The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Three Realizations About #ObamaCare

Posted on | February 8, 2014 | 18 Comments

by Smitty From Is Obamacare Unraveling?

. . .the administration was thinking of extending the individual health insurance policies that Obamacare was supposed to have cancelled for as much as three more years. . . .with the literal drop dead date for these old policies hitting by December 31, 2014, that would have meant those final cancellation letters would have had to go out about election day 2014. That would have meant that the administration was going to have to live through the cancelled policy nightmare all over again––but this time on election day. The health insurance plans hate the idea of another three-year reprieve. They have been counting on the relatively healthy block of prior business pouring into the new Obamacare exchanges to help stabilize the rates as lots of previously uninsured and sicker people come flooding in. . . . Republicans, and a few vulnerable Democrats, had essentially called for this last fall when legislation was floated in both the House and Senate with the “If You Like Your Policy You Can Keep It,” proposals.

Which brings me to the following:

  1. Hayek wins. Again.
  2. The insurance companies may have thought they were dealing with the pleasant Cthulhu, but the insurers are as much on the menu as the rubes who gave this no-talent rodeo clown a pass last November.
  3. The GOP is as much at fault for all of this idiocy, insofar as it plays the Progressive game, and doesn’t offer substantial reform that redistributes power, not wealth.

Other than the general political/economic collapse that’s unfolding in our country this year, things are going well. I’ve been studying to take the PMP exam a week from Monday. Come to think of it, though, our debt and misery seems to have increased with the number of advanced degrees and certifications issued. So maybe that’s a bad idea, overall. via Hot Air headlines

Category: Health Care

Comments

18 Responses to “Three Realizations About #ObamaCare”

  1. Socialism: Organized Evil
    February 8th, 2014 @ 7:19 pm

    It’s also important to keep in mind that the vast majority of information is held in the form of knowledge about immediate circumstances, personalities, and experience.

    In other words, it’s information that cannot be systematically organized.

    Despite what marxist hacks like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Hussein Obama claim, it’s not plunder that has made these states successful, it’s the information superiority that naturally arises with free people, free enterprise, and free markets.

  2. Three realizations about ObamaCare
    February 8th, 2014 @ 7:22 pm

    […] Smitty at The Other McCain has come to the follow three realizations about ObamaCare. […]

  3. DaveO
    February 8th, 2014 @ 7:40 pm

    It will take several more years to get Obamacare straightened out, in terms of security and database design across dozens of enterprises and management, and getting the interfaces right. It’s not 1 website – it’s dozens of companies, and thousands of medical providers, and tens of millions of users. This failure is textbook in what not to do. Anyone making the claim Obamacare is succeeding is lying and will be lying for several more years.
    Some folks are saying Obamacare is meant to fail, and is the gateway to Single Payer. If Obamacare’s proponents couldn’t get the initial website right, which any scammer can do in a few hours, what (besides insanity and hopeless hope) makes anyone believe this government can set up, implement and run Single Payer healthcare?

  4. smitty
    February 8th, 2014 @ 7:55 pm

    If Obamacare’s proponents couldn’t get the initial website right, which any scammer can do in a few hours, what…makes anyone believe this government can set up, implement and run Single Payer healthcare?

    I think the answer is: “Shut up.”

  5. K-Bob
    February 9th, 2014 @ 12:26 am

    Yes, it most definitely is unraveling. This proves that the strategy of “letting it fail on its own” is at least based on reality, math, and the experience of history.

    So if we do nothing at all, it will eventually implode on its own.

    All we have to do is wait the requisite seventy years.

    Easy as cake!

    { Hey Smitty, if you do well on your PMP exams, does that mean you get a new PMPmobile? }

  6. Adjoran
    February 9th, 2014 @ 3:23 am

    An even more important point is that after the gross and serial incompetence demonstrated over ObamaCare, the public would never trust the same folks to design single payer.

  7. Adjoran
    February 9th, 2014 @ 3:28 am

    Obama is just hastening the collapse by delaying the mandate for those already extended (like me, albeit at higher cost than before). The more reasonably healthy people – which includes most of those with existing private individual coverage – are allowed to avoid the exchanges, the older and sicker the pool from the exchanges will be, meaning higher claims, higher premiums, losses and reimbursements over and above the level anticipated when the plan passed. Can you say, “Death spiral?”

    I fail to see how Republicans are at fault for this. The only Republican vote ever cast for it was the guy who temporarily replaced Bill “Ice” Jefferson. No other Republican voted for it at any stage. The House passed repeal at least 39 times.

  8. NeoWayland
    February 9th, 2014 @ 7:03 am

    Competition drives the free market, to keep customers companies have to make things better than their rivals and better than what they themselves did yesterday.

    Competition is what the “single payer” eliminates in the name of efficiency, yet over time competition means that products and services will be better, faster, and cheaper.

    There is no incentive to improve under a government controlled system. There is overwhelming incentive to pay off legislators and technocrats for favorable treatment.

  9. Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove
    February 9th, 2014 @ 9:12 am

    […] The Other McCain has 3 realizations about Obamacare […]

  10. Quartermaster
    February 9th, 2014 @ 9:30 am

    The GOP leadership bought into it when they refused to end funding. You can whine all you like about how Cruz and company damaged the GOP, but they did the right thing. The GOP leadership cut its own throat.

  11. SDN
    February 9th, 2014 @ 12:27 pm

    “Shut up, RAAAAACIST!!!”

    FTFY.

  12. David Caskey
    February 9th, 2014 @ 5:49 pm

    I totally agree, the Republicans should have shut the government down and cast the blame on the big O. This would be economic suicide, but what the hell, we are in a depression and the government is creating money like it is no tomorrow. The thing is that if the US continues to collapse, so will the rest of the world and we can deal with the aftermath. As it is, we have lost a considerable amount of freedom and wealth in the last 10 years and it is time to stop the slide.

  13. Adjoran
    February 12th, 2014 @ 2:08 am

    Except that ObamaCare wasn’t funded by the Continuing Resolution. It’s funding was built into the ACA in the form of tax credits and subsidies that did not require further authorization, like an entitlement.

    Once it passed into law, it is completely self-funded until it starts running up deficits from the risk corridors and subsidies that aren’t covered by premium taxes as planned. Or when the IRS needs more people to manage the tax end. But none of these were in the CR, so Cruz’ effort wasn’t going to “defund” ObamaCare in any way, shape, or form.

  14. Quartermaster
    February 12th, 2014 @ 5:35 am

    FedGov has to have authority to spend anything. It may be “self funded” but it could not be spent without authorization. That, contra you, was the argument. The GOPe owns this as much as the insane left does.

  15. Adjoran
    February 14th, 2014 @ 12:49 am

    The authorization, AGAIN, was already passed. The “shutdown” only shut down 17% of the government – and ObamaCare was NOT among it. You don’t have to like. But as Rumsfeld noted, you are not entitled to your own facts.

  16. Quartermaster
    February 14th, 2014 @ 1:35 pm

    You need to listen to yourself for once. Your inconsistency simply makes you look like an idiot. All spending must be authorized. No spending authorization is permanent.

  17. Adjoran
    February 14th, 2014 @ 6:09 pm

    In the words of Ed Koch, “I can explain it to you, but I cannot understand it for you.”

  18. Quartermaster
    February 15th, 2014 @ 10:17 am

    I understand quite well. The problem is people like yourself that refuse to see the facts as they are.