a false dichotomy between doing what the liberals want to do and “doing nothing,” as in: “We have to pass Obamacare; we can’t just DO NOTHING about the problem of the uninsured.”
Then there’s the tactic of finding ONE conservative who seems to agree with the liberal position on an issue and holding that person up as proof of the hypocrisy, obstinacy, and extremism of all other conservatives in failing to accede to that same position. They do this all the time: Reagan agrees to raise taxes once and this somehow proves that conservatives 30 years later are all hypocrites for wanting to cut taxes. Or Barbara Bush once says someone vaguely pro-choice and this proves all pro-life Republicans are basically Neanderthals.
Frequently, doing nothing is a better option than what the lefties want. Its called “First, do no harm.”
I notice she’s still pushing the malignant lie that “if you like your current plan, you can keep it”.
Bull**it!
I lost mine (just like millions of Americans have, and will.) Why? Because Obamacare forced changes on it, so many that it got terminated. I liked my old policy THE WAY IT WAS. I did NOT WANT TO CHANGE IT, AT ALL. I was promised ad nausium that if I liked my policy, I could keep it. Yet another damn lie. And if I sound angry, it’s because I am.
My old policy had low premiums, but great coverage in the areas (and only the areas) it was intended for; catastrophic medical issues. It was essentially hospitalization-only, and it did have caps – but in the million-plus range. I’ve been hospitalized with it, and was very happy with it (Especially having no network issues, which is very important when you live in a rural area with few choices). In an average year I had to pay for some stuff out of pocket, but I more than saved that in premiums, so I was delighted. And that’s what insurance is- protection against unlikely but devastating occurrences. I carry home insurance too, but I sure as hell don’t expect or want them to cover me for maintenance costs or regular wear and tear – that’s not what insurance is for.
My medical policy is the policy I want, and that’s why I’ve had it for a decade and a half. But now, it’s gone, thanks to the malicious lying sack of putrid bovine excrement currently occupying the oval office.
Right now, I don’t know what to do. I’ve looked into replacement coverage, but to get my old coverage it would cost more than TWICE as much, plus have a higher deductible. After calling a slew of insurance companies for quotes, I’ve already decided that I won’t be going that route. Hell no.
Obamacare health plans (Bronze, gold, etc)? Garbage, plain and simple. Very expensive crappy policies that cost a lot more than I used to pay, for far worse coverage. I’m not going to buy one of those.
Ever since I turned 18, I’ve purchased insurance against the risk of major illness, or coming down with a disqualifying condition. However, the way it’s looking now, come Jan 1st, I’ll be uninsured for the first in my life.
But even if I found an Obamacare plan that looked okay.. here’s yet another issue: they won’t cover you when you need it, *EVEN IF THEY SAY THEY WILL*. That’s right, you’re not covered under them even for the things they say you’re covered for. After all, if they are lying about being able to keep your current coverage, what reason do we have to believe anything they say? Seriously, why should we trust them on anything when they are proven liars? That’d be like investing with Bernie Madoff after his conviction as a fraud.
Because Obamacare forced changes on it, so many that it got terminated.
Your insurance company had the option of grandfathering your plan by keeping it basically unchanged. If they’d done that they could have kept selling it indefinitely.
I liked my old policy THE WAY IT WAS. I did NOT WANT TO CHANGE IT, AT ALL.
Evidently your insurance company felt otherwise.
My medical policy is the policy I want, and that’s why I’ve had it for a decade and a half.
That’s really remarkable. Most individual policies are held for less than two years. I’m amazed that an insurer would offer the same plan for that long. There was no guarantee that they’d keep doing so, with or without Obamacare.
That’s right, you’re not covered under them even for the things they say you’re covered for
Who is the “they” in this sentence? The companies selling plans in the exchanges are the same companies that were selling plans pre-Obamacare. I expect they’re about as trustworthy as they ever were.
“Your insurance company had the option of grandfathering your plan by keeping it basically unchanged. If they’d done that they could have kept selling it indefinitely.”
Ahhh there he is right n cue……
and he parrots the Obama line of yesterday.
Too bad for you and your Dear Leader that the insurance companies were FORCED to change their policies if the State took the Obamacare medicine and the policies didn’t meet Federal standards. The administration from top to bottom knew this was going t happen because they planned for it to happen. They made it even worse by forcing the policies to be dropped if the insurance companies changed the slightest bit of a policy.
So if, for reasonable business reasons, an insurance company modified the co-pay by one dollar – either way! – the policy MUST be cancelled.
So here you have the Feds telling people what’s good for them. Statist Thuggery.
Jarrett and Obama are trying to blame the greedy insurance companies but in fact they laid this trap for millions of Americans all by themselves.
And the tools out there swallow it hook, line, sinker.
“Evidently your insurance company felt otherwise.”
Evidently you remain as clueless as usual.
“That’s really remarkable. Most individual policies are held for less than two years. I’m amazed that an insurer would offer the same plan for that long. There was no guarantee that they’d keep doing so, with or without Obamacare.”
See above, tool. Yes policies change but never were the insurance companies forced to DROP the policy for the slightest change.
“Who is the “they” in this sentence? The companies selling plans in the exchanges are the same companies that were selling plans pre-Obamacare.
Except NOW they have to conform to the Thuggist rules of Obamacare and they have no choice.
“…..I expect they’re about as trustworthy as they ever were.””
Clearly far far more trustworthy than Obama and his Thugs.
Sorry – a one dollar co-pay change will not force e perfectly good existing policy to be dropped….
It’s about $5 bucks ZERO bucks if it changes above the level it was at on March 23, 2010:
“If you dig into the regulations (go to page 34560), you will see that HHS wrote them extremely tight. One provision says that if co-payment increases by more than $5, plus medical cost of inflation, then the plan can no longer be grandfathered. (With last year’s inflation rate of 4 percent, that means the co-pay could not increase by more than $5.20.) Another provision says the co-insurance rate could not be increased at all above the level it was on March 23, 2010.”
