New Attitude

I had been suffering through a period of political depression, if you will, where I was loathe to get into "debates" on internet message boards because I felt as if nobody was looking at the serious fundamental issues with Obamacare. Not the web site mind you, but the basic economic incentives that were in it and what effect they were going to have on our economy, our healthcare system and our insurance industry. I was constantly poo-pooed as not knowing what I was talking about, and had to endure lectures from Paul Krugman fans on why I was so wrong about rates going up, people losing their coverage or just plain old meddling by the government in the economy.


But suddenly, the message boards are just delicious. I have gotten almost giddy reading the liberal responses to all the things I had been predicting for months. The best ones are when some conservative (or increasingly, a moderate Democrat) will rip into Obama for lying about not losing your coverage, doctor etc. Talk about changing the subject! It usually goes like this:
Conservative: He didn't mince words. He said you could keep your insurance NO MATTER WHAT! But he knew all along they were going to get dropped.
Looney Liberal: Oh yeah? Well Bush said there were WMD's.It's so pathetic it's funny.But the best one was the guy who got infuriated that Obama was being called a liar. He tried to say that Obama had merely been talking about what he hoped would be attained. You can't expect to hold him to a campaign promise.No, that would be more like Scott Walker saying he would create 250,000 jobs. That would be a hoped for goal. Saying you won't lose your health care "no matter what" when you know that's not true, is lying about a fact. But they cannot stop spinning and the results are just hilarious. There are several strategies they are trying. the first is to claim Obamacare is actually a Rebublican bill. They wanted something else entirely but got this forced on them by Republicans, who weren't able to add a single amendment and consequently did not give it a single vote in either house. Fallback position number one is to say that the coverage you are losing was really awful and you should be glad to be rid of it because your new policy wil cover so much more and be so much better for you. Cost? Oh, why worry about that? It's better! Don't you want better insurance? If you get that cheap stuff it won't pay for your drug rehab or maternity coverage. Well yes, it is true that being a young Amish man might lead you to believe you don't need that, but somebody's got to buy that expensive stuff so we can cover all those existing conditions. but their ultimate ploy will be to blame the insurance companies.  Just read this from the Huffington Post where they try and explain that Obama didn't lie about keeping your coverage.



 "In other words, your plan is grandfathered in unless your insurer explicitly makes it worse by jacking up your deductible or otherwise monkeying with your coverage in an attempt to screw you, which is the basic stated business model of insurance companies."

Of course he conveniently glosses over the fact that it was Obamacare that REQUIRED all these changes, which in turn invalidated your ability to keep it. They really have no respect for your intelligence.

Ideas Versus Personalities

Have you ever noticed that liberals hate to argue about or attack ideas. They much prefer to target people. So they will avoid a debate about whether or not it is a good idea to allow public unions, but can't wait to sling some shit at Scott Walker. The more a conservative worries them, the harder they attack. This is particularly so whenever the conservative is from one of their affinity groups. The most vicious and sustained campaign they ever ran was against Sara Palin. How dare they!! A woman? Gotta take her down hard. Herman Cain. A black conservative?? No way. He had barely made it to the top of the polls before they nailed him in the sleaziest way possible. Ted Cruz is Hispanic and has better academic credentials than Obama. So the label they slapped on him was "radical." He might even be CRAZY.

For eight years nary a word was spoken against conservatism. But George W. Bush  was regularly designated the worst person in the world. And when conservative ideas are implemented, they will redefine the reasons for you. So when Paul Ryan says he opposes Obamacare because it's fiscally irresponsible, they say he just doesn't want poor people to have insurance. It's all so much easier if you can start with the premise that he is just a bad person to begin with.

The Hostage Fable

Once upon a time, there was a man who owned a home. And on this home, he had a mortgage.

Actually, he had a mortgage, a home equity line of credit, and a couple of credit cards. He and his wife had been living in the house for years. They had refinanced a couple of times. And they had taken out the equity line of credit a few years back before the real estate market crashed. When home values did fall, they found themselves, not "under water," but close. They were treading water. They were making all their payments on all the debt. And they were covering their regular bills as well, they just weren't putting a dent in the debt.

The decided that what he really needed in order to get himself out of debt, was to borrow some more money, invest it and increase his income such that he could start to pay down some loans. So went to the banker who held the mortgage, the equity line and his credit cards. He told them of his plan and asked if he could get another $25,000 to fund his new venture. But this was something he had done before.

