Tag: ObamaCare

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free trade & free markets too much government

Resistance Is Not Futile

Who says signing up for Obamacare is all snarls and snafus?

Thirty-​year-​old law student Brian Mahoney already had a high-​deductible, low-​premium insurance plan. But the day the Obamacare exchanges went online, he decided to check it out. For him, unlike thousands of others, signing up was easy.

Great. Except that … Mahoney had been paying for medical insurance, and now he’s on Medicaid. The website told him he was eligible. Thus, the “success” here is the triumph of making a capable adult less self-​responsible and more dependent on government handouts.

And that’s bad. If we care about our freedom, what we must do is resist appeals, or demands, that we forfeit control over our lives — even if offered a mess of pottage in return. Refuse to cooperate with the bureaucrats and politicians. Not become martyrs, but resist to the extent that we can resist. Even if it’s, well, more than a tad inconvenient. Certainly we should not submit to new chains and crutches eagerly.

A reader at the Hot Air blog reports that when he asked his doctor about “about how our electronic records would be used and protected” under the Obamacare regime, the doctor replied: “We’re not keeping electronic records. We refuse to comply with Obamacare. We’re not switching over.”

Good for you, Doc. We need more like you.

I certainly don’t want my medical records in the hands of government … to name just one of the things having to do with me, my rights and my life that I don’t want government anywhere near.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies

The Apple of Their Own Eyes

“Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system, and within days, they found a glitch, so they fixed it,” President Obama recently told an audience. “I don’t remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads or threatening to shut down the company if they didn’t.”

Acknowledging the many problems that popped up in last week’s rollout of the online healthcare exchanges, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius offered, “[H]opefully you’ll give us the same slack you give Apple.”

Let’s review. Apple fixed its problem. And customers continued to voluntarily purchase its products.

That’s where the president’s and the secretary’s analogy badly breaks down. Obamacare’s problems are myriad and metastasizing … and hardly being fixed.

Even Obamacare enthusiasts Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas, writers of The Washington Post’s “Wonk Blog,” objected to the ridiculous comparison between Apple and Obamacare in a story headlined, “Obamacare’s Web site is really bad”:

The Obama administration doesn’t have a basically working product that would be improved by a software update. They have a Web site that almost nobody has been able to successfully use. If Apple launched a major new product that functioned as badly as Obamacare’s online insurance marketplace, the tech world would be calling for Tim Cook’s head.

The differences between Apple and Obamacare hardly end there. Did I mention that no one is forced to buy Apple products?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Big Government Blows It

The Obama Administration won’t say how many Americans have successfully navigated the online sign-​up during last week’s grand opening of the Affordable Care Act healthcare exchanges … if anyone.

To quell the media manhunt, the White House tweeted that Chad Henderson, a mild-​mannered 21-​year-​old Georgia college student with a part-​time day-​care job, had, through sheer determination of will, managed to sign up for Obamacare at a cost of only 30 percent of his salary.

“I really just wanted to do my part to help out with the entire process,” Henderson said. But Chad was soon found to be hanging out there, suspiciously, finally admitting he hadn’t truthfully grabbed the new entitlement’s brass ring after all.

Chuck Todd announced on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown that it had been a “rough first week” for Obamacare. He wondered how the folks who “brought us the most technologically advanced campaign in history … blew it this badly on this — their biggest, most important government outreach?”

“[T]hey really had to get this right,” added National Journal’s Ron Fournier, “not just for the healthcare reform, but for the whole idea — that a lot of us believe in — that a strong, effective government can help people through this huge economic and social transition we’re going through.” Fournier admitted that the failure undermined the “central argument that we’re having in this country.”

Even “objective” media folks, who believe government should play a much larger role in running our lives, aren’t so sure it’s up to the job.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
media and media people

Countdown to Zero

The New York Times has a timeline of the progress of Obamacare.

It’s okay as far as it goes. Which is not too far, since only the most recent dates seem readily accessible. And since the Times editors blindly favor the Obama-assault.

But sure, labor leaders have both criticized and praised Obamacare (9/​12/​13), some states have fought it (or “moved to undercut” it) (9/​18/​13); Pennsylvania State University has decided not to fine employees $100 a month for being too reticent about personal details on “wellness” questionnaires (9/​19/​13). Etc.

