Barack Obama, who is pushing gun control measures in case "they help only one child," can now take credit for pushing seven million men, women and children off of their current employer-sponsored healthcare plans according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on the devastating effects of Obamacare.
The president, when lobbying for his bill, solemnly promised "if you like your healthcare insurance, you can keep it. End of story."
But as the sainted Paul Harvey would say, there is...the rest of the story. Specifically, that Barry was lying like a prayer rug, and knew perfectly well that Obamacare was specifically designed to encourage employers to drop healthcare coverage and make previously secure workers into wards of the state.
Still, if you are losing the health insurance you liked (either by having an employer dump it, or having the costs raised by as much as 100% for self-insurers), you might be better off not complaining about it too loudly now that Obama has firmly established the (ahem) "legality" of blowing American citizens out of their shoes with drone attacks.
Of course, the legal permission is strictly limited to Americans working for Al-Qaeda. Or (insert DOJ-approved weasel-wording here) "an associated force." You know, like the Ted Nugent fan club, the Tea Party, or maybe the NRA.
Moreover, the subsequent delivery of a hellfire missile to your door in 30 minutes or less is permitted even without a trial, and with no evidence that the individual is engaged in an active plot to attack the United States (say, by requesting a balanced budget or photoshopping pictures of Barry).
In other words, if you're among the millions who'll be losing their healthcare insurance because of Obamacare, you'd better damn well like it.
End of story.
And Barry's soooo concerned about that "one child" that this happened:
ReplyDelete"On Jan. 30, the IRS shocked the law's advocates by announcing that insurance exchanges will not provide subsidies for a child whose parent is covered at work. These children — it's unknown how many millions of them — will qualify for an exemption. That means their parents won't be penalized by the IRS for not insuring their child."
We'll see.
[http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-viewpoint/020513-643258-obamacare-insurance-mandate-will-leave-millions-uninsured.htm#ixzz2K67xobR2.]
The way I read that story, 7 million employees will lose their policies. Probably more than 7 million people will be effected because many employees elect to cover their children and / or families on their policies.
ReplyDeleteFreddie Sykes
I am amazed how there can just be such disconnect and double standard in liberal thought. Then once again I am forced to remember there is no thought involved- it's all about how they feel and often about how they are told to feel.
ReplyDeleteI finally get it! I watched some of the exchange between Ted Nugent and Piers Morgan, and I get it!
ReplyDeleteTed was making a good point about how the shooter at Sandy Hook was ALREADY breaking laws, and that no new laws would change the fact that there will be future shootings ... and Piers said:
"We have to do something." He repeated this a few times.
That's it. That's the Leftist mindset in a nutshell. It doesn't matter if the action taken works. It doesn't matter if the action taken makes things worse, like Obamacare. They need to DO something. It's all about them, and their need to point and say they did SOMETHING.
As for the "if you like your healthcare plan/doctor, you can keep it," that clip needs to be run daily, to remind people just who is responsible for their pain.
All Obama wanted was to do something, and Obamacare will be his signature achievement.
Well, congrats, King Putt. You did something, all right. You (deliberately, IMHO) helped kill healthcare as we know it, and put something far inferior in its place that will serve fewer people far less effectively.
*golf clap*
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah... WAY more than 7 million peopel will be adversely effected. My guess is in the 300 million ballpark (minus 1 president, 100 senators, 435 congressmen...).
Earl,
Nice job of putting it in a nutshell. I think a pre-requisite to being in the Federal Gubmint is to prove a complete inability to learn from past mistakes. Mrs. Colby often says to our thick headed son, "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you always got." If only our "leaders" would practice this philosophy!
Is golf clap an STD?
Methinnks the Administration doth protest too much.
ReplyDeleteAh, would that this were all merely a Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing, but, alas, instead we are presented with the formidable task of The Taming Of The (Presidential) Shrew (actually applies to both of them!).
