Category Archives: Health

Hundreds Of Books To Sign

…and I’ve come down with tendonitis in my right (as in “write”) wrist. Got a brace on it, taking ibuprofen and hoping it clears up by next week, when books come.

[Update a few minutes later]

Speaking of the book, does anyone know what’s going on with this? Who would be trying to sell used versions of the book for more than retail cost for new? A couple days ago, they were asking a thousand bucks for them. And the descriptions are false, since it doesn’t have a dust cover.

[Update a while later while decorating tree]

For those curious, I’m highly confident that this is my problem. The symptoms match to a tee. Fortunately, there’s no numbness, just pain when I bend the wrist.

The Democrats Health-Care Catastrophe

Literally:

…for most of the three years since Obamacare was passed, the majority of the population has disapproved of it (see the second chart here at Real Clear Politics), yet that didn’t really translate into significant public anger or political action, beyond the 2010 mid-term election results. In fact, Sen. Ted Cruz’s filibuster attempt and the House’s short-lived shutdown appeared to push public opinion against those actors rather than against Obamacare.

But that has changed, and dramatically, with the law actually going into effect — and Healthcare.gov going live — back on October 1st. For the first time, Obamacare got “close enough” to significant portions of the American electorate to trigger a sudden shift in actual emotional response from a generic disapproval to outright hostility. I believe that Obama and his Administration — lulled, perhaps, by the more passive dislike evinced by the public up until now — have been caught genuinely off-guard by the dramatic change in public opinion in a month’s time, not just towards Obamacare but towards Obama himself. I believe that shift in fact represents a ‘catastrophe’ — that is, an abrupt transition from one state to another– brought on by the realities of Obamacare hitting home.

I don’t think there’s any precedent for a second-term president recovering from something like this.