Monday, November 25, 2013

ADD A NEW WORD TO YOUR VOCABULARY:


From my email.
FIVE WAYS to judge if ObamaCare is really working. Talking Points Memo presents the optimistic case. Here are my thoughts.

Who signs up for insurance?
It's well understood that a significant number of the so-called 'young and healthy' must sign up in order for ObamaCare to succeed. TPM is optimistic, but the California signups and the Administration's refusal to provide demographic data from the Healthcare.gov experience suggests that TPM's optimism is indeed optimistic.
How affordable is that insurance?
The continuing anecdotal evidence suggests that 'sticker shock' is at least as bad as predicted.
Do people get to keep their doctor, as Obama promised?
Anecdotal evidence again suggests not, as do the much more restrictive insurance networks. In my own case, our family practicioner is moving to a concierge practice in January.
How competitive are the marketplaces?
Anecdotal, but in Prince William County, the answer is not competitive. The last time I was able to check the exchange, there were only about three insurance companies and perhaps 10-12 offerings. Only one was a PPO; the rest were HMO's.
Will more states expand Medicaid?
TPM is optomistic, citing Medicaid's initial rollout in the 60's, but I doubt ObamaCare has 10 years to overcome those initial doubts.
Conclusion: ObamaCare isn't working; it will collapse and eventually be repealed.
COMPLETELY LEGAL ... and we've eliminated the middleman.
STACK 'N PACK: The Left's big plan for how we should live.

Yes, how dare those 'little people' use our precious fossil fuel to move away from our control?

UPDATE: More via Instapundit.
END AROUND: HHS program to let users circumvent HealthCare.gov. It has the added benefit of diffusing the sticker shock (but of course that was never even considered by the Obama administration).
AFTERMATH of the Duke lacrosse rape case. Crickets ... the Group of 88 and their enablers sail blithely on.

I blogged about it earlier here.
IF IT DOESN'T COLLAPSE FIRST: Yes, ObamaCare can be repealed.

Or more likely, after it collapses on the rest of us.
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER attempts to sign up for ObamaCare. He fails, even on his gold-plated website.
ENROLL AMERICA: This Conversation Never Happened.

Lawsuits. Better, where are the tar and feathers?
PC PATROL TURNS ON ONE OF ITS OWN: ‘Progressives’ merciless as left-winger dares to use forbidden language. Here's what the Washington Post's Richard Cohen wrote to incur the PC wrath:
People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their country at all.
After being attacked by the PC Patrol, Cohen wrote:
I don’t understand it. What I was doing was expressing not my own views, but those of extreme right-wing Republican tea party people. I don’t have a problem with interracial marriage or same-sex marriage [my emphasis added].
Actually I would be stunned to find that Cohen had met any Tea Party member outside his own own fevered imagination.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SIX SIGMA? Federal bureaucrats get it right on four out of five payments and we're supposed to cheer?

As a minor note, 80% is only a skosh better than one-sigma.
JUST A REMINDER: ObamaCare's fraud and lies. Lawsuits are needed, and the Republican political action committees should be all over the airwaves doing battlefield preparation for the 2014 mid-terms.
PRESIDENT: ObamaCare doesn't work, so we'll rebrand it and sell it as the 'Affordable Care' act. Unfortunately for him, feces don't sell well, even when they're called roses.
MEGAN MCARDLE: Obamacare's Creative, Or Illegal, Rule-Making. Old news, but it reminds me of the never-asked question: Why isn't the federal government getting sued over these obviously illegal actions? [Obvious answer: the government is too damn powerful. -Ed.]

Linked from PowerLine.
REMEMBER THESE beautiful red trees? Now they're beautiful dead (well, at least dormant) trees.



Pictures will resume next spring when the cycle begins anew.
OH MY GOD: Now sports are being threatened by global warming. Please say it isn't so....
NO APP FOR THAT: Expensive new wrinkle in LA schools’ iPad fiasco. The software company involved, Pearson, is apparently the same company that makes the gradebook software (that doesn't work consistently) that my wife uses at her school.
NO PAIN, NO GAIN: How much pain do you want to suffer? Of course it's not pain if you enjoy the result.
ANOTHER RUBE SELF-IDENTIFIES: Hey, we tried to tell you, but you voted for Obama anyway.
MIKE ROWE: You don't have to go to college. "But you do need to learn something and work hard."