Those “junk” health plans
Bob Laszewski describes his old health insurance plan, one of those cancelled ones that the administration is referring to as junk. And he also describes the plans he could get to replace it.
Read the whole thing, and see which you think is junk. The question for the Obama administration is: how many of the people can you fool, how much of the time?
It becomes increasingly clear why the ACA’s implementation was delayed till long after the 2012 election. It wasn’t just to game the CBO, it was to con the country. So I’ll add to the question above: how many of the people can you fool, how much of the time, and for how long?
[NOTE: See also this. Hat tip: Mrs Whatsit.]
The “junk” excuse is something I’ve read in some liberal sites and it’s clearly false. Not all the plans being cancelled are “junk”. This is a problem that deserves a solution.
Of course, any difficulties were delayed till after the election. Obama didn’t have to give direct orders for this. He had his Valerie Jarretts and his secretaries to pass the word down the line, even if it wasn’t said explicitily. Since Obama surrounds himself with true believers, this wouldn’t be hard to do. Obama needs to believe he is the smartest man in the room, so IQ and competence tests must be failed before admission is granted.
Mitsu:
Actually, it’s not just “false,” it’s—wait for it—a lie. Not for most of the mindless followers who parrot it, but for the higher-up pundits/commentators/talkingheads who are perpetrating it.
The highest-up of them, of course, being President Obama, who calls them “substandard”:
The lies continueth. And that’s just the tiny tiny tiny tip of an enormous Obamacare lie iceberg.
Hmmm, I just had an idea for a bad pun: the Obamacare liesberg.
expat:
“Working towards the Fuhrer.”
Lice-berg?
Ymar:
Yeah, I thought of that, but it’s a different pun. Sounds better, though.
“Junk” is certainly false, but “substandard” is pretty much by definition true. They are “substandard” in that they don’t meet the new standards (if they did, they wouldn’t be cancelled). But the fact that they don’t meet the new standards doesn’t mean they are “junk”. There are a lot of new regs, for instance that a plan must cover preventive care for free, which some of the older plans might not have covered. I’d rank “substandard” as a bit of political spin, but “junk” is just false (for at least some of the plans being cancelled).
Neo, that wiki links sounds more like a king or emperor than a Roman consul-dictator.
“Would someone rid me of this meddlesome priest”
The “junk health plans” phrase is a focus group tested talking point. I’ve seen it used by every lib on Fox since early last night. When everyone seems to be pushing the same line, you know it’s been promulgated from one of the progressive organizations such as Podesta’s Center For American Progress. It’s been very obvious for a long time that they have this game plan to push their version of issues out by repeating a focus group tested mantra. It has worked very well for them. Conservatives are too individualistic to use this tactic I guess. How would you like to get an e-mail every morning with directions about the proper words and phrases to use in explaining policy?
Their calculus is that only the 14 million or so (5% of all policy holders) who are getting cancelled won’t be listened to by the much larger group that are not yet affected. So far, it doesn’t seem to be working because the media can’t ignore the complaints. But who knows, the whole issue could be spun right out of the public’s consciousness in a very short time.
What they’re thinking and murmuring in Progressivstan:
Okay, okay, maybe Obama hasn’t worked out as well as hoped. Maybe we should have nominated Hillary in 2008, and then Obama after a few years of seasoning.
Still, this has been far far better than any ewww Republican.
But with any luck, Hillary is still available.
Hillary does seem too conservative, though. How about Elizabeth Warren?
A first-term Senator with no executive experience making identity-politics history (yay!)…what could go wrong?Mitsu:
You never disappoint. I knew you would get into a nitpicky definition of “substandard” and that’s exactly what you did.
But the word “substandard” has a vernacular meaning, which is quite different. Obama is giving a speech, not speaking technically, and he follows it up with the contrast to those “substandard” plans: “quality, comprehensive coverage”—which insinuates (purposely) that the canceled plans are neither quality nor comprehensive.
But there is absolutely no evidence—or even an attempt to offer evidence—that they are (although no doubt there are some that are; but what percentage? He doesn’t even attempt to say, and insinuates they all are). The linked article describes a plan that has less quality than the one that was cancelled, which was a “Cadillac” plan. Obama’s words are deceptive, misleading, lies—in the usual (not lawyerly) sense of the world “lie.” He is telling the truth in exactly the same way that Clinton was when he said he didn’t have “sexual relations” with Monica. The Paula Jones case defined “sexual relations” very narrowly, and so it was technically correct, but when he said it to the American people he was lying, because he knew they would hear it in its general, non-technical sense. That is parallel to what Obama is doing here.
