Obama Repeals ObamaCare

[4est_4est_Gump]

WSJ

It seems Nancy Pelosi was wrong when she said "we have to pass" ObamaCare to "find out what's in it." No one may ever know because the White House keeps treating the Affordable Care Act's text as a mere suggestion subject to day-to-day revision. Its latest political retrofit is the most brazen: President Obama is partly suspending the individual mandate.

The White House argued at the Supreme Court that the insurance-purchase mandate was not only constitutional but essential to the law's success, while refusing Republican demands to delay or repeal it. But late on Thursday, with only four days to go before the December enrollment deadline, the Health and Human Services Department decreed that millions of Americans are suddenly exempt.

...

What an incredible political turnabout. Mr. Obama and HHS used to insist that the new plans are better and less expensive after subsidies than the old "substandard" insurance. Now they're conceding that at least some people should be free to choose less costly plans if they prefer—or no plan—and ObamaCare's all-you-can-eat benefits rules aren't necessary for quality health coverage after all.

But the White House is shredding ObamaCare's economics on its own terms. Premiums for catastrophic products are based on the assumption that enrollees would be under 30. A 55-year-old will now get a steep discount on care courtesy of the insurer's balance sheet, while other risk-tiers on the exchanges will have even fewer customers to make the actuarial math work.

Pulling the thread of the individual mandate also means that the whole scheme could unravel. Waiving ObamaCare rules for some citizens and continuing to squeeze the individual economic liberties of others by forcing them to buy what the White House now concedes is an unaffordable product is untenable. Mr. Obama is inviting a blanket hardship amnesty for everyone, which is what Republicans should demand.

The new political risk that the rules are liable to change at any moment will also be cycled into 2015 premiums. Expect another price spike late next summer. With ObamaCare looking like a loss-making book of business, a public declaration of penance by the insurance industry for helping to sell ObamaCare is long overdue.

...

The President declared at his Friday press conference that the exemptions "don't go to the core of the law," but in fact they belong to his larger pattern of suspending the law on his own administrative whim. Earlier this month he ordered insurers to backdate policies to compensate for the federal exchange meltdown, and before that HHS declared that it would not enforce for a year the mandates responsible for policy cancellations. Mr. Obama's team has also by fiat abandoned the small-business exchanges, delayed the employer mandate and scaled back income verification.

"The basic structure of that law is working, despite all the problems," Mr. Obama added. His make-it-up-as-he-goes improvisation will continue, because the law is failing.

Ted Cruz was right. Ted Cruz did the right thing.


"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality."
Ayn Rand




http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304367204579270252042143502

 

[RobDownSouth]

Still think you have a snowball's chance in hell in returning to the way things used to be, chief?

Dream on.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

STFU racist scum.

 

[RobDownSouth]

^^^^Internet Tough Guy

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The lie of the year, according to PolitiFact, is “If you like your health-care plan, you can keep it.” But the story of the year is a nation waking up to just how radical Obamacare is — which is why it required such outright deception to get it passed in the first place.

Obamacare was sold as simply a refinement of the current system, retaining competition among independent insurers but making things more efficient, fair, and generous. Free contraceptives for Sandra Fluke. Free mammograms and checkups for you and me. Free (or subsidized) insurance for some 30 million uninsured. And, mirabile dictu, not costing the government a dime.

In fact, Obamacare is a full-scale federal takeover. The keep-your-plan-if-you-like-your-plan ruse was a way of saying to the millions of Americans who had insurance and liked what they had: Don’t worry. You’ll be left unmolested. For you, everything goes on as before.

That was a fraud from the very beginning. The law was designed to throw people off their private plans and into government-run exchanges where they would be made to overpay — forced to purchase government-mandated services they don’t need — as a way to subsidize others. (That’s how you get to the ostensible free lunch.)

It wasn’t until the first cancellation notices went out in late 2013 that the deception began to be understood. And felt. Six million Americans with private insurance have just lost it. And that’s just the beginning. By the Department of Health and Human Services’ own estimates, about 75 million Americans have plans that their employers would have the right to cancel. And millions of middle-class workers who will migrate to the exchanges and don’t qualify for government subsidies will see their premiums, deductibles, and co-pays go up.

It gets worse.

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/366801/print

Charles Krauthammer

 

[RobDownSouth]

Oh NOE! A "Full-scale Federal Takeover" of healthcare?


Who knew?


*snicker*

I love the smell of fainting-couch histrionics in teh morning. It smells like.....victory.

 

[miles]

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/366801/print

Charles Krauthammer

Government loving retards will be thrilled with them taking over healthcare.

 

[Ishmael]

Perhaps you might want to look at this in a different light. Did Obama truly retreat from the law in the latest of his illegal maneuvers? Perhaps but there is another way of looking at this.

