Tag Archives: Obamacare

Is Health Care a Right or a Good? by Andrew P. Napolitano

Posted on March 30, 2017 | Leave a comment

Both Obamacare and its proposed replacement treat health care as a right. The constitution specifies no right to medical care or any other good or service because we all can’t have a “right” that someone else must pay for. From Andrew P. Napolitano at lewrockwell.com:

The political fiasco that unfolded last week as President Donald Trump and the Republican House leadership failed to pass legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, is attributable as much to the failure of politics as it is to the failure of politicians to understand the constitutional role of the federal government.

Republicans could not muster a majority in the House, which they control because a determined small group of them want to remove the federal government from the regulation of health care and believe that the replacement for Obamacare that House leaders have offered would keep too much of it in place. The president and his allies have argued that their bill would invalidate enough of Obamacare to return free choices to health care and to fulfill their campaign promises. Neither side has prevailed.

Here is the back story.

When Congress passed Obamacare in 2010, it did so without a single Republican vote. The premise underlying the highly partisan 2,700-page legislation is that health care is a right belonging to everyone in America and the federal government has a constitutional duty to provide it.

The political structure of Obamacare mandates that every person in America obtain health insurance, that every employer of more than 50 people in America pay for the health insurance of all employees who work more than 30 hours per week, that every policy of health insurance cover a large dimension of potential medical needs and that those earning under a certain annual income level receive health care at the expense of the rest of us. The failure to obtain and maintain health insurance triggers a tax burden — equivalent to the annual premium on a health insurance policy — for every year one goes without coverage.

To continue reading: Is Health Care a Right or a Good?

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Trump and Healthcare, by Scott Adams

Posted on March 25, 2017 | Leave a comment

This may look like Scott Adams trying to make the lemon of the Obamacare fiasco into lemonade, but he’s probably got it right. From Adams on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:

Today we are witnessing one of the most important events in political history. But you probably can’t see it because the news is talking about healthcare, and how Ryan and Trump totally failed to get enough votes.

The real story is happening in parallel with the healthcare story, and that’s what renders it invisible. Something enormous is happening that has nothing to do with anything you are seeing in the news. In fact, you’ll probably read it here for the first time.

I’m dragging this out to see if you can guess the big news before I tell you. It is something I predicted would happen. It is something the country needs MORE than healthcare. It was, until yesterday, perceived as the biggest problem in the United States, if not the entire world.

And that problem almost totally went away yesterday. The smell might linger, but the problem has ended. We should be celebrating, but instead we will be yammering about healthcare.

Do you know what problem just got solved? It’s invisible for now, but later everyone will be able to see it.

Don’t see it?

Okay, I’ll just tell you.

With the failure of the Ryan healthcare bill, the illusion of Trump-is-Hitler has been fully replaced with Trump-is-incompetent meme. Look for the new meme to dominate the news, probably through the summer. By year end, you will see a second turn, from incompetent to “Competent, but we don’t like it.”

To continue reading: Trump and Healthcare

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Obamacare Repeal or Obamacare 2.0? by Ron Paul

Posted on March 20, 2017 | Leave a comment

Ron Paul is not enthusiastic about the Republicans’ proposed replacement of Obamacare. From Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

This Thursday, the House of Representatives will vote on a Republican bill that supposedly repeals Obamacare. However, the bill retains Obamacare’s most destructive features.

That is not to say this legislation is entirely without merit. For example, the bill expands the amount individuals can contribute to a health savings account (HSA). HSAs allow individuals to save money tax-free to pay for routine medical expenses. By restoring individuals’ control over healthcare dollars, HSAs remove the distortions introduced in the healthcare market by government policies encouraging over-reliance on third-party payers.

The legislation also contains other positive tax changes, such a provision allowing individuals to use healthcare tax credits to purchase a “catastrophic-only” insurance policy. Ideally, health insurance should only cover major or catastrophic health events. No one expects their auto insurance to cover routine oil changes, so why should they expect health insurance to cover routine checkups?