And here are the synonyms for the word “substandard” that are in common usage among people who actually speak the English language and whom Obama is addressing here rather than just technocrats: cheap [in the sense of poor quality, not low-cost], inadequate, lousy, shoddy, bad, base, below average, below par, below standard, junk, lemon, low-grade, poor, second-rate, subpar, unacceptable
The synonym “junk” is even in the list. One thing Obama and his speechwriters are well aware of is how people interpret what they say. Your calling it “spin” is a form of spin: it is a lie intended to deceive, framed in a lawyerly way for plausible deniability and further lies and spin.
But come on, Neo, even you have to admit politicians on every side do this all the time. Frank Luntz? That’s his whole job.
Yeah, jeez neo-neocon, mitsu does nothing but.
Mitsu:
Read my additions to the comment above.
Yes, politicians do it often. However, Leftist politicians do it nearly all the time, and do almost nothing else.
But as I’ve explained in many posts, Obama does it more egregiously and more consistently than any politician I’ve ever heard in my lifetime. You are a fool if you don’t see that. I’ve heard that “every politician does it” excuse all the time. Every politician does not do what Obama does. They do bits and pieces of it. He is a master at it. Mary McCarthy’s quip about Lillian Hellman is applicable to him: “every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the'” (just change the “she” to “he,” and add “utters” to “writes” and you have Obama).
And yes, that McCarthy quote is hyperbole and meant to be a joke. I’m sure that (to paraphrase Churchill) Obama occasionally stumbles over the truth, but picks himself up and hurries off as if nothing had happened.
sdferr:
Indeed.
But as I’ve said before, I think Mitsu is not 100% troll. He reminds me of a friend of mine.
We have reached a point where DC decides what you can and can not buy in the market place. What’s next… DC telling you that you can not buy a substandard used car but must buy a new Cadillac (Obama GM bias) with the premium package of accessories? I don’t want a BHO cadillac: http://tinyurl.com/mcej9g8
Again, we just have vastly different perceptions here. I perceive Luntz and his spin-operations as constantly involved in this kind of distortion. When I listen to an Obama speech, however, perhaps because most of what he’s saying (at least on domestic issues, I have more objections to some of his foreign policy), just sounds more or less straightforwardly true, with what seems to me to be fairly mild spin. Yes, he’s gifted at rhetoric, but I don’t see huge distortions or lies. Whereas I see this quite frequently with Republicans (“death panels”, for instance, or “Obama is a socialist!” and so on). Of course, you might not think those are exaggerations or hyperbole, so to you, that’s just straightforward speech.
It hardly gets better than being “gifted” [such nonsense, when merely practiced will do] at a sham art aimed at the creation of distortions and lies. But hey! Head — sand — buried
Mitsu:
I’m sorry, but it’s really a waste of time to engage with you any further. You are beyond hope.
If DC can tell you your insurance is ‘substandard’ and you must buy something beyond catastrophic coverage it will next tell you that you can not buy a ‘substandard’ used car and must buy a Cadillac (Obama GM bias). Only a dogma lackey does not see or else want to admit that once this power is given it will take a revolution at the ballot box or the cartridge box to prevent DC from next deciding what food you may or may not consume. It will creep into every aspect of your life.
Our youngest is 30 and his wife is 28. They are through with graduate school and embarking on their careers. They are now in the entry position of their chosen professions. Money is tight and now they have learned they will lose their bare bones insurance and their premiums will double or perhaps triple. This is personal. It is going to distort every aspect of the economy as consumption (and investments) that might have been directed into different areas will now be sucked into the Obamacare clusterfuck.
Remember, this is personal. Everything DC does not specifically delegated to it by the Constituion is personal as it effects you, your children, and your grandchildren.
Ms. Neoneocon-
How many of these “I lost my great health insurance” stories do you think will stand up to scrutiny, and how many do you think will fall apart… like this one? Or this one?
Do those stories count as lies, or is it axiomatic that only “the left” lies? You say that Obama does it more than any other politician you’ve encountered, but based on your writing, it’s not even clear that outright lies from right-wing sources (which seem to be be majority of what you read and link to) even register with you…
Just to put this in context, there are clearly people who will be poorly served by Obamacare… but the story is likely to be overplayed, especially by the right wing media. The real question is whether the people who get screwed by Obamacare are outnumbered by those who’ll benefit from it. At least some evidence suggests that the latter outnumber the former… but there’s no hard data on it, yet.
