Senate Democrats say: hey, right about now would be a good time…

The New Neo Posted on by

…for the nuclear option.

Do they have the votes? Who knows:

…[E]ven if Reid doesn’t have the votes. He can’t keep threatening the GOP with the move and not pull the trigger at some point. For Senate Republicans, the threat and the action are now pretty much the same thing, as Reid has used it to break filibusters anyway. It’s practically a moot point already…

Actually, the minority won’t be entirely without tools…[O]ne Senator can object to each motion for unanimous consent and tie up the chamber in endless bill readings and other non-essential business…[I]f applied universally. Reid might find himself out of the frying pan and into the fire after this stunt. Instead of speeding up the Senate, it might mire it for good in endless bickering.

We’ll see what happens, but if Reid does pass this, expect Republicans to retaliate ”” and expect them to end the rest of the filibuster as soon as they have the majority.

Carping about the use of the filibuster for judicial appointments is the height of political hypocrisy for both parties, since both have used it for just that purpose when in the minority. The first nominiee successfully blocked by that method was Bush’s Miguel Estrada.

And both parties have at least threatened the nuclear option: here’s the history of that.

Signing up those young, healthy guys on the Obamacare exchanges

The New Neo Posted on by

We keep hearing that in order to keep from going under because of ever-increasing premiums, the Obamacare exchanges must enroll a lot of healthy young people. We even hear it from the White House, according to Ezra Klein:

How many younger people are needed each year to hold down premiums depends on how many people sign up for the marketplaces. If the total this year is 7 million people, then about 2.7 million need to be in the 18-to-35 set.

This group is “overwhelmingly male…majority nonwhite…[and] [o]ne out of every three lives in California, Florida or Texas.”

Why male? Why nonwhite? My guess would be because women and whites that age are somewhat more likely to have employment-based insurance and therefore wouldn’t be going to the exchanges (as long as their employers continue to offer the alternative).

Given that this young male non-white demographic is the group Obamacare’s exchanges are especially seeking, it also appears that, although it might be a young and healthy bunch, it’s not an especially solvent one:

Young adults are the cheapest group to insure but the group most likely to go without insurance. The reason, put simply, is that young adults are likelier than any other group to be poor. Smith calculates that 19 million young adults between 18 and 34 lack health insurance. Under Obamacare, 8 million of them will qualify for free insurance through Medicaid. An additional 9 million will qualify for subsidized insurance in the exchanges.

In fact, the vast majority of the young adults expected to be in the marketplaces are expected to qualify for subsidies. Linda Blumberg, a health-policy analyst at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, has done extensive work modeling who is likely to sign up for insurance on the exchanges. She estimates that 96 percent of 21- to 27-year-olds will get some income subsidies

Wow. Let that sink in: the vast, vast majority of this “young and healthy” group they’re so very eager to get on the exchanges will be subsidized, and most will be pretty heavily subsidized at that (half will be on Medicaid, for example). So, why go after them? Signing them up would go far towards preventing the “death spiral” problem caused by the exchanges having too many old and sick people, but it certainly wouldn’t be likely to do much to reduce the amount Obamacare will cost the government, because of the high proportion of subsidies.

Therefore it’s hard not to conclude that the government is purchasing protection for the exchanges. Sign up for the free stuff, government says. We’ll pay you; it won’t cost you that much at all. And in turn, the government is counting on the fact that they won’t be making that many claims, which will balance out the other enrollees who’ll be making a lot of claims.

The insurance companies will get their money just the same; what do they care if it comes from the insured person him/herself or from the federal government? It’s the same money, and it keeps them from having to raise premiums if the whole scheme works as planned. Who loses? The taxpayer, because it’s difficult if not impossible to believe that this arrangement will be deficit neutral, and can be paid for by the existing tax structure that’s supposed to finance Obamacare.

Switched at birth

The New Neo Posted on by

Can anyone make sense of this story?

I know it’s about two babies switched at birth. I know there was a controversial court case and a custody battle. And I know everybody’s happy now, eighteen years later.

But the rest of it is just too Byzantine to follow. As one of the commenters to the article wrote:

In order for me to completely understand this story, I’m going to have to draw stick figures with little kids and moms and dads. And aunts. And someone who fell in love with someone else. Never mind.

I thought about diagrams and a chart, too. But then I just gave up.

And turned to this. Security has gotten a lot tighter at hospitals since I gave birth many moons ago. I had what was called “rooming in,” though, and only stayed in the hospital one night, so my baby was pretty much with me the whole time.

Stop me before I tell you my labor story.