Nasty little critters they be when they feel cornered and threatened ---- and whenever doesn't Ozymandias-on-the-Potomac and his sycophant coterie feel threatened by any wisp of opposition?
As long as the takers get taken care of and the propaganda arms of the left control the message to the low-information voters, the status quo remains unchanged.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for the drones (third pane): I keep an empty chair in the front yard. That way, they could easily come to the conclusion that Øbama is visiting, so I’ll be safe. I call it the Øbamashield.
@Colby – there are an awful lot of ex-congress-critters who also won’t be affected. That is the problem … they never suffer the consequences of the crap they impose on us … NEVER.
“Coffee” time! I now keep a travel flask of “coffee” right by my workstation, for quick access.
@Velcro- Good point. If an employee receives insurance but not his/her entire family, then the employer is off the hook and the uninsured family members basically get permission to be uninsured - the very situation Obamacare was theoretically created to end.
ReplyDelete@Freddie Sykes- I also think the 7 million figure only tells part of the story.
@REM1875- For many on the Left, this is an example of doing something stupid that "felt" good. But those who designed the Obamacare bill weren't being stupid, they were being duplicitous: the law was written to end private insurance and to cause people to lose their employer-sponsored health insurance. This is not an unintended consequence.
@Earl Allison- Great point! The touchy-feely Lefties have to do something, even if it's something which makes things infinitely worse. And they love themselves the entire time they're doing it.
Well, so far there's been a surprise a week, or, one a page, for this law since it first was bled into being. Since there are some 2700 pages, and we're only up to about 10 major surprises already, I'd say we have just about 2690 surprises to go. It's like a zombie, there is no killing it. Maybe.
ReplyDelete@Colby- I have yet to see anything which convinces me that Obama isn't getting exactly what he wants as insurance becomes more unaffordable and unattainable except with government subsidies. And when I say "government subsidies," I mean wealth redistribution...which has always been what Obamacare's about.
ReplyDeleteAnd I got a laugh out of "golf clap." (grin)
@Chris- We are indeed embroiled in Shakespearean tragedy here. Or is it comedy? Alas, poor Barack - we know him well. A fellow of infinite jest...and debt.
@Chuck- The horrible cleverness of Team Obama is that the worse the government make things, the louder the clamor will become that the government must intercede to make things better. It's like a Perpetual Motion machine from Hell.
Now that you mention it, "coffee" sounds pretty good...
@Jim Hlavac- Actually, the 2700 pages of the original law are only the tip of the iceberg. As of October, there were 13,000 pages of new regulations based on the law, each regulation spawning more regulations. It's like a Biblical plague.
ReplyDeleteWhat has this country become? What happened to the land of the free and the home of the brave? Ah, this is just disgusting...
ReplyDeleteAnd piers morgan should be forcibly ejected from our country. He hasn't seen fit to become a citizen, he should have no voice in our media. Not like there's any dearth of America-hating leftist pigs among our actual citizens they could choose from to replace him, though most of them are part of the current administration. Hell, they can even fake the cheesy accent. Lord knows, they're faking everything else... I'm sure there's a drone for each of us! Be a drone, or have a drone delivered. The new American way.
I anxiously away the final 2012 IRS forms. I'm looking for the credit that makes up for the difference between what I actually paid for insurance last year and the $2,500/yr Obama promised me that I'd be saving by the end of his first term. Not holding my breath.
ReplyDeleteAs one who has seen his health insurance premiums increase 15% each and every year of the Obama presidency, I am counting the days until Jan 1, 2014 when it will make economic sense to drop my privately purchased individual policy for my family. Only 11 payments left!
It will be much cheaper to pay the "fine" than continuing to pay for a high-deductible catastrophic that is being burdened with stuff that I never asked for. I'll pocket the difference. As I see it, I am just exchanging a high-deductible policy for a higher-deductible policy. Should anyone get seriously ill, I'll be able to go out and buy "insurance" then. Too bad I can do the same with my home, auto, and other insurance policies!