My question to you, Ms. Neoneocon, is – are you actually interested in having that conversation? Or are you primarily interested in just calling Obama and the rest of “the left” liars in as many posts as possible?
Mitsu is intentionally blind. He already explained the other night that he makes laughable excuses for Obama like the one above (his mother never told him about lemmings, apparently?) because he just doesn’t want to think bad things about him, which he believes only dastardly conservatives would ever do. It’s all about feeling good; he’d far rather hobble his brain, common sense and conscience than have to experience the discomfort of questioning his preconceived delusions of superiority. Of course he’s hopeless — but it certainly is educational to get him to reveal the bankruptcy of his thought processes the way he’s been doing in the past few days, and his cluelessness about what he’s revealing.
Is “the left” somehow a mirage, allasudden? Or what? The political left doesn’t wish to be identified?
That’s odd, since their ardor at expressing their self-assumed competence at running not only government, but other folks lives down into levels of creepy detail would tend to make one would think “the left” would be proud to be identified as such.
Chris:
Gee, what I’m really interested in is responding at length to trolls who come in here and subtly insult my integrity.
I always think that’s a good way to open a conversation, don’t you?
Especially when I just got finished writing to Mitsu, in another comment, that of course politicians (or zealots of any stripe) on both sides lie. However, it’s been my observation over the last many many years that the left does it far more often, as I’ve explained many times before.
There is no way to determine the veracity of individual stories about these cancelled policies, for example, especially stories that appear on random blogs. But funny thing, NBC broke the story. I hadn’t noticed that NBC is prone to lying in order to discredit Obama. The NBC story contains interviews with people who report on how their new policies are worse than their old—and perhaps their stories are even fact-checked.
Unless you think most of these people are lying, and NBC has suddenly turned on Obama and started lying against him, I think it’s best to assume there is an actual, bona fide story here.
Of course some of the initial stories (like the ones you linked to) will turn out to be people who are eligible for subsidies and just have not checked the exchanges. If you had actually read what I’ve written many times, you’d see that I’ve actually pointed out frequently that subsidies are not being figured in by many people, and that many people will get them. In fact, since the only other time you’ve been to this blog was on the thread when I was giving exactly that sort of advice to “Beverly,” you ought to already know I’ve been pointing out the subsidies to people for quite some time. In fact, even today I wrote in this post:
So I’ve been having “that conversation”—over and over.
Oh, and by the way, that chart you’ve provided ignores an extremely salient point:
One thing I’ve noticed is that Obamacare is so extremely complex that most people—even people who write about it for a living—don’t understand it fully. And even the ones that do have no really firm grip on how things will pan out. There are too many (to quote Rumsfeld in another context) “unknown unknowns.”
I’m so glad you posted this. I just finished making much the same point on The Belmont Club blog.
My “junk” plan used to be better: not as blue chip as Bob’s, but quite comprehensive. $1000 deductible, and one hundred percent in-network coverage; eighty percent for out of network. For $350/month.
Now, four years later, thanks to the Leftoids, it costs almost twice as much and has a $2000 deductible, and pays only eighty percent of my costs; also, we now have copays for office visits. But it’s still quite comprehensive, and covers all my medical needs.
What the Central Govt. is forcing on us has deductibles three times as high, and only fifty percent coverage of hospital expenses, etc.
Guess we’d just better not get sick or have any accidents.
Beverly:
As I’ve said before, that’s true for those who don’t get subsidies. With subsidies it can be a lot cheaper.
Subsidies, of course, will end up costing us all. Plus there’s the whole in-network out-of-network issue. Did you see this?
The excrement may have only begun to hit the fan.
Parker et al., they aren’t selling any Cadillacs. They’re all LEMONS at a Cadillac price.
VERY FEW people in the independent insurance market have catastrophic insurance only (what my dad, who was an insurance company executive from 1950 to 1994, says is the true “major medical” insurance — in the old days, there WAS no other type).
I’m a freelance artsy-fartsy living in Manhattan. Of all my indy confreres, I know only One person who has catastrophic only.
Actually, I was seriously thinking of buying a cat. plan myself, when I did the math on it. I wish I had. Would have made a lot more sense. What’s run up the prices for all of us is that companies competed with each other to provide more and more coverage of routine and even arcane stuff, not just the Big C or bad accidents, etc.