This is a reg buried deep deep deep. And it was put there specifically to force people to lose their policies so they will be forced to buy Obamacare…
a policy of higher deductibles, higher premiums and un-needed care.
Statist, Fascist Thuggery. And the defenders of this are complete idiots.
And it was put there specifically to force people to lose their policies so they will be forced to buy Obamacare…
When an insurer makes significant changes the policy you had ceases to exist. You can’t keep something that the insurer has stopped offering, with or without Obamacare.
a policy of higher deductibles
I thought the complaint was that people wanted catastrophic coverage that only kicks in for major medical events. Why then the carping about high deductibles? FWIW, the Healthcare.gov plans I’m offered have deductibles ranging from $1,000 to $5,750 (my current policy has a $5,000 deductible).
this trap for millions of Americans
The people in this “trap” are like people with rent-controlled apartments in New York. They won the individual health insurance lottery, and got approved for coverage at rates that others can only dream of, so of course they don’t want anything to change. Meanwhile, they are outnumbered 5-1 by the losers in that lottery, who are only now getting a shot at decently priced coverage. Or would be, if the exchanges actually worked….
When Obama makes changes, your health insurance policy ceases to exist. My health insurance was cancelled because of changes Obama made, not the insurance company. And they can’t sell that policy anymore because Obama outlawed it.
Please, if you wouldn’t mind, don’t speak for those of us who lost our insurance. We are capable of speaking our own mind about the effects of Obamacare.
they can’t sell that policy anymore because Obama outlawed it.
Insurance plans that existed when Obamacare was passed can still be sold; the law grandfathers them in.
Jim, you are approaching Obama levels of dishonesty. From Forbes on Oct 31…
“[T]he administration’s commentary in the Federal Register did not only refer to the individual market, but also the market for employer-sponsored health insurance.
Section 1251 of the Affordable Care Act contains what’s called a “grandfather” provision that, in theory, allows people to keep their existing plans if they like them. But subsequent regulations from the Obama administration interpreted that provision so narrowly as to prevent most plans from gaining this protection.
“The Departments’ mid-range estimate is that 66 percent of small employer plans and 45 percent of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfather status by the end of 2013,” wrote the administration on page 34552. All in all, more than half of employer-sponsored plans will lose their “grandfather status” and get canceled. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 156 million Americans—more than half the population—was covered by employer-sponsored insurance in 2013.
Yes, lots of group plans have lost their grandfathered status. My group plan changed virtually every year in the last decade.
Insurance plans that existed when Obamacare was passed can still be sold; the law grandfathers them in.
Name one.
“Insurance plans that existed”
Not true. Obama put a bunch of requirements they must meet in order to be grandfathered in. Those requirements outlawed millions of existing plans.
Or did the insurance company make a mistake in sending me a cancellation notice?
“When an insurer makes significant changes the policy you had ceases to exist. You can’t keep something that the insurer has stopped offering, with or without Obamacare.”
1) “significant”? a 1 dollar copay change is not significant. Yet it causes your policy to be canceled even if the it’s a co pay reduction.
2) When my copay changed I was still covered. The policy did not go away because in the contract I freely made with the insurance company they retained the right to do that and I agreed. Moreover if there are such policies that do cease to exist when the insurer changes a co pay, the legal nicety was turned into a no-op because a new policy was automatically granted and the insured was ALWAYS covered and continues to be covered. It was NEVER a problem.
But now because of Obamacare not only does the policy cease to exist, but the insurance company can only offer a policy from the Obamacare exchange which, today means higher premiums, higher deductibles. You CANNOT keep your policy. To say that it’s not the same policy is not only splitting hairs, it’s false and irrelevant: the insured cannot create a new policy with the insurance company exactly like the old one with the exception of the different co pay because by Obamacare regulation, it’s forbidden.
Obama and Sebilius and Jarrett lied and continue to lie and you continue to eat the lies.
And put another way, in case you are still not getting it…….
there’s a difference between changing a policy and canceling a policy. A change (like say a $5 increase in co-pay) did not end the coverage pre-March 2010.
But now under Obamacare, it does, because Obamacare has a new reg that forces the insurance company to cancel the policy if any change is made. Or if the policy doesn’ t meet Federal standards on what a policy should contain, the isurance company MUST cancel it under the new regs.
This must be clear to even you.
YOU no longer get to decide what’s best for you. Obama and Sebelius now decides.
And if you had a surgical procedure set up, you are no longer covered! Isn’t that sweet?
This has been explained to you by us, NBC, CBS, FOX etc. You simply refuse to admit you were lied to. Or maybe you liked the lie. Hard to say.
Either way your arguments don’t even merit the term “arguments”. Helpless flaying about is more like it. If you cannot see it, there’s no further point in trying to help you see it. You may just prattle on with your grade school rhetoric.
It was NEVER a problem
That’s a very odd statement. The insurance company was free to change what was covered, the copays, deductibles, the provider network, the premiums, etc. You had no option but to accept those changes, or shop elsewhere (where you could be turned down at the insurer’s whim). Your low premium was based on the fact that the insurer could choose to only cover healthy people; the flip side of that was that tens of millions could not get insurance at any price.
That state of affairs was most definitely a problem. Even the Republicans pay lip service to the need to do something to correct the failures of the pre-ACA individual insurance market.
Obamacare has a new reg that forces the insurance company to cancel the policy if any change is made. Or if the policy doesn’ t meet Federal standards on what a policy should contain, the isurance company MUST cancel it under the new regs.
You’ve got an “or” where I think you want an “and”. The company only has to cancel the policy when it’s not grandfathered (i.e. the company decided to change it after 2010) and it doesn’t meet ACA standards. The company had the option of keeping the policy around indefinitely.
