Pottery Barn Rules for Health Care
Back when George W Bush was putting together his coalition of the willing, to kill people and break stuff in Iraq, Colin Powell warned they were under Pottery Barn rules: you break it you own it.
It appears that Democrats have broken the health care system. They transformed it by cramming through the Affordable Care Act, under special rules, on a Christmas Eve, with a completely partisan vote, featuring Cornhusker Kickbacks and Louisiana Purchases. Now the thing doesn’t work.
Pottery Barn Rules
Rich Lowry says that rather than try to help fix it, Republicans should let them own it.
World Series Facial Grooming
Was looking for a distraction so I switched from Health.gov to the World Series. Being skilled at distraction, my attention drifted from the game to the elaborate facial grooming of the Red Sox players. It went way beyond the fuzz, stubble. and occasional handlebar you expect to see.
So I came up with this.
The cartoon had a caption but one admirer gushed, “it’s so insanely stupid it doesn’t need a caption”.
So, I shaved it.
Slates Amanda Hess grades the growth here.
You Lie
I got this idea from this Holman Jenkins column in the WSJ. He thinks there is “too much incentive for Americans to over-consume health care” and that low cost high-deductible coverage might be the solution.
Obama and Democrats in general hate that idea. Jenkins quotes Hillary Clinton in 1993:
“We just think people will be too focused on saving money and they won’t get the care for their children and themselves that they need . . .
“The money has to go to the federal government because the federal government will spend that money better.”
IBD says the reason HillaryCare didn’t become law in 1994 was because of the “Harry and Louise” ad campaign. The Harry and Louise characters hammered home the point that they would lose their cheap insurance and be forced to buy expensive insurance, of the government’s choosing, under the Clinton plan.
That’s why Obama lied early and often that “you can keep your plan, if you like it”, under ObamaCare. Now, people who happen to like their individual catastrophic coverage are learning the truth.
You Lie
South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson was an obnoxious boor when he shouted “You lie” during President Obama’s 2009 State of the Union speech. But he didn’t lie.
Individual Insurance Mandate
A Washington Examiner poll shows that 70% of Americans want to delay the individual mandate to buy Obama approved health care. The other 30% are insurance companies. Just kidding.
But Bloomberg does report that insurance companies are absolutely positively opposed to any delay in the mandate.
Update: Here’s an IBD piece explaining how insurance companies jumped in bed with ObamaCare to produce 30 million new customers. And then got blamed as “bad apples” for canceling policies Obama doesn’t like.
Unhappy Saudis
I don’t think it’s because he listens to their phone calls (though he probably does), but the dependably ungrateful Saudis have had it with Obama.
They think he abandoned Mubarak, is going wobbly on Iran, and is gutless on Syria. Besides that, despite all his best efforts, Obama has more oil than they do. Basically they don’t trust the guy.
The WSJ’s Daniel Henninger deals with this, and more, in a column “Obama’s Credibility is Melting”.
