Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again
Barack Obama just announced a “fix” for the private individual health insurance market broken by Obamacare.
After an estimated 5 million and growing policies were cancelled due to Obamacare, Obama said “never mind” and told insurance companies to just keep selling the cancelled policies.
“Insurers can extend plans” into 2014. (Transcipt here.)
This does nothing to fix the problem, which is a war on plans people like but the Obama administration dislikes.
Democrats — alone and over vigorous objections from Republicans — broke the individual health care insurance market. It can’t just be put back together again under Obamacare.
Insurance source: WH fix places "onus on us even tho they know we can't" effectively extend cancelled policies given rates/logistics probs
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) November 14, 2013
Not only that, but Obamas is doing this unilaterally as an administrative matter, without changing the law. So much for Democrats objections to prior proposals from Republicans that Obamacare was “settled law.”
Real takeaway from today's executive power grab…as a matter of policy and politics, ObmaCare is in even bigger trouble than it seems.
— Drew McCoy (@_Drew_McCoy_) November 14, 2013
https://twitter.com/thegoldfarb/status/401028361083813888
We cannot 'fix' Obamacare. The damage has been done. It’s time to start over. http://t.co/oDs1KJN7D4 #FullRepeal
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) November 14, 2013
With his signature law crashing down around him, Obama blamestorms. GOP, insurance commissioners, media, insurance companies. Pitiful.
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) November 14, 2013
Updates:
Holy moly. RT @samsteinhp: AHIP's response to POTUS pic.twitter.com/bS4LmnWTkX
— Let's Start Our Own MAGA CHAZ! (@NolteNC) November 14, 2013
#President"s #Obamacare fix will add to sticker shock in Oct '14 when new rates are unveiled, so may be trading Dem nightmare for another.
— howardfineman (@howardfineman) November 14, 2013
Insurance commissioners have same objections to Obama ACA fix as Ins. Cos. And they doubt it can work in practice. http://t.co/2u1BuIwxhS
— Brit Hume (@brithume) November 14, 2013
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Comments
Don’t miss the silver lining around this announcements. The latest opportunity for Republicans to volunteer to be tarred with the ObamaCare brush has now been preempted by the administration. It remains a 100% Democrat monster.
Where is Colin Powell with his Pier One “if you break it, you bought it” advice when you need him?
Schadenfreude! It’s what’s for dinner!
It’s a 100%Democrat programmed Kobyashi Maru scenario.
Obama just has not figure out it’s unwinnable.
Remember, Kirk passed the Kobyashi Maru scenario… He just had to cheat. 🙂
President Lying Liar who Lies continues to lie.
or….be he henceforth known as his royal ……donkeycrat…President Dump Dump!!!!!!!!!!!
I assume that any new versions of “Lies and the Lying Lairs Who Tell Them” by Al Franken will include a new chapter exclusively covering Mr. Obama.
Another brilliant well-thought-out decision from the “Brightest man in the room”/sarc
I’ve always thought that room must be an airplane toilet.
Snark Snark.
Nancy Pelosi Starts Giggling About Suspenders
Remember this is the same guy who, as a Harvard Law graduate, couldn’t comprehend the terms of his own auto insurance policy, and needed a claims adjuster to explain to him why his liability-only policy wasn’t going to pay for the collision damage to his car.
He’s just not very bright.
I like that, but where is that story from? Would have been a great thing to use in a campaign.
This is like holding a stock and watching it go down, and down, and down, but my ego is so involved I can’t let go. Dismal.
Mr. Putz give another speech, yawn! The chance to fix the system has passed. The administration chose instead to control the system. Now what they want is to delay the control so that the idiots, who voted for the bill that the public didn’t want, can save their sorry hides instead of getting booted out of office.
Just out of idle curiosity, anyone see anything about Obamacare affecting Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and various other US territories?
Son-in-law, that now resides in Montreal, called a few days ago and asked if he’s supposed to sign up for Obamacare.
He’s worried about breaking the law, and having his visa revoked.
Now, THAT is an interesting question. DO American’s residing outside the country need to purchase Obamacare policies? Anyone with the answer to that?
Hey, I know! I’ll email Nancy Pelosi. Now that it is passed, she’ll know the answer!
I believe US citizens who are permanent residents of foreign countries have been exempted. If he’s a permanent resident of Canada, he should be covered by their systems.
Yea, I told him he lives under the jurisdiction of Canada, and subject to Canadian law, not American, but could be wrong.
Then again, I remember when “Idiocracy” was just a stupid movie.
There would be requirements from the host nation . Here they need to buy local private insurance .
