Obamacare, Organized Labor, Politics

Obamacare, What Could Go Wrong?

Time for a recap on the success, or lack thereof, of the greatest piece of legislation (if you ask a Democrat) since the New Deal, Social Security, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Section 8 Housing combined. Universal health care, said President Obama, is what Americans have wanted. And they wanted it so that the 15 percent of Americans that didn’t have health insurance could then have it. After all, we are a generous and compassionate America. Not only that, but average family policyholders would see a $2,500 decrease in their premiums because everyone would now be insured.

Now, three years since the bill’s enactment, and with less than two weeks to go before the mandatory sign-up period ends, the circus of all legislation, Obamacare, is tumbling down and taking Americans, the economy, with it.

Remember when Big Labor and businesses complained of the cost and burden the ACA would put on them, and were granted delays of implementation through 2014? They couldn’t afford it. That left the individual mandate to fund the program on its own, since big businesses got the delay they wanted. Then Republicans asked for the individual mandate to also be delayed, because people, including Congressional employees who make six figure salaries, couldn’t afford it. They filibustered for the delay and got no where. Now, the administration is doing what Republicans wanted to do last year because, ta daaa, it is creating “hardship” on people. People can not afford to buy it. Now, since the individual mandate has been pushed back two years, until October 2016, the Affordable Care Act has no one mandated to participate. Which means that the Affordable Care Act now has no mandated funding. And what funding it does have, is no where near what it takes (by demographic) to survive, let alone reduce anyone’s premium. What a brilliant plan?

Delaying Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Due to ‘Hardship’ — Caused by Obamacare

It’s getting difficult to take any part of Obamacare seriously.

The Obama administration has altered or delayed it so many times—who can be sure what the law is at this point?

The individual mandate stating that every American has to purchase government-approved health coverage or pay a fine is supposed to kick in on March 31. That’s the deadline to sign up for coverage, supposedly to avoid this year’s penalty.

But Obamacare is never “settled law,” as the president and others have called it, because Health and Human Services (HHS) keeps writing more regulations.

Most recently, the administration extended the “hardship exemption” from the individual mandate for those who had their previous policies canceled because of Obamacare until October 2016.

To qualify, your plan must have been canceled because it wasn’t compliant with Obamacare, and you just have to tell the government you “believe” that other insurance policies are unaffordable.

The exemption means people who meet these criteria are free from the individual mandate. But if they want to buy coverage, they are given the special option to buy a “catastrophic” health insurance plan, which is not eligible for subsidies and typically would be available only to those under age 30.

When the exemption was first announced in December, Heritage experts Alyene Senger and Robert Moffit said this “is not going to simplify anything. Rest assured it is going to create even greater confusion for health insurers trying to sell these products. Also, don’t expect the unhappy consumers who’ve just lost their previous coverage to understand clearly which plan they can pick and be legally qualified to pick it.”

Due to the utter confusion and the underperforming signups on HealthCare.gov, reporters asked HHS this week whether the agency would simply extend the deadline for people to buy coverage. An HHS official responded that, “In fact, we don’t actually have the statutory authority to extend the open enrollment period in 2014.”

This administration hasn’t let a detail like legal authority stop it from overstepping its bounds multiple times. And as Heritage’s Senger and Moffit put it, “issuing more government rules to correct the consequences of their unworkable government rules is the only thing they seem to know how to do.”

Repealing the ACA would be way better than what we now have. Replacing it with the House version would be better, and, would deliver in the private sector all that the ACA was promised to do in the public sector but can’t.

H/T Amy Payne 

2008 Election, 2012 Election, Economy, Immigration, Media, Politics, Race Relations

Obama’s War On Women, Poor, Hispanics, And Young

For better or worse, a truism of American politics is that voters vote their pocketbooks. Yet according to a new report on median household incomes by Sentier Research, in 2012 millions of American voters apparently cast ballots contrary to their economic self-interest. A testament to the power of a media devoted to their president.

Now for some economic facts

Obama’s economic policies are hurting the people who elected him more than any other demographic.

President Obama was re-elected with 51% of the vote. Five demographic groups were crucial to his victory: young voters, single women, those with only a high-school diploma or less, blacks and Hispanics. He cleaned up with 60% of the youth vote, 67% of single women, 93% of blacks, 71% of Hispanics, and 64% of those without a high-school diploma, according to exit polls.

Family income decrease from President Obama’s 5 most dedicated demographics since his “recovery” began.

