Barack Obama held a press conference the other day during which he took a “victory lap” and taunted Republicans in his typical juvenile fashion:
At a press conference yesterday President Obama asserted that when it comes to ObamaCare, the Republican Party “is going through the stages of grief–anger and denial and all that stuff–and we’re not at acceptance yet.”
His endless hubris echoes his “I won” utterance in 2009.
Then James Taranto notes this:
A Politico reporter asked the president: “Do you think it’s time for Democrats to start campaigning loudly and positively on the benefits of ObamaCare?” Watch him contradict himself in response: “We need to move on to something else. That’s what the American people are interested in. I think that Democrats should forcefully defend [ObamaCare]. . . . I don’t think we should apologize for it, and I don’t think we should be defensive about it.”
He says “we need to move on,” and two sentences later calls for a forceful defense, before saying that “I don’t think we should be defensive about it,” which reminds us of Martin Short as Nathan Thurm: “I’m not being defensive! You’re the one who’s being defensive! Why is it always the other person who’s being defensive? Have you ever asked yourself that? Why don’t you ask yourself that?”
Unfortunately, Barack Obama is a liar and just can’t stop lying:
Although Mr. Obama touted the 35 percent of federal exchange enrollees he said were younger than 35, the administration acknowledged in a fact sheet that just 28 percent are 18 to 34 — the key demographic insurers need to sign up in order to cover the costs of older Americans with health conditions who no longer can be denied coverage. Economists said the number needed to prevent premium spikes is close to 40 percent.
As we have observed here, 60% of Americans think Obama is a liar.
And Obamacare isn’t becoming popular.
The president’s triumphal tone suggests that this is self-evidently good news and reason to celebrate the success of his health care law. He says that candidates from his party should be proud of the law and defend it. But that’s not likely to happen, and the reasons are deeper than disputes about how many people actually signed up through a health care exchange.
The first is that many people are finding out that the insurance they bought through an exchange doesn’t really ensure they’ll get medical care. There have been repeated stories of people finding out that even though they have insurance, they can’t find a doctor who will accept it. The Wall Street Journal, for example, reports that residents of New Hampshire’s capital city “have to drive to other cities to get covered hospital care.” Buying a product that doesn’t work is a sure way to create an angry customer.
Additionally, the health care law has created even more angry customers who have found out that they have to change doctors. For some, that’s just a minor inconvenience. For others, it’s a huge problem.
And, of course, the law is making health insurance more expensive. The head of Aetna, Mark Bertolini, and other industry executives have said they expect to see significant price hikes from the law. That impacts tens of millions of Americans — including many who were happy with their insurance before Obama’s law was passed.
What all of this means is that the president’s claim of 8 million enrollees is not something to be dismissed or ignored. But the claim’s incomplete and a bit like saying a baseball score is eight. Eight runs in a major league baseball game is a good thing, but you can’t really evaluate it unless you know how many runs the other team scored.
And, for the president’s health care law, the negatives are still piling up a lot faster than the positives.
And that’s just the beginning. Remember how Obama claimed that his law was already bending the healthcare cost curve down?
Liars are going to lie. It wasn’t Obamacare that bent the cost curve down. It was the lousy Obama economy.
And now? Health care costs are expected to rise.
Now the respite may be ending. You can see it in the latest monthly reports from the Altarum Institute, an Ann Arbor-based think-tank that monitors national health care spending. These reports, based on government data, are the equivalent of an early warning system for medical costs. They are one of the first places a spending spike would show up. According to Altarum, expenditures started to rise more quickly in the middle of 2013. Since then, the rate has gone up even more. Reports of rising costs have already gotten the attention of savvy health care observers in the media, like Philip Klein and Sarah Kliff.
Bet Obama didn’t see that one coming. It actually wouldn’t matter because he’d just lie about it.
Obamacare isn’t working. It seems as though half the country is exempt. Here’s a list of exempt organizations. Unions get a break from the law they demanded.
The Obama administration has found a way to give unions relief from an Obamacare tax nearly three weeks after Republicans rejected a Democratic push to include the labor carve-out in the latest budget deal.
The Department of Health and Human Services quietly released a final rule last week that includes an intention to exempt some union insurance plans from a substantial new tax known as the reinsurance fee.
As part of Obamacare, the tax was supposed to be levied against all insurance plans to share the risk for insurers taking on the sickest patients next year.
But unions, which were among the strongest supporters of the Affordable Care Act when it passed in 2010, had pressed the administration for changes to the law, arguing that the measure is harmful to insurance plans accessed by more than 15 million union members and would raise costs.
