The Affordable Care Act – Some Things to Consider

Posted on November 18, 2014 by eburke93

Political pressure has been building around the Affordable Care Act of 2010, sometimes referred to as Obamacare. There is no doubt that this pressure will be applied to the new Republican Congress with the aim of improving our flawed health care system. The Supreme Court will be revisiting the law in 2015 as it has agreed to review lower courts’ rulings in the case of King v. Burwell and other related cases. At the very least, the Court’s ruling on King will have implications for about 5 million people who are receiving federal subsidies for their health insurance under the new law. Some claim that the Court’s decision on King could in effect deal a deathblow to the entire ACA. This remains to be seen.

It’s important to remember that the decision handed down by the Supreme Court on June 28, 2012 was limited in its scope. The Court’s decision did not address the Constitutionality of all elements contained in the Affordable Care Act, but only two elements, the so-called individual mandate and the expansion of Medicaid. The Court was deeply divided in its decision, but ruled 5-4 that the individual mandate was constitutional because it was understood as being within the scope of Congress’ power to tax, although the Court also ruled at the same time that the Constitution’s Commerce Clause did not give Congress authority to implement the individual mandate as argued by Obama Administration lawyers. But the Court found one justification for the individual mandate and that was all that was needed to allow it to stand.

The second provision in question, the “Medicaid expansion” was ruled unconstitutionally coercive by a majority of the Court. As a result, States could not be compelled to participate in the Medicaid expansion provision, effectively allowing states to opt out. But the Court’s ruling against the Obama Administration on the Medicaid expansion provision did not render the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. Chief Justice Roberts summarized the Court’s decision:

“The Affordable Care Act is constitutional in part and unconstitutional in part. The individual mandate cannot be upheld as an exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. That Clause authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce, not to order individuals to engage in it. In this case, however, it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Congress’s power to tax.

“As for the Medicaid expansion, that portion of the Affordable Care Act violates the Constitution by threatening existing Medicaid funding. Congress has no authority to order the States to regulate according to its instructions. Congress may offer the States grants and require the States to comply with accompanying conditions, but the States must have a genuine choice whether to accept the offer. The States are given no such choice in this case: They must either accept a basic change in the nature of Medicaid, or risk losing all Medicaid funding. The remedy for that constitutional violation is to preclude the Federal Government from imposing such a sanction. That remedy does not require striking down other portions of the Affordable Care Act.”

Except for the Medicaid expansion provision, implementation of the Affordable Care Act was allowed to move forward. Generally speaking, Democrats and Liberals were ecstatic with the Court’s decision, while Republicans and Conservatives were deeply disappointed.

Had only one justice come to a different conclusion, the Affordable Care Act might have had to have been scrapped entirely, or at the very least, the Court would have ordered Congress to rewrite or eliminate the specific provisions in question, namely the individual mandate and the expansion of Medicaid.

What surprised many Americans with divergent views on the ACA was that when the court’s decision was announced it was revealed that Chief Justice Roberts, often viewed as a conservative member of the court, had sided with the more liberal court members, thereby upholding the bulk of the new health care law.

I have heard people who favor the Affordable Care Act say that, because Chief Justice Roberts, a conservative, voted to uphold the law, that the law is therefore bulletproof and there can be no further challenges to it. This is wishful thinking based on false assumptions and flawed reasoning. In fact, I wonder how many of the people guilty of this argument have ever read Judge Robert’s opinion. My guess is not many of them. Let’s have a look at some of the other things Judge Roberts expressed in his official opinion regarding the Court’s decision.

The Chief Justice made it very clear that the questions addressed by the court were specific and limited in nature. At issue was not the entire Affordable Care Act, only the two specific elements previously mentioned:

“Today we resolve constitutional challenges to two provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010: the individual mandate, which requires individuals to purchase a health insurance policy providing a minimum level of coverage; and the Medicaid expansion, which gives funds to the States on the condition that they provide specified health care to all citizens whose income falls below a certain threshold…. We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenged provisions.”

In addition, Chief Justice Roberts made it known that, although he sided with the majority, which had the consequence of upholding ACA for the time being, his decision should not be interpreted as being some sort of tacit approval of the new law:

“We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders.”

And later:

“Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments.”

That Justice Roberts was not making a judgment in this case on the wisdom of the ACA, its efficacy or the prospects for its success is beyond argument. Those who claim otherwise have either not read his opinion, or have, but prefer inventions that are not true.