Of course I know this will hasten the demise of the private insurance industry. But then again, wasn't that the real purpose of ObamaCare? I'm just doing my part.
Of course, ObamaCare will be replaced by what the left has always really wanted, "Free Single Payer". I'll welcome that as well. At the current rate if escalation, my health care expenditures (and we're all healthy!!!) were due to eclipse my housing expenses before the end of the decade. Once my house is paid off, my two largest monthly expenses will be gone. Since my former health care expenses will logically be transferred to income taxes, it will no longer make economic sense for me to even work, beyond the "poverty" level anyway; the threshold at which you actually start paying "income" taxes. I'll retire in my 50s, just like they do in Greece!.
I'll leave it to you younger folk to make up the difference; those of you with jobs anyway.
@REM1875: It must be so liberating to be so willfully ignorant; just like feral animals.
@Jim Hlavac: Most of big government is now like a zombie, with no way of killing it, at least until the host, American's willingness to work to pay for it, finally dies.
Re Piers Moron: Just another flaming example of how any boob with a British accent can seemingly convince an American liberal of practically anything.
Strikes on American Citizens: Wow, how the 2013 Obama is so much more Bush than Bush ever was. Also note that last week, the Obama Administration also closed their office on closing Guantanamo. Even the ACLU is being shaken awake.
Oh, and a new "ObamaPhone" update:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bucksright.com/baltimore-woman-hoards-30-free-obama-cell-phones-7596
Seems people are hoarding them, and selling them for use by drug dealers. So glad I get to pay for this.
The obamacare debacle is bad enough. The remote-control assassination policy is infinitely more disturbing. Remember the left's howls of outrage over Bush's waterboarding policy? What do we hear from them now about gutting the Fifth Amendment?
ReplyDelete*crickets*
We are all frogs in a pot, and the water is getting uncomfortably warm.
Time for more 'coffee.'
@Earl and Stilton -- The problem with the post-modern illiberal Left is their fascination and obsession with moral relativism. In their universe, truth is NEVER absolute. Everyone has their own, immutable truth.
ReplyDelete@Emmentaler- Disgusting is the word, alright. As far as Piers Morgan goes, he's an insufferable horse's ass but I don't have a problem with him voicing his stupid opinions - just the fact that counterbalancing opinions are withheld from the public.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think drones - even domestic drones - will be part of an ugly "new normal." WIRED magazine recently wrote a great piece about the new data collection/storage facility the government is building in the middle of nowhere. It will continue to grab every bit of digital communication and information available about all of us. Every email, every phonecall, every Google search - plus all of the digital records about us from other sources. Computers will be analyzing all of it, looking for anything for which you can be nailed. Or maybe you're just an annoyance to the government - at which point they can retroactively look back into your files for anything they can destroy you with.
Frankly, that's a much bigger threat than drones - and yet the Dems who were having conniption fits over libraries turning over the reading records of terrorists haven't opened their stinking yaps about this total invasion of our privacy. Of course, to the Left, privacy only applies to what you do in your bedroom or abortionist's office.
@John the Econ- I won't have much choice but to follow suit and drop my health insurance soon. As a self-employed person, it's just murderously expensive - and that's for a plan that doesn't cover diddly squat (roughly $20k/year with a $10k/deductible. No dental, no vision, no drug copay.)
With the money I've wasted on health insurance, I could've lived a very different life. But nooOOooo, I didn't want to burden the system. Too bad the system has no desire to return the favor.
Finally, every free Obamaphone should be tapped. Though heaven help whoever has to translate the ghettospeak which would be recorded (and before anyone calls me racist, the government DOES employ ghetto translaters. Our tax dullards at work!)
@CenTexTim- These all seem to be pieces of a distressingly recognizable bigger picture. I just hope my liver can handle all this "coffee."