“You had no option but to accept those changes, or shop elsewhere (where you could be turned down at the insurer’s whim). ”
You use this a negative example but with Obamacare government dictates changes to insurance companies and consumers have no choice but what the government offers. And we can’t just get another policy like we could in the old system because all of the plans are government controlled.
“Your low premium was based on the fact that the insurer could choose to only cover healthy people; ”
Uhh no. Lets be generous and say that is over simplistic.
“(i.e. the company decided to change it after 2010) and it doesn’t meet ACA standards. ”
Well, it looks like you finally admit that Obamacare standards forced millions of policies to be cancelled.
“name one”
Mine. I am self-employed and since June of 2000, I have paid for a high-deductible PPO plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois. Unlike Jim’s experience, my plan has stayed the same for 13 years . I’m now receiving notices that refer to the Affordable Care Act and then say, in bold, “It is your choice — Keep the coverage you have or look at our new 2014 Health Plans. ” The notice invites me to visit their “Stay Blue” website.
Sure, I’m an Obama supporter, and doesn’t it look odd that the Obama supporter has a good experience? Well, I dunno. I have no further insight or anything to add – I’m just reporting my experience.
Of course, by “stay the same”, I don’t mean that the rates have stayed the same. They certainly have gone up. Hell, maybe other things changed too – I don’t read the fine print. But when push has come to shove and I’ve needed their coverage, they paid up, so I’m happy.
Sure, I’m an Obama supporter, and doesn’t it look odd that the Obama supporter has a good experience? Well, I dunno. I have no further insight or anything to add – I’m just reporting my experience.
Not at all. I figure self-interest drives most Obama support just like it does other political positions and ideologies.
Unless you belong to a union and have your health insurance as part of a collective bargaining agreement (so much for equal protection under the law), the HHS has ruled that any change in the policy since March 23, 2010 disqualifies the policy for being grandfathered. Insurance policies tend to change from year to year, be it on copays or deductables. The lie is that if you liked your old coverage, you’d get to keep it. Also, Obamacare mandates what items must be included in the coverage regardless of whether the person wants or needs it. For example, single men and retired people are required to have maternity and contraceptive coverage in their policies despite the fact that they’ll never need it. All that does is drive up the cost of their insurance.
single men and retired people are required to have maternity and contraceptive coverage in their policies despite the fact that they’ll never need it
Similarly, insurance covers prostate and testicular cancer treatment, even when purchased by women. It covers ER visits after motorcycle accidents, even for people who don’t ride motorcycles. It covers sickle cell anemia, even for people without the mutation.
If your health insurance only covered the problems that you personally were actually going to get, it wouldn’t be insurance. The whole point of health insurance is to spread risk, and redistribute from the medically-inexpensive to the medically-expensive.
Here’s a good piece on the redistribution inherent in private health insurance.
Similarly, insurance covers prostate and testicular cancer treatment, even when purchased by women.
Which is equally stupid.
It covers ER visits after motorcycle accidents, even for people who don’t ride motorcycles.
No policy I’ve ever seen has a clause for ER visits depending on the reason. Catestrophic policies cover visits to the ER for any reason. They don’t say that it includes or excludes motorcycle accidents or only covers heart attacks. If you need to go to the ER, you go to the ER and the policy pays within the copays, deductable and percentage coverage as specified.
It covers sickle cell anemia, even for people without the mutation.
If you don’t have sickle cell, you shouldn’t have to pay for that coverage. Most if not all catestrophic policies other than specific cancer policies don’t cover by disease. They don’t say “we don’t cover disease X but we do cover disease Y. They pay for hospitalization regardless of reason, subject to copays, deductables and percentage coverages as specified in the policy.
If your health insurance only covered the problems that you personally were actually going to get, it wouldn’t be insurance.
This shows you ignorance of what insurance is. Insurance pays for covered expenses. Other than for excluded items like floods (or acts of war), your homeowner’s insurance covers damage to your home. A catestrophic health insurance policy covers serious expenses such as hospitalization.
You seem to have this stupid belief that health insurance should cover every conceivable medical expense. This foolish notion is why health insurance is so expensive. When insurance picks up the tab (or the government pays the bill), people have no knowledge or interest in how much things cost. How much would your car insurance cost if it covered fillups, new tires, paint jobs, etc.? Routine medical expenses such as doctor visits should be paid out of pocket. Your insurance would be less and the doctor wouldn’t have to hire one or more people whose sole job is fighting the government and/or insurance company for payment.
No policy I’ve ever seen has a clause for ER visits depending on the reason.
Exactly — it would be silly to do that. Just as it’d be silly to have a policy that doesn’t cover childbirth.
You seem to have this stupid belief that health insurance should cover every conceivable medical expense
I think it should cover the important ones. You don’t want people going without important care because it isn’t covered, or being bankrupted because they experienced the wrong medical problem.
You are completely ignorant about what true insurance is.
Jim said:
I have a policy that doesn’t cover childbirth. Being a male I don’t expect to need that particular coverage. What’s so silly about that? I suppose this falls into that category of men not having a genetic predisposition for pregnancy which women have, and it isn’t fair to charge different premiums based on the applicants genetics.
My home owner’s policy doesn’t include coverage for swimming pool accidents. This lowers my premium. I’m OK with that as my home doesn’t have a swimming pool.
it’d be silly to have a policy that doesn’t cover childbirth.
Why would a gay couple need coverage for childbirth?
Why would a straight couple over 50 need coverage for childbirth?
It would be silly to be an over 50 gay man and paying for insurance in case you got pregnant.
It would be silly to be an over 50 gay man and paying for insurance in case you got pregnant.
It would be silly for presumably fertile women of childbearing age to have insurance that doesn’t cover childbirth. Given that, should they have to pay more for their insurance than a man of the same age, simply because they were born female and haven’t had themselves sterilized?
Given that, should they have to pay more for their insurance than a man of the same age, simply because they were born female and haven’t had themselves sterilized?
