As the days count down until the Supreme Court's decision on the legality of most Obamacare subsidies (spoiler alert: they're not legal), the president is casting aside courtroom rhetoric in favor of good old fashion foot-stomping, hand-clapping, gospel-style preaching which essentially says to the unwashed that "there is no way to the doctor except by Me."
Certainly this was the case with Obama's speech yesterday to the Catholic Health Association in which he argued that the moral imperative of his healthcare plan trumps fiddly little details like legality, practicality, and actual administration of meaningful healthcare.
In his shoes, which are tap-dancing pretty frantically at the moment, we'd be making the same argument. After all, he certainly doesn't want to be talking about how insurance premiums are expected to skyrocket (by as much as 51%) in 49 states this year.
Or that multiple healthcare exchanges are already collapsing, including in his alleged home state of Hawaii, after it spent nearly $24,000 for each person they signed up for Obamacare.
In an echo of the imaginary "jobs saved" by his stimulus program, the president now wants to quantify the success of Obamacare in terms of what hasn't happened and can't be measured: "the tally of pain and tragedy and bankruptcies that have been averted...the security of a parent who can afford to take her kid to the doctor...the dignity of a grandfather who can get the preventive care he needs."
And our personal favorite from Mr. Humility, "The joy of a wife who thought she’d never again take her husband’s hand and go for a walk in God’s creation.”
In other words, the Supreme Court shouldn't meddle in the province of the Supreme Being. Hussein be His name.
15 comments:
I always thought that Obamacare was illegal. How can the Feds force me not only to purchase something, but a certain flavor on top of it. I was certainly disappointed when Justice Roberts twisted himself like a pretzel to make it legal. Roberts could have saved the American people a lot of pain if he had let Obamacare die early. Now, they say that premiums may go up yet another 30 percent. It’s had to see why this thing is so costly. What happened to “lower the cost”?
The pundits are claiming that millions will lose their healthcare coverage if the Supremes kill this monster. Losing Medicaid coverage is likely a good thing. As for the others, going back to what they had before the Feds started tinkering would be a blessing. A short transition period may be good as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. As many have said before, they can make a few changes like being able to buy across state lines, joining various groups for group savings and tort reform would be good for starters. There could be a State run “Assigned Risk” fund like some states have for auto insurance.
I certainly hope for the death of the Obamacare monster!
The libs have always (falsely) claimed that there is no other path to health insurance reform. Straw Man. The republicans have done a piss poor job of touting what was a common sense alternative available at the time. As Mr. ET previously alluded to, the whole mess could be pretty much solved by enacting a simple handful of tweaks. Portability of policies. Competition across state lines. Tort reform. And simply sucking it up and paying for the uninsurable with our tax dollars. Simple, effective, much less costly, and it doesn't place 1/6 of our economy in the hands of the collective.
1. SCOTUS ruled that the penalty was, in fact, a TAX.
2. The Constitution states that all legislation pertaining to taxes must originate in the House of Representatives.
3. OBAMASNARE did NOT originate in the H of R, and therefore, NOT CONNSTITUTIONAL! PERIOD!!
Maybe this will be the case where five Justices find the doctrine of Führerprinzip emanating in a penumbra of the Constitution, and that Obama’s word will now be above all written law and all branches of the government must work toward the realization of this end.
If you like your totally inefficient, outrageously priced, severly mismanaged, unconstitutional health care plan, you can shove it....
There are several legally available alternatives to "normal" medical insurance. Here's a good review of some of them: http://www.greendrinkdiaries.com/alternatives-to-obamacare-comparing-samaritan-ministries-medi-share-and-christian-healthcare-ministries/
My wife and I signed up with http://www.libertyhealthshare.org/
"Real nice court you have here; be a SHAME if something happened to it..."
Has any other President had the nerve to try and threaten the outcome of a Supreme Court decision like this?
YEAH, free Viagra... so the Wookiee can see the difference between a sesame seed and 25% of a toothpick! I WOULD be inclined to refer to lamont as a "douche-bag", but I've decided "enema-bag" is MUCH more apropos!!!!
I really hope the GOP has something prepared beyond the usual empty "We wanna repeal ObamaCare" line, because it's not going to work.
Yes, we all know that for the most part ObamaCare is an out-of-control illegal morass of contradictory regulations that were never intended to efficiently deliver health care to 300-million citizens, but is really intended to destroy what was left of the private insurance and provider industry in America.
But the problem is that ObamaCare has already largely succeeded in that goal. Yes, a GOP Congress and future President could simply repeal it all, but then what? The insurance that I liked in 2010 is long gone, and the doctor I liked has long since threw in the towel and shuttered her practice. As @Joseph ET points out above, it would have been much better had Justice Roberts put a stake in it early on and sent everyone back to the drawing board then. But 5 years later, it's simply not possible to go back to 2010 with the stroke of a pen. Any attempt to do so would simply throw countless millions of people back into a swirling sea of chaos. Those who could find new coverage would likely end up paying even more for it, and tens-of-millions wouldn't even be able to retain their crappy Obama coverage, much less anything else.
