A lie is just a truth that wasn’t precise enough…

The New Neo Posted on by

…saith the Democrats.

Much better than “fake but accurate,” don’t you think? If there were a prize for creativity in making excuses for boldfaced lying, I believe the current crop of explanations for Obama’s oft-repeated “If you like your [fill in the blank] you can keep it [him]” promises would win, hands down.

To refresh your memory:

Flash forward to now. Here’s Steny Hoyer:

“We knew that there would be some policies that would not qualify and therefore people would be required to get more extensive coverage,” Hoyer said in response to a question from National Review.

Asked by another reporter how repeated statements by Obama to the contrary weren’t “misleading,” Hoyer said “I don’t think the message was wrong. I think the message was accurate. It was not precise enough”¦[it] should have been caveated with ”“ ”˜assuming you have a policy that in fact does do what the bill is designed to do.’”

Now, I wonder why Obama and other Democrats didn’t make that admittedly more accurate and complete statement—as in, the truth—in the first place? Because it would contradict the lying message they wanted to get out, which is that if you liked your policy you could keep it. Adding the caveat Hoyer has belatedly suggested would have essentially changed the message into something like this: “Obamacare’s requirements may cause changes in your health insurance plan if it’s not in compliance with the law.” And that was most assuredly not what Obama or the other Democrats wanted to tell the American people.

If Hoyer or any of those defending the lies were actually interested in truth, I would also draw their attention to the unequivocal nature of Obama’s statement, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan, PERIOD.” That “period” in there actually means that the statement is complete and precise as is; no qualifications. Not that the “period” was necessary to make the statement definitive, but Obama added it to make it even more so, the better to emphasize the no “ifs,” “ands,” or “buts” nature of his promise.

But Hoyer et al are most assuredly not interested in the truth. They are interested in spin and butt-covering for one of the most egregious and definitely one of the most important lies ever told the American people by a president.

The real problem, though, is not their spin, which would and should be laughable to any thinking person. It’s that some people accept and/or parrot it, and some of those people are members of the still-influential MSM. And if the majority of Americans either nod in accord or shrug in disinterest, than we as a people have become profoundly stupid and/or profoundly corrupted.

Obamacare girl has disappeared…

The New Neo Posted on by

…from the website:

She is no longer, as of this weekend, the face of the health law’s Web site. In her place are four bright logos, each representing a different way to apply for insurance coverage: Online, over the phone, with a paper application and in person.

I had joked that she was in the witness protection program. Apparently I wasn’t that far off:

Health and Human Services does not plan to release her information. Spokesman Richard Olague told Buzzfeed, “The woman featured on the website signed a release for us to use the photo, but to protect her privacy, we will not share her personal or contact info with anyone.”

More ruminations on Obama’s Big Lie: you can keep it

The New Neo Posted on by

Let me say first that anyone who believed Obama was telling the truth when he promised “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan” was naive.

And that’s an understatement. Not just naive; gullible.

Or perhaps just plain stupid.

Why did he say it? To sooth the public, calm the waters of protest, and make Obamacare acceptable. That it didn’t really work—that Obamacare has remained unpopular from before its passage to the present—doesn’t mean he wasn’t trying to make it sound more pleasing and less disruptive to people’s lives.

Perhaps he thought that once Obamacare actually was implemented people would like it better, especially the ones receiving subsidies. That’s potentially a large portion of the American public and a large redistribution of wealth. Perhaps he thought that, as more older policies were canceled or changed, and more and more people came on the exchanges and many received subsidies as well, it would sweeten the deal. Or perhaps his goal all the time was to create a demand for single payer, and to do that he had to break a few health insurance policy omelets without warning the public it was about to happen.

One thing we do know is that his promise was a lie, as in “a statement the speaker knows to be false while uttering it.” NBC News, of all people, is reporting that:

President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”

None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date — the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example — the policy would not be grandfathered.

Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”

That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.

Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”

“This says that when they made the promise, they knew half the people in this market outright couldn’t keep what they had and then they wrote the rules so that others couldn’t make it either,” said Robert Laszewski, of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a consultant who works for health industry firms.

I doubt this would come as a surprise to any reader of this blog—or to anyone who hasn’t just dropped down from planet Xenon. Did it come as a surprise to NBC News?

Anyway, Jay Carney has an answer—it’s just not an answer to the question asked:

Today, White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked about the president’s promise that consumers would be able to keep their health care. “What the president said and what everybody said all along is that there are going to be changes brought about by the Affordable Care Act to create minimum standards of coverage, minimum services that every insurance plan has to provide,” Carney said. “So it’s true that there are existing healthcare plans on the individual market that don’t meet those minimum standards and therefore do not qualify for the Affordable Care Act.”

So, you didn’t really hear the promise you thought you heard. And of course, we did the bait and switch For Your Own Good.