Is that what Obamacare is Jim? Its unfair that healthy people don’t have to pay for as much healthcare as unhealthy people? So everyone has to pay the same amount for healthcare, except you can’t really say that, so you call it insurance. But underneath your lies Jim, you are really trying to implement communism.
The insurance you get that complies with PPACA is like cable. You can’t just get the dozen channels you might want. It’s all bundled together, you are required to purchase the entire package.
You have to buy the sports package and the shopping package and the cooking package and the travel package and the business package, even if all you want is basic cable.
Likewise you have to purchase the maternity package and the weight control package and and the smoking cessation package and the substance abuse package, even if all you want is basic health insurance.
That way everything is fair, just like an all-you-can-eat buffet that charges everyone the same but set the price high enough that it can make a profit even from the obese guy that comes in every day at lunch. No light eater would go there unless it was compulsory.
Obama, the Democrats, and their sycophants are as honest as ever. Lie after lie from issue to issue. You have no credibility.
It is funny when some Obama talking point is shown to be a lie and leaves you twisting in the wind after defending it as gospel.
Jim, remember last week when you were going off on people spreading disinformation about Obamacare? How upset you were? Why does Obama get a pass for his “disinformation”? And look here you are spreading disinformation in support of Obama’s lie.
What disinformation am I spreading?
Here’s some of Jim’s disinformation: tens of millions could not get insurance
According to proponents of Obamacare, PPACA would help only 10 million people without insurance get insurance. So right there, Jim’s a liar, but nothing new.
The reality is that Healthcare.gov is not capable of registering that many people by Dec 31st. Further, because of Obama’s decision to nullify grandfathered plans, around 2.5 million people have lost insurance, and when the employer mandate kicks in, estimates are 90 million will lose their insurance. All of those people will have to deal with a system 3 years in the making that is incapable of supporting their ability to acquire new insurance.
tens of millions could not get insurance
That’s true — we have about 50 million uninsured today, and the PPACA is projected to cut that by 20-30 million by 2017 or so.
around 2.5 million people have lost insurance
They’ve gotten letters telling them they need to pick a new plan, which isn’t exactly the same thing. The new plan may even be better and cheaper.
when the employer mandate kicks in, estimates are 90 million will lose their insurance
Source?
that is incapable of supporting their ability to acquire new insurance
That is a big problem, but there’s still some time, and it’s still possible to buy insurance outside the exchanges.
Why, on this very page you have submitted the following:
…the private health insurance business is not static, regardless of legislation.
Disinformation to contend that right now the dynamics of the private health insurance business is having a greater impact than ACA.
…in any big economy you will have some employers cutting hours and benefits. But economists don’t see any evidence that Obamacare has caused more employers to do so.
Disinformation to contend that right now more employers in our big economy just happen to be cutting hours and benefits than those employers making those moves due to the ACA.
…your insurance company had the option of grandfathering your plan by keeping it basically unchanged. If they’d done that they could have kept selling it indefinitely.
Disinformation to contend that with the ACA subsequent regulations from the Obama administration interpreted that provision so narrowly as to prevent most plans from gaining this protection.
Source?
Like you ever provided a source for your lies?
But ok, Obama Officials In 2010: 93 Million Americans Will Be Unable To Keep Their Health Plans Under Obamacare
Now where are your sources for this BS:
we have about 50 million uninsured today, and the PPACA is projected to cut that by 20-30 million by 2017 or so.
Show us the price list: The new plan may even be better and cheaper.
it’s still possible to buy insurance outside the exchanges. How so? The paper and telephone applications are processed via healthcare.gov So where is your source, Jim? Tell us how you can apply by alternate means other than healthcare.gov? I’ve provided my sources.
“Insurance plans that existed when Obamacare was passed can still be sold”
Just one example of your disinformation. But why not address the rest of what I said concerning Obama attacking people for spreading disinformation, going to far as to set up flag@whitehouse.gov to report people to the government for speaking out in disfavor, while constantly repeating the lie that people who had insurance could keep it, period?
Jim writes: “That’s true — we have about 50 million uninsured today, and the PPACA is projected to cut that by 20-30 million by 2017 or so.”
False (not anywhere near 50 million who cannot get insurance) and extreme wishful thinking.
Jim said, “Your insurance company had the option of grandfathering your plan by keeping it basically unchanged. If they’d done that they could have kept selling it indefinitely.”
Jim, answer me this; would it have been legal for my insurance company to leave this policy (essentially catastrophic care coverage, with caps) unchanged?
Jim said;
“That’s really remarkable. Most individual policies are held for less than two years. I’m amazed that an insurer would offer the same plan for that long. There was no guarantee that they’d keep doing so, with or without Obamacare.”
I checked, and I was wrong; I’ve had it for 13 years, not 15 as I first said.
They stopped offering this plan a long time ago, but under the old rules, they had to let me renew it. It’s called guaranteed reissue for a reason. As for why I kept it so long, why wouldn’t I? It’ was a good deal, and fit my needs. I shopped around a few times and found nothing better that didn’t cost more.
Jim said,
“Who is the “they” in this sentence? The companies selling plans in the exchanges are the same companies that were selling plans pre-Obamacare. I expect they’re about as trustworthy as they ever were.”
I was referring to the government, due to them setting the rules as to what is and isn’t covered. As for the insurance companies, they are very often slimy cutthroats who will do their darnedest to reject a legitimate claim. However, if they commit to something explicitly, they have to honor it or they can get whacked for fraud (as indeed a few have been over the years). The government, on the other hand, has no such constraint, and lies with impunity. (If you like your insurance, you can keep it, period.) So, if they say you’re covered if you get cancer and have an Obamacare plan, they may well not honor it – you’ve thrown your money away. After all, if they won’t keep one solemn promise (That they knew was a lie right from the start) why should we think they’ll honor anything else? Buying anything offered from the exchanges is like investing with Bernie Madoff – putting your faith in a proven fraud.
