Category Archives: health insurance
Greatest National Security Threat
Not only is climate change our greatest national security threat. It causes terrorism. Trust me.
Closest Thing to a Jew
Former Obama administration high priest David Axelrod says the president revealed to him that he’s “the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office.” It’s hurtful to him when people say he’s hostile to Israel. The president also told a young Asian group this week that he personally restored America to international respectability. And, despite missing state department emails, destroyed IRS emails, and delayed FOIA requests, he continues with the “most transparent administration in history” boast.
Chuck Schumer Bails on ObamaCare
Chuck Schumer, the third ranking Senate Democrat, gave a speech trashing ObamaCare. He said it was a mistake to ram through health care reform when the main concern of voters was the economy. The uninsured were a small percentage of the electorate and most of them didn’t vote. ObamaCare meant middle class working people had to pay more for their insurance to subsidize the non-voting beneficiaries of ObamaCare. Schemer said that was politically stupid. As a result Democrats are now getting shellacked at the polls.
The speech came as a shock to Progressives and the press but it’s something Schumer must have given a lot of thought to. As Dan Henninger said in the WSJ, “Let us count the times Sen. Chuck Schumer has blown himself up politically.
That was a short count, wasn’t it?”
Stupid Voters
The administration whose foreign policy is “don’t do stupid shit” thinks we’re stupid.
Here’s why.
The United States Supreme Court has agreed to decide King v Burwell. The case is about the survival of ObamaCare. The plaintiff says the Affordable Care Act only permits subsidies on state run health care exchanges. The IRS allows subsidies on federal exchanges as well. Without subsidies ObamaCare is no more.
The reason the law was written that way was to create an incentive for states to set up exchanges say law professors Jonathan Adler and Jonathan Turley. Apparently it wasn’t incentive enough because only 16 states set up exchanges.
The administration argument (not surprisingly) is that the law doesn’t mean what it says. The intention of those who wrote it was to offer subsidies on all exchanges. And good intentions are everything.
Enter one more Jonathan, MIT egghead Jonathan Gruber. He’s the architect of the law and he says the plain wording is just a type-o. His intent was indeed for federal exchanges to offer subsidies.
Unfortunately for Gruber a video emerged in which he claimed that if a state doesn’t set up an exchange not only will its citizens not receive subsidies, they, as taxpayers, will have to pay for other people’s subsidies on other state exchanges.
Gruber, wearing his egg on his face, called that a speak-o.
Stupid is as Stupid does
But that’s not all. More videos have surfaced starring Professor Gruber. One of his most memorable lines is that “lack of transparency is a huge political advantage”. He says that if voters understood that healthy people would be paying for healthcare for sick people they would oppose the bill, because they’re stupid.
Ron Fournier of National Journal and an ObamaCare supporter now says the law was built on a foundation of lies.
Progressives believe in government by experts. Gruber is an expert. For him, telling the truth would have been nice but he’d rather “have the law than not”. Jonah Goldberg wrote a great book called Liberal Fascism. Gruber fits the bill.
You may be wondering who was the crack investigative reporter who dug up these videos. It was some guy in his basement. He’s an investment adviser named Rich Weinstein. David Weigel has a great story in Bloomberg about him.
State Exchange Subsidies
The DC Court of Appeals ruled that the Affordable Care Act means what it says. You have to buy insurance from a state exchange to qualify for a subsidy. If the ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court, ObamaCare will be in big trouble.
ObamaCare supporters are insisting that the law, as it’s written, does not express the intent of Congress. It’s just a type-o.
State Exchanges
MIT whiz Jonathan Gruber insists there is no way ObamaCare tax credits were meant to be restricted to state exchanges. And he should know, he helped write the law. Except that videos have surfaced showing Gruber insisting that if governors don’t set up state exchanges they will deny their own citizens ObamaCare tax credits. And not only that, they’ll be forced to subsidize policy holders in other states! Gruber’s response is that was a “speak-o”.
Kevin Obrien in the Plain Dealer is on the case. So is Megan McArdle in Bloomberg, and Jonathan Keim in National review.