@Gang of One- Someone once said "To understand all is to forgive all," and it's probably true. Which is why reasonable people shouldn't even try to understand the "reasoning" behind horrible acts: because it leads to excusing chaos. The Left is fine with that (with the exception that they don't attempt to understand our point of view, and thus will never forgive it.
As I've said here before, I'm not a churchgoer or believer. But I'm damn sure not a moral relativist. I believe in right and wrong. Gray areas exist - but do not negate the absolutes.
@CenTexTim,
ReplyDeleteFrogs in the pot?
Absolutely!
Nikita Khrushchev said (paraphrasing here) that Americans would never accept communism, but if given bits of socialism over a long period of time, we would eventually find ourselves living in a communist country. And everybody said the guy was a nut. I can only wonder what my Liberal, FDR Democrat parents (God rest their souls) would think of the USA today. I sort of expect they would freak the hell out! I miss them a lot, but part of me is glad they are not around to see the decline of the country they fought so hard for.
@Stilton,
Where, exactly IS the middle of nowhere? That is a damn scary thing you brought up! Of course, none of us here are stupid enough to think da gubmint isn't already collecting data at an alarming rate, and probably an alarming level of detail.
@Colby- Here's the WIRED article. I doubt anyone here will find it comforting...
ReplyDelete@SJ in only two panels & the first sentence of your commentary, you managed to "capture" the three latest hot button issues confronting our country today: Obamacare, drones, & gun controls! Outstanding as usual - & all of the prior comments were so worth reading - but I'm not going to read the Wired article. It really is becoming tooooo much!
ReplyDelete@Irene Peduto- Trying to imagine a "glass is half full" perspective when it comes to government snooping, I like to think that I'm creating a permanent record which will show (someday) that I was against tyranny and on the right side of History.
ReplyDeleteI perused the Wired article/ Isn't a "comforting" fact to know that anyone now has there words, either written or spoken, stored, analyzed, flagged, and soon used against them? It will be the American citizens who strongly favor the United States Constitution, relatively limited government, and personal responsibility and self-reliance who will be(are)enemies of the state. That nebulous phrase "an associated force," will refer to anyone or anything.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note has anyone else noticed an extreme slowing of internet speeds when connecting to conservative blog sites with zero results in virus etc. scans?
Their...not there.
ReplyDeleteFace in palm.
It it any wonder then, that the same government that is building a data center to house everything that is done on-line is also proposing "free WiFi" as well:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/tech-telecom-giants-take-sides-as-fcc-proposes-large-public-wifi-networks/2013/02/03/eb27d3e0-698b-11e2-ada3-d86a4806d5ee_story.html
How convenient.
Who is John Galt?
ReplyDeleteCan anyone guess what one of the "shooters" is The President in the following video? Here (in the following video) we have Barack practicing before he went to Camp David (supposedly) for his photo op and shot one round (maybe), dropped the rifle and ran back to the house with a load in his pants. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ged4lz_Fw2Y
ReplyDelete@American Cowboy- I'm willing to stand behind every word I've ever written. And if the occasional Google search suggests that I'm heterosexual, I'll live with that too. I sometimes like to think that any analyst assigned to review my data would end up thinking I'm a pretty good, America-loving guy. Of course, if that offends the analyst then I'm boned anyway.
ReplyDelete@John the Econ- It's not hard to connect the dots when they're SO EFFING BIG. (That being said, nice catch.)
@JustaJeepGuy- Oddly enough, I actually know a man named John Galt (a very talented actor and voice artist in the Dallas area). That being said, the OTHER John Galt is certainly speaking to my heart these days.
@Anonymous- I would pay good money to see video of Barry firing that shotgun (and the seconds immediately following). I have no doubt that the result was the same as shown in this video!
I remember when the Obamacare legislation was first passed, and I happened to get into a discussion with a liberal friend about that empty promise (that anyone who wanted to keep their current insurance could do so). When I expressed my disgust, my friend got really angry at me for saying this was untrue, and seemed to think my only reason for that was to make the President look bad! I patiently explained about cause and effect and incentives and he grudgingly took the point.