The latest edict passed down from the Emperor has basically made it so that no one has to pay squat. In the mean time the Medicaid, highly subsidized, high risk pool will be signing up as fast as they can. This is an assured train wreck from a business model standpoint that is likely to bring about the collapse of the smaller carriers. And the model there is that the government will step in and pick up those policies. Continue the model out far enough and the larger underwriters start going under. And in that case who is left to pick up the pieces? Don't bother to answer, the question was rhetorical.

By destroying the private insurance infrastructure government single payer is the only alternative left. It's just a matter of holding out long enough.

So while probably handing the republicans a political win he may be handing them a system so utterly destroyed that they will have no alternatives available to them.

Ishmael

 

[Adre]

Resulting in decent healthcare for every single human being in the nation. What a fucking catastrophe.

 

[Ishmael]

Resulting in decent healthcare for every single human being in the nation. What a fucking catastrophe.

Yes, the socialists wet dream that's essentially failed everywhere it's been tried. You do get pretty good care under those systems, as long as you're reasonably healthy. But if you're reasonably healthy you really don't need all that much care now, do you?

Ishmael

 

[Adre]

Yes, the socialists wet dream that's essentially failed everywhere it's been tried. You do get pretty good care under those systems, as long as you're reasonably healthy. But if you're reasonably healthy you really don't need all that much care now, do you?

Ishmael

Your response is fairly predictable, but it does not explain away all the people I know who are very pleased with Medicare. Are you saying that's a failure as well? Because they don't seem to agree.

 

[phrodeau]

Yes, the socialists wet dream that's essentially failed everywhere it's been tried. You do get pretty good care under those systems, as long as you're reasonably healthy. But if you're reasonably healthy you really don't need all that much care now, do you?

Ishmael

Good Lord, you're right. Americans need better health care because our health problems are so much more severe than the rest of the world. So many bullet wounds.

 

[TheLM]

Your response is fairly predictable, but it does not explain away all the people I know who are very pleased with Medicare. Are you saying that's a failure as well? Because they don't seem to agree.

As someone who actually *pays for* Medicare, and renders the services that are paid for by it, I have to say that I find it to be a failure.

But feel free to disregard my opinion... Informed opinions are not popular.

 

[Adre]

As someone who actually *pays for* Medicare, and renders the services that are paid for by it, I have to say that I find it to be a failure.

But feel free to disregard my opinion... Informed opinions are not popular.

Actually I will regard your opinion, as I too pay for Medicare. What then would be a better way to provide healthcare to retired workers? After all, it came into being for a reason.

 

[koalabear]

As doctors become more frustrated with Medicare’s reimbursement rates and rules, many are displaying their dissatisfaction by not treating Medicare patients

http://www.healthcaretechnologyonline.com/doc/doctors-refuse-to-accept-medicare-patients-0001

 

[Liar]

Yes, the socialists wet dream that's essentially failed everywhere it's been tried.

Whut?

 

[RobDownSouth]

Yes, the socialists wet dream that's essentially failed everywhere it's been tried. You do get pretty good care under those systems, as long as you're reasonably healthy. But if you're reasonably healthy you really don't need all that much care now, do you?

Ishmael

This is demonstrably false.

 

[Ishmael]

Whut?

That's right, everywhere it's been tried.

Ishmael

 

[RobDownSouth]

That's right, everywhere it's been tried.

Ishmael

Absolutely not true.

 

[Liar]

That's right, everywhere it's been tried.

Ishmael

Are we talking about the same thing here?

 

[Ishmael]

Are we talking about the same thing here?

If you're thinking UK, Canada, or others like it we are.

Ishmael

 

[InJest]

Resulting in decent healthcare for every single human being in the nation. What a fucking catastrophe.

Tell me where I too can buy some of that luscious liberal utopia kool aid you sip.

Look up how many patients died of dehydration in UK hospitals last year. "Brilliant" national health care. They got a bit less than they paid for (in high taxes) wouldn't you say old chump?

Yes, there are countries where it works better. Suspect if the US had about 3% of the population we do, we could do national health well too. Then we probably would not lead the world in medical advances, not that Obama isn't working to change that too.

 

[unregistered]

 

[RobDownSouth]

If you're thinking UK, Canada, or others like it we are.

Ishmael

And therein lies the heart of your falsehood.

Canada and the UK have arguably the worst systems under single-payer, for different reasons. However, the rest of the first-world countries have functional single payer systems that work quite well (Belgium, Netherlands, France, etc).

Of course, since they are not English-speaking countries, they don't register on your radar screen.

Keep in mind, too, that there are two distinct forms of "single payer"....the first is where you send the government the bill for your health-care, and the dysfunctional UK model where doctors are on the government payroll.

Naturally, most conservatives co-mingle the two systems to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt.

 

[unregistered]