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Kathleen Sebelius: Americans don’t like Obamacare because their “financial literacy is low”
Hotair ^ | 12/02/2014 | Mary Katherine Ham

Posted on 12/02/2014 7:42:00 PM PST by SeekAndFind

Well, she may claim to not know who Jonathan Gruber is, but she sure did get a copy of his talking points. Discussing Obamacare with a USA Today reporter, former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius blamed many of the law’s problems on the fact that Americans lack her sophisticated understanding of insurance:

Still, Sebelius didn’t dispute the point that many Americans don’t fully understand how health insurance and the Affordable Care Act work, including the trade-offs involved in expanding coverage.

“A lot of Americans have no idea what insurance is about,” she said. “I think the financial literacy of a lot of people, particularly people who did not have insurance coverage or whose employers chose their coverage and kind of present it to them, is very low — and that has been a sort of stunning revelation. It’s not because people hid it from folks. It’s because this is a complicated product.”

Sebelius served as insurance commissioner for the state of Kansas before epically botching the roll-out of a federal entitlement program in historic and ostentatious fashion. So, she knows a thing or two, America.

Here’s the thing about Gruber and Sebelius. They decry the stupidity of Americans who have the temerity to express displeasure with their giant, ill-conceived, and iller-implemented social and policy engineering experiment. Americans just don’t understand the trade-offs, they say. Americans just don’t understand all the good stuff they’re getting. Americans just couldn’t be trusted with the truth of what we were passing because we had to force them into what’s best for them. But Americans, as they have shown in poll after poll after poll, have seen through all of this every single step of the way. They’ve had the architects and the bureaucrats pegged from Day One, and the architects and the bureaucrats are none too happy about it.

And here’s one more thing about Gruber and Sebelius. The American people, though wise enough to spot this lemon coming off the lot, are a generous folk. They might, indeed, have warmed to the law a bit if it had been executed comptently, if the interface for exchanges was as elegant and user-friendly as, say, Obama’s campaign website, if disruption had been manageable, managed smartly, and damage minimized, they might have given Gruber and Sebelius and Obamacare yet another chance. (I would have advised against this, but the American people are more generous than I.)

Guess whose job it was to get all of that right? The architects and the bureaucrats— the people who know so much better than we do. When Sebelius says the illiteracy of Americans about complicated insurance was a “stunning revelation,” she’s projecting her own lack of preparation and perception on us. Americans knew it was a complicated product and a complex undertaking and were rightly skeptical of her ability to deliver. She, on the other hand, was stunned to find out that micromanaging an entire country’s health care might not work out as smoothly as she envisioned. She was as stunned as Obama was that this didn’t come off without a hitch (though she may have been stunned a couple weeks earlier than Obama, as she saw her project hurtling inexorably toward IT disaster). They had both told themselves and voters that the federal government could do big things, especially when run by the Cult of Competence. There is no evidence that she or Obama tried very hard or even knew how to try to ensure that it would go well.

They had one job. They didn’t do it. Who’s stupid?


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 0carenightmare; financialliteracy; gruber; kathleensebelius; moralbankruptcy; obamacare; obamacarelies; obamacareshill; sebelius
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To: SeekAndFind

Makes sense to me. The government run school system is designed to produce idiots who grow up to vote for nincompoops like Sebelius.


41 posted on 12/02/2014 9:07:30 PM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: SeekAndFind

That’s pretty much a 180 on the talking points, these are the people who claimed that coverage expansions were free. “Free birth control? No problem. Free coverage of pre-existing conditions, unlimited lifetime maximums, pediatric dental coverage, your post-college-age kids? Not an issue! Plus, we can lower your premiums by $2500!”

Now, when it turns out it’s all lies, they’re trying to blame the mark for believing them. “If Americans were financially literate, they’d have realized we were selling them a pack of lies.”

Many of us did, Kathie. We couldn’t get you and your pals to stop lying, though. The old fraudster’s defense, “it’s the victim’s fault for being dumb enough to believe me”.


