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Obamacare Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 29, 2013 247 Comments

Charles Krauthamer observes the lawlessness of the Obama administration: Remember how for months Democrats denounced Republicans for daring to vote to defund or postpone Obamacare? Saboteurs! Terrorists! How dare you alter “the law of the land.” This was nonsense from the beginning. Every law is subject to...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 29, 2013 15 Comments
It may be the biggest Obamacare lie of all. Not that you can keep your health care plan if you like your plan. Not that you can keep your doctor if you like your doctor. Not all of the phony cost estimates and supposed efficiencies. The biggest lie of all is that 15-30 million additional people who will be enticed or shoved onto Medicaid will receive quality health care.  In reality, they will receive health care "insurance," but there will be few doctors willing to see them because the reimbursement rates are so low. I have mentioned before how, anecdotally, almost every doctor with whom I speak sings that same song, that Medicaid reimbursements are so low they either have to restrict or eliminate Medicaid patients. It's not just anecdotal.  Even The New York Times notes that the problem will become much worse under Obamacare, Medicaid Growth Could Aggravate Doctor Shortage (h/t @Drudge_Report):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 29, 2013 30 Comments

It will stand the test of time. Those who were willing to stand against Obamacare despite all the name calling, and who are proven to have been correct. Obama and Democrats now are scrambling to delay various portions of the Obamacare rollout, even though such delays when...