Roberts also touched on a political aspect with regard to ACA and national policies in general,

“Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”

The Chief Justice was pointing out that the American people may suffer from the negative effects of their own doing when they elect leaders who implement bad policy, but that the Court’s job is to only rule on the Constitutionality of those policies, not whether those policies are wise or good. Roberts indicates that the remedy for policy that is Constitutional, yet poor, is to “throw the bums out.” That is what happened on November 4^th.

Hopefully the new Congress will be able to enact health care legislation that is truly bipartisan and that will actually live up to its name without bankrupting health care consumers, the federal government or taxpayers.

In our next post we’ll explore in detail some of the Justices’ reasoning for and against using the Constitution’s Commerce Cause to justify the individual mandate. The varying ideas surrounding this issue have huge implications for individual liberty and the limits of government power. We’ll also touch upon interesting items including the Court’s decision to construe the “penalty” as a tax even though the law does not refer to the penalty as a tax. Does Gruber come to mind?

Frotho Canutus

Be Happy! You Were Lied to for Your Own Good!

Posted on December 9, 2013 by eburke93

“If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?” –John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

Recently, LZ Granderson, a commentator and writer for CNN News said this during a TV debate about Americans’ distrust of President Obama vis-a-vis Obamacare:

“The question is, which lies can you live with? And, time and time again, Americans have said we can deal with the lies that President Obama tells us because we believe in his heart, he has the best interest for the American people. Every president is going to lie to you. Every politician is going to lie to you. The question is, which lies can you live with?”

So there you have it, America. A peek into the dark, twisted world of “progressive” logic.

Dear hard-working, patriotic Americans: LZ Granderson says he is speaking for you. He has anointed himself to be your spokesperson, partly because he claims to know what you all are thinking, but more importantly because he thinks he knows what is best for you. Yet Mr. Granderson does note cite his sources. How does he know all this? Did Gallup run a national poll that included a question like:

“If you agree that President Obama has your best interests at heart do you believe it is okay for him to lie to you about the most important issues that affect your health and well-being?”

No, there have not been any national polls that have posed a question like that and even if there were none would support Granderson’s false claim that “Americans have said we can deal with the lies that President Obama tells us.” If there was such supporting evidence Granderson would have certainly produced it by now.

I have a question for Mr. Granderson. If progressive, liberal policies are clearly so good for America in the minds of liberals like Mr. Granderson, then why would President Obama and the Democrats have to lie to the American people about the policies they want to impose on us? For instance, why did they tell us we could keep our doctor and our health plan when they knew it was not true? Why did they tell us that the new healthcare law would make health care more affordable when it will actually drive up most insurance premiums and add to our national debt? If their vision of America is clearly so superior, why doesn’t it sell itself. Why are the lies and deception necessary?

The answer must surely be that the liberal elite think that regular, hard-working Americans are clearly too stupid to recognize what is in their own best interest. That is in effect what LZ Granderson is saying. If he is correct, that Americans are too dumb to figure out what is in their own best interest, then surely the current batch of elected miscreants in Washington is the product of that stupidity. When I contemplate who populates Congress and the White House, I wonder if they are not absolute proof of the collective stupidity that Granderson alludes to. Sometimes it’s difficult to think otherwise.

What it really comes down to is this, if we live in a culture where lies are tolerable, even desirable, as in Mr. Granderson’s world, then how can citizens hope to make informed decisions about politics and policies that directly impact their lives? The problem is, they cannot. If we are continually deceived by politicians and their cheerleaders in the media, who claim to have our best interests at heart (and we would be foolish to believe their claim that they do), then we will more often than not elect people who create far more problems than they solve. Liars, cheats, and power-hungry fortune seekers are surely not attracted to Washington by the lure of solving America’s problems. They are there for much less honorable reasons.

“The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.” — Stephen King

It is frightening to contemplate, but think about it – by the logical extension of his belief that Americans need to be lied to for their own good because they are clueless, Mr. Granderson and other progressives could argue that there really is no need to have any elections at all. If the masses are too ignorant to know what is in their best interest, then what is the purpose of letting the ignorant vote? In the liberal, progressive mind our representative form of democracy is just a big show, an expensive waste of time and money. Perhaps Mr. Granderson thinks we should just scrap our Constitution and just let the “intellectual elite”[1] run the country. Or perhaps, on the other hand, the progressive liberals think the electoral process is a necessary show, one that gives the illusion that the people are the masters and the politicians their representatives. Either way, the fact that a man with views like Mr. Granderson is given a platform on a major news network to air his anti-American sophistry is clear evidence that our Constitutional Republic is under attack from within.

