Posted on 11/15/2013 10:54:33 PM PST by nathanbedford
In an effort to ward off a revolt within his own party which might have resulted in legislation which could destroy Obamacare, the president pretended yesterday to legislate by press conference and sell a fix that is not a fix by issuing an edict which is not an edict to effect a cure which is not a cure but which prolongs the life of The Affordable Care Act and extricates himself from the need to veto a popular reform.
The fix which is not a fix does not cure, indeed it is intended at all costs to avoid curing, the cancer which is eating away at Obamacare's precarious hold on viability. Five million people have lost their medical insurance as a result of events putting lie to Obama's fraudulent promise that you "could keep your plan if you want to keep your plan." Replacement insurance was not available because the government's website failed and because the replacement insurance was prohibitively expensive and/or unacceptably deficient with unreasonable self pay provisions etc..
It was the calculation of the Obamacare law from the very beginning to take young, healthy insurers who were happily availing themselves of private insurance and force them out of their existing policies and into federal government defined insurance with much higher premiums. The increase in premiums would be used to subsidize insurance to the leftists' favored groups such as the underclasses, the chronically ill, those with pre-existing conditions. Not surprisingly, those being deprived of their private health insurance which they had freely negotiated in an open market protested vehemently as victims of a clandestine scheme to transfer their wealth to a different, more favored class. Normally, leftists transfer wealth from one group to a more favored group by taxing the disfavored group and subsidizing the favored group. Here they were attempting to accomplish this by crafting a tax disguised as a premium.
Amid cascading favorability numbers for Obama personally, facing a revolt among Democrats up for reelection in 2014, and worst of all, following oblique criticism by Bill Clinton signaling the party that it was acceptable to revolt, Obama had to find a political solution which mollified or at least confused an increasingly angry public, and convinced his Democrat legislators that they were being given cover through 2014. But the fix must not derail the bedrock policy of transferring wealth from one disfavored group to another more favored group by regulating premiums.
If that policy were thwarted or even delayed for too long a period of time it would trigger the so-called "death spiral" occasioned by too few healthy premium payers subsidizing too many sick healthcare recipients because the less favored group would decline to expose themselves to higher premiums and inferior health care sold through the government "Exchanges." That would mean that the insurance companies providing government promulgated health insurance through the government contrived Exchanges could not make actuarial ends meet. What is a social engineer to do?
This conundrum was not new news to Barack Obama nor to those who wrote the Affordable Healthcare legislation. The key to understanding Obamacare is to understand that the healthy and the wealthy are being forced to subsidize the sick and the poor. Those who wrote the law also knew enough to expect fierce resistance from those who must pay more and who would be forced to accept inferior health care, lose their doctor, and lose their hospital. The social engineers knew they had to disguise what they were up to. Worse, they knew they had to lie about what they were up to.
So Obama hit the campaign trail and flat-out lied to the American people telling them three dozen times that they could keep their healthcare insurance. Other razzle-dazzle was added on for good measure to further camouflage the ugly truth: The average family would save $2500 in premiums, the overall cost of Obamacare would not exceed $900 billion, those with pre-existing conditions would be covered, kids up to 26 years of age could ride on their parents policies, etc. But the essential lie delivered by Barack Obama to sell Obamacare both before and after its passage and before and after his reelection was that contented insureds could keep their policies. Ironically, that lie was the one element indispensable to the enactment of Obamacare, the reelection of Barack Obama, but it was poison to the viability of the scheme.
No doubt many of the schemers involved in the creation of Obamacare actually believed that the people, or at least a governing majority of them, would be happy with the health care plans they were to be vouchsafed. In the back of their minds, that is those people whose minds were empty but whose hearts were full, knew that there was supplemental monies to be had because Obamacare was in essence a combination of funding through wealth via premiums as has been described and direct subsidy out of the federal treasury, a reversion to the old tax and subsidy model. Keep in mind that in making his statements to the press yesterday Obama also has this feature of Obamacare in the back of his mind, of which more later.