42 posted on 12/02/2014 9:27:04 PM PST by ArmstedFragg (Hoaxey Dopey Changey)
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To: SeekAndFind

I guess that my financial literacy must also be low: can you imagine that I actually believe that having a premium reduction of $75/month in return for a tripled individual deductible and a quadrupled family deductible (to $12,700!) is a crappie deal? How stupid I must be to believe that I could actually figure things out for myself.

Kathleen, you ignorant slut! Your condescending bleeding heart is pumping it out in bucketfuls.


43 posted on 12/02/2014 9:30:18 PM PST by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt)
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To: SeekAndFind

Is this dried-up hag still breathing? What a soulless ghoul.


44 posted on 12/02/2014 9:36:27 PM PST by ogen hal (First Amendment or reeducation camp)
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To: poobear

I’m pretty sure this a Communist, Chinese, Shanghai of our country.

You spelled it wong tu.

It’s “Cadduhrack Pan”...


45 posted on 12/02/2014 9:53:55 PM PST by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
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To: SeekAndFind

Nurse Ratchet speaks. So reassuring to know what she thinks of the inmates. I was just being dumb! I stand corrected.


46 posted on 12/02/2014 10:00:42 PM PST by bluejean (The lunatics are running the asylum)
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To: Jet Jaguar

>>>$5.00 is perfectly acceptable<<<

$5.00 a Month is even better and they even put your name on a Monthly Donor List for all the World to see.

Just think, you’ll be listed with the FReeper Cream of the Crop, a Life changing accomplishment.

Join the Club, it won’t hurt a bit. I promise.

Seriously, let’s nip these Freepathons in the bud.
Jim has better things to do with his time.


47 posted on 12/02/2014 10:15:46 PM PST by Kickass Conservative (If you thought the Mulatto Marxist was bad, wait until the Menopausal Marxist is Elected.)
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To: Chode

Did she have a stoke or walk into a door jamb???


48 posted on 12/02/2014 10:53:53 PM PST by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: Axenolith

Stroke... frikkin keyboard...


49 posted on 12/02/2014 11:13:27 PM PST by Axenolith (Government blows, and that which governs least, blows least...)
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To: Vendome

:) Good one!


50 posted on 12/03/2014 2:17:37 AM PST by poobear (Socialism in the minds of the elites, is a con-game for the serfs, nothing more.)
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To: ModelBreaker

“The chocolate rations for next month have been increased...”


51 posted on 12/03/2014 2:54:21 AM PST by rlmorel (The Media's Principles: Conflict must exist. Doesn't exist? Create it. Exists? Exacerbate it.)
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To: Axenolith
if you enlarge it, that's a bandaid of some sort over it's eye so i'll go with doorjamb
52 posted on 12/03/2014 4:44:41 AM PST by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -w- NO Pity for the LAZY - 86-44)
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To: SeekAndFind

Gruber said we bought it BECAUSE our financial literacy is low.

So which is it???


53 posted on 12/03/2014 6:03:38 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Vigilanteman

Yes. My 12K (approximately) includes prescriptions and co-pays.


54 posted on 12/03/2014 6:34:11 AM PST by DBrow
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To: ModelBreaker

“Most Americans don’t realize that paying more for less is a good thing.”

Absolutely. Working Americans pay more so that the illegals and unemployed and the welfare crowd can get free health care.

This is good because now the progressives can say, not only will my opponent take away your soshakurity and welfare, they’ll take away your health care too, so vote for Me, Mr (D).

A permanent one-party state is the ultimate goal and they are making their enemies pay for the process to get there.


55 posted on 12/03/2014 6:37:40 AM PST by DBrow
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To: Axenolith

“Stroke... frikkin keyboard...”

Nope! You forgot to take your Obamacare medication, didn’t you?


56 posted on 12/03/2014 7:41:49 AM PST by Diapason
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