No, LZ Granderson’s vision for America will only lead to our ruin. We must not accept it. The best thing we can do at election time is to support only those who are the wisest, most honorable and virtuous amongst us. If we can manage to do that collectively, most of our current and future problems will be solved. But it requires a different mindset, one that truly looks at the long term and insists on doing the greatest good for the most people, not just preferred groups. Hopefully, we are a little more advanced than just a bunch of wild, uncivilized scavengers fighting over the remaining spoils of another’s successful hunt, tearing at each other for our turn at someone else’s discarded carcass. Wouldn’t it be better to focus our attention not on what we can steal or scavenge from our fellow men, but rather on being excellent at something that other men and women value and will pay us handsomely for. That has a far better chance of leading to a general happiness in the United States and is far preferable to “Life, Slavery and the Pursuit of Carcass.”

Frotho Canutus

“Human government is more or less perfect as it approaches nearer or diverges farther from the imitation of this perfect plan of divine and moral government.”
–John Adams, draft of a Newspaper Communication, Circa August 1770

“Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the “latent spark”… If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?” –John Adams, Novanglus, 1775

“I Pray Heaven to Bestow The Best of Blessing on THIS HOUSE, and on ALL that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof!” –John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, November 2, 1800

“All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.” –Sir Winston Churchill

“Time and time again, Americans have said we can deal with the lies that President Obama tells us…” — LZ Granderson

Link to video of Granderson speaking on CNN here: MRC LINK

[1] Progressive liberals.

Stabbed in the Back for our Own Good

Posted on November 16, 2013 by eburke93

Barack Obama’s State of the Union Speech, January, 2010.

The New York Times editorial, Insurance Policies Not Worth Keeping (Sunday, November 3^rd) was a blatant attempt to excuse President Obama’s (now infamous) broken health care promise. But it is much more than that and begs some scrutiny.

In an attempt to immediately deflect the discussion away from President Obama’s repeated dishonesty the Times began its editorial by pouncing on Republicans:

“Congressional Republicans have stoked consumer fears and confusion with charges that the health care reform law is causing insurers to cancel existing policies and will force many people to pay substantially higher premiums next year for coverage they don’t want. That, they say, violates President Obama’s pledge that if you like the insurance you have, you can keep it. Mr. Obama clearly misspoke when he said that.”

Why did The New York Times refer to the Republican claims as “charges,” as if Republicans might be manufacturing some unproven fact? Nowhere in the rest of their editorial can I find any verifiable facts that disprove the claim that insurers are cancelling existing policies or that many people are being forced to pay substantially higher premiums for coverage they do not want. Based on that, I suspect the Republicans have been telling the truth. Based on the letter I received from my health insurer, I know they are. The Times may try to characterize Republican truth-telling as stoking fears and confusion, but to the millions of honest, informed people who have had their policies cancelled, many Democrats included, they appear ridiculous.

The editors at the Times want us to believe that the President merely “misspoke” on numerous occasions while out selling his health care plan to the public. Therefore, let us go back and review a little of the history of ObamaCare to see if this is correct. In a speech given on August 15, 2009 President Obama said this:

“No matter what you’ve heard, if you like your doctor or health care plan you can keep it. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. If you like your private health insurance plan you can keep your plan – period.”

Let’s examine very carefully exactly what the President said. Notice that when he made these statements he prefaced them by saying “No matter what you’ve heard,” thus putting forth the idea that all his skeptics were either uninformed or intentionally misleading the public about their ability to keep the same insurance coverage once the new health care law kicked in. Then at the end of these clear, carefully chosen, declarative statements the President emphasized the certainty of his pledge by saying “period.” When any person uses that word at the end of a statement everyone knows what it means (except perhaps the editors at the New York Times who think he merely “misspoke”) – ending a statement with the word “period” is a common rhetorical device intentionally used by a speaker to convince the listener that what the speaker says is going to happen, is going to happen, no ifs, ands, or buts. End of story.

We now know as a matter of fact that the opposite was true. It was Obama’s skeptics who were correct. They were not the ones who were uninformed or intentionally misleading. I know this because I am one of the millions of privately insured people who recently received a letter saying, “because of these new (ACA) requirements, your current Individual and Family Plan will no longer be available after December 31, 2013.”

“A rough style with truth is preferable to eloquence without it.” — Cadwallader Colden

Not surprisingly, anger over the President’s broken pledge has caused the Administration to go into damage control. It has been trying to explain to us that what we remember the President saying is not actually what the President said. We are told that our memories are faulty.

As an example of his attempt to rewrite history the President gave a speech in Washington on Monday November 4th where he said, “What we said was you can keep it (your healthcare plan) if it hasn’t changed since the law passed (in March 2010).” Really now, because that seems different from what he said back in 2009 and 2010 when he was trying to sell his health care plan to the American people!