But for the majority of insiders who crafted Obamacare, the academics, the bureaucrats, the hacks in the administration, the legislative assistants, they must have known what they were doing and they could only have justified what they were doing on the old Marxist rationalization of the greater good for the greater number. What does it matter if a few million kulaks are liquidated in the greater cause for the collectivization of agriculture? What does it matter if a few "privileged" middle-class folks are deprived of their liberty of contract, deprived of their assets, and deprived of their customary level of healthcare in the service of the greater good of universal health care coverage? What harm can come from a lie done in the service of the same noble goal?
So Barack Obama lied to get the bill passed, lied about the law to get reelected, lied when he originally denied that he lied, and now he is lying when he says he is advancing a fix for those who have lost their health care coverage which he had so often guaranteed they could keep.
Obama and the other social engineers no doubt rationalized away any guilt over what they were doing by clinging in faith to the belief that the federal treasury would come and subsidize any deficiencies which became apparent as the plan rolled out.
How did Obama contrive to solve this dilemma in his press conference yesterday? He pretends to roll back the cancellation of healthcare to 5 million Americans, thus relieving himself of the responsibility for the real human misery Obamacare is causing them. Obama gave the game away in his press conference yesterday when he said, "What we're essentially saying is the Affordable Care Act is not going to be the factor in what happens with folks in the individual market." What will be a factor in the fate of these folks? Why the insurance companies of course, and the Insurance Commissioners because Obama explicitly made the remedy dependent on their cooperation. Thus the cynicism of Barack Obama is exposed.
Obama knows that the insurance companies are both incapable and reluctant to restore those canceled policies. First it is virtually impossible to secure approval from the Insurance Commissioner, analyze the policies, notify the former policyholders, give them a chance to decide, and reinstitute such policies within 30 days. It is simply a practical impossibility. Moreover, the insurance companies are loathe to do so. Why? Because their risk in the Exchange pool varies according to the character and quality of the insureds. If the healthiest are kept out of those marketplace pools there simply will not be enough premiums to cover the health care costs of the sick people who will presumably eagerly dive into the pools. Obama is cynically counting on both of these factors to prevent any statistically significant number of these 5 million souls who are in health insurance limbo to be helped by his fix. Obama had hardly left the podium before the insurers issued a joint communiqué indicating that Obama's fix is impractical. Obama, of course, was counting on this reaction.
Obama knows this because this is how Obama and his henchmen seduced the insurance companies to go along with Obamacare in the first place, they would be fully compensated out of the enriched Exchange pool and by increasing the premiums of their present holders for issuing superfluous coverage and, importantly, through federal subsidies. Obama knew that the insurance providers have been co-opted and could not possibly operate profitably under his double cross. Obama knows that even if some insurance carriers and some insurance commissioners accede to his fix, the majority of the 5 million will nevertheless be forced onto his marketplace pool. When Obama meets today with the insurance executives he knows that he will be meeting with executives who are in effect is co-conspirators. Their common goal in this meeting will be to protect their bottom line and their premiums. The insurance providers will not be eager to fix this flaw even if it were practically possible to do so because it will cost them money. Obama will not be eager for them to fix this flaw in Obamacare because it would destroy Obamacare. Both sides will be seeking a fig leaf.
So Obama walked away from the podium confident that the essential elements of Obamacare will stay in place but hopeful that the public will be deceived, the Republicans will again appease him, and his Democrats will stay on the reservation. To do otherwise is to blow up Obamacare. This way he buys time.
Time for what? Time for the computer glitches to be fixed and for the five million marooned insureds to buy coverage through the Exchanges. Granted, some will be happy with their new insurance and some will not but at least the problem for Obama will be statistically mitigated, the media will move on, new schemes can be contrived, the crisis will pass.
Somewhere in the back of his mind Obama is waiting for an opportunity to ease the Obamacare plan into single-payer, that is, to move the strategy from a wealth transfer by regulation of coverage and premiums to a tax and subsidy plan. Obama's tactics have always been to demonize his adversaries and he has done this prodigiously well. For example, he has accused doctors of revolting deeds like performing unneeded operations for money, he has demonized the Republicans daily, and he has demonized the insurance companies when it served his purpose. So far the establishment media has enabled him to succeed with even his crudest and most outrageous calumnies.