  • -7% single women households, with or without children
  • -9.6% under age 25
  • -10.9% Black heads of households
  • -4.5% Hispanic heads-of-households
  • -8% incomes of workers with a high-school diploma or less fell by about 8% (-6.9% for those with less than a high-school diploma and -9.3% for those with only a high-school diploma).

To put that into dollar terms, in the four years between the time the Obama recovery began in June 2009 and June of this year, median black household income fell by just over $4,000, Hispanic households lost $2,000 and female-headed households lost $2,300.

The middle class is getting poorer.  While the minimum wage remained steady, the median family income has fallen every year since Obama’s “recovery” began.

Makes one wonder what it would take for these people to realize that what they are living is not what Obama is saying, but what he is doing? He’s not going to stop campaigning. He can’t. Because if he does, the gullible voters that elected this community organizer president twice might begin to realize that President Obama is more interested in gaining political power than making the economy, and their lives, any better.

Which reminds me of what Rand Paul said in this post . . .

Liberals don’t seem to get the point that if you’re trying something and the objective evidence shows that it’s not working, why not try something different?

Paul indirectly referred to the famous definition of insanity as trying something again and again while expecting a different result.

Link: Stephen Moore: Obama’s Economy Hits His Voters Hardest – WSJ.com.

Economy, Politics, Race Relations

A Liberal Diagnosis

An excerpt from an interview with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) over the weekend. World Net Daily’s Gina Loudon asked “What is wrong with the people who don’t understand why conservatism works, and why liberty is so important?”

Sen. Rand Paul, Gina Loudon at CPAC 2014

The “people” being referred to here is the “fair shot” crowd. The pols who prey on wealth envy and class warfare, who presume that because there is a bottom rung on the socio-economic ladder, that there is something unfair about that. 

Sen. Paul, R-Ky., had the answer to her question.

I tell people it’s the ‘big heart, small brain syndrome.’ Liberals have big hearts, but they’re not using all their brain capacity. I don’t know,” he said. “Liberals don’t seem to get the point that if you’re trying something and the objective evidence shows that it’s not working, why not try something different?”

Paul indirectly referred to the famous definition of insanity as trying something again and again while expecting a different result.

Link: RAND PAUL DIAGNOSES LIBERAL DISORDER

2014 Election, Economy, Obamacare, Organized Labor, Politics

Problem Is Median Income, Not Minimum Wage

It ought to be clear by now that nothing President Obama has done to “fix” our economy has worked. And the reason is he has it all wrong. You can’t build the private sector economy when you bleed the strength from it via taxes, over-regulation, and debt. As the government grows, the economy shrinks. And boy has the government grown.

Aside from his propensity to tax and spend, where spending is to favor contributors, labor unions, and favored special interests like environmental wackos and green energy flops, none of which builds the economy, President Obama’s economic engineering is not working because he can’t identify the problem.

The problem is not the minimum wage. That is a political strategy for hooking low information voters and the poor to vote Democratic. And to give Big Labor a raise. Raising the minimum wage will cause people to lose jobs. Just like Obamacare is causing people to lose jobs.  The middle class is getting poorer.  While the minimum wage remained steady, the median family income has fallen every year since Obama’s “recovery” began.

According to the Census report, the high point for median household income in the United States was back in 1999 ($56,080). It almost got back to that level in 2007 ($55,627), but ever since then there has been a steady decline. The following figures come directly from the report, and as you can see, median household income has fallen every single year for the past five years…

2007: $55,627
2008: $53,644
2009: $53,285
2010: $51,892
2011: $51,100
2012: $51,017

Did you know that there are six counties in America where the median income is over twice the national median?  Four of those counties are suburban Washington.

You know where President Obama’s focus is. And it is not on how to raise median family income. That’s where the middle class is. Is this because he doesn’t know how? Or is it because he doesn’t care that his social justice agenda is killing jobs and ruining the economy, especially the middle class? Which one works for you?

2016 Election, Politics

DNC Members Support Hillary Because . . .

Fascinating video at the Democratic Executive Committee Conference in Washington last weekend. The Media Research Center had reporter Dan Joseph there, who asked attendees if they were ready for Hillary Clinton for president. And, what of her accomplishments qualify her for the position. The answers are revealing, if not downright hilarious. No pun intended.

We should know by now that stuff like track record and achievement are no longer even ancillary to the matter of choosing a president. They’re now completely irrelevant. The election of Obama established that, and his re-election cemented it.