He had originally taken out the line of credit in order to fund his investment, but later decided to remodel the house instead with the first $25,000. Then he had taken another $25,000 (on his line of $50,000), but bought a new car and went on vacation. Now his line was maxed out. So he asked the bank if they could see their way to increasing his line of credit. The bank took a look at his history and his balance sheet, and said, "We don't think more debt is what you really need right now. We think you should look for ways to cut your spending, and try and work that debt down first. If you were to do that for a year or two, maybe prices recover and we can find a way to increase your line later."

To which the man said, "Oh, yeah? Well, I'll tell you what, if you do not give me another $25,000 loan right now, I will stop making payments on my mortgage, my line of credit and my credit cards. I will default on all my debts and I will immediately file for bankruptcy. You'll be stuck selling my house at an auction, and I will make sure you spend big legal fees to pursue my other debts."

So. Who is holding whom hostage? Who is being the proverbial "suicide bomber?" The banker or the man?

How Did We Let This Happen?

After reading an article in Forbes today, I have been asking myself that question. When Obama said that his Affordable Care Act would lower health care costs, lower the cost of coverage and extend free coverage to 50 million uninsured while not affecting your choice of doctors or your coverage, some of us knew that to be impossible, and said so. We were, of course, dismissed as bigoted extremists whose hatred of a black man in the White House, has caused us to lose all reason.

This has all left me puzzled over both how people could have believed these blatant lies, and how I could have become such a racist. I'm still trying to figure it out.

Gathering Storm

Lost in all the hand wringing over the government shut down and "avoiding default" has been the growing mountain of evidence that Obamacare is a disaster. It is NOT looking like it's just some technical issues, that any start up would experience. They tried to sell it as the site being slammed by unexpected traffic from the 45 million people they expected to use the site.

Stay tuned. There is a theory gaining credence that says the web site is purposely not giving out rates. They are just delaying the bad news. They told everybody the rates would go down, and now all the young, healthy gen X-ers they were counting on to sign up, are about to learn differently. The few people left defending this pig are about to abandon ship. But they might make the captain walk the plank first.

In a Nutshell

There are many story lines running about on the subjects of Obamacare, the debt ceiling and the government shutdown. They are all related of course, and the various story lines crisscross each of these. But as we begin the process of living our lives under this new system and it's sometimes shocking consequences, I keep thinking back to the ludicrous concept that was used to sell this pig to the American public.

I'm not talking about the blatant lies that our Commander in Chief told. But it is worth repeating them since they all were spawned by what I call, The Big Ludicrous Lie. Here is a partial list:

"..if you already have health insurance, the only thing that will change for you under this plan, is the amount of money you will spend on premiums. That will be less."

"I will sign a universal health care bill by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 per year."

"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."

"For people with insurance, the only impact of the health care law is that their insurance is stronger, better and more secure than it was before. Full stop. That's it. They don't have to worry about anything else."

Those were from Obama, but Nancy Pelosi had to add that under Obamacare, "everybody will have lower rates, better quality care and better access."

Notice that there is no equivocation in those statements.They are pretty much absolute. "Everybody." "Period." "Only impact." "No matter what." "That's it."

But the reason people even thought these things to even be possible was the Big Ludicrous Lie. The BLL was that government could extend health insurance to 45 million previously uncovered people, and simultaneously reduce the overall costs of health care. They had all kinds of scenarios about people neglecting their health because they didn't have health insurance. These poor wretched masses would avoid the doctor until their condition was desperate and then show up at the emergency room. Their point was that treatment was now much more expensive, and furthermore the hospital was going to end up stuck for the bill, and we'd all end up paying for that when those costs were passed along to patients who could pay.

Don't get me wrong. That scenario absolutely plays out exactly like that.

Occasionally.

But do you really believe that there are enough on those precise scenarios, with such monumental savings that they could pay for complete coverage for 45 million people? That's ridiculous.

Who in their right mind could believe that the added cost of treating people in that situation would exceed the cost of not only providing those 45 million people with insurance coverage, but insurance coverage that mandates all sorts of things that aren't in a normal, affordable policy, Think about that. You'd have to be delusional to think those numbers are even in the same zip code. Remember, all the time that that emergency room guy is supposedly making his  situation worse, he is also not incurring ANY medical costs. When he's now covered, he'll likely go to the doctor a lot more often, right? Is that going to cost anything? Yeah, I know preventative is better, and better for him, but he used to not cost us anything! And there is no guarantee that he won't still come to that same desperate situation where he has to have that same costly procedure.