ReplyDeleteThat was the beginning of my realization that there was something quite odd happening here, not just the crazy laws and terrible policies, but the cult of personality. My friend is a smart person with a good analytical mind. But his FIRST thought here was not to use his mind but to reflexively defend his Leader.
Very, very creepy.
Which is why it is such a delight to find people interested in pushing back against the madness, such as Stilt with his noble humor and the like-minded crowd here.
@Sarah Rolph- When you say "cult of personality," the emphasis really needs to be on cult. Obama's supporters follow him with a blind, unthinking loyalty which quickly turns to anger when challenged.
ReplyDeleteAlmost NONE of the bad consequences of Obamacare were unpredicted before its passage. Here at Hope n' Change I did cartoons and commentary about the people who would lose insurance, the doctors who would leave the profession, the rising costs, and the reduction of services (and service providers) for seniors. Not because I'm brilliant, but simply because I was paying attention. But the MSM simply refused to report bad news, even if it was coming from the CBO.
And now, here we are. And it is very, very creepy.
According to all of those silly movies, a zombie can be killed via a well-placed head shot... though I sure would hate to damage all of that lovely DC architecture. Perhaps a mixture of roach-proof and rat poison in the Kool-Aid would be a good start.
ReplyDeleteStilton: I share your concern about all of that data collection and analysis, and especially in conjunction with the indecipherable tangle of overlapping regulations that exists today. As you say, annoyances can be retroactively effed with. And just as Ayan Rand pointed out, once you get to the point where every man, woman and child is unknowingly breaking at least three regulations a day, enforcement of these rules then becomes a matter of how noticeable one is and by whom.
And as to a 'glass half full' perspective, I've written a cautionary poem that seems to apply here:
Alas, the optimist and the pessimist, the truth is rather droll - while the optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole. A cutsie little piece of prose from a grade school reading book - yet a universally accepted truth, held without a second look. Now consider the realist, who lives outside that dream - he know that things are in fact not always what they seem. As nature tells the biggest lies to fool a watchful prey, the realist knows to question all - to not is naiveté'. To eat a fecal donut would be an act remiss - yet worse to try to wash it down with half a glass of piss. Then when scheming politicians view constituents as grist - the glass half empty kind of guy would be the optimist.
Isn't "nice" that our Congresscritters, in addition to exempting themselves from the laws they pass, seem to feel they are exempt from the "law of unintended consequences" that applies to the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteThen again, as someone pointed out, these consequences may well not be "unintended".
Mike Porter - Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteSarah Rolph, wayyy back, during his first campaign, I pointed out to my brother that the candidate had grown up in Indonesia and Hawai'i, in a 'white' family structure, gotten "academic scholarships" to Occidental and Harvard - so what part of any of that qualified to speak for your average "black" person?
He commented that it was one of the most racist things he'd ever heard.
Right - the LEAST interesting thing to me, about that man, is the color of his skin, and I'M the racist?
(Note - his mom being barely of age getting knocked up by an older dude who's already married to someone else, who then abandons them, Mom leaves (dies) early and he winds up being raised by his grandmother, doing drugs and barely passing high school, getting 'quota-ed' into college, never getting a job where competency / results matter - yeah, all THAT sounds pretty ghetto)
@Mike Porter- You've done a nice job of convincing me that things have gone from bad to verse. (That's a compliment, by the way!)
ReplyDelete@It's No Gouda- There should be NO perks applied to our (ahem) "leaders" which the rest of us don't get.
@Pete(Detroit)- Right you are about Barry's not-so-black past. When Genevieve Cook, his white girlfriend from college days, was interviewed she said Obama confessed to her that "he felt like an impostor. Because he was so white. There was hardly a black bone in his body.”
But as noted ethnologist Harry Reid has pointed out, that doesn't keep Barry from speaking with a "negro dialect" when he wants to have one.