ACJ,
Well there are certain things they say you canbelieve:
When Krugman ad Emanual say there should be death panels you should believe them. Because they already exist.
When Obama says you should take a pill rather than expensive surgery you should believe him; you’re going to be given a painkiller and told to go home.
When Obama Reid and others all say the are pushing towards a single payer system you should believe them: they are.
You don’t get it. They’re not lying. They’re just telling their useful idiots what to believe.
Pi is equal to 3 and gravity sucks. They are in control now. You had better get with the progrom.
Pogrom… yes, that’s an apt choice of words.
Obama Lied. Insurance Died.
“Actually, this is a typical tactic of the left. Decry and lie about problems caused by a “lack of regulation” that are actually caused by overregulation, then demand more regulation to fix them. It’s the same playbook they used in the financial crisis.”
Didn’t the financial crisis occur with Bush and Paulsen as the regulators?
Hadn’t they just spent 8 years de-regulating wall street?
If that is all you know and believe, there really is no useful point in discussing anything with you
No, and no. In fact, Bush tried to rein in the banks, and Dodd, Frank and others wouldn’t let him.
Where do you come up with these fantasies?
Lets see, if you are referring to the discussion about Fannie in 2005,
let’s see, wasn’t Barney Frank in the Minority in the House?
Wasn’t Trent Lott running the senate?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/109th_United_States_Congress
Wasn’t Trent Lott running the senate?
According to the Wikipedia link you provided, the answer is no. Lott wasn’t even a member of Senate GOP leadership. So I’ll ask again for Rand, where do you get these fantasies?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Senators_in_the_109th_Congress_by_seniority
yeah Frist and McConnel were running the shop.
Umm, are you really saying the minority in the Senate can’t block anything? Does that mean Obama and the Democrats have been lying these last five years? Reconciliation wasn’t needed to pass Obamacare?
okay, what bill was Frist, McConnel or Stevens trying to move in 05
to reform finance?
Hey! Didn’t Clinton de-regulate Glass-Steagall?
Hey! Weren’t the Dems in charge from 2006 to 2008 in Congress? Didn’t Barney Frank run the House Financial Services Committee?
The problem is not disputing their lies. The problem is holding them accountable.
We need to do one thing the left is very good at… laser focus on a prioritized enemy until defeated, then immediately go after the next. Ridicule anyone that comes to their defense.
More important. Take away the billions of tax dollars that are being funneled into campaigns including the elite republicans.
…and defund any department that shows a political bias. That would include CIA leaks.
Speaking of whips and majority leaders and such. We need a new position. Pick someone with the safest seat to be attack dog. This person would literally be screaming right now that Sebelius is incompetent and if the president doesn’t fire her right now then he’s incompetent.
Yes, that person would be attacked (it doesn’t matter and should be ignored) and should continue screaming until someone from the left says, “maybe he’s right.” Then you start a dog pile.
Or let’s call that person the Breitbart.
“Sebelius is incompetent and if the president doesn’t fire her right now then he’s incompetent.”
I am more in the “let it burn” camp than the “Republicans owe a duty to offer constructive solutions” camp, and firing the HHS Secretary would be such a constructive solution.
If I were a ‘Pub in Congress questioning Secretary Sebelius, I would ask, “There are reports that insurance company officials have been told by the Administration to “keep quiet” about the difficulties — are these reports true?”
“No, the are untrue.”
“Good. So if reports of this nature come out in the future, they are either untrue or the result of someone in the Administration acting without Authorization? If a person claims they were dissuaded from speaking out, whom shall I contact in the administration so this person can speak their peace?”
Hanging out at Steve Sailer’s (yeah, I know, the most Paleo of Paleo sites out there — I shouldn’t admit to reading it — I will have to wash my brain with soap and water), there was a discussion of President G W Bush’s role in all of this.
There was an earlier GW Bush speech alluded to, in the pre YouTube days or back when YouTube still used film formats that they mailed to you or something, where Mr. Bush lays out a policy, yeah, yeah, a Compassionate Conservative policy that to some means old-style big-spending Democrat(ic) policy, of “lowering barriers” to home ownership, including “fine print on loan documents” as well as “high downpayments” as a way of including minorities and persons of modest finances into the class of home owners, as a social policy to inculcate “middle class” values and hence the benefits of middle class statuss to persons aspiring to that role in society.
So proposing government interventions to achieve social benefits is not restricted to Democrats, although when these policies “go wrong”, Democrats tend to “double down” and get all Orwellian on them whereas G W Bush tried to back off.
The whole of Steve Sailer is the old (perhaps racist) saying “you can take the (minority person) out of (the place where many minority persons live), but you cannot take (the social and cultural habits common to the place where many minority persons live) out of the (person of minority race, ethnicity, or cluture). So ol’ W got disrespected “over there” about even thinking out loud about better integrating minorities into both the habits as well as bennies of the Majority Culture, like owning your own home and shunning any neighbors who let their property lapse into disrepair. Kind of like Thomas Jefferson’s yeoman farmer thing as the foundation of Democracy.
But at least “W” made a (maybe half-hearted) attempt to “reign in Fannie and Freddie.” As to the Honorable Mr. Frank being in the Minority in Congress, he still wielded considerable influence. Maybe there is blame enough to go around, but I don’t remember him pounding the desk, “This will not stand, we must not be making subprime low-downpayment high-market downturn risk loands to persons on the margins of (home ownership) society!” dn-guy’s snark aside, it just didn’t happen.
Just like with guns.
Anything is “unregulated” if it’s not regulated exactly the way the speaker wishes, no matter how much actual regulation there is.
I suspect many of them really believe that anything resembling a market is “unregulated”, too.
The problem isn’t limited to those who buy individual health insurance policies. Forbes: Obama Officials in 2010: 93 Million Americans Will Be Unable To Keep Their Health Plans Under Obamacare:
Contrary to the reporting of NBC, the administration’s commentary in the Federal Register did not only refer to the individual market, but also the market for employer-sponsored health insurance.