Unfortunately the bill’s positive aspects are more than outweighed by its failure to repeal Obamacare’s regulations and price controls. Like all price controls, Obamacare distorts the signals that a freely functioning marketplace sends to consumers and producers, thus guaranteeing chaos in the marketplace. The result of this chaos is higher prices, reduced supply, and lowered quality.

Two particularly insidious Obamacare regulations are guaranteed issue and community ratings. As the name suggests, guaranteed issue forces health insurance companies to issue a health insurance policy to anyone who applies for coverage. Community ratings forces health insurance companies to charge an obese couch potato and a physically-fit jogger similar premiums. This forces the jogger to subsidize the couch potato’s unhealthy lifestyle.

To continue reading: Obamacare Repeal or Obamacare 2.0?

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A Bad Week and Getting Badder Bigly Fast, by James Howard Kunstler

Posted on March 17, 2017 | 1 comment

Between the brouhaha over Deep State surveillance of Trump, the debt ceiling, and repealing and replacing Obamacare, the president has some “challenges.” From James Howard Kunstler at kunstler.com:

Well, of course they bugged Trump Tower. Why wouldn’t they? Trump’s big blunder du jour is that he tweeted “wiretapped,” like some hapless sap out of a 1950s I Was a Spy for the FBI movie. (I know people who still say “ice box,” too.) So he left himself — or rather poor Sean Spicer — open for a week of legalistic pettifogging by reporters acting as litigators for the Deep State’s intel corps.

Anyway, Wikileaks “Vault 7” document release earlier in the month made it clear that US intel has the ability to cover and confuse the tracks of any entity —including especially US intel itself — that ventures to penetrate any supposedly private or secure realm. And, by the way, that probably settles the matter of who “they” are. Whatever statutory restraints once existed against CIA spying on American citizens is long gone by the boards.

You might suppose, too, that the combined forces of Hillary and Obama, along with the still-entrenched Democratic establishment, would have tried through late 2016 to stop The Menace of Trump at all costs. Somebody had done them dirty in funneling the DNC and Podesta emails to Wikileaks, and it was imperative to fight back — especially with FBI director James Comey (a Republican, after all), going all rogue on Mrs. Clinton. Hence, the manufactured Russia-did-it story that has gotten more mileage than any political hallucination since Senator Joe McCarthy, at his height of influence, played the newspapers like a whole orchestra of flugelhorns.

It’s hard to see how Trump might ever established the truth of this matter. One of the strange features of these internecine wars is that the Department of Justice — as far as we know — isn’t deposing scores of operations people from the myriad agencies under the NSA umbrella to establish who’s been doing what. Anyway, there’s enough loose scuttlebutt around Washington that Trump might have a pretty good idea of who at the various agencies hates his guts, and is working against him, and one wonders why he doesn’t just fire a bunch of them. Perhaps that’s yet to come.

To continue reading: A Bad Week and Getting Badder Bigly Fast

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Hi, GOP: You Are Terrible and Obamacare Jr. Stinks, by Kurt Schlichter

Posted on March 9, 2017 | Leave a comment

Ann Coulter still has the best Obamacare repeal and replace proposal: repeal Obamacare, let the free market provide medical care and medical insurance, and have the government provide a voucher to anyone who can’t afford the resulting market solution, which will be much cheaper than Obamacare. From Kurt Schlichter on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:

When Paul Ryan and his congressional clown car of alleged conservatives surprised us by just sort of dropping Obamacare Jr. on us, I wasn’t surprised to see them trip all over their Guccis during the utterly inept roll out. These nimrods couldn’t effectively communicate to Elizabeth Warren with smoke signals. But even I was shocked at how transcendently crappy their proposed Obamacare replacement is. Let me put it this way: the only thing that steaming pile of failure would be good for is as the key prop in a very specialized, niche German porno film.

Seriously, how many times do we have to tell you? Obamacare must die. Kill it dead – with fire!

When are you going to get it through your wonk spheres that we don’t want a government-led health care system that leaves the people who infest D.C. in charge? We don’t need a “plan” because 85 percent of us already have a plan – it’s called “Taking responsibility for supporting ourselves and our families like damn adults.”

Yeah, we really mean it when we say we want Obamacare gone. DOA. Kaput. Call it over to the mob boss’s house under the pretense that it’s going to be made, then shoot it through the face so its mother can’t give it an open coffin at the funeral.