There have been 40 alterations to the law but these are important:
8. Employer-mandate delay: By an administrative action that’s contrary to statutory language in the ACA, the reporting requirements for employers were delayed by one year. (July 2, 2013)
13. Insurance companies may offer canceled plans: The administration announced that insurance companies may reoffer plans that previous regulations forced them to cancel. (November 14, 2013)
18. Employer-mandate delayed again: The administration delayed for an additional year provisions of the employer mandate, postponing enforcement of the requirement for medium-size employers until 2016 and relaxing some requirements for larger employers. Businesses with 100 or more employees must offer coverage to 70% of their full-time employees in 2015 and 95% in 2016 and beyond. (February 10, 2014)
These changes are baldly political and intended to provide cover for vulnerable democrats in the upcoming election. They also conveniently shield Obama from further criticism until he is out of office.
Obamacare is NOT working. Most of it hasn’t come close to being implemented and it won’t be implemented any time soon as that would be a complete disaster for democrats.
And they know it.
That’s why Obama wants you to stop talking about Obamacare.
You can keep your doctor.
You can keep your plan.
Benghazi was caused by a video.
I am against the personal mandate.
8 million have signed up.
The list is endless.
See author page
Whenever anyone feels the need to declare that “the debate is over,” it’s a clear confirmation that the debate is indeed still raging. When a debate is truly over, it simply ends of its own accord without the need for meaningless declarations or impotent direction.
The Collective hopes to instill a sense that all hope in escaping the oppression of ObamaCare is lost. It is the law they say. But so was Prohibition, so there’s always hope.
The Congressional Budget Office says that yes healthcare costs are going up BUT at a slower rate than in the past.
And Obama has been doing better on his polls, Rasmussen has him at 49/50 -1 and Gallup at 45/48 -4%
Most Americans in fact do NOT want ACA repealed.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/31/five-things-polling-tells-us-about-obamacare/
@john:
Not what he promised. Where’s the 2500 dollars savings each family was to see under Obiecare?
Pull your head out of his rear and smell the fresh air for a change.
Try telling those whose lives and paychecks have been saved already of the ACA that it should be repealed. Give it up. It’s here to stay.
@john:
But that’s not at all what was promised or even suggested. Instead, what was promised was that there was going to be a $2500 decrease in annual premiums.
This may or may not be true, even in the face of ObamaCare’s dismal 26% approval rate.
But remember, due to the President’s arbitrary unilateral rewriting of the law, the full effect of it has been pushed until after the mid-terms and indeed until after 2016. The rainbows and unicorn farts that the Jurassic media has been spreading about ObamaCare since it’s inception makes it sound mighty wonderful, but we’ll see how the public feels about it when they’re under the full weight of it in reality. All of the Jurassic media propaganda in the Universe won’t be able to put a positive spin on it then, when people are actually experiencing it.
Even though Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ ideas have been called into question, most people see some of what she wrote about as the 5 stages of grief in themselves when confronted with their own mortality.
What is interesting is how Obama SKIPPED over one of her 5 stages: BARGAINING.
Can you imagine Obama inviting Republicans (and even some Dems) to bargain with him about O’Care?
He just won’t do it ….on principle.
Remember when Republicans wanted him to delay the employer mandate and he adamantly refused?
Only a few days later he was doing it unilaterally!
The one question obamacare supporters never ever answer is why – if obamacare is supposed to be so good for the economy – would Obama by unconstitutional executive order delay the employer mandate until after the elections? It makes no sense to do so…IF the obamanauts truly believe it will have a positive effect economically. The only thing that makes any sense in delaying the employer mandate is that tbe dems know full well that imposing tbe employer mandate will lead to tens of millions of people losing their health insurance and be forced into tbe socialist miasma of obamacare insurance or be forced to pay the IRS penalty; to even more people being forced into part time employment, and a severe shock to the economy. This is exemplified by the IRS trying to force businesses to sign declarations that cutting full time positions is specifically not being done to avoid obamacare costs.
This unworkable, budget-busting socialist failure needs to be repealed, and the government needs to get out of the medical system. Until someone invents robots that can act as physicians, health care will never be “free” – and the future attempts by leftists to force doctors to accept obamacare insurance will be a fascist attempt to enslave doctors to the will of government. Try to imagine if tbe government can do that to physicians, how long before politicians start trying to enforce such wage controls on you in your non-medical job, all under the guise of their twisted leftist idea of “fairness”.