Section 1251 of the Affordable Care Act contains what’s called a “grandfather” provision that, in theory, allows people to keep their existing plans if they like them. But subsequent regulations from the Obama administration interpreted that provision so narrowly as to prevent most plans from gaining this protection.
“The Departments’ mid-range estimate is that 66 percent of small employer plans and 45 percent of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfather status by the end of 2013,” wrote the administration on page 34,552 of the Register. All in all, more than half of employer-sponsored plans will lose their “grandfather status” and get canceled. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 156 million Americans—more than half the population—was covered by employer-sponsored insurance in 2013.
Another 25 million people, according to the CBO, have “nongroup and other” forms of insurance; that is to say, they participate in the market for individually-purchased insurance. In this market, the administration projected that “40 to 67 percent” of individually-purchased plans would lose their Obamacare-sanctioned “grandfather status” and get canceled, solely due to the fact that there is a high turnover of participants and insurance arrangements in this market. (Plans purchased after March 23, 2010 do not benefit from the “grandfather” clause.) The real turnover rate would be higher, because plans can lose their grandfather status for a number of other reasons.
How many people are exposed to these problems? 60 percent of Americans have private-sector health insurance—precisely the number that Jay Carney dismissed. As to the number of people facing cancellations, 51 percent of the employer-based market plus 53.5 percent of the non-group market (the middle of the administration’s range) amounts to 93 million Americans.
Yes, in 2014 most people will have different health plans than the ones they had in 2010. They also had different health plans in 2010 than they had in 2006 — the private health insurance business is not static, regardless of legislation.
You really are sucking up the Kool Aid, aren’t you. The mandates are forcing up the prices of health insurance. There are a lot of companies that are struggling to get by as it is. Driving up the cost of insurance means they may have to drop employees or drop the insurance. A lot of people are going to lose their employer-based insurance as a result. Already, just one provision of Obamacare has cost my company over $100,000 this year just to renew the policies (a charge of some $80 per covered person). That money buys nothing. The cost of the insurance also went up. We’re a 100% employee-owned company so that money comes out of our bottom line. You don’t give a damn, do you? What excuse are you going to make for that?
The mandates are forcing up the prices of health insurance
What makes you so sure? My insurance went up 60% last year, without any new mandates. It’s easy to blame routine price increases on the ACA.
just one provision of Obamacare has cost my company over $100,000 this year just to renew the policies (a charge of some $80 per covered person). That money buys nothing .
I think it was Emerson who said that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. A country with fewer uninsured is a more civilized country.
What excuse are you going to make for that?
No excuse is needed. As one of the architects of the law put it, “no law in the history of America makes everyone better off”. You very well might be among those who will be worse off. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good law.
I think it was Emerson who said that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. A country with fewer uninsured is a more civilized country.
And what happens when we’re paying taxes without getting civilization? For example, I think signs point to Obamacare, especially in conjunction with unreported inflation, increasing the number of uninsured.
Other architects of Obamacare say it is the first step toward single payer. And other architects said it would lower health care costs and people would be able to keep their insurance. These architects sure do say a lot of things.
“A country with fewer uninsured is a more civilized country.”
Only problem is we now have millions more uninsured due to your Dear Leader’s nutroll plan. A plan whose purported goal was to unsure the uninsured – which was a complete lie from the start because there was NO uninsured problem to speak of.
You take away all the rich people who paid cash, student immortals, and other such groups that chose to not obtain policies and the problem, nationwide, was miniscule. Certainly not large enough to up-end an entire industry which is 1/5th of the economy. You had lots of tools available to help the very few who wanted insurance but couldn’t get it, without destroying a fabulously working system.
Bilge such as bending the cost curve down were known lies. The ER’s are just as full now as they ever were, for example, and premiums and deductibles are way up.
Crap such as you can keep your plan were known to be lies 3 years ago.
The statement (yours and Obama’s) that the purpose of this monstrosity was to insure the uninsured is an outright fabrication.
People with common sense and who believe what they see and experience know your blatherings as more ObamaLies. The difference now is that the wall is cracking and you are not getting the cover provided by the MSM any more.
Well another difference is that for the first time a large segment of the population is getting smacked in the face with this. Before now, only a handful of people who dared to stand up to Obama got audited by the IRS: but now millions of people’s lives are being negatively affected.
Obama used to be able to get away with non sequiturs, dissembling, prevatication and lies, but we see that coming to an end.
Yours were always laughed at.
“Only problem is we now have millions more uninsured due to your Dear Leader’s nutroll plan.”
To be fair, everyone who is losing their current policy will be required to buy a new one so they will still be insured. Who knows how many people who had insurance wont be able to afford the new plans.
” You had lots of tools available to help the very few who wanted insurance but couldn’t get it, without destroying a fabulously working system.”
Well, they didn’t have to destroy the current system but then they wouldn’t achieve their goal of destroying the system.
“What makes you so sure? ”
For one thing, including more treatments that have to be covered drives up the costs of premiums.
“It’s easy to blame routine price increases on the ACA.”
Yes, we see how effortlessly you blame insurance companies for complying with Obamacare.
It also proves that Obama and his sychophants have been knowingly lying every time they said, “If you like your policy, you get to keep your policy.” They’ve known for years that wasn’t true.
You’re right that Obama shouldn’t have used that rhetoric, especially not the version that ends “Period”. He should have said something more like “Our approach to health care reform is to make comprehensive insurance available and affordable for the tens of millions who don’t have it, while minimizing changes for the majority of Americans who do. Insurers will be able to keep selling the policies they sell today. So if you like your policy, and your insurer continues to offer it, you can keep it.” But that isn’t nearly as catchy.
Our approach to health care reform is to make comprehensive insurance available and affordable for the tens of millions who don’t have it, while minimizing changes for the majority of Americans who do.