However that would not cover them back in the US .
So American citizens would not be covered back home unless they had American insurance also.i would think.
WASHINGTON – President Obama announced Thursday he would offer an administrative “fix” to a provision in the Affordable Care Act – or ObamaCare- that forces millions of Americans to lose their existing health coverage by directing insurance companies to allow affected policy holders to renew their old coverage.
The president said states and insurers can extend current policies canceled under health law for a year.
Which is ALL OF…
1. an illegal diktat, and
2. impossible in the real world. Insurance companies cannot just eat all that expense, and
3. so cynically political (a year gets you past the elections) that even the MOST committed bung-suckers for the Collective won’t be able to ignore it.
Obama is hoping the media will return to their compliant lap dog status and not report that Obama’s “Fix” can’t be implemented in the real world.
The dangerous temptation is to offer a counter-stroke that takes the Obamic promise out into the future BY LAW…and not just for a year.
GOPers…DO NOT DO THAT.
Let it burn. “Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out!”
The operative word here is “can”, not must. He’s giving them permission to do something impossible and when they don’t do it he’ll put the blame on them. It’s brilliant.
I hear there’s a panic run on Super Glue in Washington DC.
What kind of political theater is this? For the 2014 elections? (“We offered a fix and the Republicans voted it down, blame them.”)
It’s not an economically viable solution while insurance companies simultaneously remain under the requirement to sell policies to people who are bad risks or have pre-existing conditions — and 2015, then what.
The silver lining here…???
Pres. ScamWOW just took the pressure off the GOP to “do something”.
He fixed it.
Now. Let. It. Burn.
Yesterday I posted that this fix had no business IQ .
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
This “signature law” is metaphor for everything else Obama. Nothing new; just that what’s bigger falls harder, makes a louder sound.
This “fix” is not economically viable or even feasible, and it’s illegal. Doesn’t he remember that the Supreme Court allowed the law to continue? It’s the law, Democrats! Repeal it, or vote for and sign the Upton bill into law, to get the government boot off the private insurance market. Next up, get the government boot off the employer health care market, and we’re done.
All Hail President Dump Dump!!!
FYI
Reader Explains Why Her Family of Four (with existing coverage) Opts Out of Obamacare
..Stacie explains why she and her family of four, all healthy, opt out of Obamacare. Instead she is willing to pay the penalty and use cash-only healthcare services.
Stacie’s family had affordable coverage before. Now they don’t have any coverage.
Our plan was to sign up for another year of coverage through my husband’s employer. Due to increase costs, they are only offering one plan with an HSA. However, these HSA deductibles are higher than I have ever seen. For our family it is $12,000 (in-network). The premiums are $720 per month. $720 a month for the privilege of getting worse coverage.
Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2013-11-13T11:42:00-08:00&max-results=3#0eIm7UFhbYOiQe9y.99
Not only do these democrats want their cake, while eating it too, they’ll send it back to the kitchen and demand a refund, complaining that it was too tasty and “To die for.”
Just think: if Democrats had allowed the Republicans to fund the government except for Obamacare — instead of shutting down the national parks, they could have avoided this mess altogether and kept telling people that they would have saved $2500 a year on their health insurance.
It’s better than that —
— imagine for a moment that Bill Clinton was our president on September 30, 2013. Imagine that O-Care was the law, the shutdown was about to happen, etc. etc.
Now then — Bill would have known that the website and rollout was about to be a disaster (because he’s a wonk and wonks would dig in and learn all this stuff, unlike Champ). Bill would have known that he needed a delay and that no amount of patching would work.
What would he have done?
He would have horse-traded with Boehner, carefully concealing that the rollout was a disaster. “Why sure John, I suppose I could give you a six month delay on the individual mandate, but I need stuff in return.”
The Pubs would rub their hands in glee thinking they pulled one over Bill.
And when the Democrats complained, Bill would pull them aside, whisper that the rollout was going to be a cluster-farg anyway, and look what he got out of those Pubs for the delay that he needed!
Then all the Democrats would have had a good laugh.
That’s how a slick president would have handled this. But we don’t have one of those now.
Obama to America: you’re so stupid that I’ll just delay your ObamaCare pain until after 2014 so you will vote for the same Democrats that caused this disaster.
A cross between malicious Alinskyism on steroids and pure Leninism. “Doubling down” is no longer an adequate term to describe the administration mindset, just as “liar” no longer fits this evil, pathological scourge of a president. But I think the scope of his malice and awfulness is his secret. He’s so far off the charts of measurable badness that no one in our corruptly dignified political Versailles can either conceive of it or dare speak of it.