H/T Dan Calabrese

Immigration, Obamacare, Politics

Illegals Can Get Coverage Under ACA

illegal_aliens

Joe Wilson was right when he shouted “you lie” to Obama when he said that illegals wouldn’t be covered under obama-stop-deporting-dreamers-apObamacare. Of course everyone knew that. After all, it’s why the Heller Amendment was defeated.

In a virtual town hall meeting hosted by Spanish-language media outlets on Thursday, President Obama wanted Latinos to know that “I’ve got your back.”  And . . .

The main point that I have for everybody watching right now is, you don’t punish me by not signing up for health care. You’re punishing yourself or your family if in fact there’s affordable health care to be had.

Links:

2012 Election, 2014 Election, 2016 Election, Economy, Obamacare, Politics

I Want My Affordable Health Care

Have you begun to notice that the Affordable Care Act, which was supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, (never mind that 85% of the population were happy with the health insurance and health care they had), keeps getting delayed (illegally I might add) from implementation? Curiously, all the bad stuff, like policy cancellations and the people seeing their premiums double and deductibles quadruple, losing their doctors, hospital, and medicine, keep being pushed back to periods AFTER elections. After 2012, after 2014, and now some provisions after 2016 and long after 2016.

If this law is so good, something that Americans just couldn’t live without, then let those policy cancellation notices come out in September and October of 2014. Let’s get it on already. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Democrats totally OWN the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, would it? Or from the fact of what we’ve seen so far that it is turning out to be nothing like what was promised? Or maybe it was because the promises have been revealed to everybody, including democrats, to be not promises, but outright lies?

Ignoring the failure of Obamacare is one thing. What’s even more amazing is the democratic strategy for the 2014 mid-term election. A strategy designed to not make Democrats look like they have to run away from Obamacare. Their idea is to run on fixing it.

To a Democrat in Washington this makes perfect sense. Just like their inability to stimulate the economy with so-called stimulus spending, and wanting to spend more, while the only result is record long-term unemployment, the lowest worker participation rate since Jimmy Carter, and massive record national debt. In other words, they’ve proven that what they’re doing does not work. So let the ones who broke the economy fix the economy by doing the same thing that broke it in the first place.

It follows then that we should re-elect the people who destroyed our health care system and health insurance industry so that they can ostensibly “fix” it in however many years it will take. And that makes sense to who? Especially when there has been a private sector alternative solution to Obamacare for 4 years now. And on that topic, remember, every time you hear a Democrat say “they have no alternative,” you know they are lying to you again.

Egypt, Middle East, Politics, Russia

The Budapest Memorandum, circa 1994, Ukraine Edition

The Budapest Memorandum was a security agreement signed Dec. 5, 1994 by US President Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister John Major, Russia’s Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma for Ukraine. Not having a meaningful military of its own, but did have nuclear weapons, the Budapest Memorandum was Ukraine’s agreement to dismantle their nuclear capability in exchange for security guarantees for their sovereignty and protection of their borders.

The Budapest Memorandum was affirmed as recently as Dec. 4, 2009 when China and France joined as signatories to this agreement. And no one, except Russian President Vladimir (the dog killer) Putin denies that the generic troops in the Crimea part of Ukraine that came from Russia are in fact, Russian troops. And no one, except Putin, believes that the Russian-speaking Ukraines there need protecting by him. By all other accounts, including the Ukraine government, Russia has invaded their country and violated their border and sovereignty.

With Russia keeping the unarmed Ukrainian military from their posts with its military, including firing warning shots at them, preventing them from going to work (picture above), some Ukraine officials are calling on the Budapest Memorandum for the help they were promised.

Arsen Avakov, the new interior minister and member of Fatherland, the party of oligarch Yulya Tymoshenko, alleged that the international airport in Sebastopol in the Crimea had been blocked by Russian forces. He wrote on Facebook, “I regard what is happening as an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international treaties and norms. This is a direct provoking of armed bloodshed on the territory of a sovereign state.”

By invoking terms of a 1994 agreement, he aims to provide a casus belli justifying Western military intervention in Ukraine.

Two things are certain. There is no will on the part of the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum to use military force to repel the Russian troops from Crimea. And, the world now sees who is calling the shots, and it is not President Obama and the United States.

There are plenty of sanctions that can be placed upon Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Sanctions that will hurt their economy and the Russian people. But what remains to be seen is where Putin will stop. Will he move on to Kiev and claim the whole country? Then move on to another former Soviet satellite country in a move to effectively re-establish the former Soviet Union?