The LA Times…

The New Neo Posted on by

…manages to write an entire article on how well Obamacare enrollments are going in California without ever once mentioning:

(1) what percentage of enrollees are subsidized

(2) what percentage have pre-existing conditions

(3) what percentage of enrollees are under 35

In other words: the Times fails to mention a single fact about the pool of people who have enrolled except the total number. Actually, they don’t even tell the total number, but I calculate from their little hints (“California ”” which enrolled about 31,000 people in health plans last month ”” nearly doubled that in the first two weeks of this month”) that it’s close to 60,000.

Considering that about a million policies were cancelled in California alone, and that California had projected a need for exchange signups totaling 1.4 million in 2014, that’s not especially impressive.

Plus, 79,500 people also signed up for Medicaid in California (Medical) in October. So far, the Medicaid enrollments seem to be way outpacing the Obamacare ones.

Benificiary of Obamacare gets incredibly rude and complex awakening…

The New Neo Posted on by

…but still believes in Obama.

Here’s a textbook case of the liberal mindset. Jessica Sanford of western Washington state was so happy with the initial Obamacare premiums she was quoted by the state website that she sent off a grateful letter to President Obama which he featured in a speech three weeks ago. But since then, Sanford’s been informed—well, you have to read the Byzantine story for yourself, because it’s still not all that clear how much Sanford will be actually end up paying for herself and her 14-year-old son who has ADHD, because the news keeps changing.

The one constant is that the news is not good. First she was informed her subsidy would be less than she originally was told, but it was still something she thought she could swing. Next she was told no subsidy would be forthcoming at all, because her son had been enrolled in Medicaid and that meant her income level was figured as though she were a single person, which disqualified her for subsidies. Then she was told her son’s Medicaid enrollment could be rescinded if she liked. But that turns out to be difficult to actually accomplish, although one customer in the state of Washington has apparently been able to do it—so there’s hope, right?

Sanford is upset, but it’s clear who she doesn’t blame—President Obama:

I don’t want to be bashing the president. I don’t want to be bashing the ACA. I don’t want to come across as saying that. I’m a big Obama fan.

But to me there’s a big problem with the way the state is handling it. You put your stuff in there and once you do it, it is impossible to do anything…So you are stuck on this big treadmill of bureaucracy, and you know, if feels very out of control.

Yes, it’s the state’s fault, because of course—as everyone knows—the federal bureaucracy is so much homier and cozier, and what’s going on right now in the state of Washington re Obamacare has nothing to do with the feds, nothing at all.

Sanford is really a perfect example of the difficulty of changing a mind and a political affiliation. People often resist making the connections that would cause the feeling of discombobulation that would come from having to give up previous notions of the good and the bad, and the need to change political affiliations as a result.

I’m not surprised by the bureaucracy and the screw-ups she has encountered—or even by Sanford’s tendency to stand by her man and her party. But there’s another part of this story that did astound me, which is that a single woman making $50K a year and having one child would qualify for Medicaid for the child. Here are the rules (I’m not sure whether this is just the way the state of Washington does it, or if these are the rules for any state that has accepted the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare): at up to 200% of poverty level, children are automatically enrolled in Medicaid when the family signs up at the state exchange. From 200% to 250% of family poverty level, children are eligible to do so but enrollment is optional, and the parent must pay premiums of $20 a month per child (capped at $40 per month for total children). From 250% to 300% of poverty level, enrollment is also optional, and premiums are $30 a month per child.

That’s a lot of kids qualifying for Medicaid. Take a look at this chart for the poverty guidelines:

poverty2013

Notice, for example, that a family of four (a couple with two children, let’s say) would be forced to enroll its two children in Medicaid if the couple’s income was under $47,100, and the couple’s own premiums would now be figured as though they were a family of two, which would decrease their subsidies. Using this general calculator for Obamacare, and if the couple were Sanford’s age of 48, a family of four with that income would pay $2964 a year out-of-pocket for silver plan coverage, whereas a family of two with the same income would pay $4488 because their subsidies would be lower based on their higher percentage of poverty level. So by enrolling the children in Medicaid (which would be compulsory), the family loses $1524 a year, at least for premiums (which might be offset by reduced co-pays and deductibles, however; that’s a more complex calculation, because a family under 250% of poverty level gets a reduction in the usual co-pays and deductibles on the exchange plans, as well).

It also means that same family of 4 making up to $70650 a year (300% of poverty level) would be able to enroll its children in Medicaid for a small fee if they so chose. That sort of income for a couple with two children isn’t exactly wealthy, but Medicaid? Of course, Medicaid is such third-class insurance that not many people in the $70K category would willingly choose it—especially since, by taking the Medicaid option for their children, they’d be paying $8580 out-of-pocket for their own insurance (which would now be figured as a couple only) versus the $6708 they’d be paying as a family of four (after subsidies, which they would be eligible for as a family but not as a couple).