Most are just standing around dumbfounded. I honestly believe most republicans are shocked and a little hurt that a Big Government scheme would fall so flat on its face. I mean, this is the family business we’re talking about.
Many in the right-wing punditry are stupidly feasting on schadenfreude, as if this somehow represents an effective weapon against shameless people. Jonah Goldberg may be the stupidest. Schadenfreude makes a nice snack but has a short shelf life. Obama is playing the long game. He’s survived every other scandal and thinks he’ll survive this one. Six months to a year from now he hopes to look out across a beaten-down populace which has come to accept the “new normal” of healthcare. Why shouldn’t he be optimistic?
Whither then, schadenfreude?
We have endured this craven viciousness for 5 years. We’re entitled to a day of rest.
Knowing how those on the right would react to the Edict, I’m always curious as to how the left reacts.
These comments from Huffpo pretty much sum it up:
So the repubs pointed out a problem, the president fixed it and they are still complaining? Must be nice to have a job where you do nothing but complain about the work others are doing.
__________________________________________________________
this is a mess because we should have single-payer healthcare. Obamacare is weak and messy and ultimately a boon to insurance companies.
________________________________________________________
Then, there are those that don’t see Obamacare as the problem:
Weak-willed, spineless move by President Go-along-get-along… I need a liberal with actual guts and standards!!!
They’re just too unprofessional and too incompetent to be anything else Browndog.
They’re incompetent and unprofessional.
It’s comments like that that make me think that no matter what we conservatives do, the obamabot true believers will follow the dems no matter what. Scary thought.
Someone that does special effects needs to put a magic wand in Obama’s hand, so every statement includes a flourish of sparkles from his little wand.
I second that Midwest Rhino!!!!
Perhaps a little pink tutu added on with photo-shop also.
You know…like Tinkerbell in the Hollywood cartoon…..
So, you want the rest of us to see what Valerie Jarret sees?
Help me out here, Professor Jacobson.
Obamacare was created by the Legislative Branch and passed both Houses, signed by the Executive Branch, and upheld by the Supreme Court.
So how is it that Obama can just put implementation aside simply by Executive Order?
Isn’t that the same as if George Bush signed an Executive Order to set aside abortion laws?
How is it any different?
I am just a small business owner, I don’t have the hours in the day to analyze legal precedent.
Thanks in advance.
Becauase the Obamacare legislation was written as a “shell”.
Meaning, it established the structure, but the specifics were “to be determined”
“The (HHS) Secretary shall/may determine..” appear on nearly every page, several times per page.
The ACA uses the phrase “… as the Secretary shall determine” a bit less than 3,000 times. It seems that whenever the bill-drafters found a provision to be thorny or difficult to design, they simply punted those decisions to the secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/08/why_not_obamacare.html
And that describes what barryCare is Browndog
a shell game
That’s amazing.
Personally, I think my 28 oz. Estwing would “level the playing field”.
How can this be enforceable law? What company would expose themselves to the risk of being sued on the word (or EO) of this man?
Does everything or anything he says have the force of law?
Someone needs to challenge him on this.
Say like the FREAKING cONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES?
Quotes From Presidents from Press Conference 11/14/13:
“I was not informed directly that the website would not be working the way it was supposed to.”
Again with I didn’t know line which just points more directly to his ineptitude to be a national leader.
“I’m accused of a lot of things.”
Yes, you are. Lying being your first defense on everything coming out of your mouth.
“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.”
Yes, so smart as to be stupid and deprived of common sense and owner of an over powering need to be seen as the last savior of man kind. You would say anything to perpetuate your lies.
“Clearly we, and I, did not have enough awareness about the problems with the website.”
Oh my God! The ultimate lie. Save us from the continuing B.S.. How many votes in Congress, how many experts outside of crony appointments assigned to launch your signature achievement(?) into reality, pointed out the problems from set up to performance did you snub, belittle and ignore up to Oct. 1. to come to this point.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/14/obama-not-stpid-enough-mislead-obamacare-website/#ixzz2ke12oHUF
The “ultimate”? Maybe, in terms of its consequences. But it’s the same lie he told about Benghazi, Fast & Furious, the IRS scandal, the NSI. Notice a pattern?
It would be nice if the Republicans did.
It doesn’t matter if he knew or didn’t know. It was his job to know, and he asked for the job.
Considering how many people’s lives are at stake, he should have been in the middle of this EVERY SINGLE DAY.
If he was and it hasn’t worked, he’s deliberately destroying us or incompetent. If he wasn’t, then he’s either deliberately destroying us or incompetent.
