Category Archives: Health
It’s Complicated
HHS Secretary Sebelius admitted that ObamaCare is complicated. Senator Jay Rockefeller calls it “the most complex piece of legislation ever passed by the United States Congress”. And he helped design it.
Meanwhile the ACLU says IRS is reading your email.
Obamascare
Health insurance rates are taking off under Obamacare, especially if you now carry a high deductible plan. Kathleen Sebelius agrees.
“Some of these folks have very high catastrophic plans that don’t pay for anything unless you get hit by a bus,” she said. “They’re really mortgage protection, not health insurance.”
Megan McCardle at the Daily Beast thinks Sebelius is confused about what insurance is.
Sebelius’ response is apparently that catastrophic insurance isn’t really insurance at all–which is exactly backwards. Catastrophic coverage is “true insurance”. Coverage of routine, predictable services is not insurance at all; it’s a spectacularly inefficient prepayment plan.
“This is not insurance anymore. This is regulation, this is government dictated rates, like the electrical company…”
Same Sex Supreme Court
Justice Kennedy isn’t homophobic, he’s Roe v Wade-phobic. He think’s “a democracy should not be dependent for its major decisions on what nine unelected people from a narrow legal background have to say”.
Which is what happened in the Roe v Wade decision. Attitudes toward abortion were already changing and Justice Ginsburg says the court went “too far and too fast“ in removing the issue from the political process. Anger and frustration rages over abortion today with many attitudes shifting back the other way.
But nobody likes an abortion. Everybody loves a wedding.
Those Whacky Puritans
While the Mayor and Michelle go Carrie Nation on the sugar industry, the rest of us are bailing it out with price supports. Got the idea for this one from this Steve Chapman column.
Slippery Slope
Rand Paul’s 13 hour filibuster, extracted an agreement from the administration not to kill American citizens sitting in American cafes. For those keeping score, the Holder/Obama team has whacked 3 Americans so far.
That still leaves this administration 77 short of the Clinton/Reno mark of 80 killed in Waco Texas.
However, President Obama has shown the remarkable ability to extend the kill zone for American citizens and constitutional rights for foreign terrorists at the same time! In early March Bin Laden’s son-in-law, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, was picked up in Jordan and brought to New York for trial. Along the way he was read his Miranda rights.
The true test of Obama’s power is – will Sulaiman be forced to buy health insurance?