Are you feelin’ us now?

To continue reading: Hi, GOP: You Are Terrible and Obamacare Jr. Stinks

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“It’s A Train Wreck”: Conservative Groups Revolt Against GOP Healthcare Plan, by Tyler Durden

Posted on March 8, 2017 | Leave a comment

Who knows what will come from the Washington sausage factory known as Obamacare Repeal and Replace? A lot of people don’t like Paul Ryan and company’s first try. They say it’s the wurst (pun intended). From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

As discussed earlier, the Obamacare repeal and replace effort, derisively called by some either “Obamacare Lite”, “RyanCare”, “ObamaCare 2.0″, and even Trumpcare”. is running into major hurdles as prominent consevative groups threaten to derail Trump’s broader economic agenda.

While The Trump administration on Tuesday formally backed the House GOP’s plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare, early hurdles emerged after tea partiers Rand Paul and Mike Lee both said that the proposed plan will not pass because it is too similar to the original healthcare law, while GOP senator Roy Blunt said that the plan as it stands may not be able to get the support needed to pass the Senate. “What I don’t like is, it may not be a plan that gets a majority votes and let’s us move on. Because, we can’t stay where we are with the plan we’ve got now,” Blunt said on KMBZ, as first reported by CNN.

The two are just the tip of the iceberg.

As The Hill writes, outside conservative groups on Tuesday blasted House Republicans’ newly unveiled healthcare proposal, saying it doesn’t live up to the GOP’s promise of fully repealing ObamaCare. Here are some of the more prominent objectors:

The Club for Growth dubbed the proposal “RyanCare” and threatened to record names of Republicans who vote for the bill unless it includes significant changes.

To continue reading: “It’s A Train Wreck”: Conservative Groups Revolt Against GOP Healthcare Plan

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Can I Be the Poster Child Against Obamacare? by Ann Coulter

Posted on January 26, 2017 | Leave a comment

Other than it’s expensive, requires hours of research, dramatically narrows one’s choice of doctors and medical care, makes the healthy subsidize the sick, who are often sick because of unwise lifestyle choices, and benefits welfare recipients and illegal immigrants, Obamacare is perfect, just like Obama’s two terms as president. From Ann Coulter at anncoulter.com:

Like millions of Americans who are paying thousands of dollars a year for health insurance no doctors will take, I would love to be flying to Washington this week, pleading with members of Congress, spearheading letter-writing campaigns and appearing as a witness, to tell everyone about my experiences with Obamacare.

But none of us can, because we’re too busy working so we can afford to pay for the health care of 22 million poor, entitled or irresponsible people under Obamacare.

Just yesterday, for example, in addition to working, I had to spend an hour — on top of days and days last month — figuring out which few remaining clinics provide mammograms under my brand-new, now third Obamacare insurance plan.

My original plan was made “illegal” by Obamacare, and the next two plans — fully approved under Obamacare — went bankrupt and were shut down by state and federal regulators.

Now I just have to pray I don’t get cancer or break a bone before Obamacare is repealed because, even at $700 a month with a gigantic deductible, there is NO PLAN on the individual market accepted by the two premier hospitals in my area for cancer or broken bones.

Those $700 premiums go to pay for the pregnancies and dental care of welfare recipients and immigrants, not cancer treatment for Ann.

Democrats love to get on their high horses about the wonderful things Obamacare has done for the uninsured. They should be asked why they refuse to live under it.

To continue reading: Can I Be the Poster Child Against Obamacare?

 

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Donald Trump, Revolutionary, by Andrew P. Napolitano

Posted on January 26, 2017 | Leave a comment

President Trump has kept one promise: on day one of his administration he started dismantling Obamacare. From Andrew J. Napolitano at lewrockwell.com:

Within four hours of becoming president of the United States, Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to limit immediately the effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in ways that are revolutionary.

With the stroke of a pen, the president assaulted the heart of the law that was the domestic centerpiece of his predecessor’s administration. How did this happen? How can a U.S. president, who took an oath to enforce the laws faithfully, gut one of them merely because he disagrees with it?

