Quote:As I remember it, the Democrats on Capitol Hill got the bill they
wanted. They were heady, back in the majority, with a new and popular
president, and they didn’t much care about GOP support. They wanted the
credit: It was their bill. They wrote it in a way no Republican could
support. And they got no Republican support. When Paul Ryan, who had
emerged as the Republican point man, attempted to come forward with
ideas, he was rebuffed.

The new president—and this was a key historic moment—decided not to
act on the accumulated presidential wisdom of the ages, which is: Get
the other party in on all big things. Give them a stake in it, use them
for cover, show you have bipartisan juice, that you are truly national
and not only the leader of one party, show you can wield your mighty
power across the aisles. Get them bragging they passed it, with your
leadership. Make them co-own it so that when certain parts don’t work,
and certain parts won’t, they have deep motives to help you fix it.

Instead, a perfect storm of misjudgment, immaturity and lack of
historical perspective, and a perfect storm of shortsighted selfishness
(it’s all ours, it’s not even a little bit yours) brought forth a perfect storm of a health-care disaster.

Quote:As for Landrieu’s bill, if Republicans can’t successfully argue that
Congress has no constitutional power to compel commerce (the basic point
of the successful — in that vein — challenge to Obamacare under the
Commerce Clause), if they can’t argue that Congress has no power to
compel anyone to sell an insurance plan, or, by extension, to compel a
doctor to see a patient, etc., then we’re in sad shape.

Obamacare made millions of people’s plans illegal. By passing the
Upton bill, House Republicans would be striving to make them legal again
for the next year. If insurers nevertheless choose to stop offering
those plans, it will still be Obamacare that set that trend in motion.
What’s more, the GOP would then be free to criticize those insurers and
remind voters that, over the next decade, Obamacare would funnel a
stunning $1 trillion from American taxpayers, via Washington, to
insurers (according to the Congressional Budget Office). Meanwhile,
Landrieu’s bill is more of the heavy-handed, coercive model of
government that gave us Obamacare to begin with, and Republicans should
say so.

Finally, Landrieu’s bill would undermine the Obamacare exchanges at
least as much as Upton’s bill would. So the Democrats certainly don’t
love it, and it’s highly unlikely they would ever pass it. But if they
did, and if the House and Senate ended up reconciling Upton and Landrieu
in conference, the clear loser would be Obamacare — whose exchange population would just have gotten older, sicker, and costlier.

And then around October 2014, all of those notices about losing your
health plan because of Obamacare would start being mailed out again,
just in time to help voters make an informed choice on November 4.

Quote:Now, I realize that contempt of Congress is and should be the natural order of things. “The best Congress that money can buy.” “The only native American criminal class.” “No man’s life, liberty or property is safe while Congress is in session.” And that’s just Mark Twain and Will Rogers; the rest of us no doubt have even more pungent observations regarding the collective entity known as Congresscritters.

But the notion that “lawmakers” (stop, enough already!) are worried about “careers” at the public trough ought to be contemptible to every taxpayer. And, if Congressthings had any sense of shame, to the Honorables Themselves. But, of course, they don’t. Only someone with a soul as dead as Little Nell, a hide as thick as Joe Biden‘s noggin, and the moral conscience of Bill Clinton has the effrontery to run for Congress these days, and every attempt to “reform” the system — from the disastrous 17th amendment to term limits to McCain-Feingold (nothing like a “reform” to “get money out of politics” written by the “most reprehensible” of the Keating Five) — has resulted in complete failure.

It’s true that not a single Republican voted for Obamacare upon its forced passage. But neither has the appetite for repeal been very strong since. The House can pass all the repeal bills it wants, secure in the knowledge that the Senate will never go along with them, and that the president would veto any such legislation. Moral preening is, after all, one of the attractions of the racket, and “safe” votes are strictly for domestic consumption. Speaker John Boehner’s sandbagging of Senator Ted Cruz said all that needs be said on that subject.

So I say it’s spinach and I say the hell with it. If you think Obamacare is bad now — and it’s very, very bad, a direct assault on the most fundamental freedom Americans used to enjoy, which was the freedom to be left alone by the federal government — wait until the “employer mandate” kicks in. Already illegally “postponed” by Obama, it will destroy, by design, the insurance market in the U.S., send the economy into an even worse tailspin than it’s in now, and disrupt the lives and budgets of untold millions of Americans.