But that would have been equally a lie. The regulations were specifically written so strict as to nullify current insurance plans. They don’t have to rise 60% like your bullshit, uncheckable, unsourced, personal claim. They merely have to rise 2% to lose grandfathered status.
“Insurers will be able to keep selling the policies they sell today.”
Except they cant.
Jim, your proposed rewording of Obama’s promise was interesting. You’re still wrong though; it’s illegal for insurers to sell some of the policies they sold previously, so no, they can’t keep selling them as they were.
And, by the same reasoning you used, I can say, “Obamacare plans will not cover you if you get cancer, period!” and the worst you can say about it is I should have worded it differently, and not used period? But then it wouldn’t be nearly as catchy…
““Our approach to health care reform is to make comprehensive insurance available and affordable for the tens of millions who don’t have it,…”
Which would have been a bald faced lie.
Yes, in 2014 most people will have different health plans than the ones they had in 2010.
Which, according to Obama in 2010, was not going to be a requirement, yet he made it a requirement with his regulations. Further, if you live paycheck to paycheck, you may not be able to afford the new government required health plans, and thus will have no health plan. And no, living paycheck to paycheck doesn’t mean you qualify for Medicaid subsidies; it just means you are slightly better than the federal government (who lives off borrowing debt week to week) at managing your finances.
was not going to be a requirement
Source? It never would have made sense to let insurance companies change policies as much as they wanted but still keep them grandfathered and exempt from the ACA requirements forever.
if you live paycheck to paycheck
If you are poor, or near-poor, and live in a state with expanded Medicaid, you will have much better options come 2014 (assuming you can sign up for them).
Jim, how do you reconcile the idea that the ACA has all these good choices with the fact that people don’t want them? The choices they want are being taken away from them?
Seriously Jim, you need a source for Obama saying “if you like your plan, you can keep it?” You, who haven’t provided a source for any of your bullshit need me to provide a quote from 2010 where Obama said “if you like your plan, you can keep it?”
You’re no longer a liar Jim. You are just an imbecile.
Jim posts links all the time. Problem is they often contradict what he is saying.
I wouldn’t say all the time, because he hasn’t in this thread. But yes, I do recall him linking to BLS.gov and telling us that Obama reduced the number of federal employees while not reading the footnote that showed the date he attributed to starting at the beginning of the year actually started at the end of the year. Indeed, Jim’s sources are sketchy at best.
Still, he already recognized Obama said “If you like your plan, you can keep it”, so it takes a real imbecile to demand I provide Jim a source of Obama making the claim. But if he wants a source, he could try reading the Washington Post earlier this week.
” the private health insurance business is not static, regardless of legislation.”
That is true but legislation is the reason for 100% turnover in insurance policies that will happen as all policies cancelled and replaced with Obamacare compliant ones. And the relative quality of the old plans doesn’t matter because any deviation regardless of how good or bad it is for the consumer is grounds for cancellation.
At least be honest enough to say that Obamacare is forcing all policies to be replaced. Whether or not you think this is a good thing is a separate issue.
“Yes, in 2014 most people will have different health plans than the ones they had in 2010. They also had different health plans in 2010 than they had in 2006 — the private health insurance business is not static, regardless of legislation.”
A meaningless statement which is a non sequitur, and so tries to explain away a problem using an irrelevancy.
And then there’s this: US News: Top Hospitals Opt Out of Obamacare:
The Obama Administration has been claiming that insurance companies will be competing for your dollars under the Affordable Care Act, but apparently they haven’t surveyed the nation’s top hospitals.
Americans who sign up for Obamacare will be getting a big surprise if they expect to access premium health care that may have been previously covered under their personal policies. Most of the top hospitals will accept insurance from just one or two companies operating under Obamacare.
“This doesn’t surprise me,” said Gail Wilensky, Medicare advisor for the second Bush Administration and senior fellow for Project HOPE. “There has been an incredible amount of focus on the premium cost and subsidy, and precious little focus on what you get for your money.”
Regulations driven by the Obama White House have indeed made insurance more affordable – if, like Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, you’re looking only at price. But responding to Obamacare caps on premiums, many insurers will, in turn, simply offer top-tier doctors and hospitals far less cash for services rendered.
Watchdog.org looked at the top 18 hospitals nationwide as ranked by U.S. News and World Report for 2013-2014. We contacted each hospital to determine their contracts and talked to several insurance companies, as well.
The result of our investigation: Many top hospitals are simply opting out of Obamacare.
Chances are the individual plan you purchased outside Obamacare would allow you to go to these facilities. For example, fourth-ranked Cleveland Clinic accepts dozens of insurance plans if you buy one on your own. But go through Obamacare and you have just one choice: Medical Mutual of Ohio.
And that’s not because their exchanges don’t offer options. Both Ohio and California have a dozen insurance companies on their exchanges, yet two of the states’ premier hospitals – Cleveland Clinic and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center – have only one company in their respective networks.
You have to keep out the riff-raff to save those beds in the top hospitals for the connected and political elite.
If this is true, what was she doing between 1995 and 2003 when she was Kansas Insurance Commissioner?!?
lol
“Our approach to health care reform is to make comprehensive insurance available and affordable for the tens of millions who don’t have it, while minimizing changes for the majority of Americans who do. Insurers will be able to keep selling the policies they sell today. So if you like your policy, and your insurer continues to offer it, you can keep it.”
Which would have been a lie just a well. Let’s parse it…
“comprehensive insurance” rather than the insurance you really want.
“available and affordable” after we get rid of other, cheaper options.
“tens of millions who don’t have it” except in this country they always had it.
“minimizing changes for the majority of Americans” !!! What a whopper.
“Insurers will be able to keep selling the policies they sell today” You just aren’t allowed to buy them.
“So if you like your policy, and your insurer continues to offer it , you can keep it.” after we make it uneconomical for them to do so.
the private health insurance business is not static, regardless of legislation.