So we watch the video reruns of Mr. Obama’s speeches to refresh our memories. We would not want to be accused any further by Mr. Obama’s defenders of misrepresenting facts and demanding accountability based on faulty memories. Mr. Obama’s speeches have been preserved for all to see and hear. But when we watch these reruns we find they do not contradict our memories. In fact they support them.

Other examples of “the promise:”

“We will keep this promise to the American people – If you like your doctor you will be able to keep your doctor – period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan – period. No one will take it away no matter what.” — President Obama speaking before the American Medical Association, June 15, 2009

“If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep your plan – period.” – From President Obama’s weekly speech from the oval office, August 22, 2009.

These pledges sound very precise and very specific to me. He did not elaborate back then, before the law was passed, and say there might be millions of exceptions to his promise. But now the cancellation letters have gone out and a fact of ObamaCare is verifiable – millions of Americans will not be able to keep the plans they themselves chose and were happiest with contrary to the President’s repeated assurances – assurances that included an appeal from the President to disregard the warnings of his critics. On top of that, in most cases, the new replacement plans are far more expensive, which contradicts another foolish promise candidate Obama made in 2008.

Some estimates are that between 5 and 10 million people have already received notices of insurance policy cancellations. Regardless of the exact number, each one of those is a broken promise – millions of broken promises.

The other defense that some are asking us to believe is that back in 2009-2010 the President was simply uninformed about the fact that the new health care law would not allow millions of Americans to keep their health care plans? This idea was put forth by unnamed sources in the Obama administration as reported in a recent Wall Street Journal piece. But was President Obama merely just uninformed? If so, the American people have made a grave mistake in choosing their leader. A man who does not comprehend key aspects of what has been described as his “signature legislation” and his “greatest achievement,” should not be entrusted with remaking a health care system that involves 314 million free people.

If President Obama was more than just uninformed, which an honest view of the evidence must bear out, then one must conclude that he deliberately misled the American people. The following facts will show without any doubt that he was aware of the probability that insurance policies would be cancelled under the Affordable Care Act though in almost every instance he refused to share this detail with the American people.

The Associated Press ran a piece entitled, “Promises, Promises: Obama’s Health Plan Guarantee.” The story ran on June 19, 2009. The date here is key. It began:

“WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama rarely equivocates when he promises that his health care plan will let people keep the coverage they have. His vow sounds reassuring and gets applause, but no president could guarantee such a pledge.”

President Obama spoke to the public on numerous occasions after that AP story and it is clear he did so to intentionally counter his numerous skeptics. That is why in his speech of August 15, 2009 he prefaced his pledge on health care by saying, “No matter what you’ve heard…” Skepticism of the President’s pledge was widespread at this time; he was at the center of the public debate on health care, so he was well aware of his skeptics’ arguments. He couldn’t escape them. Does anyone seriously believe, even at The New York Times, that the President did not question whether his promise was going to be kept or not? Whether he was aware specifically of the AP story is not important, the proof that he was intentionally answering his skeptics leaves not a shadow of a doubt that he was aware of their warning that insurance plans would have to be cancelled if the Affordable Care Act was in fact passed.

Did the President not examine the question and see that the outcome would allow only two possibilities, that he would either honor his promise (since he was the one making it) or that he would not or could not honor the promise? I maintain that an honest man does not pretend that he can make promises that he knows are not within his power to keep, because that is also a form of deception. Like this one from candidate Obama in 2008: “And if you already have health care then we’re going to reduce costs an average of $2500 per family on premiums.”

The same Associated Press report contained this bit of news:

“Earlier this week (June 2009), the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 10 million people would have to seek new insurance under a Democratic plan that a Senate committee is working on, because their employers would no longer offer coverage.”

Does anyone, including the highly intelligent editors at The New York Times, honestly believe that President Obama was not aware that the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office issued a report contradicting his bold promise?

At the Health Care Summit held in Washington on February 25, 2010 (again the date here is important) Republican Congressman Eric Cantor argued his point of disbelief in the President’s promise this way:

Congressman Cantor: “When we were here about a year ago across the street you started the health care summit by saying one of the promises you want to make is that people ought to be able to keep the health insurance that they have…well the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) sent a letter I think it was to leader Reid about the Senate bill and in that letter it suggested that between 8 million and 9 million people may very well lose the coverage that they have because of this, because of the construct of this bill.”