A headshake-​worthy aspect of the chronology, however, is its showcasing of opinion published in the Times itself — as if each Times-punditarian rebuke of opposition to medical serfdom were another epochal event in the steady march of the wonderful Obamacare. So Gail Collins “chastises Republicans” for jeopardizing global stability to oppose Obamacare (9/​19/​13). Paul Krugman avers that the GOP, “hysterical” over Obamacare, is changing from stupid party to crazy party (9/​20/​13).

Fine, fine. But toss in some pro-​free-​market, anti-​socialist and anti-​Krugman events also, okay? Like the first publication of Ludwig von Mises’s comprehensive, devastating critique of Socialism (1922). The publication of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, sweeping saga of social collapse as feverish proto-​Krugmaniacs stamp freedom out of existence (1957). The day Mike Tanner elaborated “Why Freedom Is the Key to Health Care Reform” (9/​5/​09). And let’s not forget John Goodman’s seminal post, “When It Comes to Healthcare Issues, Paul Krugman Is Wrong 100% of the Time” (5/​30/​13).

All that being said, a timeline is one thing, “progress” quite another. The word implies a good goal. Though hey, doctors do sometimes speak of the “progress” of a cancer or a fatal disease.

In the end, a timeline of Obamacare must include its own demise.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies political challengers too much government

Losing with Obamacare

Democrats and their many shills in the major media decry Republican intransigence and “absolutism” on the “settled matter” (un)popularly known as Obamacare. Yesterday, rather than give an inch to the House Republicans they accuse of intransigence, Senate Democrats voted to uphold the Affordable Care Act, including their own special exemption from it.

The House majority had been demanding the defunding of Obamacare as the price for keeping the government funded overall, but dropped that demand when Senate Democrats shook their heads No. Perhaps Republicans backpedalled because they surmised that they, not Democrats, would likely be blamed for the shut-​down … Sen. Ted Cruz’s valiant efforts to re-​define the debate notwithstanding.

Then Republicans downshifted, demanding a one-​year delay in the implementation of Obamacare — granting to regular citizens, as Cruz puts it, the same solicitude Democrats have shown to big corporations — plus the deletion of a widely unpopular tax on medical devices and the repossession of Congress’s “Get-​Out-​of-​Obamacare-​Free” card.

Senate Democrats took less than half an hour to thumb their noses at the House, nixing all three provisions and leaving the federal government liable to partial shut-​down. Obamacare, at least for the un-​politically-​connected, starts in earnest today!

Comedian Bill Maher is not alone in chiding Republicans for “refusing to admit” they “lost.”

Republicans, for their part, predict utter devastation from the reform bill’s implementation, and don’t see why the country should suffer from the Democrats’ intransigence.

If Tea Party-​inclined Republicans do lose this battle and Obamacare’s bad results do pile up — increasing unemployment and depression, skyrocketing insurance rates, diminished private medical insurance rolls — would the Democrats concede that they’ve lost?

Or would they continue to think they’ve won?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

To Dream the “Impossible” Repeal

Senator Ted Cruz’s non-​filibuster filibuster, monopolizing the Senate floor for the ninth hour as I type these words, is easy to characterize — if you are Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert.

Easy to make fun of, especially when the senator read Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham as a bedtime story for his children — via C‑Span.

It’s not a filibuster, since it stops no vote. It’s not even a speed-​bump on the way to a vote. It’s something of a demonstration by one senator and a few of his allies to highlight the dangers of the Democrats’ Affordable Care Act, and the necessity to repeal it. Marshaling emails, tweets, and open letters, Cruz hopes to pressure the unmovable Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to allow a vote on an amendment to defund Obamacare.

The point is this: Attacking Obamacare can’t help but seem quixotic. Like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, we who want less government — who want to limit government — often find ourselves jousting with giants who don’t budge, or (ahem) budget.

So of course we do appear comic, now and then.

But there’s also a reason that when Broadway and then Hollywood turned Cervantes’ classic into a musical, Don Quixote became something of a hero. The dream of justice, of economy, of equality before the law, of humility before the forces of nature, and resilience before the hordes of delusional politicians, does seem impossible.

But not fighting it, whatever peaceful way we can, would be disgraceful.

Ted Cruz is heroic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.