So the left sees the solution as a monolithic system that drives out the dynamics.
Well Ken dynamism requires freedom……it’s the central feature of the Republic as given to us by the Founders, and has been proven time after time to be the best way yet devised to create the most prosperity wealth innovation and happiness for the most people.
But that means very limited scope and power for the governmental elites.
Seems that Sebelius very well know how many people enrolled in an Obamacare exchange the very first day:
A scorching 6.
She refused to supply the number when asked but she absolutely knew it. She used the same distraction/dissembling technique Jim is so fond of: she reported a useless number – the number of visits. Only difference is that Sebelius didn’t try to pass that off as enrollments like Jim did.
CBS:
“Early enrollment figures are contained in notes from twice-a-day “war room” meetings convened within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services after the website failed on Oct. 1. They were turned over in response to a document request from the House Oversight Committee.
The website launched on a Tuesday. Publicly, the government said there were 4.7 million unique visits in the first 24 hours. But at a meeting Wednesday morning, the war room notes say “six enrollments have occurred so far.”
They were with BlueCross BlueShield North Carolina and Kansas City, CareSource and Healthcare Service Corporation.
By Wednesday afternoon, enrollments were up to “approximately 100.” By the end of Wednesday, the notes reflect “248 enrollments” nationwide.”
So Tavener dissembled/prevaricated as well.
This from CNN – the Senate GOP tried to fix the grandfather clause because everyone (including the Dems) knew it means that millions would lose their coverage. However the Dems would have none of it:
“Senate Democrats voted unanimously three years ago to support the Obamacare rule that is largely responsible for some of the health insurance cancellation letters that are going out.
In September 2010, Senate Republicans brought a resolution to the floor to block implementation of the grandfather rule, warning that it would result in canceled policies and violate President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their insurance if they liked it. . . . On a party line vote, Democrats killed the resolution, which could come back to haunt vulnerable Democrats up for re-election this year.
Senate Democrats like Mary Landrieu, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan and Mark Begich – all of whom voted against stopping the rule from going into effect and have since supported delaying parts of Obamacare.”
It is striking that Republicans actually did try and do things to improve Obamacare but were neither listened to nor given credit for the effort. They even went so far as to shut down 17% of government just to get Obama’s attention but Obama wouldn’t accept any ideas outside of his party even if it meant an improvement for his signature accomplishment. That is really the negative side of being stubborn.
Watch this clip of Obama shown on the O’Reilly factor:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/10/31/oreilly_the_deceit_factor.html
skip to the 57 second mark.
I quote, here, for the lazy kool aid drinkers:
“Actually any insurance you already have will be grandfathered in so you can keep it. So you could decide NOT to get, in the exchange, the better plan. I COULD KEEP MY ACME INSURANCE… JUST A HIGH DEDUCTIBLE CATASTROPHIC PLAN. I WOULD NOT BE REQUIRED TO GET THE BETTER ONE.”
Emphasis mine.
Flat out lie. He spoke directly to the issue presently being experienced and clearly stated you could keep your plan. He also knew the plans offered by the exchange would not include the said, high deductible/catastrophic plan.
We know from direct experience over the last month that this statement is false; was known to be false, was declared in public to be false, and the MSM ignored it (until now) the Administration continued to spew the lie and the tools and acolytes of Lord Obama still swallow it.
CBS also reports:
“Many students have found themselves in health care limbo this semester. Community colleges in New Jersey used to offer cheap health insurance for hundreds of dollars a year but they had to drop the practice because Federal Law prohibits the sale of bare bones policies.
Under the Affordable Care Act it would have cost more to run the program and the cost would have been passed on to students.
More than a thousand dollars per student and that is dramatically different,” said Union County Community College, Vice President of Administrative Services, Stephen Nacco said.”
So the college had a plan but they could not keep it thanks to Obamacare.
The students had a means to buy fairly cheap insurance but now they can’t thanks to Obamacare.
It would be silly for presumably fertile women of childbearing age to have insurance that doesn’t cover childbirth. Given that, should they have to pay more for their insurance than a man of the same age, simply because they were born female and haven’t had themselves sterilized?
You need to rest up Jim because your arguments are just getting too easy to blow holes in.
Shouldn’t the fertile women of childbearing age be allowed to choose?
…should [she] have to pay more for [her] insurance?
Yes. Is that too simple for you? Suppose she bought insurance that only covered childbirth. Should she pay anything at all for that?
It gets even worse. Single men are required to pay for plans that include maternity insurance, but women under 30 are exempt from the requirement. The law was either written by retarded people or twisted, sadistic fiends.
“The law was either written by retarded people or twisted, sadistic fiends.”
It’s not either/or 😉
In proving the link to this . . .
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/30/what-obamacare-pollyannas-miss/
. . . Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds says: “At this point, it takes a special kind of person to be an Obamacare Pollyanna.”
A special kind of person indeed. Someone who is willing to man the last ditch even after the waves of Brutal Facts sweep over it. A man willing to repeat and repeat the Party Line long after the Party Line has become laughably ridiculous and not even the rubes are buying it. A man, in short, like this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sahhaf
Remind you of anyone?
Amazing! After I posted the above, I happened upon this:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/39616.html
Hey, Jim–someone’s a copycat!
Hrmmm… interesting link, and I very much liked the split screen of Sebelius claiming the site has never crashed, alongside a live view of it being offline again.
However, the dire pronouncements regarding Obama’s policy agenda may be slightly overblown. As the link itself mentions, only his forign policy and domestic policy are in unrecoverable shambles. Therefor, everything else, (assuming we include space policy under domestic shambles) is probably basically okay.
And what is left that’s outside of forign and domestic policy? Why, just par for the course, really….
“split screen of Sebelius claiming the site has never crashed, alongside a live view of it being offline again. ”
Of course it has never crashed. The door are shut with the people inside, but it is still at the gate.