Of course, the Democrats would simply love that. The Progressives with the help of the media would get to demonize the GOP for completing the job they started, completely destroying health care in the US. The GOP will be out next cycle, and the left will get what it's always wanted in the first place, a "single payer" paradigm similar to Canada's or Britain's NHS. Even the GOP isn't dumb enough to fall for that trap.
I seriously doubt the Supreme Court is going to go along with the argument that the rule of law is no longer relevant if Congress is too incompetent to write coherent law, or too many people are inconvenienced because if it. So what is the GOP plan for when the Supreme Court affirms the obvious and declares that the clear language regarding the subsidies says what it says? Will they let the subsidies lapse and millions of people lose their coverage? Will they actually amend ObamaCare to restore the subsidies?
I'm betting that they'll do the latter. For the time being, we're stuck with ObamaCare.
Somehow I suspect neither of the obummer family 'adults' want to introduce the obummercare, free blue pill into their relationship as it appears they prefer sleeping on separate continents.
Speechless. Praying.
I'm pretty sure the Mooch is in it mainly for the free lobster.
In the Aussie media this morning are stories about Obamayomama sending 450 US troops to Iraq as instructors in the fight against ISIS. Well that's just jim dandy but all the good instruction in the world isn't worth squat if the troops won't fight, which the Iraqis have clearly demonstrated time after time. You can give them all the hardware you can afford, all the training they can absorb but what you CAN'T give them is fighting spirit.
It reminds me of some Popular Force troops I saw in the Central Highlands of VietNam @1966. At the conclusion of their training they paraded in their snappy new jungle fatigues with their new weapons issued thanks to Uncle Sam. Very impressive, everybody thought (I didn't,to me they looked like a rabble). The following morning, with the exception of a few officers and nco's the entire company, some 100 men, were found to have deserted to the Viet Cong overnight taking all their new equipment with them.
@Joseph ET- I fear that the ship has sailed on returning to "pre-Obamacare" health insurance. If the Supreme Court rules against the subsidies, both parties will be scrambling to replace them out of (ahem) "fairness" and because it's what the voters want - as long as someone else can be made to pay.
@TrickyRicky- Yes, indeed. There are lots of ways to improve the healthcare and insurance systems, including the methods you name. Obamacare has never been about anything other than consolidation of political power and redistribution of wealth. Period.
@Dr. Roger Harris- There you go, using logic again (grin). Actually that's a great point. Not that the Constitution seems to rein in much bad behavior anymore...
@Cat Whisperer- Obama's word already seems to be above written law. Which bumfuzzles me every day.
@Geoff King- If only we could...
@Manfred- I have a good friend who uses such a plan and it's worked very well for him. It does, however, require all of the participants to be honest and fair - not exactly a great roadmap for the entire country.
@rickn8or- I'm sure other presidents have threatened the Supreme Court, but I'm not aware of any other president who's done it with the frequency, enthusiasm, and sheer wrongness that Obama does.
@Bruce Bleu- And both bags are paid for by Obamacare!
@John the Econ- Well summarized. Obamacare has done exactly what it was designed to do; make unsustainable promises and hide failures (behind waivers, slush funds, risk corridors, etc) long enough to assure that the traditional systems of insurance and healthcare would collapse. There is no going back - just a drive to go "forward" (ha!) to single payer. And no one in power is going to have the balls to fight it.
As you say, for the time being we're stuck with Obamacare - and I expect it to get much worse before it gets better. Or should I say if it gets better.
@REM1875- Anything which assures no more offspring is fine by me.
@PRY- Seems like a good idea to me.
@Wahoo- Yeah, she's wearing lobster bibs while schoolkids are picking at bib lettuce.
@Popular Front- Excellent points. What's the incentive for Iraqis to really develop great fighting skills if it means we're going to desert them again at our earliest opportunity? And yes, I'm getting tired of seeing ISIS lay claim to all of the hardware which our allies leave behind when fleeing.
"There is no going back - just a drive to go "forward" (ha!) to single payer. And no one in power is going to have the balls to fight it."
Unfortunately, at this point, I'm not sure what "having the balls" has to do with it. If I was in Congress, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't vote to simply repeal ObamaCare either, and I think most of you know me well enough to that I'm no fan of socialism and do indeed have "balls". Quite frankly, at this point I don't see any way to move back to any sort of "free market" paradigm without causing a lot of real harm to a lot of people who have been placed (intentionally) in a very uncomfortable position. The relatively simple free market solutions I would have proposed 5 years ago, like taxing employer-provided and private plans equally, encouraging the adoption of efficient high-deductible plans and health savings accounts, increasing competition by nullifying laws that prohibit insurance companies from competing across state lines, repealing federal mandates that require policies to contain expensive coverage and mandatory benefits that many consumers do not need or want, requiring that health providers make prices transparent, tort reform, and reforming Medicare will no longer work on their own anymore.
Single payer is inevitable.
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