Beverly,
By the way, regarding catastrophic insurance: if it’s a person’s choice, it can be just fine. I’ve had just about every kind of insurance there is over the years (major medical long ago, large group, small group, individual, high-risk pool) and for a while I just had catastrophic individual. I liked it. The premiums were very low at the time. I felt protected against huge medical bills, but paid out of pocket for the rest. It met my needs very well at the time. And I was quite savvy about insurance.
There’s a moral issue, too. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.”
The Left says, “Hey, it’s okay! we will Make you steal from your neighbors. Hey, everyone’s doing it, man, so get in there and loot!”
The subsidies make me morally queasy. I’ve paid my own way, thank you very much: these esso bees robbing me of my dignity and self reliance and forcing me to, in effect, steal from my fellow humans sickens me. It’s degrading, it’s immoral, it’s lousy.
Moral degradation, demoralization, is a huge part of communist tactics of control.
The excrement may have only begun to hit the fan.
oh no..
the fit hits the shan when the welfare cash goes down
it can go many ways, since its â˜bama spending so much
I forgot that it goes down tomorrow..
Beverly,
I agree.
People who have never taken a handout are put in the position of doing so, or refusing it. Obamacare has the effect of putting more and more people on a form of the dole, and the exchanges spell out exactly how much they are getting over and above what the full price is.
I have seen quite a few commenters on blogs saying they refuse, even though they qualify for subsidies. They would rather opt out of the whole thing and pay out of pocket plus the penalties. My guess is that most of them don’t have serious health issues. It would be very very hard to say no if a person does have health issues.
To Obama and the left, I think putting more and more people on a form of the dole is a feature rather than a bug. They want more and more people to feel they cannot survive without the federal government’s largesse.
Neo:
Regarding your response to Chris: Boom!
In the past it was almost became a national mantra to complain about private health insurance. A few years ago, any discussion would include rants about the awful HMOs.
All of that was very fashionable; and some was no doubt justified. As these rants were raging, I had a very different personal observation on one very large, successful HMO.
Seventeen years ago, my twin grandchildren were born prematurely and quite small with the attendant problems; not newsworthy small, but small and vulnerable enough for it to be a big concern. The girl spent one month resident in the HMO’s neo-natal ICU. The boy spent two months in the same unit. Round the clock care and monitoring. Nothing held back, no questions asked; all expenses covered. (Now both are strong high school athletes.)
Last year my 21 year old granddaughter, older sister of the twins, was diagnosed with leukemia. She was hospitalized for three of the next five months. Her treatment included a bone marrow transplant from little sister, and one month of hospitalization in the HMO’s partner hospital, which is a world-class cancer treatment center. Nothing held back, no questions asked. All expenses covered.
You will never hear stories about cases like that when the Administration bashes private insurance providers. I am sure that these experiences are not unique.
I predict that the time will come, when people will belatedly realize just how many good, and often not appreciated, options there were for our health care. So many will wonder why we didn’t just build on those options to incorporate the needy into the existing system with minimal disruption; with minimal government foot printing stomping on the system. It will be too late.
Beverly, you make a point that hasn’t received enough attention: the effect of the subsidies on people’s dignity and pride. To order people to purchase a product that they can afford only by accepting government aid is to compel them to set aside their dignity, to make themselves into dependents. I mean no disrespect of any kind to those who must sometimes accept help to feed or house themselves or their kids. That’s what safety nets are for — but ordinarily the need for a safety net results from loss and catastrophe other than government fiat. To have an American government use the force of law to take independence away from its citizens — and then to tell them they should be grateful to give it up — is corrosive to the American spirit beyond anything I can think of in our history. And of course, it’s not accidental. The less pride and self-respect we have, the weaker and more dependent we are, the more we need an all-powerful government to supply our basic needs, the better the Left likes us.
And yes, Boom.
Chris Says:
Yo Chris, this has happened to my youngest and daughter in law. Its real and you are a running dog lackey. Go worship at the feet of your messiah and get ready to play spades with Reggie.
“I think putting more and more people on a form of the dole is a feature rather than a bug. They want more and more people to feel they cannot survive without the federal government’s largesse.”
Oh come on, don’t be shy, you don’t think it you know it. 😉
“the effect of the subsidies on people’s dignity and pride.”