One of the many things wrong with Obamacare is that the subsidy structure contains a vast number of inequities such as this. Even if you agree with the basic idea—as Sanford seems to—the anomalies are legion in practice. Some may be intentional but some seem unintentional and random and even perverse. Plus, the complexity is immense, and the opportunities to game the system for those who master that complexity are immense as well. And this is true without even figuring in the similarly vast opportunities for fraud.

Bruce Barcott, who also lives in Washington state and also was a big Obama supporter, got a similarly rude awakening to Sanford’s. Although the details are somewhat different, and he never wrote a letter of thanks to the president that he now has to walk back, he’s unexpectedly much worse off after Obamacare than before.

Barcott has a friend in a similar fix who called a lawyer-accountant for advice and was told this:

I can’t ethically advise you, because honestly I don’t know the right thing to do. Nobody does. There are no answers. Right now it’s a complete clusterfuck.

Now, there’s an honest man.

But unlike Sanford, Barcott is angry at Obama. And he even understands the irony of it:

Once the sound of boiling blood dissipated, in my head I heard my Republican friends chuckling at the sight of a liberal Democrat hoisted ten stories high on his own petard. How’s the view up there, Obamacare Ollie?

One of the interesting things about what’s happening in the individual insurance market is that many of these people are self-employed self-starters, some of them (like Barcott) are freelance writers. They are articulate. And they write. I don’t know whether Barcott’s mugging by Obamacare reality will lead to deeper realizations and changes in his basic political beliefs, but I think with someone like him there’s a chance.

Health insurance, “discrimination,” and smokers

The New Neo Posted on by

The insurance business is impossible without some sort of “discrimination“—as in “the ability or power to see or make fine distinctions; discernment,” rather than ” bigotry or other arbitrary distinctions.”

But the Obama administration and liberals as a whole use the loaded word “discrimination” to mean something pejorative and/or unfair. They wouldn’t raise a hue and cry because life insurance discriminates against the elderly, or because flood insurance discriminates against those who live in flood plains. But that’s the way health insurance is commonly talked about: as unfairly discriminatory.

Compare and contrast: “Health insurance discriminates against people with pre-existing conditions!,” to “Health insurance discriminates against smokers!” Somehow, under Obamacare, the former is not okay but the latter is just fine.

Obamacare “discriminates” against the second but not the first. Smoking, of course, is considered an act of will, whereas being sick is not, although there are certainly other health habits (being a drug addict, for example) that are just as voluntary (or involuntary) as smoking and certainly very damaging to health, and yet people who engage in those activities are not penalized, and everyone is required to obtain insurance to pay for substance abuse treatment.

How much does Obamacare discriminate against smokers? A lot:

The ObamaCare smoker surcharge allows insurers to charge a “tobacco surcharge” which is calculated after subsidies received through the marketplace. Smokers may pay up to 50% more than non-smokers for the same health plans…

Smoking is not a pre-existing health condition under Obamacare. As part of the negotiations to get coverage for those with preexisting conditions, insurance companies got the right to impose on smokers premium costs that are as much as 50 percent higher than the same plan for non-smokers…

The Smoker Glitch is an anomaly in the government’s computer payment computer systems that won’t process the tobacco surcharge correctly and won’t be fixed until at least 2015. While the smoking surcharge can be up to three time the non-tobacco rate, programmers cannot get the system to make the calculations.

Because the smoker surcharge is calculated after subsidies, it also discriminates against the poorer, who might even be unable to afford insurance because of it, especially the older poor or lower middle class. And wouldn’t they be among the people most in need of health care, and whom you would think Obamacare was designed to help? What’s more, Obamacare discriminates far more than older insurance policies used to (I remember looking at charts with the rates for non-smokers vs. smokers, and although the latter paid more, it never seemed anywhere near 50% more). Six states have prohibited the surcharge (California among them) and two have lowered it, and most people don’t think companies will end up charging the whole 50% more, but it is allowed (although no one will see it till they get the glitch fixed, which may be never).

Let me just add that Obamacare must be racist, as well, because smoking rates are higher among blacks and native Americans than among whites. Oops!

Infighting over Egypt

The New Neo Posted on by

Susan Rice and John Kerry are reportedly at odds over Egypt:

The tension between the national security adviser and the secretary of state spilled over into public view in the past week, when Rice laid out her critical appraisal of the Egyptian government, which contradicted Kerry’s assessment that Egypt was “on the path to democracy.” The now public rift has been simmering behind the scenes for months and illustrates the strikingly divergent Egypt policies the White House and the State Department are pursuing.