President Obama responded: “The 8 to 9 million people that you refer to that might have to change their coverage, keep in mind out of the 300 million Americans that we’re talking about, would be folks who the CBO estimates would find the deal in the exchange better. Would be a better deal. So yes, they would change coverage because they’ve got more choice and competition. So let’s just be clear about that…”

This rare admission proves that the President was, in fact, aware of the bipartisan CBO estimate that showed that millions of Americans would lose their plans if the bill were to become law. But the following month when speaking before an audience at George Mason University the President Obama just couldn’t bring himself to publicly acknowledge this damning little detail. Instead, with his usual deceptive eloquence he repeated the fraudulent pledge:

“Now, I just — I just want to be clear, everybody. Listen up, because we have heard every crazy thing about this bill…. But when it — it turns out, at the end of the day, what we’re talking about is common-sense reform. That’s all we’re talking about. If you like your doctor, you’re going to be able to keep your doctor. If you like your plan, keep your plan. – March 19, 2010.

It’s clear that by this time President Obama was well aware that there would be millions of exceptions to his promise, that people would have their insurance policies cancelled, but he refused to go there. The dirty little secret is that everyone who had a hand in crafting the Affordable Care Act knew that people would have to be forced out their private plans and into the exchanges in order for the new health care law to succeed. But sharing this detail of the Affordable Care Act at any point during the months long public debate could only serve to weaken the chances that the bill would become law. Team Obama, which of course, includes the New York Times simply made the calculated decision to conceal the truth in any way possible until after the passage of the bill. In my book that’s called fraud.

The question then, is what level of dishonesty will the American people tolerate from their leaders and the people in the press who can make or break politicians? The president knew that the Affordable Care Act was going to force insurance companies to cancel policies and raise premiums because of certain new requirements, yet made repeated pronouncements to the contrary to get his pet legislation passed. He is no different from a used car salesman that knowingly covers up a major flaw in a car he is about to sell, even after being questioned by the customer about any known problems.

“Undoubtedly the very best administration must encounter a great deal of opposition; and the very worst will find more support than it deserves. Sufficient appearances will never be wanting to those who have a mind to deceive themselves.” – Edmund Burke

People need to realize the danger our country is in when a major news source like the New York Times decides to provide cover for and manufactures excuses for the repeated dishonesty of a President of the United States? I have no beef with the fact that The New York Times is run by people who have a different vision for America than I do. But I do have a problem when they encourage deception and provide cover for it at the highest levels of government for the sake of implementing their world view. They are just as guilty of deception as the President is. They rationalize their lack of honesty and integrity because it is being done (in their minds) for a greater cause. They will never admit this in public.

The late William O. Baker, patriot genius and former leader of research at Bell Labs once warned: “The very media, founded on communications and automata, especially television, can communicate illusion as well as reality, and that is all right as long as we know the difference.”

The problem is that too many people allow themselves to be easily manipulated by news outlets like the New York Times and therefore do not know the difference between illusion and reality.

So what additional cover was the Times’ Nov. 3rd editorial attempting to provide for Barack Obama and his administration? Listen to what was written in order to justify the cancellation of millions of insurance policies:

“Some had deductibles as high as $10,000 or $25,000 and required large co-pays after that, and some didn’t cover hospital care.”

How many is some? Show us the data NYT! They would have us believe that only the most rotten, worthless insurance plans were the ones being cancelled. It is a bogus argument because I can tell you my deductible was $1250 with my portion of the copay being 20%, plus it included coverage for hospital care. Their extreme example does not characterize my health care plan, nor, I suspect millions of others who are having them cancelled. But the Times probably figures it can get away with this false argument because it will not be detected by the majority of people who are allowed to keep their plans (for now).

The title of the editorial itself, Insurance Policies Not Worth Keeping, is a glaring example of the New York Times’ complete arrogance and the great disdain they have for people who simply want to retain the freedom to make their own decisions rather than being coerced by their government. Somehow the technocrats and their cheerleaders at the NY Times have so much confidence in their abilities that they think they know what health care plans are best for millions of individuals. This is the kind of arrogance that motivates them. Their superior version of what America should be must be imposed on the masses for their own good even if it means deceiving the people in order to attain their goals.

Then the Times editorial made this stab at the backs of millions of Americans, “And premiums may well rise, in part because insurance companies must accept all applicants, not just the healthy.” The Times knew this all along as did President Obama. They were all well aware of the Congressional Budget Offices’ warnings. Some of us have been warning about the consequences of ObamCare all along, yet it was we who were maligned for speaking the truth and continue to be maligned by this administration and their media lap-dogs.

When the Times editors were actively working to get Barack Obama elected for the first time in 2008 did they believe candidate Obama when he said that his health care plan would save the average family of four $2500 per year? Perhaps they knew it was an impossible dream, but in the morally loose world of The New York Times editorial staff perhaps that too was an acceptable lie on the march towards socialized medicine.