Here is the back story.

When Obamacare went through Congress in 2010, all Democrats in Congress supported it and all congressional Republicans were opposed. The crux of their disagreement was the law’s command that everyone in the United States obtain and maintain health insurance — a command that has come to be known as “the individual mandate.”

Republicans argued that Congress was without the authority to compel people to enter the marketplace by purchasing a product — that such decisions should be freely made by individuals and that that freedom was protected from governmental interference by the Constitution. Democrats argued that the commerce clause of the Constitution, which permits Congress to regulate commerce among the states, also permits it to compel commercial activity on the part of individuals who make up a highly regulated component of interstate commerce.

To continue reading: Donald Trump, Revolutionary

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Fake News About “Love” For Obamacare? by Eric Peters

Posted on January 20, 2017 | Leave a comment

Any SLL reader who thinks Obamacare has been good for medical care or the country, leave a comment explaining why. From Eric Peters on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:

I begin to think maybe Trump is on to something with his Fake News schtick. Which isn’t schtick at all in terms of the obvious, egregious bias of what is styled “mainstream” media outlets such as CNN (back in the ’90s, the letters were said to stand for Clinton News Network).

But what Trump means is “news” that is not stilted but upended. Manufactured to present the outright wrong as the absolutely certain. And not on account of incompetence, either.

The best example being Trump’s victory itself.

In lockstep, the “mainstream” media predicted a route. Presented ominous pie charts and graphs and polls of many kinds purporting double digit leads in key states for… Hillary.

This is more serious than the usual weather man 50 percent track record of accurately predicting whether it’s going to snow tomorrow. When it’s unanimous that Trump – whom the people delivering the pie charts and graphs and exit polls all obviously loathe – is “going to lose” and yet wins anyhow, which is more likely? That all these people simply got it wrong in exactly the same way? Or that they were purposely trying to suppress the real news and stilt the outcome along lines they desired?

Now comes the latest – also from CNN – that “love for Obamacare” is at an all-time high. See here.

It reeks of Fake News.

Do you like Obamacare? Know anyone who does? Everyone I know loathes it – for both practical as well as moral reasons.

On the practical level, it sucks. You do not get medical care (let alone free or even “affordable” care). You are forced by the government to buy an insurance policy. It is not the same thing as getting “care.” The insurance company is a crony capitalist cartel that will do all it can to avoid paying for “care” while making you pay for “coverage.” People have become hip to this – and they are not in love with it.

To continue reading: Fake News About “Love” For Obamacare?

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Why Obamacare’s ‘20 Million’ Number Is Fake, by Genevieve Wood

Posted on January 17, 2017 | 1 comment

The 20 million is overstated, and most of the actual 14 million that received care were shoved into Medicaid. From Genevieve Wood at dailysignal.com:

Liberals are notorious for caring about “groups” of people, but when it gets down to individual persons, not so much. You’re about to see this play out in spades as Democrats cry crocodile tears over the coming repeal of Obamacare.

You hear it over and over again: “This will be catastrophic for the 20 million people who were previously uninsured but now have coverage! You can’t take away their health care!”

First of all, no one is talking about doing that. Any repeal legislation will have a transition period for those who got coverage through Obamacare to move to new plans. And second, they will have more choices and better options. Win. Win.

But liberals would rather focus on quantity, how many millions we’ve given something to, versus quality, what does that “gift” mean for individual people.

The Obama administration claims 20 million more Americans today have health care due to Obamacare. The reality is that when you look at the actual net gains over the past two years since the program was fully implemented, the number is 14 million, and of that, 11.8 million (84 percent) were people given the “gift” of Medicaid.

And new research shows that even fewer people will be left without insurance after the repeal of Obamacare. Numbers are still being crunched, but between statistics released by the Congressional Budget Office and one of the infamous architects of Obamacare, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Jonathan Gruber, it’s estimated that anywhere from 2 to 7 million people now on Medicaid would have qualified for the program even without Obamacare.

That further discredits the administration’s claim of 20 million more Americans having health insurance because of Obamacare.

To continue reading: Why Obamacare’s ‘20 Million’ Number Is Fake

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