Welcome to the Wilson-FDR-LBJ-Nixon-Carter-Obama GREAT SOCIETY!!! Its all unicorns, ice cream, rainbows (not really), and long lines to purchase a loaf of moldy bread paid for by a wheel barrow filled with money you had to push to the bread line; but wait… by the time your turn comes you need another wheel barrow filled 10,000,000,000 Zimbabwe bucks.
Ms. Neoneocon-
What you read as an insult to your integrity was actually intended more as an open question regarding it. If that makes me a a troll in your eyes, so be it.
I’m far more interested in seeing whether you can actually substantively back up your “the left lies more often,” thesis. To accurately do so, you’d have to have some sort of objectivity regarding how often liberals lie, how often conservatives lie, and then demonstrate that the former is much greater than the latter. Given that your primary motive seems to be endless recitations that liberals lie, and almost entirely ignoring conservative lies, I’m skeptical, and I’m pleased to be able to share that skepticism as a counterpoint to your blog.
You state that there is no way to determine the veracity of individual stories… but this is nonsense. People can do exactly what the stories I linked to do – contact the people making the claims and find out whether they’re telling the truth or not. You may very well say that you don’t trust reporting by Salon or by the LA Times, but there’s a not-insubstantial right-wing media who could do their own reporting on the story if either debunking were untrue. (Heck, Hannity should feel compelled to do so, if he were half as concerned with lying as you seem to be.) Accordingly, I think the burden of proof is on you and other skeptics to demonstrate that the linked stories above are false.
I further note that you’re confusing the various claims that are being made. The stories I’ve linked to are to people whose claims of “I lost my great health insurance” or “Obamacare is killing my business” have been shown to be overblown. This is relevant to your original post regarding Bob Laszewski’s health insurance plan. But w/r/t the NBC story, you seem to be trying to suggest that I’m somehow denying that millions of people are going to have to change their insurance plans – although I’ve never said that.
You have indeed pointed out that subsidies aren’t being factored in by a lot of people – the first time I wrote to this blog was to compliment you on that exact fact. However, the lies in the links I’ve pointed out go beyond people merely forgetting about subsidies – Sean Hannity basically represented a 4-person employer as being destroyed by Obamacare when his business was, by all accounts, basically untouched. Again, what I’m interested in doing is seeing whether those kinds of stories interest you at all if they’re lies on the right wing… and based on evidence, they don’t.
As for “that conversation”, forgive me I feel that you saying “I think more people will be hurt by Obamacare than helped” without any sources, in the middle of hammering home yet again how terrible Obama is for lying, is not exactly the same as having an honest conversation as to the pros and cons of Obamacare.
As for the Avik Roy post you link to, I hadn’t actually seen that. Roy is hardly an unbiased source, but he is occasionally on point, so while I think there’s a decent chance that he could be debunked in the next few days, I’m willing to accept it for the sake of argument.
In fact, let’s go one step further – let’s say that Roy, and you, have unequivocally proven that Obama completely lied w/r/t to this issue. For you to really show your thesis of Obama’s ultimate evil, wouldn’t you have to show how this is substantially worse than other lies in the past… such as Dick Cheney’s “I believe we will be greeted as liberators”? (Which was of course followed up by “I think we have [been greeted as liberators] by most Iraqis”.) You mention that quote once on your blog that I can tell, and you’re far more evenhanded in your treatment of the Bush administration than the Obama admin. Do you believe it’s unfair for me to ask for a similar kind of objectivity w/r/t Obama, or am I simply misreading the purpose of your writing?
PS – interested to see whether you’ll mention to Beverly above how she’s yet again not taking subsidies into account. Now that you’ve already mentioned it to her once, does her comment rise to the level of a lie, by your standards?
Actually, I posted before seeing Neo’s response to Beverly. I am impressed, stand corrected, and apologize.
Beverly and Neo:
Yes, the whole point of Obamacare was to make everyone dependent upon the government for their healthcare, which amounts at times to being dependent upon the government for life itself. Now, add to that the recent revelations that the NSA (and who knows which other agencies) knows everything you say or do. Then, add the fact that the IRS punished any threat to Obama.
So when we’re all dependent upon the current government for life itself, who among us will dare vote against it? Oh a few might, but never anything faintly close to a majority.
Chris, My brother-in-law was in the first company of Marines into Iraq. They were greeted as liberators.
“Actually, I posted before seeing Neo’s response to Beverly. I am impressed, stand corrected, and apologize.”