And the New York Times is still at it spreading confusion and propaganda about ObamaCare. One recent story tried to draw a parallel between the Bush administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina to the flawed implementation of the Affordable Care Act. It’s utterly ridiculous to compare a government’s response to a chaotic, unpredictable natural disaster like Katrina to a self-inflicted, man-made law that this administration has had 3 ½ years to prepare for. The story also demonstrates how defensive the Times has become – they can hardly bring themselves to do a story about the failures of the Obama administration without somehow dragging the Republicans into it.

Now we get this report just out today from the Wall Street Journal: “United Health drops thousands of doctors from insurance plans.” I suspect that the Obama administration’s damage control has only just begun. It will be interesting watch the propaganda machine at New York Times as it continue to defend the indefensible.

I am working on a title for my next post. I’m thinking of calling it: “The New York Times – a propaganda machine not worth keeping.”

Frotho

College Students get the ObamaCare Shaft

Posted on November 14, 2013 by eburke93

Barack Obama making all sorts of great sounding promises at his State of the Union Speech, January, 2010.

Barack Obama is good at mesmerizing some people by telling them what they want to hear. Unfortunately, too few people investigate whether the President’s plans for America are probable or even possible.

“We will keep this promise to the American people – If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan – period. No one will take it away no matter what.” — President Barack Obama, June 15, 2009.

“I guess if you like your coverage you really can’t keep it as millions of Americans have been finding out over the last month.” — Eugene Craig III, Student, Bowie State University

From Maryland’s Bowie State University website:

“Bowie State University has suspended offering health insurance for domestic students for the 2013-2014 academic year. Due to new requirements of the Affordable Care Act which will go into effect on January 1, 2014, the cost of insurance for domestic students will increase to approximately $1800 per year. If you were covered by the university health insurance last Spring 2013, your policy will expire on August 29, 2013.”

Translation: Current student health insurance has been cancelled because (ACA) DemocratCare regulations have made it too costly to offer. Get ready: Your cost for student health insurance will be going up a lot next year because of the Affordable Care Act. (Oh the irony!)

Although young people voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, his policies have been a disaster for them – including high unemployment and a crushing national debt that they will have to pay off in the future. It will come out of their paychecks in the form of taxes (that is, if they are fortunate enough to have a job). That’s what you get when you vote for “cool,” or skin color, or “hope” or for sweet talking politicians who make wonderful sounding promises that are not based in reality. The current problems we are seeing coming out of Washington will hopefully encourage young people to question the judgment of many of their teachers who overwhelmingly support President Obama and his big government “solutions.”

Smaller, more frugal government is the way to go kiddies. When government is least intrusive, when government taxes less from the private sector (yes, that includes “rich people”) then the economy will boom, jobs will be aplenty and a lot of the economic problems that America is facing right now will take care of themselves.

Barack Obama and the Democrat, liberal vision that seeks to regulate all aspects of human activity, that seeks wealth redistribution from the wealthy and the middle class to people who are poor (which includes some who prefer handouts to hard work, self-respect, and ambition) and that seeks some abstract form of “social justice” is crushing our economy. Their policies, the ones that most young people voted for, are the reason why jobs are scare, the labor participation rate is tanking, wages are stagnant, the national debt is $17 trillion, etc., etc. To understand why this is true read the post below from November 2nd on Frederic Bastiat.

I argue that if young people want to improve their prospects for the future they need to educate themselves on basic economics and American history. One book on economics that I would highly recommend is Henry Hazlitt’s Economics In One Lesson. For American history, History of the American People by Paul Johnson is a good place to start. Of course, anything written by our founding fathers will inform and enlighten.

Frotho

“The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”
— Henry Hazlitt
Photo: Mises Institute

Order the book from Amazon.com by clicking here.

Order Hazlitt’s book from Amazon.com by clicking here.

Sources:

http://campusreform.org/?ID=5235

http://campusreform.org/?ID=5239

http://www.bowiestate.edu/campus-life/henry-wise-wellness-center/student-health-insurance-plan-/ (Nov. 14, 2013)

http://bulldogcollegian.com/how-obamacare-is-hurting-bowie-state-students/ (Nov. 16, 2013

Let’s be Accurate – It’s DemocratCare, not ObamaCare.

Posted on November 13, 2013 by eburke93

Look who is giddy about the Affordable Care Act fiasco – no Republicans present.

Let’s call it what it really is, DemocratCare. Only the Democrats in Congress and a Democrat President are responsible for this disaster. No one else. Consider these facts:

On December 24, 2009 the U.S. Senate passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. All 58 Senate Democrats voted for the new health care law. Not a single Republican senator voted for this destructive law.