For John Roberts was right: in the law’s practical effect, it is a tax, only a tax, and nothing but a tax — and if you think it’s going to fund “health care” for the lame, the halt and the blind, you’re out of your mind. The gullible, naive and the mendacious may not be able to discriminate between “health care” and “insurance,” but that was exactly what Obama was counting on when he sold — barely — his apparatchiks in Congress on the notion that Barrycare would only add to the sum total of human happiness by taking care of the neediest and blah blah blah your doctor, period. That doesn’t make Roberts’ cowardly decision good — he had a chance to put a stake through the PPACA’s heart once and for all, and he choked. It’s a decision that will live in Supreme Court infamy until the day the act is repealed.

In other words, the entire flimflam was a bright, shining lie all along, made possible by the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party and its GOP wing’s continuing complicity in perpetuating the fraud. Remember, “universal health care” has been dream of the Regressives since Bismarck and Woodrow Wilson were pups, and now they have it. Make them own it, and destroy them with it.

We used to think that changing Congress meant changing which party controlled it. Now we know better. Real change can’t begin until the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party is gone.

Logan Darklighter Wrote:SO! Who's game for setting up one of those precious, pissy little “we’re sorry, world” websites directed at Tea Partiers now? Because if ever you liberals owed an apology to anybody, you owe a most abject one to the foresighted Americans you derided as insane, stupid, seditious, un-American, and extremist. Because THEY WERE RIGHT ABOUT ALL THIS, and YOU WERE WRONG. Completely wrong. Dead wrong. Wrong as…well, as only dullards clinging to a hundred-year-old ideology that's been an abject failure every time it's ever been tried can be.

Quote:Dartz wrote:

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No matter which 'law' wins... ultimately the true winner will be the insurance companies and hospitals. The only difference is who gets screwed over in their favour.

Quote:WASHINGTON — The health insurance industry is
already attacking a White House fix to Obamacare on Thursday even before
the plan is formally announced by the president.
“This doesn’t
change anything other than force insurers to be the political flack
jackets for the administration,” said an industry insider. “So now when
we don’t offer these policies the White House can say it’s the insurers
doing this and not being flexible.”

Quote:“Making sure consumers have secure, affordable coverage
is health plans’ top priority. The only reason consumers are getting
notices about their current coverage changing is because the ACA
requires all policies to cover a broad range of benefits that go beyond
what many people choose to purchase today.

“Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the law could destabilize the market and result in higher premiums for consumers.
Premiums have already been set for next year based on an assumption of
when consumers will be transitioning to the new marketplace. If now
fewer younger and healthier people choose to purchase coverage in the
exchange, premiums will increase and there will be
fewer choices for consumers. Additional steps must be taken to
stabilize the marketplace and mitigate the adverse impact on consumers.”

Quote:The great engine of the welfare state is the hidden cost. Usually, the costs of a new program or regulation are too diffuse or distant to matter much politically in comparison to the promise of a direct benefit. This time, the costs aren’t hidden. They are immediate and concrete in the canceled policies and the higher premiums, and they are making the politics of Obamacare toxic.

Quote:Sanford said she received another letter informing her the Washington state health exchange had miscalculated her eligibility for a tax credit.

In other words, her monthly insurance bill had shot up from $198 a month (she had initially said $169 a month to the White House but she switched plans) to $280 a month for the same “gold” plan offered by the state exchange.

Quote:Last week, Sanford received another letter from the Washington state exchange, stating there had been another problem, a “system error” that resulted in some “applicants to qualify for higher than allowed health insurance premium tax credits.”…

The result was a higher quote, which Sanford said was for $390 per month for a “silver” plan with a higher deductible. Still too expensive

A cheaper “bronze” plan, Sanford said, came in at $324 per month, but also with a high deductible – also not in her budget.

Quote:James O’Keefe, the guerrilla videographer who helped bring down ACORN (the “community organizing” group that Barack Obama worked for as a lawyer and trainer) and got NPR’s president fired, is back.

This time, his undercover investigators focused on Obamacare’s “navigators,” the nearly 50,000 people who, in the words of the Department of Health and Human Services, “will serve as an in-person resource for Americans who want additional assistance in shopping for and enrolling in plans” on the Obamacare exchanges (at least when they’re finally working). The total value of grants doled out for nonprofits and community organizations to hire navigators has topped $67 million nationwide, and some of the money is going to a group run by ACORN’s highly controversial founder.

