Posted on 06/28/2014 11:29:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Have you been following the news about Obamacare? The Affordable Care Act has receded from the front page, but information about how it’s going keeps coming in — and almost all the news is good. Indeed, health reform has been on a roll ever since March, when it became clear that enrollment would surpass expectations despite the teething problems of the federal website.
What’s interesting about this success story is that it has been accompanied at every step by cries of impending disaster. At this point, by my reckoning, the enemies of health reform are 0 for 6. That is, they made at least six distinct predictions about how Obamacare would fail — every one of which turned out to be wrong.
“To err is human,” wrote Seneca. “To persist is diabolical.” Everyone makes incorrect predictions. But to be that consistently, grossly wrong takes special effort. So what’s this all about?
Many readers won’t be surprised by the answer: It’s about politics and ideology, not analysis. But while this observation isn’t particularly startling, it’s worth pointing out just how completely ideology has trumped evidence in the health policy debate.
And I’m not just talking about the politicians; I’m talking about the wonks. It’s remarkable how many supposed experts on health care made claims about Obamacare that were clearly unsupportable. For example, remember “rate shock”? Last fall, when we got our first information about insurance premiums, conservative health care analysts raced to claim that consumers were facing a huge increase in their expenses. It was obvious, even at the time, that these claims were misleading; we now know that the great majority of Americans buying insurance through the new exchanges are getting coverage quite cheaply.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Krugman must have missed the higher premiums, millions kicked off of their old plans, millions more who no longer have their life long doctors, the increase in overall uninsured, and the 2.9% **DROP** in national GDP (1st Q 2014) due entirely to healthcare “reform.”
A few more victories like that and Krugman will be able to say that 0bamacare made the USA into a multi-Billion Dollar success story...after starting with a multi-Trillion one.
An older friend of mine when I had graduated college and was in a business totally unrelated to my degree, used to say of Liberal Arts education: "It's only purpose should be to teach you HOW to learn, HOW to think." ... that what you actually learned really didn't matter much.
It's only purpose now is to teach "WHAT to think" followed by "how NOT to think."
It's remarkable, because these are people who were born capable of critical thought and inductive and deductive reasoning, but it's like someone injected that part of their brains with epoxy while they were out sleeping with the poppies. That part of their brains and souls that questions and investigates ... in a permanent, painless, peaceful state of hypnotic suspension ... and suggestion.
“great majority of Americans buying insurance through the new exchanges are getting coverage quite cheaply”
After someone else is being told to pay for it at gunpoint.
“I’ll bet Krugman has pinup posters of Barry all over his bedroom walls.”
And stained with god knows what.
“Obamacare is gone from the headlines because the Coward Party has signed off on it now.”
Of course they have. It benefits their corporate buddies who are all too willing to dump everybody on the exchanges. And don’t forget the insurance companies who have had their losses socialized by taxpayers while the middle class gets hosed from all sides.
The economy contracted by 2.9% LAST QUARTER ALONE DIP $HIT! That is hardly a success. We are in a NEW recession. This is the second quarter of GDP loss in a row. We are certainly in a recession and have never recovered from the last one.
This guy is an idiot!
Kneepadding right on schedule
Professors Suddenly Don’t Like ObamaCare Either
Investors Business Daily ^ | June 27, 2014
Posted on June 28, 2014 at 8:03:53 AM CDT by Zakeet
Health Reform: After years of singing the praises of universal health care, college professors are now shocked at how badly it has turned out — for them.
Adjunct professors are steamed at the way their employers are interpreting the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, which forces them to cover full-time but not part-time workers. Typical of liberals, they blame their employers instead of the job-killing law they supported.
Starting Jan. 1, ObamaCare makes employers offer all full-time workers health insurance or pay a fine. In response, hundreds of colleges have simply cut instructors’ course loads to dodge coverage. Others are thinking about laying off untenured faculty by the thousands.
Take the University of North Carolina state system.
Faced with $47 million-a-year unfunded ObamaCare liability, the 17-campus system has asked the state for the OK to create its own health program. It says it can’t afford to pay its 8,586 non-permanent workers ObamaCare’s essential benefits package, at $5,400 a pop.
The jobs of graduate and teaching assistants, visiting professors and student employees are on the block. The other option is raising tuition, but President Obama is cracking down on colleges over student debt.
“This is an unfunded mandate that’s coming down on us,” UNC System COO Charlie Perusse complained. No kidding. Belatedly, academia is waking up to the business realities of ObamaCare.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3173453/postsi
Paul Krugman....he speaks when his Democrat masters command him to speak.
“Federally-run health care is working. No, really, this is what success looks like.”
Yep, its going so well that Obama had to issue another administrative change to the law to ensure that small businesses with 50 to 99 employees have until 2016 to comply with the mandate they provide health insurance for employees or face a fine. So that’s the second one-year delay for small businesses and it conveniently pushes it past the mid-year elections. Yep, it’s going just fine.
And that first quarter stupidly low GDP — no spending on health care. Yep, that Obamacare is just great.
I wonder what color the sky is on Paul’s planet?
What’s that sucking sound .... useless Krugman sucking up air that could be used meaningfully somewhere else.
Krugman is like every other liberal that manages to pour forth with the help of some narcotic. Every one of his pronouncements should follow a satire or semi-serious news introduction.
Well, half of them are poor enough to get huge subsidies.
33% of them aren't actually PAYING their premiums, so they are getting things really cheap.
The rest of them are suffering either shock from the cost of the premiums, or high deductibles, or lousy service.
There are only two predictions that are thus far proving incorrect.
The first is that companies would cut off their insurance and pay the penalty. That hasn’t happened, because Obama waived the rules requiring companies to be compliant until 2016.
The second was that union members would end up paying a lot more because of the special taxes being levied. Obama waived those as well.
Predictions that came true: Companies would cut workers down to less than 30 hours; Companies would stop hiring to keep total under 50; Companies would drop coverage because of non-compliance (partially mitigated by Obama giving waivers to many large companies); Government would be incapable of providing good service; People would not be able to keep their existing insurance (even though Obama waived THAT part of the law, he did so too late to save a lot of people); Medicare cuts would limit service options; Costs would go up not down; wait times would increase; people would lose the freedom to make their own decisions about health insurance; and people would lose access to their existing doctors.
About the only thing that has kept it from being a worse disaster is the number of times Obama has illegally repealed parts of his own law, but of course he’s done that mostly for his political friends, threatening to punish people with “enforcement” if they do anything he doesn’t like.
My part of insurance payment has jumped 41%, and my deductible went up 50%, as my company aligned our plan so it wouldn’t be “cadillac”, and would meet the requirements.
On the other hand, I feel very fortunate that I have an excellent insurance plan, because my wife has needed major treatment this year, and we’ve had the best doctors, gotten expensive tests in short order, the insurance has approved everything quickly so we could move forward. It helps to live in the land of rich people who want the best doctors.
I don’t see things getting any better in my lifetime though, we are heading down to the level of the rest of the world.
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