As bad as Obama’s approach to Egypt has been, this (if true) seems even worse. I would guess that chaos and confusion is never a good message to send out. And this bears that out:

Nevertheless, officials and experts said the administration’s Egypt policy is hampered not only by internal tensions but also by being ad hoc and reactive, without a long-term strategy dictated by President Obama.

“What’s missing from any of the administration’s statements or actions is a clear vision of how they will preserve American interests in Egypt over the long term,” said Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center and a former State Department official. “The president clearly made an analytical judgment that authoritarianism in the Middle East was not stable in the long term. If he still believes that, then he has to have some concerns about Egypt’s trajectory and American interests, and how to address those concerns is missing from American policy today.”

In Egypt, officials are receiving diverging messages from the U.S. government’s various parts, causing confusion as they try to decide how to react to recent U.S. actions. For example, the administration has not told the government of Egypt what exactly it must do to get the partial aid suspension lifted, said a source close to the Egyptian government.

“They are getting different messages from different people in Washington. There is confusion in Egypt as to what is actually U.S. policy,” the source said. “

Obamacare is not the only area of disarray in the Obama administration. They simply don’t know what they’re doing—unless, of course, the idea is to sow chaos, which is a distinct possibility.

It’s the old “fool or knave?” question. As I’ve said before, you can hardly go wrong assuming the answer is “both.”

The holidays are coming: order from Amazon through neo-neocon!

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I’ll be bumping this up to the top every now and then through the holidays, just as a reminder. I’ll probably be changing the musical selections as the season progresses.]

How’s that for shameless self-promotion?

I’ve realized that yes, once again it’s November. It’s almost Thanksgiving. And that means that Christmas, Chanukah, and whatever other holiday might suit your diverse fancy are all coming up sooner than you think.

So I’m encouraging you to feel their hot breaths on your neck and solve all your gift-giving dilemmas by turning to that online colossus, Amazon.

And if you use those widgets on my right sidebar to click through for all your Amazon purchases (now and at any other time of year) you will also be giving a small but still not insignificant gift to neo-neocon (it adds up, folks), and all without spending any extra money yourself. What could be more wonderful?

I thank you all in advance.

And for those of you of a sarcastic bent about the length of the Christmas buying season, I offer you this musical expression of delight:

[NOTE: In case you have ad blocker or something of that sort, and the Amazon widgets don’t show up on your computer, go here. You can also click on any Amazon book link within a post and anything you order during that click-through gets credited to me. I believe it’s true even for things you put in your cart but don’t order till a bit later, although there’s a time limit on how long they can be there and still get credited when ordered (I’m not sure what that limit is, though, so best to order sooner rather than later).]

The Obamacare debacle: modified rapture*

The New Neo Posted on by

On one level, the events of the last few weeks have been deeply satisfying. Who wouldn’t feel a certain vindication in seeing one’s predictions come true, and watch the perpetrators running for cover? But I’m having a lot of trouble feeling the requisite joy, because I’m not at all sure that the fundamentals have changed.

Sure, some people will experience an “aha!” moment when they find this particular emperor has no clothes. But plenty of people are still not paying attention—and won’t unless their own insurance is affected. And even then, many will swallow the “Blame the Republicans!” and/or “Onward and upward to single payer!” lines. To discredit an entire well-entrenched mindset takes—well, let’s just say that “a mind is a difficult thing to change.”

We’re talking belief here, and affiliation of the deepest sort. Self-image and self worth. I can’t quite imagine most of the people I know turning their backs on liberalism—or even, really, on Obama, more than feeling just a mild diminution of admiration—as a result of this. The “Democrats have good intentions, Republicans have bad intentions” template is too deeply engrained to be overcome by a mere program and its unfortunate design, and the fact that the president lied can be countered by the response that the poor dear just didn’t know because he was kept in the dark by his underlings.

Am I being too pessimistic here, or am I just being a realist about people? I honestly don’t know, but I do know we need to remain alert, press any advantages with vigor and intelligence, and not relax and think the fight is anywhere near over. But at least Obamacare has gotten the attention of more people than have the previous acts/omissions of this administration that should have gotten a lot more people incensed but did not.

You know what these acts/omissions are; I probably don’t have to list them. But one of the very first—one that most people don’t even remember—was Honduras, a crisis that occurred in June of 2009, only a few months after Obama took office. I wrote many many posts about Honduras at the time, because it seemed an extremely important indicator of where Obama stood on the issue of tyranny and power-grabs by an executive—and let’s just say it wasn’t on the right (correct) side.

