Category Archives: Culture
Young Healthies of Our American Family
In times of trouble President Obama is fond of mistaking “We the People” for “Our American Family”.
Makes sense in a sick sort of way. We’ve had Soccer Moms, NASCAR Dads, and now we have “Young Healthies”.
Young Healthies are the underemployed, student loan indentured, basement dwelling scions of our “American Family”. And while they stand to reap an unhealthy inheritance of $17 trillion in debt, their most immediate concern is to support the lifestyles of the “Old and Sick”.
Traditionally this support has been in the form of the employment tax which covers social security and medicare expenses. Ok, it doesn’t exactly cover them – see the $17 trillion debt inheritance. Anyway, a new turn of the screw has been added. The Young Healthies are required by law to buy insurance they don’t need so that their modest wealth can be transferred to the Old and Sick.
Young Healthies and young Our American Family Go Down Together
For some reason the Young Healthies were enthusiastic about this arrangement in the abstract in 2008, but not so much now that it’s real. That’s too bad, because if the Healthies don’t cough up the money they don’t have, Our American Family goes into a “Death Spiral“.
Young Voter Base
The president is punishing his base. Young voters delivered for him in both elections. Their reward is to be asked to subsidize older and sicker voters through ObamaCare. It’s a scheme to spread the wealth from the relatively poor to the relatively affluent.
Can’t say he didn’t give the “young healthies” an important job. If they don’t sign up, ObamaCare could go into a death spiral. Or not.
Carl Schramm in the WSJ cites this Manhattan Institute study:
A Manhattan Institute analysis of Health and Human Services numbers notes that a 27-year-old male will pay 99% higher premiums under ObamaCare than he would under previously prevailing market rates. One reason is that the law now limits insurers to charging the sickest seniors no more than three times the amount they charge their youngest customers. Given that 64-year-olds use on average six times as much health care as 19-year-olds, the Affordable Care Act forces young people to pay considerably more than the cost of their own care.
Young men and women who pay a fine instead of buying coverage are not making an irrational choice. They know how little care they need and use. They also may be beginning to understand that the high cost of their plans reflects the redistribution of their wealth to older people and a bunch of mandated services that don’t make sense for them.
Big Fat Bully Boys
Americans, as usual, are holding up our end of H.L. Mencken’s grand bargain that “we get the government we deserve, and we deserve to get it good and hard”.
But what have the polite people of Toronto done to deserve Mayor Rob Ford?
His poll numbers went up when he was caught smoking crack but his latest video rant may be a rage too far. Here’s a nice retrospective of his top then videos.
More Big Fat Bully Boys
As for the other big fat bully boy in the news, things may not be exactly as they seem either. Here’s a view from Lydon Murtha in SI. He’s a former Dolphin teammate of Richie Cognito and Jonathan Martin. Murtha says it was Martin who violated the NFL code of conduct and he sounds convincing.
If you doubted that 300 pound men who smash into other 300 pound men in a high speed collider – just the way we like it – can be bullied, you may be right.
We get the NFL we deserve – good and hard.
Too Smart for the NFL
So far this year one NFL player is in jail on murder charges while others have been fined for tackling too hard. Now, according to Bloomberg, a 320 pound Nebraska and Oregon reject has been suspended for bullying a 310 pound Stanford classics major for being too smart.
Dolphin tackle Jonathan Martin turned over to the NFL some nasty voice and text messages he received from guard Richie Incognito that indicate the hazing went beyond “team building”. This wasn’t a case of veterans making the rookie stand on a table at training camp and sing his college alma mater. He flat out got the “mean girl treatment” when he sat down to eat and Incognito and the other linemen got up and left. Whatever.
Butt Dialing Big Brother
Are we butt dialing Big Brother? Edward Snowden claims every phone call in the US is recorded by NSA.
Angela Merkel is livid at President Obama for allegedly listening in on her cell phone calls via NSA. Other EU leaders have the same complaint.