[NOTE: By the way, I first noticed this propensity of Obama’s in June of 2008, in regard to campaign financing. He broke an oft-repeated promise, blamed the Republicans, and got away with it.

It also might be time to revisit this, from November of 2009:

Cons, like Obama, are ordinarily out to deceive people as to their true purposes. But it’s an error to think they come across as sleazy. The most effective ones are unusually likeable and charming, even as they pull off their scams. This likeability is not a tangential characteristic of con artists, either; it is a central one.

“Con,” after all, is short for “confidence.” The con artist works by gaining the victim’s confidence and trust. The successful con artist is so very likeable, in fact, that he seems especially credible, and people who might otherwise be wary and cynical drop their guard around him. They don’t examine him too closely, so great is their desire to believe.

Contradictions are waved away. Acts that would arouse suspicion if they were committed by someone else are excused. Important omissions go unnoticed. Inconsistencies are rationalized. Shady company is defended or ignored. Sound familiar?]

Obama lied for you, not to you

The New Neo Posted on by

[UPDATE: I’m adding this link as an update rather than an addendum, in order to spotlight it.]

Obama lied, millions lost their health care.

A defense is shaping up, though, from Democrats like New Jersey’s Joe Vitale:

Critics, however, say the changes belie the president’s often-repeated claim that if you like your insurance plan, you can keep it.

But state Sen. Joe Vitale (D-Middlesex) said it’s a nuanced promise.

“The president also said he won’t tolerate benefit plans that don’t meet the basic needs of our citizens,” Vitale said.

“Basic needs”—like maternity and newborn benefits for those in their 60s. That sort of thing.

Vitale’s statement expresses a basic liberal tenet, though, which is that liberals (and particularly, liberals in the government) know better than you what you need, and they are determined to “help” you get it. Obama, the good father, is looking out for you, and “won’t tolerate” plans that he, in his infinite wisdom, has decided are not what you need. No matter what you may want.

So if he lied to you about it, it was really For Your Own Good.

[ADDENDUM: Here’s another justification, this time from Josh Barro at Business Insider. His article ends with the words:

“If you like your health plan, you can keep it” was never a reasonable promise; health reform that addressed America’s combination of high cost, middling outcomes and spotty coverage was necessarily going to have to change a lot of people’s health plans. So yes, that statement is proving false ”” and it’s a good thing.]

Obama: the president who wasn’t there

The New Neo Posted on by

The headline reads: “President Obama Unaware of Spying”:

President Barack Obama didn’t know about the NSA spying on foreign leaders for years, and he put an end to it when the administration found out about the program, according to a new report.

The monitoring of 35 world leaders’ communications was brought to light during an internal review of NSA programs this summer, an administration official told The Wall Street Journal. Obama halted the monitoring of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others immediately, and some remaining monitoring programs are being phased out, the official said.

I’ve lost count of the times Obama has used the “I didn’t know” defense, including its subset “I only read about it for the first time in the papers, just like you” (not being used here, but a real favorite).

Maybe it’s true that he didn’t know, maybe it’s not true. We certainly don’t know. But the pattern is one of either denial of knowledge or of actual ignorance. And the majority of Americans seem to have forgiven him enough to re-elect him; perhaps they identify.

Obama reminds me of this poem:

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away…

And he also conjures up one of my very favorite passages from the Mikado (I’ve cued it to start at the right spot; pay special attention to Pooh-Bah at 36:52):

We used to demand competency and responsibility from our presidents. Now we demand—what? Oratory and coolness, and—stuff?

Obamacare problems: the stab in the back

The New Neo Posted on by

Jonathan Bernstein at Salon is spinning so hard I fear for his health.

After some obligatory throat-clearing about how the Obamacare rollout really wasn’t handled all the well, and how it must be fixed, he gets down to the heart of the matter:

Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that whatever their own responsibility for what’s gone wrong, the White House shares responsibility with the Republicans who have spent three years actively attempting to undermine the law. I’m not talking about repeal votes, which (while silly after a while) were totally legitimate, or about running against the program in subsequent elections, which was again entirely fair. No, I’m talking about actions designed ”” usually openly ”” not to make the law work better in their view, but to make it harder for the law to work well.

While some of these had obvious direct effects, most of them did not. And it’s hard, in most cases, to draw a direct causal line between disruptive actions and specific malfunctions in the Web site. Nevertheless, it’s hard to believe that any of these actively helped make the program run smoothly, and very easy to believe that the cumulative effect had at least some part to play in the October fiasco.

That’s just—sad.

Bernstein goes on to list eight things those Republicans did that weren’t all that helpful—perhaps—to a law that went against their philosophy of government and which they thought would be highly destructive if passed, and which didn’t even have the support of all the Democrats in Congress, much less the American people.

[NOTE: By the way, here’s the reference in the title. And no, the Democrats aren’t Nazis.]