And yet the MSM covered for him and twisted what was happening into something that sounded almost like the opposite, which was an even more alarming indicator of where they stood. From that point on, there wasn’t much question that Obama was intent on the tyranny path himself, and that the media would for the most part give him a free pass, a scout, and several guides along the way.

In my very first post on the Honduras crisis, I wrote the following:

A year ago [June 2008] I might have considered the statement I’m about to make to be a slide into tinfoil hat territory. But now I believe that [Honduran congressman] Mr. Aguilera may be giving Obama way too much credit. I suspect that Obama understands exactly what dangers Chavez and Castro pose, and that he either doesn’t care or that he actually approves.

Obama has said that he is “deeply concerned” by the news of the removal of Zelaya and that he calls on “all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.” So far it seems, however, that it was actually Zelaya who was violating those rules of law. It also sounds as though Obama’s definition of “democratic norms” might include “one person, one vote, one time.”

Zelaya was determined that Honduras follow in the footsteps of that stellar democracy, Venezuela, which not long ago…paved the way, in a similar referendum, for Hugo Chavez to become president for life.

A democracy can vote for tyranny””but that’s what constitutions are designed to prevent…And if Obama is defending the sort of “democracy” practiced by Zelaya, it’s a very ominous sign indeed.

What happened in Honduras may seem like a far cry from Obamacare—or, more accurately, from Obama’s statements about Obamacare and his changes to it by executive fiat. But the common thread is a president who thinks the Constitution is whatever he says it is, and who can flout it at will if it serves his purposes, and who supports the right of other leaders on the left to do the same in their countries.

[NOTE: By the way, in case you had any doubt about the staying power of the left, I just noticed that the wife of Zelaya (the leftist Chavez-wannabee whom Obama supported back in 2009, and who is barred from running again in Honduras) is campaigning for the Honduran presidency in 2013, and has a good chance of winning. Fancy that.

The election is on November 24, her name is Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, and in another irony her party is called “Libre.”]

[*If you’re not familiar with the origin of the phrase in the title of this post, please see this.]

Spambot of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

I think many of us can empathize with the sentiments expressed by this bot:

I am hatred to shopping in trust in, there are a lot too much lifetime walking or driving, and the penalty of clothing is much expensive. My friends mention me secure clothing online.

Steyn on the imperial Obama

The New Neo Posted on by

Mark Steyn is a funny guy, although his subject matter couldn’t be less funny:

The most telling line, the one that encapsulates the gulf between the boundless fantasies of the faculty-lounge utopian and the messiness of reality, was this: “What we’re also discovering is that insurance is complicated to buy.” Gee, thanks for sharing, genius. Maybe you should have thought of that before you governmentalized one-sixth of the economy. By “we,” the president means “I.” Out here in the ruder provinces of his decrepit realm, we “folks” are well aware of how complicated insurance is. What isn’t complicated in the Sultanate of Sclerosis? But, as with so many other things, Obama always gives the vague impression that routine features of humdrum human existence are entirely alien to him. Marie Antoinette, informed that the peasantry could no longer afford bread, is alleged to have responded, “Let them eat cake.” There is no evidence these words ever passed her lips, but certainly no one ever accused her of saying, “If you like your cake, you can keep your cake,” and then having to walk it back with “What we’re also discovering is that cake is complicated to buy.” That contribution to the annals of monarchical unworldliness had to await the reign of Queen Barry Antoinette, whose powdered wig seems to have slipped over his eyes.

Still, as historian Michael Beschloss pronounced the day after his election, he’s “probably the smartest guy ever to become president.” Naturally, Obama shares this assessment. As he assured us five years ago, “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors.” Well, apart from his signature health-care policy. That’s a mystery to him. “I was not informed directly that the website would not be working,” he told us. The buck stops with something called “the executive branch,” which is apparently nothing to do with him. As evidence that he was entirely out of the loop, he offered this:

“Had I been I informed, I wouldn’t be going out saying, ‘Boy, this is going to be great.’ You know, I’m accused of a lot of things, but I don’t think I’m stupid enough to go around saying, “This is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity,” a week before the website opens, if I thought that it wasn’t going to work.”

Ooooo-kay. So, if I follow correctly, the smartest president ever is not smart enough to ensure that his website works; he’s not smart enough to inquire of others as to whether his website works; he’s not smart enough to check that his website works before he goes out and tells people what a great website experience they’re in for. But he is smart enough to know that he’s not stupid enough to go around bragging about how well it works if he’d already been informed that it doesn’t work. So he’s smart enough to know that if he’d known what he didn’t know he’d know enough not to let it be known that he knew nothing. The country’s in the very best of hands.