On March 21, 2010 the U.S. House passed the Senate’s version of the Affordable Care Act with 219 House Democrats voting for it. Not a single House Republican supported this bad law. Two days later, Democrat President Barack Obama gave his seal of approval and signed the health care bill making it the law of the land.

Democrats are the only ones responsible for this disastrous law. And remember when the President promised over and over again ” If you like your doctor you will be able to keep your doctor – period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan – period. No one will take it away no matter what.” Remember what candidate Obama promised the American people in 2008 in exchange for the votes that brought him to power: “And if you already have health care then we’re going to reduce costs an average of $2500 per family on premiums.” Who believed such a fantastic promise? Who wanted us to believe it?

Now the American people are paying dearly for the folly of DemocratCare. The Democrats will pay for it dearly at the next election. Dear Tom Udall, I hope the wise people of New Mexico give you what you deserve next year – an opportunity to find a new line of work.

Frotho

The Affordable Care Act or, Dr. Fuddystuff’s Travelling Miracle Wagon

Posted on October 24, 2013 by eburke93

Bad law is the worst sort of tyranny.
–Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Irish orator, philosopher, & politician.
From A Speech at the Guildhall in Bristol, 1780.

Where you find the laws most numerous, there you will find also the greatest injustice.
–Attributed to Arcesilaus (ca. 316-241B.C.) Greek Philosopher

The mania to control to control everything by law, the attempt to control every action of every individual from the cradle to the grave. This is an outrage upon human intelligence, individuality and liberty.
–Dr. Edward H. Ochsner, Social Security, 1936

I wish people would stop calling the new health care law Obamacare. It should be more properly nicknamed Democratcare. After all, it was passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress and not a single Republican voted for it. The Affordable Care Act is a partisan law crafted by liberal Democrats. They own it. The American people need to be reminded of this fact over and over again as the next election approaches.

Socialized medicine is every true liberal’s dream. They believe that if the government can just tax certain people “just a little bit more” that the government can then fund and run a health care system and provide “free” healthcare to everyone. These liberals never seem to want to give consideration to basic economics. Some actually think that doctors, pharmaceutical manufacturers and other health care providers should not be allowed to “profit off of sick people.” They do not understand that the potential reward of profit is one of the greatest drivers behind the innovation and improved technologies that we all benefit from.

A study of the last 250 years or so shows that in free market economies where the rule of law is respected, the selfish pursuit of profit has continually resulted in improved products and services in all areas of human activity. America is one of the greatest examples of this. It is the main reason why the U.S. rose to lead the world in innovation and technology. The benefits to society from the exercise of individual self-interest were masterfully explained by Englishman Adam Smith way back in 1776 in his book Wealth of Nations: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Liberals have had well over 200 years to study the truth of Smith’s concept of economic self-interest in a market economy, yet they stubbornly refuse to let the truth get in the way of their utopian fantasies. When governments hinder profit-making in the private sector they strip away an important incentive to produce things and improve things. This will be one of the most tragic consequences as the United States moves towards a single-payer health care system as liberals demand more and more government intervention.

Make no mistake about it – the Affordable Care Act of 2010, which we are now beginning to see the consequences of, is merely a step in the direction of this liberal dream of socialized medicine. But the people who rammed this bad law down our throats failed to mention their real intentions when they were selling the Affordable Care Act to the American people. These deceivers were relying on the gullibility and ignorance of a large body of the American public. And it worked!

As a result of Democratcare, we are now seeing health insurance premiums skyrocket and employer-sponsored health care plans disappear before our very eyes. According to the Health Policy and Marketplace Review website, out of 19 million individually insured people about “16 million (of these) are now receiving letters from their carriers saying they are losing their current coverage and must re-enroll in order to avoid a break in coverage and comply with the new health law’s benefit mandates––the vast majority by January 1(st, 2014). Most of these will be seeing some pretty big rate increases.” To any Affordable Care Act supporter who disputes this claim – I will gladly show them a letter to this effect that my wife and I recently received from our own health insurer.

No one thinks that the health care exchange rollout that officially began on October 1^st has been a rousing success either. Actually, by almost all accounts (with the exception of those coming from a few silly propagandists), the rollout of the online exchange has been a complete disaster.

Advertisers are not the only ones who take advantage of human gullibility. A politician who appeals to “hope” manipulates emotions and discourages critical thinking.

What happened to all the warm and fuzzy promises made by President Obama and the Democrat leadership in Congress? You know, promises like, “If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep it,” or, “This law will save a family of four an average of $2500 per year.” Hogwash! Only dummies believed that. Only the “useful innocents” believed that. Some call them “low information voters.” Shame on them for believing it! When “Hope” replaced critical thinking, I knew we are all in trouble.