Employment-based health insurance vs. the exchanges

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a post at Ace’s, written by someone named Warden, describing his experience with employment-based health insurance premiums this year. Here’s what happened to him:

My own horror show arrived in the mail today. I’ll spare you the gory details. Here’s the short version: A 25% increase in premiums for the same health coverage I carried last year. For someone on a family plan, that translates into a $1,200 yearly increase.

So congratulations. If you make somewhere around $50,000 a year, then more than your entire after tax annual raise just went to pay for Obamacare. Doesn’t that feel FANTASTIC? You’re bringing home less this year than you did last year.

And you’re one of the lucky ones. See, you have a job. And you got a raise. You’re one of life’s lottery winners. A one percenter.

He might be even more upset if he took a look at what would happen if he were to go on the exchanges. At an income of $50,000 a year and with a family of four, and if $1,200 represents a 25% increase, he appears to be about to start paying premiums of about $6K a year up from $4.8K last year (he also reports having to pay an additional $600 as a smoker’s penalty, but let’s leave that out and just figure the basics).

As a person who’s buying insurance though work, he is eligible to go on the exchanges and shop around. Using this handy calculator (which is not exactly accurate for all states but which seems to give a good idea of what to expect in many), it turns out that, if Warden and his wife are both 35 and have two minor children, a silver plan (the standard used) would cost $9748 a year, with fairly high deductibles and co-pays that would amount to the consumer having to pay about 30% of the family’s medical expenses as well.

So that’s not a good deal for him at all. There’s no reason to go to the exchanges—and even if that age estimate is too low, if his age were higher than that the cost to him would be even higher.

So forget the exchanges. Right?

But what about subsidies? A person getting employment-based insurance can use the exchanges instead and get subsidies as well if his premiums for insurance through work—if he were single—would amount to over 9.5% of his income. That’s a bit hard to understand, but it means that for Warden, whose income is $50K, although he’s actually being asked to pay a whopping 12.5% of his income for work-based premiums on a family plan, he’s not eligible for a subsidy on the exchanges because if he were single he’d probably be paying a lot less than 9.5% of his income for his work-based premiums. I don’t know the exact figure he’d be paying at his company if he were single, but unless it were above $4750 a year (highly unlikely, if a family plan is $6000), then he would not be eligible for a subsidy on the exchanges no matter how high his actual work-based premiums are.

But surely, then, he’s better off than if he were self-employed, making $50K a year, the same age with the same family, and on the exchanges? Or at least he’s not worse off?

In fact, he’s a lot worse off. Here’s the scoop (you need to go to the calculator again to get the figures). If he is 35 years old with a wife of 35 and two minor children, self-employed (or employed by a company that does not offer insurance), his insurance premiums would be $9744 a year on the exchanges for a silver plan, as previously stated. But that’s not what he would actually pay, because at $50K a year his income figures in at 212% of poverty level for a family of 4. That caps his contribution to premiums at $3360 a year.

That’s all he has to pay no matter how high his premiums actually go; the government picks up the tab for the rest. In the case of a 35-year old with a family of 4, that means that the government would pay $6384 to his $3360, about two-thirds of the cost. If he and his wife were 40 years old, his premium contribution would stay the same but the government subsidy would go up to $6672 because the premiums rise with age and the government makes up the difference. And if both he and his wife are 45 the government contribution rises to $7548 while his contribution stays put. What’s more, because his income is under 250% of poverty level, he also gets hefty breaks on deductibles and co-pays.

It used to be that employment-based insurance was less expensive than individual, in part because of employer contributions. Now it seems that in many cases the tables have been turned for middle-income people (those with incomes under 400% of the poverty level, that is, which includes a significant percentage of the US population), with government subsidies giving a huge advantage to the self-employed and those without employer-based insurance for any reason. Haves and have-nots, indeed.

[NOTE: I’m assuming that Warden is quoting his premium payment amount after the employer share of premiums has already been paid.

If I’ve made any computational errors, let me know. After all, I did this on a Saturday night, while watching the World Series, which the Red Sox seem poised to lose.

One more thing—the online calculator I used to do the computations was the best I could find, but of course it could be giving me incorrect information. Like the Obamacare website itself.]

Mandate: to delay or not to delay

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a comment I found at the WaPo that I thought worth highlighting [typos corrected]:

One of the strangest things about the President is his inability to back down even when he’s dead wrong. No one is getting fired and his lackeys continue to pretend all is well. It makes sense to simply put off the start of the individual mandate for a year, even six months, but allow people to enroll voluntarily for that time. But he’s so fixated on appearing infallible that he’s making the rollout of Obamacare into the train wreck some of his allies predicted. And since he fought the Republicans on this very point, he had to dig his heels in and take a massive political drubbing while the bad news continues to pile in, even being reported by his fawning press.