You are already seeing the breathless stories of how doctors in the US are greedy and overpaid compared to doctors in socialist countries. Of course they don’t mention the increased number of hours US physicians work compared to socialist doctors, nor the fact that the US is the only country that allows contingency fee law and the cost of medical malpractice insurance in the US versus socialist countries.
Of course what can you expect from a group of liars who refuse to report the number of people who have actually paid premiums, or who pad the number of “under 34” alleged insured by adding in 0-18 year olds covered on their parents’ policies?
@Nanny G,
Did you know of ever meet Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross? Wonderful individual and great humanitarian. Her final stage was acceptance. The fool, his cabinet and the congress never read her book, thus they would have no concept of what you are talking about. The book that Nanny G is referring to is titled: On Death and Dying. It is not expensive and cost about $3.00 used on Amazon. America has not accepted anything in idiot care.
She loved to engage in conversation and loved teaching.
Massachusetts Democrat: ObamaCare is “going to hit the fan” in the next few years
@MOS-8541: I recall her as a guest speaker in the sociology dept when I was in college.
A huge crowd was there, but she took all the questions anyone asked.
Some of that dept’s professors were her fans, others seemed intent on bringing her down a notch (it seemed to me they wanted elevate themselves by the process).
My husband did an oral final in a sociology class based on Kubler-Ross’ work.
He got an “A.”
Neither of us majored in sociology, just took a class in it.
For Richard Wheeler:
What do you think Rich?
LOL!
And now for Obamacare hitting the fan….
Covered California insurer, Anthem Blue Cross, admitted that nearly 1,000 doctors were erroneously listed on the exchange’s list.
OOPS!
The premise of Covered California is that you’re able to compare plans and see which one is best for you. But if they are presenting that they have all these doctors in network but they don’t, then it doesn’t work.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/04/21/insurer-admits-nearly-1000-doctors-wrongly-placed-on-covered-california-list/
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/02/27/lawmaker-may-crack-down-on-flawed-doctor-lists-on-covered-california/
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/02/04/consumerwatch-some-doctors-listed-by-covered-california-not-taking-coverage/
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/02/06/covered-ca-removes-doctor-lists-after-kpix-5-report-finds-mistakes/
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/02/13/consumerwatch-covered-california-enrollees-complain-of-bait-switch/
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/04/18/consumerwatch-some-covered-california-patients-say-they-cant-see-a-doctor/
CBS?
San Fran?
Say it isn’t so!
Obama is losing CBS and San Fran!
Shouldn’t there have been a media blackout about this?
@This one:
That would be exactly ‘nobody’ that wouldn’t have been saved under the old rules.
@This one:
So how many lives has Obamacare created or saved?
@DrJohn:
What need will there be to create or save lies, when the IPAB will be liberating patients from life-lock.
Confirmation that 0-blama has NO clue how our government operates!!
Another reason Obama and his Obamedia want to see the last of discussions on O’Care:
Oregon just dumped their own exchange.
After spending over $130,000,000 they ”signed up” (he probably hasn’t paid) one person!
That is a cost averaging of 130 million dollars per one sign-up!
Cheap….NOT!
So, Oregon is going on the federal exchange.
@Nanny G: Which means the folks in Oregon, after having spent 130 mil, will not be eligible for the subsidy because they are on a federal exchange. Ta Da. screwed again……
Another point the Obamanauts won’t answer…..if this socialist takeover of the medical system is supposedly so “affordable” why do so many people need taxpayer provided subsides to pay for it? And how will these subsidized policy holders deal with the minimum $5000/yr per person deductibles.which must be paid before.the “affordable” subsidized insurance plans kick in?
Obamacare delenda est.
More Evidence That Obamacare Is Helping: The uninsured rate in Minnesota has plunged 40 percent, according to a new study.
@Greg:
And how many have been added to the Medicaid rolls there, Greggie?
@retire05:
You don’t really expect him to answer, do you?
@Redteam:
Nah.
Greggie is now refusing to answer me because he can’t blow smoke up my arse.
Soooo…does anyone think it a good idea – at all – to have the same inept, disingenuous people that “lost” 2 years worth of Lehrner’s emails (despite claiming to have archived them all back in March) be in charge of a national socialist heath care system?
Other than delusional leftist cult members, I mean….
@Pete:
It seems the left is more than willing to accept “the dog ate my homework” mantra now.
@retire05:
Reply: I can’t believe that everyone doesn’t know that emails are stored on the server of the email host, not on your computer hard drive.