Obamacare: bait…
And the public never even took the bait in the first place.
More here.
The gist of the message is that from the outset the calculations to sell Obamacare to the American public were slipshod and/or naive and/or mistaken and/or simplistic and/or lies.
And this is news to exactly whom?
Of course, large federal government programs are like that; that’s why many people are distrustful of them in the first place. Small pilot programs are the way to experiment with things. Local and state programs are the way to experiment with things. And then keep, or expand, the ones that seem to work. Redesigning the health care insurance system of the entire US at one fell swoop is inherently risky, and the promises that this would constitute an improvement should always have been taken with a grain of salt.
Actually, when Obama assured the American people that their health insurance premiums would be lowered by “up to $2,500 for a typical family per year” he was saying absolutely nothing on the face of it, although he was counting on his listeners to hear something and like what they heard. But a statement such as his merely means that a “typical” family (whatever that is; a family of four? living in what state?) would face a ceiling of $2,500 for the amount its premiums might be lowered per year. He’d be technically correct if a single “typical” family had its premiums lowered $2,500, and all the other families of that type had theirs lowered by a dollar. Or even had them raised.
In other words, it was a meaningless statement.
What will actually happen is anyone’s guess, including the author of the Forbes piece critical of Obama. One reason is that there is no “typical” family, because (a) the present state-to-state variation among what families of the same size are paying is vast; and (b) since poorer families will be subsidized by less-poor ones, families of the same size will end up paying very different premiums depending on income. So even an average premium would tell us very little.
What’s more, Obamacare is supposed to be financed in part by the famous individual mandate. But the penalty for not enrolling is far less than the yearly premium would be for most people and families, and since a person or family can enroll in Obamacare without increased penalty as soon as he/she experiences a decline in health, many people will probably wait to enroll. How will that affect the premiums of the others? Let’s just say it’s unlikely to make them go down.
“And this is news to exactly whom?”
Exactly! And yet those of us who didn’t buy these obviously false claims at the time were written off as racists and idiots.
Said it before and I’ll say it again:
To cover (practically) everyone, regardless of preexisting conditions, and have the “typical” family’s monthly or annual premium go down is an *actuarial* *impossibility*.
And that’s independent of the fact that virtually all government programs end up costing far more than promised.
You may as well legislate the value of pi to be 3 (as was done once, and of course the intellectuals look down their intellectual noses at such silliness — but to attempt what the liar-in-chief tried to sell the American people was equivalent silliness, except the intellectual class (at least the leftie component, which is easily the bulk of it) bought it hook-line-sinker, looking down their intellectual noses at anyone who doubted the liar-in-chief).
Run-on sentence over. Rant over.
Why won’t most self employed people just pay the Roberts “tax” then “go naked” and pay cash for all their routine healthcare until/unless insurance is really needed (say, after a cancer or heart failure diagnosis, or even a car wreck-caused trauma) , at which point they’re guaranteed to get it at standard rates and without any penalty for the pre-existing condition?
There’s got to be a reason why that won’t work and why most self employed types won’t try it; can someone who knows explain?
http://legalinsurrection.com/
Cruz on the Senate floor.
It was obvious the proponents of Obama care were lying about the cost. We have the examples of Tenncare AKA Hillary care and Romney care. In 9 years the cost of Tenncare increased from 2.5 billion to 8 billion and it was well on the way to bankrupting the state of Tennessee. The Massachusetts state treasurer stated that Romney care was going to bankrupt the state.
Little pusillanimous, surrender only, boys. Surrender is all you do, RINO’s. You want the Big Free like everybody else.
When Someone makes a stand, not a Word.
Silence.
You make me sick. When you starve, I’ll have a hard time feeling sad.
For the hard core lefties Obamacare is the national, single payer health care foot in the door. The fact that it won’t work and will cost a bunch are features which will make national health care look good. Meanwhile, the low information voter just assumes he will get free health care because Obama cares about them.
I have been listening to Ted Cruz’s filibuster on legalinsurrection most of the evening, 5 hours now. I sent him campaign $ last year.
But Wow. What a man, what a mind. He keeps on ticking. Fifty more like him in the Senate and the Ship of State would turn 180 degrees.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/24/Obamacare-and-the-Chattering-Class-Its-Deja-Vu-All-Over-Again
Cruz, after 20 hours, destroys Dick Durbin.
The FreedomWork Live live stream on LI reached 1,000,000 views immediately after TC sat down and during the prayer.
The odious Harry Reid now speaking. Well, okay. I’m wondering whether those who thought TC was grandstanding or that the defunding effort had no chance still think that. Among those is the great Thomas Sowell who states two things: Defunding never had a chance. Defunding is a distraction.
Both are wrong. Defunding is more than just defunding. Thomas Sowell is technically correct, but there’s a wider circle. Even he states that elections are the way to change Washington D.C., and that’s the wider circle.
Distraction. Yes. I enjoyed it very much. Let’s have many more like it.
sharpie-
The Senate Dems are all odious, every last one of them: Reid, Durbin, Menendez, etc., etc. Take your pick. We should add McCain to the list as an ‘honorable’ Democrat.
With a almost a million viewers on C-Span for the hours I tuned in, the wider circle may have begun to widen, which gives me hope. But extraordinary damage can be done in even the year til the next election, never mind the monstroud damage until 2016.
carl in atlanta wrote:
“There’s got to be a reason why that won’t work [paying the “tax” and buying insurance only after a serious medical problem] and why most self employed types won’t try it; can someone who knows explain?”
Mr. Frank wrote:
“The fact that it won’t work and will cost a bunch are features which will make national health care look good.
I believe the design of the system–especially 1) that the “tax” or “penalty” costs less than buying insurance combined with 2) the guarantee that one can buy “insurance” at any time at standard rates–is intended to kill off private insurance companies. Or, if not that, then force premiums to skyrocket to such astronomical heights that many (foolish) people will beg for the government to step in and take over the whole damn thing.
At the time this monstrous piece of crap was passed, it was quite clear that many of the Dems who voted for it (and progressives generally), saw it as just a first step in creating a national health care system.
carl in atlanta wrote:
“There’s got to be a reason why that won’t work [paying the “tax” and buying insurance only after a serious medical problem] and why most self employed types won’t try it; can someone who knows explain?”
In case my comment above didn’t clearly address carl’s question, the explanation is that the self-employed and many others will game the system exactly as he describes–but the Dems/progressives don’t care. By subverting the basic premise of “insurance” (that you buy it before you’re seriously ill, thus spreading the risk across a large population of mostly-well people), Obamacare will either kill off private medical insurance or force premiums to absurdly high levels. Either way, there’s a good chance that the government takes over the whole shebang.
It’s not just about the premiums, which are most noticed by the healthy insured. For those actually needing health care, it is also about co-pays, deductibles, hospital and doc networks (= reduced access), and those will become huge burdens.
I am a doc, and my fellow docs will care for me properly—almost as good as being a Federal employee.