Expect more of the same as Obama offers one excuse after another and contrives new remedies to salvage Obamacare, although there is evidence that even the establishment media is sobering up. Obama's remedies will include more regulations, less liberty, worse insurance, more federal subsidies, higher federal deficits, more federal debt, and higher taxes. In short, he will simply increase federal subsidies until the insurance companies' books balance, or, he can convert to a single-payer system and kill the insurance companies off. He needs time to do that and he needs time to convert the issue into one of compassion.
While the insurance executives meet with Obama the House of Representatives is debating a bill to ratify by statute what Obama presumed to do by press conference. Should the Republicans support a law which would in effect ratify Obama's edict? [Since dictating the above House of Representatives has passed such a bill]
Obama has said that he will veto this bill and I believe he will do so because it wrecks Obamacare. Let him veto it, or let the Senate fail to pass it. In sum, every fix should contain a poison pill forcing Democrats in the House and Senate to go on record with their votes and ultimately forcing Obama to resort to his veto pen. Let every failure to fix only increase the public's outrage while directing it against the people who are responsible for their misery. Later, not now but later when the mood of the country has ripened, the Republicans should produce their affirmative healthcare plans coupled with the repeal of Obamacare. Let him veto that as well.
Meanwhile, the five million marooned insureds remain marooned but the Republicans can lose this battle if their plight passes from view. That is what Obama is betting on. It is the job of the Republicans to somehow force the media into personalizing the tragedies of these people and to point out that the president's fix has fixed nothing. But the Republican should be very much aware that this issue has a very short shelf life because sooner or later the computer glitches will be fixed and there will be access to the insurance policies provided by the Exchanges. The damage will not be eliminated but it will be mitigated, and the Democrats will exaggerate the mitigation. The Republicans must make clear that the damage is real and continues and that there is no solution in these Exchanges which is affordable. The Republicans must make it clear that soon, within a year, 90 million more Americans will be marooned when the policyholders who will no longer be covered by insurance at their employment are forced into the exchanges.
There are several public-relations stunts that the Republican should consider. For example, they can present every day a new victim of Obamacare. We have already seen one case in which an American stricken with cancer has been abandoned. Let the speaker of the house hold a press conference everyday and introduce such a victim. Let the Republicans, or some fatcats like the Kohl brothers, start a charity to offer some relief to these victims. There are a million legitimate public-relations moves that can and should be made.
For God's sake let the Republicans desist from this puerile urge to rescue Obama and to appear to be the White Knight. Let them positively state that there is a price to be paid for a real cure, let them adhere to the principle that there is no free lunch, but there is a free-market.
Hey, good writing. Self ping for later reading.
...the fix must not derail the bedrock policy of transferring wealth from one disfavored group to another more favored group by regulating premiums.
Not only wealth, but the power of life and death are being transferred from the commoners to the all-pervading, all-knowing, all-wise state.
Inexplicably, Marxists never notice Marxism invariably fails. If it can't even be made to work in China, of all wretched places, or North Korea, it's never going to succeed anywhere.
It fixes obozo. He made a brilliant move and put the entire thing back in the laps of the insurance companies.
1) If they don’t reinstate the policies, THEY will take the heat and be blamed,,,not obozo.
2) He is offering the insurance companies a bailout (bribe) if they reinstate the policies. (money talks) If they reinstate the policies, obozo looks like a great guy and gets all the credit. 1 or 2,,,obozo wins.
Brilliant.
The reality is that those under 30 do not have jobs or have low paying jobs, (as a group.) An Obamacare economy cannot possibly support Obamacare. A classic liberal miscalculation.
Ironically, to revolutionary leaders, Marxism is itself a means unto an end: Power.
In the end, Marxism may not work. But it does offer a pathway to absolute power. Stalin, for example, may have professed Marxism, but he practiced dictatorial power.
The "true believers" of Marxism are members of the apparatchnik, the Politburo have bigger fish to fry.