Who gives a fuck? Absolutely no one. FUCK OFF AND DIE.l
Chris, you gave yourself an opportunity to learn something by making a fool out of yourself with your snotty assumption about what Neo would or wouldn’t say about subsidies. You had the grace to apologize, which is something — so now maybe you could try to hang onto that grace just a little longer and think about what just happened. You were having such a fine old time sneering at the caricature in your own mind that you apparently forgot you were addressing an actual person — a person who might not cooperate with your fervent wish for her to behave like a cartoon. Now, consider: what might happen with that conversation you said you wanted to have, if you bear in mind throughout that you’re talking to a human being? What if you use some ordinary manners as you speak — the same way I’ll bet you would if you met face to face — set aside the contempt and hostility and stereotypes, and ask your questions as if you really want to hear the answers, rather than just confirm the prejudices you came here with? I don’t know if you’d change any minds, but at least you’d do less to alienate them. And who knows, you –or we — might learn something.
Chris . . .
We WERE greeted as liberators! Too bad the MSM were so invested in sneering at Bush that they forgot to actually report the news.
I followed the news from Iraqi sources, so I knew better than the NYT reporters about what was actually going on. I also personally knew the parents of the NYT Baghdad bureau chief. They were SO proud of their foolish and ignorant daughter, who was escorted around Baghdad by a known Saddam supporter in order to get her news. Of course, she passed on the Baathist party’s outlook to all those ignorant NYT readers who think they’re so informed.
Chris . . .
Why are you still sticking to your silly view of Cheney and Iraq? Cheney was one of the few leaders in our generally corrupted government who actually cared about the United States and the Iraqis. You fault him for his wrong predictions. What do you predict Iran will do in the next few months?
Neo . . .
You are a terrific writer and researcher, and you have far more patience that I do for brain-dead liberals. They simply cannot think for themselves. Whatever powers of observation they had in their pasts have atrophied. Their entire being and self-respect is invested with being part of the “cool” herd. They are lost souls.
Promethea:
Thanks—but I must say my patience is not infinite :-).
Neo,
It’s clear that you feel you’re “objectively” judging the number of lies and distortions by the other side, but I’d submit that it is far more difficult than you assume to know what your own biases are. For instance — you seriously believe that there’s a decent chance that totalitarian statist communism might prevail in the United States, and that Obama is very likely carrying out the agenda of grizzled sixties radicals, in secret, while pretending to be an ordinary politician. That, to me, and pretty much to nearly anyone I know, just sounds completely unbelievable. There are a whole host of things that you must judge as intentional deceptions that have, to people less likely to believe that sort of picture of the world, to have perfectly reasonable explanations within the discourse of ordinary politics.
Of course I don’t think NBC is “lying” or “distorting” in the case of these stories about cancelled policies — as I’ve said from the beginning in THIS particular case I actually agree, on balance, with the critique. When I say that in my perception the right distorts far more than the left, it’s based on a very, very large number of examples, as well. Evidently you think I’m “naive” — and I think you’re paranoid. But that’s why it’s probably fairly pointless to debate these judgements because they’re so embedded in diametrically opposed suspicions about hidden motives.
What I’m more interested in is policy — what might be optimal or not. It’s really just in the realm of speculation what the “real” motives of Obama or whoever else might be. What is and isn’t reasonable policy? That’s something it seems to be it might be possible to discuss. Perhaps I’m wrong.
I wonder if Neo’s theory “it depends what your objectives are” is in play here and we’re missing it?
By forcing insurance companies to cancel policies, their revenue drops significantly. By simultaneously creating a total cluster f**k of an enrollment plan for the exchanges, it makes it difficult, if not impossible for the same insurance companies to re-enroll the lost customers. Obama I bet promised this much to the insurance companies- the law was to be written giving the insurance companies no choice but to drop the a large number of people, but the understanding was they could charge higher premiums that had no risk of payout- why else require Single men to carry maternity insurance? This is free money to the insurance giants. The whole law is full of nonsense like that, but the it wasn’t stupidity or accidental- the insurance companies were salivating at the chance to charge gobs of money for coverage that couldn’t be claimed. That was their carrot. So you can cancel the policies, cash in on the new law, and everybody makes out.
But Obama double crossed them – they never intended to make it possible for the exchanges to work. They created the mess deliberately to both force the insurance companies out of business, or cripple them, and Set the stage for what they really wanted all along – single payer, total government control. Now the insurance companies are the scapegoat, and the government looks like the savior so for millions who got left without insurance. A perfectly manufactured crisis that both robs the insurance companies of millions of customers and weakens them financially, and forces the voters to accept the shitty government plan that Obama had in mind from the start.