It is a big mistake to ever believe a politician that makes a promise that someone else will have to keep. That is exactly what Obama and the other Democrat leaders did. You see, this is their duplicitous way of being able to place blame at the feet of someone else when their health care scheme becomes recognized for the disaster that it is.

Here’s how it works: Obama, Pelosi, and Reid et al. promised that their new health care law would make decent health care available to everyone, make it more affordable, and save most people money. They pretended that they had the ability to control health care costs even though they have no personal expertise in the industry they proposed to regulate. They pretended that their 2000 page law would have no adverse effects on the health care industry. It was all sold to the American public like an all-purpose, good-time elixir off of the good Doctor Fuddystuff’s travelling miracle wagon.

Then they get their pet law passed and the technocrats begin the real work of writing the details into the federal code. (Oh, did I forget to mention the special treatment given by the Obama Administration to some of its allies in the form of waivers? How’s that for equal treatment!) Insurance and health care providers must conform to these new complicated regulations or the feds will simply put them out of business. These regulations now total more than 11,000 pages of fine print. How are people entrusted with delivering our health care supposed to make sense of a complex web of regulations like that?[i] It takes an incalculable amount of time and brain power to try to figure this whole mess out. Somebody please tell me – how does that keep costs down? If health care providers have to spend finite resources trying to conform to 11,000 pages of regulations, what resources will they have left to devote to actually doing things like diagnosing and treating sick patients?

Part of the problem is that schools apparently do not teach basic economics anymore. Every business has finite resources. If more resources must be devoted to onerous regulations and government-mandated paperwork, then fewer resources will be available for other things, like time spent treating sick patients or an upgrade to a new cancer-destroying technology.

The truth is we need less government intervention in our health care system, not more. No one in their right mind should want the body that created and hamstrings the U. S. Postal Service – Congress – to be in charge of “bringing down” health care prices. The Post Office recorded a $15.9 billion net loss last fiscal year and expects to record a loss of roughly $6 billion in the current fiscal year. One of the recent proposals made by the Post Office to close its revenue gap is to raise the price of a first class stamp from $.46 to $.49, which of course will only encourage more people to use fewer of the Post Office’s services because as everyone knows there are other alternatives available.

Another frightening thing about the Affordable Care Act is that the Internal Revenue Service will be the main enforcement arm of the law. God help us all.

[i] According to The Fact Checker article (May 15, 2013, The Washington Post), “At the very least, one can point to 10,000 pages of tiny regulatory type regarding the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.” Sourced 10/24/12: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/how-many-pages-of-regulations-for-obamacare/2013/05/14/61eec914-bcf9-11e2-9b09-1638acc3942e_blog.html

Propoganda vs. Reality or, how young voters are manipulated (and older people too!).

Posted on August 13, 2013 by eburke93

Hey all you young people (and not so young people) who overwhelmingly voted for Obama in 2008 and 20012 because you foolishly believed the propaganda that Obama and the Democrats are looking out for you – here’s an example of the reality of how Obamacare is affecting your healthcare costs:

According to Forbes.com the Obamacare “mandates have already had drastic effects on a number of colleges and universities, which offer inexpensive, defined-cap plans to their healthy, youthful students. Premiums at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, N.C., for example, rose from $245 per student in 2011-2012 to between $2,507 in 2012-2013. The University of Puget Sound paid $165 per student in 2011-2012; their rates rose to between $1,500 and $2,000 for 2012-2013. Other schools have been forced to drop coverage because they could no longer afford it.”

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch. If you ban lifetime limits, and mandate lower deductibles, and cap out-of-pocket costs” (as the Obamacare law has done), “premiums have to go up to reflect these changes.” Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/08/13/yet-another-white-house-obamacare-delay-out-of-pocket-caps-waived-until-2015/

Of course there will always be people who will vote based on the wonderful sounding promises made by the nanny-staters on the campaign trail. But as long as so many of you vote based on emotion rather than on reality the country will continue to decline.

As always, Democrats talk a good game, but as a wise man once said, “A rough style with truth is preferable to eloquence without it.” (Thinking of Obama.)

When will people face the economic truth that our government leaders can try to control prices, but they can never control costs? And whenever price controls are put into place, as in Obamacare, the exact opposite thing promised happens and we end up paying more.

Next time, instead of voting for eloquence, or coolness, or some other shallow thing, people need to educate themselves and vote based on facts, reality and the laws of economics. Only then will we begin to regenerate a once great country and revive her economy so that all boats are lifted by a rising tide.

Frotho Canutus

Higher Revolution:

PURSUING KNOWLEDGE & DEFENDING LIBERTY

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