Posted by Laurel Conrad on November 28, 2013 14 Comments
Democrats have prepared a guide to confronting Republican relatives at Thanksgiving: https://twitter.com/TheDemocrats/status/405706375096827904 For those Democrats who are too dumb to remember the talking points, they even have a cheat sheet (h/t Noah Rothman): https://twitter.com/dccc/statuses/405770354314190848 And what a fantastic idea; nothing says, "this would make for interesting dinner conversation" quite like debating Obamacare.  After all, over the past month, signing up for Obamacare has really put people in the holiday spirit. Democrats are just doing what the leader of the Party wants: https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/405765118492811264 To get the warm-fuzzies going, a month ago BarackObama.com introduced the idea of "it's time to have the talk" in a video on its website.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 27, 2013 7 Comments
This is a follow up to the undercover video by James O'Keefe's Project Veritas in which Chris Tarango, Texas Communications Director for Enroll America, was caught offering to help make a connection between the non-profit Obamacare enrollment group and what he thought was a Democratic Party operative. The operative was part of O'Keefe's sting operation. The video gave rise to a challenge to Enroll America's non-profit status, Fox News reported:
On Friday, a self-described nonprofit, nonpartisan government accountability group filed a complaint with the IRS that Enroll America was violating its tax-exempt status by participating in partisan politics, citing the Project Veritas video as evidence. The group, Cause for Action, has also written a letter to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot, asking him to investigate whether Enroll America and other groups have violated the state’s laws and the IRS code.
Now Tarango has resigned according to O'Keefe's website:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 22, 2013 56 Comments
It's not for nothing that Obama nuked the filibuster rule.  Yes, Obama.  Harry Reid would not have done it except with marching orders. There's plenty of commentary all around about how this is a desperate move by Obama, as he sinks in the polls and his most "historic" achievement -- Obamacare -- eats away at the Democratic Party like a flesh-eating wound. Obama can pack open judicial seats with hard core partisans, and put his desired apparatchiks in positions of administrative power. I expressed my view on the opportunity this presents, Democrats nuked the ratchet. Oddly, I find myself agreeing with some commentators who normally are not on my side of the fence.  This Dana Milbank column makes some important points, although he inaccurately also blames Republicans for allegedly abusing the filibuster, The Democrats’ naked power grab:
“Congress is broken,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday before holding a party-line vote that disposed of rules that have guided and protected the chamber since 1789.... Here’s what then-Sen. Joe Biden said in 2005 when a Republican Senate majority threatened to use a similar “nuclear option” to allow a simple majority to carry the day: “The nuclear option abandons America’s sense of fair play . . . tilting the playing field on the side of those who control and own the field. I say to my friends on the Republican side: You may own the field right now, but you won’t own it forever. I pray God when the Democrats take back control, we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 21, 2013 15 Comments
California, with over 1 million canceled health policies due to Obamacare, has formally rejected Obama's so-called fix. https://twitter.com/CoveredCA/statuses/403645916596273152 Via The L.A. Times:
Spurning President Obama’s plan for canceled policies, California's health insurance exchange voted against any extension for about 1 million policyholders in the state. The five-member board of the exchange voted unanimously to keep its current requirement that insurers terminate most individual policies Dec. 31 because they don't meet all the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. The decision ends a weeklong drama over what would happen for policyholders who will lose their existing coverage at year-end and face finding replacement insurance that may cost them substantially more in many instances. Covered California, the state exchange, considered allowing renewals into 2014 as Obama proposed or a short-term extension through March to give people more time to shop. But state leaders ultimately rejected those options. They expressed concerns about further confusing consumers and worried that widespread renewals could keep too many healthy customers out of the broader risk pool that will shape future rates.
At the same time, the California Health Exchange released figures purporting to show great progress is signing up new enrollees, close to 3000 a day, but the numbers are dwarfed by the scope of policy cancellations. Via The Wall Street Journal:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 20, 2013 17 Comments
James O'Keefe's Project Veritas is out with another investigative video exposing highly questionable "cross-pollination" between Enroll America and Texas Democratic political operatives. Enroll America bills itself as:
a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to maximize the number of uninsured Americans who enroll in health coverage made available by the Affordable Care Act.
As such, Enroll America cannot get involved in any political activity. Project Veritas, however, discovered that a Texas-based Enroll America official was willing to push the limits (to put it charitably) or even break the law (to put it not charitably) in order to help someone he thought was a Democratic operative. Here's the explanation from the Project Veritas website, Enroll America Director Conspires to Release Private Data (emphasis in original):
Do you know where your personal data is going? After meeting with several Obamacare Navigators who openly encouraged our undercover reporters to lie about income status, health history and more, it became clear that personal data was also being “cross-pollinated.” Enter Enroll America, a Sebelius-linked group dedicated to signing people up for Obamacare and Chris Tarango, Texas Enroll America Communications Director who Project Veritas caught on tape agreeing to help obtain a private list of potential Obamacare enrollee data for election/political purposes. Tarango goes so far to say he’ll “Do whatever it f****** takes.”
Here's the video, the first 15 minutes of which are the edited video, the remainder the raw video: Eliana Johnson at National Review has a more complete explanation:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 20, 2013 36 Comments
So often we hear Democrats demand Republican capitulation on a host of issues -- some social, some economic -- because Republicans are on "the wrong side of history." That argument was made, in highly perjorative, eliminationist ways during the epic struggle of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and others to stop Obamacare before it inflicted more pain. That effort to stop Obamacare prior to the failed rollout of healthcare.gov was belittled by people like Timothy Egan in The New York Times as being on the Wrong Side of History, writing on October 3, 2013:
They are not righteous rebels or principled provocateurs. They are not constitutionalists, using the ruling framework built by the founders. Just the opposite: they are a militant fringe of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government trying to nullify an established law by extortion. This is not the design of the Constitution. Nor are they Martin Luther King Jr., or Rosa Parks or Winston Churchill — preposterous comparisons made on the floor of Congress by those whose only real fight is with progress.... We know now why Senator Ted Cruz, the most hated man in Washington, said he fears that once Obamacare is up and running people will like it — and then it will be too late for the obstructionists.... They wrecked the car, dug their own grave; no matter what you call it, history’s verdict came early.
Little did Egan or the others belittling the warnings about Obamacare realize that history's verdict would be against them; that Obamacare was it was not as it was sold and would cause Democrats to scramble for distance; that the Tea Party would be viewed as more in touch with American values than the ideology behind Obamacare; that big government would become the most hated thing outside Washington, even if Ted Cruz remained "the most hated man in Washington." The sweep of history is upon us, and it is not with the bigger government Democratic Party.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 20, 2013 10 Comments
The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a hearing yesterday on the cyber security of the healthcare.gov website. The prepared testimony is available on the Committee's website. The testimony of so-called "white hat hacker" David Kennedy reflected the findings in a report from TrustedSEC, LLC (full report embedded at bottom of post) which concluded:
What this analysis shows us is that as an attacker, there are known exposures in the healthcare.gov website today that could lead to significant compromise of the website and information. Additionally, the website is integrated into multiple agencies including some of the largest collections of United States citizen data – this includes the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and other federal agencies. Based on our evaluation of the website, we have serious concerns over the security of the website and the ability to protect information.
The testimony was featured on Greta: ABC News further reports:

Posted by Mandy Nagy on November 19, 2013 18 Comments

It’s been another busy couple of days for news on the Obamacare rollout.  Chief among those is a report from the Washington Post that private consultants warned of risks before HealthCare.gov’s Oct. 1 launch: The Obama administration brought in a private consulting team to independently assess...

Posted by New Neo on November 19, 2013 9 Comments
The insurance business would not be possible 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." Those with greater risk are usually charged higher than average premiums or are sometimes even refused coverage in the first place, in order to keep premiums reasonable for the rest. But the Obama administration and liberals as a whole have been using the word "discrimination" in that second manner, to signify something pejorative and/or arbitrary and unfair when referring to health insurance. They don'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 they refer to health insurance as unfairly discriminatory when, for example, insurers limit coverage for pre-existing conditions. Compare and contrast these slogans: "Health insurance discriminates against people with pre-existing conditions!" and "Health insurance discriminates against smokers!"  Obamacare "discriminates" against smokers but not those with preexisting conditions.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 18, 2013 11 Comments

In June of 2009, when what became Obamacare was in its earliest discussion stages, we noted that Deception and Tyranny Were The Key To Health Care Reform. We are seeing how that is being exposed through the knowingly false sales pitch that you could keep your...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 17, 2013 40 Comments
As the sham sales pitch and flummoxed policy behind Obamacare are exposed the attempts to portray opposition as a reaction to Obama's race are ramping up with renewed vigor. Yet the evidence is becoming more clear that it is not race that is the problem, it's Obama. Fouad Adjami has a perceptive column (h/t Hot Air), When the Obama Magic Died:
A nemesis awaited the promise of this new presidency: Mr. Obama would turn out to be among the most polarizing of American leaders. No, it wasn't his race, as Harry Reid would contend, that stirred up the opposition to him. It was his exalted views of himself, and his mission. The sharp lines were sharp between those who raised his banners and those who objected to his policies. America holds presidential elections, we know. But Mr. Obama took his victory as a plebiscite on his reading of the American social contract. A president who constantly reminded his critics that he had won at the ballot box was bound to deepen the opposition of his critics. A leader who set out to remake the health-care system in the country, a sixth of the national economy, on a razor-thin majority with no support whatsoever from the opposition party, misunderstood the nature of democratic politics. An election victory is the beginning of things, not the culmination.
It started long before Obamacare.  It started at the earliest point in Obama's presidency, the Stimulus.

Posted by Laurel Conrad on November 17, 2013 14 Comments
In an ironic twist, Bill Clinton is now distancing himself from Obamacare. In an interview earlier this month, Bill Clinton told online magazine Ozy:
I personally believe, even if it takes a change to the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got.
However, this is a far cry from Hillary Clinton's previous support of Obamacare.  As Professor Jacobson pointed out on Wednesday, Hillary was more pro-mandate than Obama. Now, likely in looking forward to the 2016 election, the Clintons have suddenly changed their tune. But with an established track record of supporting Obamacare, will Hillary be able to successfully distance herself from the policy's unpopularity? Here are just five examples of Hillary's support for the Obamacare:

1.  Hillary was "very pleased" by Supreme Court decision

Hillary Clinton's initially reacted to the Supreme Court's ruling on Obamacare by saying:
I am very pleased- that's how I hoped it would turn out. I think it's a great moment just to think about what this will mean for the millions and millions of Americans who have already benefitted from the Affordable Care Act, and so many more will continue to do so. There will be a lot of work to do to get it implemented and understand what the opinion says, but obviously I was quite pleased to hear the results.
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