Neither is acceptable.
Oh c’mon, Karen. When would he have had a chance to play golf?
I can’t believe Obama had no idea how the Obamacare website worked before it went live. Is he that hands-off on Obamacare? It is mind-boggling that he had no idea how bad it was before the rest of us found out. Is he just a figurehead?
Also how could he repeatedly say you can keep your plan if you like it knowing that regulations made that impossible for millions of Americans? Just despicable.
Obama is just creating chaos. No one can be sure to know what to expect in the future. Can he really unring the bell? Do the insurance companies now write all those people whose insurance was cancelled and just say Obama gave you a year’s grace, we will offer you the same policy you had along with the normal increase in your premiums and deductibles, but next year …
Two things that a successful executive has to know how to do:
1) Know when he’s being lied to.
2) Know when he’s going to be lied to.
Both of these require long tempering in the furnace of business. People are going to lie to you softly, especially your allies. You have to know how to burrow beneath the subterfuge that many use to hide their failures.
Obama is responsible for the success or failure of any initiative that originates in his office or is signed by his hand. If he didn’t know, it was because he didn’t ask, or didn’t hire someone as his chief of staff that knew to ask, or didn’t know he was being lied to when he did ask. A competent executive doesn’t get snow-jobbed. When us wing nuts said loud and long that you don’t put a man without executive experience in the position of the world’s most powerful and consequential executive, we weren’t just marketing politics.
By saying Obama might be a successful executive, you’re assuming facts not in evidence.
Or that he is trying for a positive outcome. Where in the last 5 years has this person seemed to be trying for a positive outcome of anything?
No offense but you’re giving him too much credit.
We’re not talking about a sincere person making a sincere effort who just needs some better guidance.
He’s doing exactly what his puppet masters wish him to do.
And that is to destroy the United States by creating chaos in all parts of it’s structure both home and abroad.
Was this his first lesson at the knee of Alinsky and an internship in the wards of Chicago politics?
STRIKE HEAVY, QUICKLY, GO LARGE OR GO HOME
Brings to mind some other “world leaders” that subscribed to this “ism”
No question there has been incompetence and more, and that it was welcome to see Obama eat hubris.
BUT, I still have a crappy and expensive catastrophic care policy and there needs to be systemic improvement.
“BUT, I still have a crappy and expensive catastrophic care policy and there needs to be systemic improvement.”
Yes, there does and there have been proposals which the left simply will not consider because they go in the opposite direction they wish to go.
For example, if you’re familiar with Schedule A of the 1040, you know until Obamacare, you could only deduct medical expenses over I believe 7% of you adjusted gross income. Ocare pushed it to 10%. One excellent proposal is to make every single dollar that a person spends on medical care deductible from PRE-TAX income, so that high deductible would be much easier to swallow. For example, a $10k deductible if you’re self-employed and in the 15% bracket, would only cost you $10k and not $10k plus 15% self-employment tax, plus 15% income tax. The extra tax hit is $3,000, so the $10k deductible actually costs you $13,000.
This would eliminate the need for any Health Savings Accounts – paperwork is a disincentive if ever there was one! – and no one would need to guess how much they’d need for the following year. They’d simply spend what was needed, as needed. The guessing game is a truly bizarre tactic by congress, which makes me think they simply hate it.
The next thing that desperately needs to be done, in tandem with the ability to sell insurance across state lines, is to eliminate all minimum requirements for policies. This way, the market would provide full spectrum policy offerings, for those from the perfectly healthy to the not so healthy. Eliminating minimum requirements brings the cost down.
In addition, the bill providing that hospitals must treat patients should be repealed. Andrew Breitbart was a cheerful, happy warrior, a true inspiration, but he wasn’t always right. His belief that politics was downstream from the law is occasionally true but not always. The institution of this law has contributed to Americans believing they do not have to pay their bills – that someone else will pay, someone else will take care of it.
This belief that other people will cover their responsibility has contributed to a physicians and medical facilities having to carry balances due and essentially make interest-free loans to patients. Doctors are not banks! I have seen time and again, people tell me they don’t want to pay their medical bills because “the wreck is someone else’s fault.” Well, sure it was, but it wasn’t the doctor’s fault! So doctors, hospitals, et. cetera, are being taken advantage of by patients. It’s a shame a person gets injured in a car wreck, but those without insurance are counting on the obligation IMPOSED BY LAW for hospitals to be $$UCKERS! and treat them for free.
The reversal of this mindset must commence. It’s sapping strength of character from Americans and it’s proving lethal.