Right. The healthcare.gov debacle was a nefarious plot by the Administration from the beginning. It was all a plan!
As I’ve said before — this is like the mirror image of my leftist friends who believe the bankers engineered the crash of 2008.
(One thing that never fails to impress me is how strongly people always want to believe that everything that happens is due to some kind of elaborately engineered plan. When, in fact, 99% of the shit that comes down the pike is due to incompetence and fuckupery. By both the right, and the left, and everybody in between. People aren’t as smart as you think they are.)
Mitsu:
And yet, it’s possible that neither of the theories is correct, that the left is correct, that the right is correct, or both is correct. The fact that they are mirror images has no bearing on their truth.
Replying to you is a bit like eating potato chips. I keep vowing to stop, but there the bowl of chips is, so tempting.
Neo, good luck with Mitsu. He knows everything. You’re just an inferior mind who cannot possibly outthink him.
I suppose I’ll take that “tempting” remark as a compliment. Not that you meant it that way.
The irony is, of course, that if the right is correct and the left is wrong, it means the left is this amazingly capable set of masterminds executing an unbelievably elaborate secret plan, in which even when it appears they’re totally fucking up, in fact that’s actually just more evidence of their amazing competence at carrying out their secret plan. In a way, it’s an amazing vote of confidence in the skill set of these leftist conspirators.
Yet I would aver that if the left were really so incredibly capable of carrying this out, why are they so inept as to choose to be trying to implement an idea that is so old that even Austin Powers might find it anachronistic? I feel as though at any moment some old leftist is going to jump out of the bushes and demand a “meeeeelion dollars” ransom for the return of American capitalism…
Mitsu:
I could have come up with the plan. It’s not that hard; it’s just common sense really. I wouldn’t want to do it, but it’s not difficult to conceptualize at all. Conceptualizing and executing are two different things.
Executing such a plan is much more difficult. If indeed that was their plan, I think they are experiencing some unintended and unforeseen consequences with the execution part of it.
Oh, and what’s the age of a plan (or at least, its template) got to do with anything?
Execution of any plan is ALWAYS hard. It’s pretty much impossible to control all the variables. If healthcare.gov never gets fixed, by far the most likely consequence will be Democrats are discredited and lose the next election in vast numbers, and the entire thing is repealed by a Republican president, Senate, and House.
IT is extremely difficult. Obama’s White House is probably the most technically savvy administration in history, but that’s not saying much. They obviously screwed up here, big time; it’s just like so many failed IT projects from the old days. People without experience in tech frequently vastly underestimate the problems that can occur and the difficulty in fixing them — everything about this screams incompetence, of a sort that used to be very, very common and still is common when it comes to government projects.
As I said before, here’s a point of agreement between me and most of your posters: the government is bad at doing some things. Tech projects is one of them. A much more likely explanation for this, and most fuckups, for that matter, by either Republicans or Democrats.
In this regard I’m actually in the minority both on the left and the right. You guys and my leftist friends almost always want to believe the conspiracy theory above the “fuckup” theory. This is one way in which I differ from most other people interested in politics: I am a believer in “incompetence is the first and best explanation for most everything that goes wrong.” The “evil mastermind” explanation is, to my mind, something that makes more sense in action movies than it is in reality.
Incompetence is a serious enough problem and it is very difficult to fix. It takes effort, time, research, process improvements. It takes work, in other words. I think it’s easier for us to believe that things go wrong because someone is sabotaging us, when in fact things go wrong because we haven’t put in the work we need to figure out how to make it go well.
>what’s the age of a plan
The point I’m making is the same one I made before — leftists have moved on from the old statist communism thing. It’s over, nobody cares anymore, nobody wants that, it’s failed. I mean, it was over when John Lennon sang “But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao / You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow” and it’s been downhill from there.
If Obama and his team are so competent as to be carrying out this amazing plan of getting elected to the Presidency to carry out this vision, it’s just a bizarre contrast with the fact that in your theory, he wants to implement, secretly, a system that has been discredited even among leftists, as of decades ago, because it doesn’t work, at all, and never worked. How can he be simultaneously so competent and so incompetent?
To Chris: to say that I’m being given other people’s money, without their consent, to pay for a CRAP SANDWICH is supposed to make me dance around with gratitude, like the drones whose loyalty you lot are always buying?
BUZZ OFF. Sell your swill to someone else, you insufferable prat.
“Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.
“Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
“Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery!
“Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable–and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.”
–Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775
Communism has been discredited among leftists? On what planet?
God Almighty.
Another huge thing many are ignoring is that once the government has us all by the short and curlies, they’ll Really have a vast amount of life and death power over us all.
And they can change the terms unilaterally any time they feel like it. Vote them out? Yeah, right. Look at how the Dims closed the Republican car dealerships in the government takeover of our auto industry: those the oligarchy deems “enemies of the people” will be punished.
Re state control: the Left has moved more toward the fascist model of socialism, true. Hitler, an admirer of Karl Marx, learned from the Soviets’ mistakes. Were the Germans any freer than the Russians? Hitler just figured out that if you leave the C-suite folks nominally in charge, with the same wealthy, they will do whatever you say without too much demur.
Nazi = National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
Repeal Obamacare isn’t nearly enough.
At the founding, the government had state, treasury, and war. Everything else should be eliminated.
Who is this “Chris” and why does he think he’s in a position to talk down to the rest of us? Is he going to be one of the New Made Men at the top of ObamaCare and its subsidiary corporations?
Early this year I talked about how there was not enough hate for our enemies, the Left. A sufficient amount for Islamic jihad, yes, but not sufficient to fight against the Left.
Obama has fixed this imbalance in emotional status for the most part. When the Iron Fist of the Left begins to tighten and crush the children, not even American patriots can sit happy on the couch living the life of luxury enough to ignore it.
It was easy to ignore Vietnam and the Fall of Saigon, since conditions in the US didn’t change much, the Democrats just siphoned funding from Vietnam to their domestic cronyies, increasing economic output. It won’t be so easy this time as the people they are siphoning from using vampiric methods, are the American people themselves.
So now that there is enough real emotion, real hate, what’s next? Controlling it and funneling it towards tactical and strategic beneficial outcomes.
http://www.targetfocustraining.com/videos/
frontsight dot com
Since emotions are flaring up, there may come a time when you would say something in physical reality that you might not have cause you were keeping your head down while the Regime plowed through America.
In such circumstances, rationality, logick, and law won’t protect your free speech or your physical security.
It’ll be up to you alone to safeguard your “right”. You have no rights if you cannot defend them, after all.
People may not be able to do anything about Obama or the Left with their power, but even if you cannot change the world, you can still change yourself.
@Mitsu
–
It was not simple incompetence. They literally did not have a single clue about the technical side of this. No politician or bureaucrat could done the project proper. No knowledge or experience with this technical field.
–
An allegory for you :
They decided to hold a ‘piss on the electric fence contest’. And are wondering what that scorched and painful feeling is all about.
–
No contractor in their right minds will accept this kind of project from any Corporate Company.
–
The reasons :
Project Specifications ...… constantly moving / changing … wildly unstable.
–
Five different government Mainframe / Computer systems and networks to seamlessly integrate ...… no documentation / no source code.
… hardware and software DESIGNED incompatible.
… Vendor Lock-In with a vengeance.
… Wildly different file formats and network protocols.
… which all require custom translators.
–
The number of possible software programs being used by the insurance companies ...… maintain countless file format translators for free.
… almost all of the file format translators will have to be reversed-engineered.
… the translators will also have to be updated constantly.
… reverse-engineering is both time and money expensive.
–
Any competent programmer will tell you that you can’t even begin a project without the specifications being set in stone!
–
Those that don’t are lying or “Out of Business” shortly.
The Obama Crony shop said “they’d get it done” though for X amount of cash.
I see a bumper sticker:
” Hands Off My Junk, Bro “
Bob L:
:-).
>Communism has been discredited among leftists? On what planet?
The planet Earth, circa 2-3 decades ago? Most leftists have moved onto something more akin to Chomsky’s idea of “libertarian socialism”, which believes in abolishing coercive government control and is verging on anarchy. State socialism as an idea is dead. If there are a few grizzled old leftists still clinging to it, it has absolutely no future, deservedly so. You guys can keep jumping on the corpse of Stalinism, worried that it is going to come back like Jason, but — it’s not coming back. And good riddance.
Chomsky is a Leftist. His linguistic “elite status” was designed to be the new EngSoc in controlling human thought via language. He is one of those high up on the list when it comes to totalitarian government control.
Since Mitsu has constructed a belief and identity system based against socialism, all that remains for us to do is to wait until the Left makes him believe, whether he likes it or not.
We don’t really have to lift a finger at this point.