Health Care

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Insurance companies, under oath, tell the truth

It must be terribly frustrating to be an anti-Obamacare congressman these days.  doctor-obama

Why, just take the Republicans who held a hearing this week about how terrible Obamacare is and how much it is failing.   They subpoenaed insurance company executives who would testify about how less than half of those who had signed up had actually paid, how the bureaucracy was restricting care, how rates were going up, and how the entire program was terrible (because that was what Fox News kept reporting, and they’re never wrong).

Sadly, none of that came to be.  The executives, evil as they are, realized they were under oath and reported that in actuality, things were going quite well.   More people had signed up than predicted.  The vast majority (80% – 90%) were up to date on their payments.  Insurance company stock had increased and business was doing great, and because of all that, rates would not be going up.

Republicans at the hearing just couldn’t accept this, and complained that the executives weren’t being forthcoming.  Clearly, Obama’s goons had gotten to them!  Why, the goons were even able to somehow change all the statistical data in every single one of the insurance companies to make it seem that Obamacare was working.  The fiends!

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Obamacare kills again

And yet another place shuts down because of Obamacare.doctor-obama

A free clinic administering to the poor, with volunteer doctors. Yep, you guessed it — Obamacre is making them shut down.

Because they are no longer needed.

“Because people are qualifying for insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, our free medical clinic will not be needed anymore,” Stacey Bowser RN, 9th Street Ministries Clinic Director, stated. “We’ve gone from seeing around 300 people a month on a regular basis, but as people were enrolling in Obamacare, the numbers we were seeing have dropped. We were down to 80 people that came through the medical clinic in February, all the way down to three people at the medical clinic in March. Our services won’t be needed anymore, and this will conclude our mission.”

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Can’t we celebrate some good news?

Look, the plan the Republicans originally wanted is in, and it’s successful.    More than 7.1 million have signed up for health insurance coverage so far, which exceeds expectations.  The uninsured rate has dropped, which helps all of us who no longer have to cover people who use the emergency room for their health care because it was free (“personal responsibility,” you know, is another good thing).   NYorker

The vast majority of those who are using Obamacare are paying less than before (although you’d never know it from the Fox news coverage of the minority who are paying more, mostly because their previous plans were crappy and worthless).

More and more Americans are supportive of the Affordable Care Act (a majority, in fact) and that number keeps going up.

Most importantly, people are getting covered so that perhaps we will no longer have families going into bankruptcy because of medical bills.

Seriously, why is this a bad thing?  The “free marketplace” is what caused all the problems Obamacare was designed to fix, so don’t go telling me that we should have let the market decide.  We did, and it was terrible.

While in the short term Obamacare may hurt the Democrats (largely because of all the lies being spread about it by the Republicans), in the long run, this will be seen as a large step forward and supported by almost everyone, in the same way Medicare and Social Security have become.

 

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Majority supports Obamacare, Republicans still want to destroy it

The latest polls show that a majority of Americans support Obamacare, with the numbers going up as more people benefit from it and see that it hasn’t caused the sun to fall from the sky.doctor-obama

Fifty-one percent of Americans favor retaining the Affordable Care Act with “small modifications,” while 13 percent would leave the law intact and 34 percent would repeal it. That’s the highest level of public acceptance for the law yet.

What people still don’t like is the mandate.  Typical Americans, aren’t we?  We want it but we don’t want to have to pay for it.

Hey, I’m one of those who doesn’t like the mandate, although if we’re not going to pay for it any other way, we need to have the mandate. Give me a medicare for all plan already and save us all some money and then we can get rid of the mandate.

None of these polls showing support for it has deterred Republicans, who recently held their 50th vote to repeal it.  It’s almost unreal, isn’t it?  50 useless votes?  From the party that complains about government inefficiency and waste?

Maybe they’re sick.  And I don’t think that’s covered.

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Green Eggs and Spam

You keep using that book.  I do not think it means what you think it means.

Republicans have a habit of rewriting Dr. Suess‘ “Green Eggs and Ham” while emphasizing all the things they do not like about Obamacare.  Numerous internet memes have done the same thing.  I’m not sure if that is because they assume their intended audience has the minds of children or if they think it’s funny.   GreenEggsDetail

What they keep missing is that the story is about how wrong it is to be stubbornly against something you know nothing about.  The main character finds out he actually likes green eggs and ham once he tries it.