All of these things would help you. A catastrophic policy can be a great thing: reasonable rates and coverage of dire diagnoses. But their economical nature is being diluted by our current law, and laws need to change.
Yet another fine effort in blame displacement and evasion of responsibility for one’s own actions. Scapegoat Of The Day is insurance companies. George Bush and the Tea Party off the hook for the moment.
This limp announcement of a nothing-burger proves that Obama & Co have nothing, no fixes, no rehabilitation. They’ve got nothing. Obamacare opened on October 1st and by November 14th they are already reduced to managing the fallout from an historically epic political failure. The Obamacare dog is now waving the Obama tail, and the MSM tires of the reek of puppy urine.
Just offer a bill to repeal Obama care period. Don’t get trapped into doing it piecemeal. It is what he wants.
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again”
Not even Valerie Jarrett???
Is there anyone in the White House who knows how insurance companies function? Quick, interview all the state insurance omissioners to see what they have to say about this idea.
Are insurance companies going to go along with this? Obama said they’re “allowing” insurance companies to extend the cancelled policies through 2014 right? What’s in it for them if they do? Don’t they open themselves to impossible risk imbalances?
What’s in it for them might be lawsuits. They are heavily regulated. I don’t see how they can simply not comply with the law just because the President says to.
Plus, the insurance companies seem to be the only people who actually read this nightmare law. They spent the last year making arrangements, doing actuarial estimates of what coverage would cost, arranging provider networks, and preparing policies. They’re supposed to just throw all this in the trash and re-write cancelled policies which are NOT in compliance with state and federal regulations now?
I told you. Once a policy is cancelled it is cancelled. You have to go to a new one; that is, if the insurance companies will let you have a new one.
Get rid of Obamacare period. It really doesn’t anything to do with healthcare.
The only ‘fix’ Obama knows anything about has to do with the use of illegal drugs.
Had Obama had any intent to believe the marketplace is going to buy into this he would not have used the word “allowed”. Again with the twist of the chosen word and the deceit of the message. He will re-interpret himself in a few weeks to tell you what “allow” really means.
If I were a Republican governor with a Republican AG, I would be sorely temped to run straight to the Supreme Court with the following arguement:
A law that cannot be implemented as wrtten is unconstitutional, period.
His Highness decrees that the Insurance Companies must now offer the old policies under his terms, and that he alone may pick and choose which ones he approves of.
Very nice.
No, he didn’t say they HAD to offer those policies again. He said they COULD.
As a matter of practical reality, they can’t. And when they don’t, Americans will blame them, not Obastard.
His “fix” is to tell the insurance companies turn back the clock. We’re now officially in Wonderland.
When he is wounded he always comes out adrenalined ( drugged) up & swinging wildly. Remember the American Jobs Bill Tour ?
This guy is on psychotropic medication . The situation is very much like JFK but without the women . Thank heavens says the world his missile crises are domestic .
I just thought he was stoned. His eyelids kept slamming shut.
Funny: President announces fix for Obamacare: HHS to build time machine, set date back to 9/30 and uncancel policies
Just as I predicted above he has gone troppo out there in Ohio. The drugs have surely kicked in & he is off on a war against all critics.
#obamahemad
#hegonnakickass
#doyougotinsurancequestionpunk
Whoahhh you guys have got a psycho on the loose. And you thought King George was mad?
[…] From Legal Insurrection: […]
If he’d done this a year ago, when he Unconstitutionally extended the Employer Mandate by a year, he might have gotten away with it.
But now?? AFTER 5 Million or so policies have been cancelled because Obamacare made them illegal, to come out and wave his finger and say “nevermind”, without a legislative fix, is absurd.
He has no legal authority to do this. Indeed, he has a Constitutional duty to enforce the Law as written.
Those policies are still illegal. They’re cancelled as of Jan 1, ’14. Does he seriously expect all those insurers to now tell their customers they can have their plans back, under the exact same terms, even though they’re illegal, just because Obama says he won’t punish the companies for providing illegal plans?
And get that done in a month?
Plus, it seems a lot of those insurers were more than happy to dump these customers on the Exchanges and don’t really want them back. Big insurers like the big group employer market and were looking forward to the captive audience the exchanges were creating for them. What they aren’t interested in is competing for individual sales.
Obama squeezed the toothpaste out of the tube and then gives the insurers permission to put it back in, hoping to blame them for the mess if they can’t do it.
That “Ugly” just exploded all over Barry’s face – and he can’t get up!…er I mean he can’t get it off now!
Picture of Obama after the ObamaDontCare blow up!
http://buffetoblog.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/3_stooges_cake.jpg