The events of O’Keefe’s video of a Texas navigator site run by the National Urban League are a familiar sight to viewers of his past efforts exposing Medicaid and voter fraud. Government-paid workers supposedly trained to uphold the law advise clients on how to lie on government forms, evade legal requirements, and ignore proper procedures.

Quote:“Isn’t it true that there is no federal requirement for navigators to undergo a criminal background check,” Cornyn asked her.

“That is true,” Sebelius answered. “States could add in additional background checks and other features, but it is not part of the federal requirement.”

Cornyn pressed, “So a convicted felon could be a navigator and could acquire sensitive personal information from an individual unbeknownst to them?”

Sebelius answered, “This is possible.”

Quote:Early stumbles on the hobbled Obamacare website —
password glitches, incomplete testing and fractured development —
underscore considerable safety risks and hint at deeper vulnerabilities,
data security experts warn.

Lawmakers seized on those concerns Tuesday and will most likely do so
again Wednesday, reverting attention to a process that has astounded IT
specialists…

A software tester recently discovered a series of potential security
flaws, including one in the site’s password-reset function that would
enable a skilled hacker to access users’ email and security questions.
Another allowed a password-reset request to send information to
third-party analytics companies such as Pingdom and Google’s
DoubleClick. A report this week indicated that a North Carolina man
logged on to the site only to receive eligibility information about
someone in another state.

Tavenner called the latest concern a “personal identification issue,”
the agency corrected. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen
Sebelius labeled the password glitch a “theoretical problem that was
immediately fixed” and insisted at a recent House hearing that the
website stores “the minimum amount of data.” The Senate Finance
Committee on Wednesday is expected to question her further.

These issues, while small, go against industry best practices the
administration says it follows. Security analysts fear they hint at
bigger bugs in the system. Such weaknesses might not only allow hackers
to access personal information but make it easier to engage in
clickjacking — a process where harmful links appear like legitimate
portions of a website — or pharming, where criminals direct users to a
bogus site and take their information.

Quote:With millions of Americans frustrated and bewildered by
the trouble-prone federal website for health insurance, con men and
unscrupulous marketers are seizing their chance. State and federal
authorities report a rising number of consumer complaints, ranging from
deceptive sales practices to identity theft, linked to the Affordable
Care Act.

Madeleine Mirzayans was fooled when a man posing as a government
official knocked on her door. Barbara Miller and Maevis Ethan were
pitched by telemarketers who claimed to work for Medicaid. And Buford
Price was almost caught by another trap: websites that look official but
are actually bait set by fly-by-night insurance operators.

Quote:As a test, CBS gave one technology expert the real healthcare.gov username of a CBS employee, and within seconds, he identified the specific security question she used to reset her password.

Quote:As you look down the list put together by the Sunlight Foundation, it's all companies like this: giant monstrosities which are simply tied in closely with the government. All the large consulting firms are listed: Accenture, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, McKinsey. What's missing? Basically any company with even the slightest smidgen of experience building and maintaining large-scale, public-facing web-based apps. The list has no "internet native" companies.

Quote:Sebelius, wearing green, walked through the front doors
of North Shore Hospital near Miami Shores where she shook hands with
hospital staff and members of the Epilepsy Foundation who are staffing
the Obamacare Navigation center housed off the hospital’s lobby. There
she met with the team helping South Floridians to sign-up on line or on
paper.

“So she is being helpful,” asked the secretary to a couple sitting at one table of a navigator. “Absolutely,” they responded.

At a second table, the secretary met Carmen Salero who was trying to
sign up online. As the secretary and Salero made small talk, CBS4's
Brian Andrews noticed the site crash on the lap top in front of them.

“The screen says I’m sorry but the system is temporarily down,”
Andrews pointed out. “Uh oh,” responded the secretary. “That happens
every day,” said Salerno, “it must mean a lot of people are on there
trying to get coverage.”

Quote:“It went down three times,” said Williams referring to the site, “but we’re just going to keep trying,” he added.

Quote:Rajvik wrote:

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what makes this even more funny is that 3 guys in their "basement" built a working version inside a week. Stable, doesn't give anyone any trouble in their tests, the only problem, it gives you the tiers and prices up front, not at the end or after you've entered all your "private" data

Rajvik Wrote:what makes this even more funny is that 3 guys in their "basement" built a working version inside a week. Stable, doesnt give anyone any trouble in their tests, the only problem, it gives you the tiers and prices up front, not at the end or after you've entered all your "private" data