Americans should remember that this same corrupt IRS will be in charge of enforcing Obamacare.

Sarah Palin

I seldom quote her, but she nails it here.

In case the health insurance industry is too complicated, consider a simpler analogy: Suppose the Obama Administration passed the “Affordable Snacking Act,” and required movie theaters to limit the price of a large popcorn to only 25% of the price for an adult matinee ticket. Does anyone really think the outcome of this would be merely a massive reduction in popcorn prices across the country? Or, is it more likely that theaters would do a combination of the following? (a) Reduce popcorn prices, (b) slightly increase ticket prices, (c) cut back on expenses at the snack counter, by laying off workers (leading to longer snack lines) and reducing the size of a “large popcorn,” in order to compensate for the loss in profitability of that portion of the business.

The same holds in health care insurance. In reality, there is a whole spectrum of customer service that a company can provide; this is partly what the “administrative expenses” cover. If the federal government forces a particular insurer to cut back on this spending, the outcome isn’t merely going to be lower salaries for the fatcats. There may also be layoffs in clerical positions, fewer people manning the phones to deal with inquiries about coverage or understanding a recent bill, and so forth. In short, people will become even more exasperated with the quality of “free market” health care, and will be that much more receptive to total federal control down the road.

Come to think of it, maybe these consequences weren’t so “unintended” after all.

Robert Murphy | Insurance Refunds at Gunpoint

Sometimes the starkest way to see the insidious and destructive effects of government meddling in the healthcare market is to apply the same ideas to an unrelated industry.

The Obama administration, aiming to encourage health insurance companies to offer child-only policies, said Wednesday that they could charge higher premiums for coverage of children with serious medical problems, if state law allowed it. Earlier this year, major insurers, faced with an unprofitable business, stopped issuing new child-only policies… . The difficulty in preserving access to child-only insurance policies is the latest example of unintended consequences of the new law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

U.S. to Let Insurers Raise Fees for Policies on Sick Children - NYTimes.com

Critics of the Obama health care plan pointed out that it would result in employers dropping plans, in insurers dropping coverage, and in costs to consumers going up.  The Obama administration denied that any of these things would happen.  Yet all of these things are happening.  

Employers started to get rid of coverage.  Insurers started to get rid of products.  So what did the Obama administration do?  It backed down from its law, exempting powerful employers, and now releasing insurers from cost control measures.  Why?—because Obama can’t afford to alienate vast swaths of the electorate right now.  His law does bad things to people … and he’s going to put those bad things off as long as he can.  Maybe until after he’s out of office.

Next year, seniors will have to pay more under their Medicare Advantage plans. You can bet that Obama will swoop in with some exemption or amendment that will save these seniors from these costs.  

Why is the President in this predicament?  Here’s why:  President Obama could have been honest about his healthcare plan; if he had been, voters wouldn’t later be shocked by the obviously forecastable, “unintended”[1] consequences of the his law.  But instead of being honest, he sold his law with serial lies; serial, demonstrable lies.  And this was stupid, because everyone knew that his lies would be exposed, one by one, as parts of the law went into effect.  That’s why the administration is scrambling to minimize the outcomes Obama derided as fantasy and fabrication.

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1.  Shame on the New York Times for calling this an unintended consequence.  If I punch you in the eye, I may not have intended to give you a black eye, but I’d hardly call that an “unintended” result of my punch.

(via jeffmiller)

at least they didn’t call these effects “unforeseen.”

(via hilker)

The only thing transparent about Obamacare is how awful and damaging it is (will be). Tuesday’s election is a concrete illustration of how voters are reacting to that fact.

The flimsy assertion that the health care law will reduce the deficit, moreover, is based on the Congressional Budget Office’s calculation that over the next ten years, if the law is carried out precisely as written, its gargantuan net tax increase of $525 billion will exceed its gargantuan net spending increase of $410 billion. But higher taxes and more spending are not the way out of our fiscal dilemma. And in any case, as the CBO itself acknowledges, the spending figure relies on some unrealistic projections and promises. In reality, spending under the law is likely to be even greater than the tax burden, and the deficit and debt are likely to rise further still as a result.

Yuval Levin, The War on the Young (via evilteabagger)

This bill is a nightmare, and I hope the Democrats get clobbered with it.

Three quarters of people who pay for their own insurance just faced a premium increase of 20% on average. The recent hikes have prompted the White House to say it will “sternly warn industry executives” today that insurers shouldn’t try to use the new health care law as an excuse to gouge customers.

Self-Insured Premiums Jump By 20%, Triggering Warning From White House

This is the future. Political and legal bickering between the feds and the insurance companies over the federally-mandated purchase of private, for-profit insurance. Who is going to win? Well, who do you think? Who’s winning the White House vs. BP? 

(via jayparkinsonmd)

(via ajamison)