What we said when we said what we said was. Period.
It should have never gotten this far. john roberts shot this country in the back.
Dr. Atlas could shrug, and healthcare could quite sidestep the Obamacare monster with various nontraditional options, leaving Obamacare a bereft orphan.
That is, if the minds of people are willing to leave the “health care plan” model which decades of practice have herded them into.
Sometimes getting shot is the only way you are aware that there’s a loose cannon around.
Marxists, Socialists, Communists all believe that, THIS TIME, they will get it "right" and achieve their Utopian dream of a "perfect" society.
But, as Mike Savage has pointed out countless times, these kind of folks have a mental disorder, and really cannot connect the dots or acknowledge that Marxism fails 100% of the time!
IMO one cannot ignore God, play God or replace God, or "help" God in their own fashion. Democrats today challenge science, biology, economic theory in order to control the world in their own way. Are they guilty of idolatry, heresy, blasphemy, or worse? They are blinded by their unquenchable thirst for power!
Thank you nathanbedford for this informative piece. You have opened my eyes to the fact that the lies were pre-meditated, and I believe that convincing the sheeple of this will be a pivotal factor as we move forward in our attempt to dismantle this criminal enterprise.
I could be wrong, but I can’t see the people blaming the insurance companies for the cancellations, or the failure to reinstate the policies. The media doesn’t seem to be aiding in this particular ruse either. Perhaps the accumulation of scandals has served to reveal the character of this lying rube to the point that what he has been able to do in the past, he can no longer do.
We can thank Ted Cruz for enabling the Republicans to ride the white horses now, if they choose to mount up and take the reins.
1) If they don’t reinstate the policies, THEY will take the heat and be blamed,,,not obozo.
2) He is offering the insurance companies a bailout (bribe) if they reinstate the policies. (money talks) If they reinstate the policies, obozo looks like a great guy and gets all the credit. 1 or 2,,,obozo wins.”
What you said may have happened if he did what he did BEFORE people starting losing their policies. But he waited until he faced a revolt from Democrats to do what he did and the news of people losing their plans and tying it to Obamacare was allowed to gain legs
Surprisingly, I also have been noticing the press not playing along anymore. The thrill is gone for this president. He has been exposed. People are starting to see what we knew back in 2008. The folks may get upset with their insurance companies cancelling them, but they know the reason why. Oh sure, there will always be the die hard true believers, but their numbers are declining
The worse is yet to come. That will be what is IN your new plan. From what I have read, people who seem pleased now, will be shocked. I wager most people have no clue what is in their plan because they, like Congress, have never read the bill.
Imagine the same people who botched this roll out administering the real part, which is actual health care.
I foresee a terrible mess coming soon. It will get ugly when people realize that health care will not be what they are used to.
There is not, nor will there be, a “revolt” among the Communists. Just look at the roll call vote. It would have passed WITHOUT the “maverick” Communists. They only voted for Upton’s bill to provide cover in their reelection bids.
One point in the article about those who wrote the bill: Congress is exempt from arrest for actions while in session. Correct me if I’m wrong; but that protection does not extend to those who WROTE this abomination. Start arresting them. Start suing them. Make their lives a living hell.
In a way, it’s too bad we don’t have a Conservative Alan Grayson who could call out the Communists on a daily basis.
“Inexplicably, Marxists never notice Marxism invariably fails.”
Marxists are parasites. The host is only a stepping stone to another host. The parasite knows no other life and can’t imagine a symbiotic relationship instead of a parasitic one.
Obama is between a rock and a hard place as relates to the two bills in congress. I’ll bet dollars to donuts the insurance companies will not comply, even if they could, with the edict to reinstate the policies, because they can no longer trust Obama to protect them from the illegalities.
They will demand legislation to move forward, and this means Obama must sign something congress presents to him, to effectuate what he wants the insurance companies to do from here on out.
Big miscalculation on his part, and this problem now exists because of his lies and lack of trustworthiness. This is the same reason foreign policy is in a shambles.
“The chickens have come home........”
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