I’m not sure which of Obama’s allies predicted the rollout would be a train wreck; perhaps the commenter means “foes.” But still, the point is well-taken. Obama has backed himself into an odd position in which he can’t do what might be sensible and in his own interests in having Obamacare work: delay the mandate.

It is an especially ironic state of affairs, since delaying the mandate was one of the main issues in the shutdown, something the Republicans were asking for and Obama refusing. He would look ridiculous if he were to change his mind on it now, although the press would probably help defend him. But although the “fawning” press is still helping him, even they (as the commenter points out) have been forced by the awesome scope and visibility of the rollout debacle to report on it with a certain amount of candor.

By keeping more or less to the original rollout schedule, with a few minor tweaks, Obama risks compromising the exchange’s enrollment ratio of healthy to unhealthy people that is necessary for the success of Obamacare. Thus he may be precipitating the very disaster he is trying to avoid.

Hubris, nemesis.

Uniting the Republican Party: winning and losing

The New Neo Posted on by

“Uniting the Republican Party”—has that become an oxymoron? I hope not, because it’s very hard to win elections if the party is having a civil war.

Ted Cruz has this to say about it yesterday in Iowa:

And let me tell you, growth and principles are ideas that unify Republicans,” he said. “They are principles and ideals that unify the evangelical community, the liberty movement and the business community. Growth and freedom are principles that bring together Main Street and the tea party.

I suppose that’s true, as far as it goes—although I would prefer to substitute the phrase “the preservation of liberty” for the word “freedom,” and put the word “economic” before the word “growth.”

What really caught my eye, though, was this statement of Cruz’s from an interview with the Des Moines Register:

It’s not a question of purity,” Cruz told the Register. “It’s a question of standing for common-sense conservative principles that are shared throughout this country that have been part of the American fabric of every small town and every small business and in families all across this country.”

Cruz said every Republican presidential candidate who ran as a strong conservative won ”” Nixon in 1968 and 1972, Reagan in 1980 and 1984, George H.W. Bush in 1988, George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. And those that ran as an establishment moderate lost ”” Ford in 1976, George H.W. Bush in 1992, Dole in 1996, McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012, Cruz said.

I find this an interesting statement for two reasons. The first is the year Cruz chose to begin his look back, and the second is how he characterizes the various Republican candidates. He starts his list in 1968, but what about 1964? Ever hear of Barry Goldwater, arguably the most conservative Republican candidate since the Roosevelt years? We all know how that one turned out. And how about Nixon in 1960? Wasn’t he just as conservative then, when he lost, as he was in 1968, when he won? And was Bush I really so conservative running for his first term? I submit that although he became less conservative in 1992, and this was most definitely part of the reason for his loss, was he really a “strong conservative” in 1988, when he won? A stronger conservative, yes, but I’ve usually heard him referred to as the quintessential “establishment Republican.” What’s more, 1992 was a strong third-party year, and Ross Perot’s candidacy is regarded by many as having been instrumental in Bush’s 1992 defeat.

But do I agree with Cruz’s more general message about presidential candidates and which type of Republican has a better chance to win? Let’s put it this way: I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to run a strong conservative, nor is it necessarily a good thing to run an establishment moderate, if you look at it just in terms of winning/losing. They certainly would govern differently as president, and that would matter. But what I really think is that Nixon in 1960, Ford, Bush I in 1992, Dole, and McCain lost for reasons other than their principles, conservative or moderate. Each one had a lackluster and/or off-putting personality, and each was running against a more attractive candidate in that sense (even the 1976 Carter was more charismatic than Ford, although that’s hard to believe; and of course Obama was quite charismatic in 2008). And Reagan won his two terms in part because that dynamic was reversed: he was charismatic and he ran against lackluster, unappealing guys (Carter had become unappealing, and Mondale always was bland). We don’t tend to think of Bush II as immensely personally charismatic, either—he was not—but look who he was running against: Gore and then Kerry.

Yes, principles are part of it all, too. But I don’t see them playing all that big a part in distinguishing among which Republicans have won the presidency and which have lost.

Note that I’ve left out 2012, when Obama beat Romney. That’s one’s a little bit the same as the rest and a little bit different. It was the same in that Obama is apparently a more compelling and attractive personality than Romney, although I sure don’t see it; polls indicated that Obama won because he was perceived as more “caring,” for example. But I also think the 2012 election was corrupted by several things that made it somewhat sui generis, including the viciousness of the attacks on Romney and the extraordinary partisanship of the MSM in that battle, worse than I’d ever seen it before. Many people would include election fraud in that list; I don’t see it as having been all that significant, although some may have occurred.

Of course, Cruz (whom I happen to respect) has a vested interest in saying what he did about election history and principles. After all, he’s not the most charismatic guy in the world. Then again, neither is Hillary. But is he “likeable enough” to win?