It is clear that the time to act to prevent this has long past. What is surprising (not) is that the only people who could see this coming were Republican politicians like Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. An examination as to why that is reveals the differences between the two parties. The Republicans deal with reality whereas the Democrats deal with the way they think things ought to be, or, the way they want them to be.

Putin knows this, and just as sure as Palin and Romney knew what he was all about, Putin knows how far in over his head Obama is, and what he’s all about. One pundit characterized it this way, “while Putin is playing chess, Obama is playing marbles.”

Refusing to admit this foreign policy debacle, the Democrats in Washington are criticizing Republicans for blaming Obama for letting this crisis grow into a crisis. It wasn’t Republicans that took an apology tour throughout the Middle East and Egypt. They didn’t voice support for the green movement in Iran, then abandon them in support of the Mullahs. They weren’t the ones that sparked the Arab Spring in Egypt, supporting the students and people who wanted democracy, only to abandon them after Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood took over. They weren’t the ones voicing support for the Syrian opposition, then doing nothing to help, until it was too late to help. Now a couple hundred thousand dead and millions in refugee camps later, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah have taken hold in Syria. And Putin is on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

What President Obama has shown the world is that the United States is all talk and can not be a trusted ally when the going gets tough. Trying to save face, Obama’s response is one for the ages. As big as the lie of the year was. Ukraine is hearing, if you like your country, you can keep your country.

President Obama’s statement on Russia’s action qualifies for the joke of the year . . .

I actually think that this has not been a sign of strength, but rather, is a reflection that countries near Russia have deep concerns and suspicions about this kind of meddling.

If Russia’s move into Ukraine is not a sign of Putin’s strength, then it is an example of Obama’s weakness, naiveté, and incompetence.

Media, Politics, Russia

Obama Warns Russia Against Intervention

Psst. Hey media! They’ve already intervened. Russia has taken over Ukraine airports and seaports. Putin has done this before, in Georgia.

‘Leading from behind’ is so predictable. Nothing different here than how President Obama reacted to Egypt, Lybia, Syria, or how candidate Obama reacted to Georgia.

So predictable in fact, that Sarah Palin called it six years ago . . .

“After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the

Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov tweeted a photoshopped image of President Barack Obama in a Russian military uniform.
Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov tweeted a photoshopped image of President Barack Obama in a Russian military uniform.

kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.”

Our president’s official reaction:

  • Any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilising, which is not in the interests of Ukraine, Russia or Europe.
  • It would represent a profound interference in matters that must be determined by the Ukrainian people.
  • It would be a clear violation of Russia’s commitment to respect the independence and sovereignty and borders of Ukraine – and of international laws.
  • Just days after the world came to Russia for the Olympic games, it would invite the condemnation of nations around the world.
  • And, indeed, the United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine.
  • The president is also considering boycotting a G8 summit hosted by Russia.

As if any of that has Putin quaking in his boots. I can imagine Russian President Vladimir Putin rolling on the floor laughing his ass off.

And news on ABC’s Nightline tonight? Nothing about Russia invading a sovereign country. “News” is the Oscars.

Link: BBC News – Ukraine crisis: Obama warns Russia against intervention  |  “Stupid” “Insipid” Sarah Palin Predicted Russian Invasion of Ukraine (Video) 

Politics, Russia

Putin Drills Russian Troops At Ukraine’s Doorstep

Another U.S. foreign policy failure in the making. History tells us what to expect. President Obama says a lot of words. Putin ignores him, says that the conflict was started by the United States, and takes troops into a sovereign state. Just like what happened in the former Soviet state of Georgia in 2008.

And our president makes himself and the United States look like the paper tiger that he has made it out to be. Under “normal” circumstances, this would be not only unexpected, but unthinkable. But we have a different president than our country has ever seen. President Obama’s actions tell a different story. What we just may be seeing develop before our very eyes is what the president called his “flexibility” after his 2012 election. The subject at that moment was nuclear arms. Now he is downsizing the military. So when Sec. of State John Kerry tells his Russian counterpart to stay out of Ukraine’s business, coming from his boss, Putin knows that it is with a wink and a nod.

In other words, to the Ukrainian people yearning for freedom, you’re on your own. Depending on their access to international news, they may already know that the U.S. can no longer be trusted to stand up for freedom, and them, as long as President Obama is in The White House.

Link: Putin Drills Ground Troops at Ukraine’s Doorstep as U.S. Warns Against Intervention – NYTimes.com  |  Putin’s Russia Is Raping And Molesting Georgia  |  Eleven Months Ago, Romney-Obama Third Debate

Belly up to the counter. Politics are on the menu and Ross is on the grill.