And that’s what is happening with Obamacare.  The more people learn about it, the more they like it.  The more people who have been able to get better and cheaper insurance, the happier they are with it.

Seriously, the thing people don’t like is the word “Obamacare.”  One study asked people what they thought of Obamacare as opposed to the “Affordable Care Act” and overwhelmingly people preferred the Affordable Care Act over Obamacare.  (Since you’re reading this blog, I assume you are smart enough to realize they are the exact same thing.)  Other studies show that when you take the Act bit by bit, people really like it.   (“No pre-existing conditions?  Great!  Kids covered while college age?  Wonderful!  No more caps on benefits?  Excellent!  No more charging women more for health care?  We like!”)  What they dislike is the mandate, which liberals also don’t like (We wanted medicare-for-all).  The mandate was the part of the plan proposed by Republicans way back when Bob Dole had it in his platform.

So as Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz continue to read from “Green Eggs and Ham” the rest of us can laugh at them, aware that they are blind to the irony of quoting a story that has a moral which directly contradicts everything they are saying.

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Planned Parenthood and Obamacare

Just wanted to share these.

Obamacare6 Obamacare5 Obamacare4 Obamacare3 Obamacare2 obamacare1

Editorial cartoon: …And we’re against those things! Right?

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How to Speak Republican

Lesson 27.

When an official report says something other than what you want it to say, make sure to twist it into something more favorable to you and bad for your opponent.

Example:  The Congressional Budget Office said that because of Obamacare, people who stayed in jobs solely for the insurance were now free to pursue other things.  They could now get rid of that second job, stay at home with the kids, or even start their own business.  Approximately 2.5 million people would be taking advantage of this, which will mean that 2.5 million jobs will soon be available for the unemployed to get.  The unemployment rate will fall, and perhaps even more small businesses will be formed.

Question:  How do you translate this news into Republican?

Analysis:  This is a difficult one, because clearly these are Republican goals.  Reducing unemployment, encouraging parents to stay at home, and helping small businesses form are all traditional Republican ideals.  However, to acknowledge this would be to not only admit that Obamacare might have some good points, but also allow the Democrats to claim that.  Clearly, any admission of any gains at all would be improper.

Solution:  Lie.  The best way to get around a truth you dislike is to lie.   Try one of these whoppers:pinocchio

“Obamacare is a disincentive to work!”  This one isn’t bad.  It implies that staying in a terrible job you hate just for the insurance is preferable to taking your life into your own hands and doing what you want.  But it’s still slightly true, albeit misleading.  you can do better.

“Obamacare will destroy 2.5 million jobs!”  There’s the winner.  A complete lie, absolutely not what the CBO said, and sure to be bought by a clueless media who doesn’t want to have to actually do the reading to realize that it’s complete bullshit.  Even if it was true, it’s offset by the fact that Obamacare has added 8.1 million new jobs.  But of course, you will never mention that.

Summary:  As we have seen from every other lesson, the answer is always to lie.  You can never go wrong that way if you want to learn how to speak Republican fluently.

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NOW can we please get single-payer?

For those of you who are against Obamacare:  Most of you are not deluded.  You understand that it’s not going to get repealed.  We’re stuck with it.

But it has a whole lot of problems.  There’s a new bureaucracy, and that damned web page, and there’s still issues involving businesses that don’t want to provide health care for things they don’t believe in.  It’s a bother to force people to sign up for it, and then there’s the penalty part of it if you don’t.  And insurance companies can still limit which doctor you get to see.  (That happened to me when I switched and suddenly discovered that they wouldn’t cover payment to the family doctor my wife and I have been seeing for a dozen years or more.)

There is one easy solution.

All we have to do is remove the age restriction on medicare.

The bureaucracy for it is already in place, and the elderly are overwhelmingly happy with the way it works.  You get to choose your own doctor.  Insurance companies are out of the picture and can’t regulate what gets covered.  medicare
We spread the costs out among 300 million people or so (as opposed to the way we spread them out among much smaller insurance groups today) and reduce the average expenditure per person.   And a new Obamacare bureaucracy, with its books full of regulations telling the insurance companies what they can and cannot do, can be thrown in the garbage.

And just like the elderly do now, you can buy insurance that goes beyond what medicare covers if you so desire.

This is the original plan the Democrats wanted way back when, but you folks insisted on a “market-based” plan similar to Romneycare.  That is, until the democrats agreed to do it that way.  Then you hated Romneycare.

Medicare for all is the way to go.

This is why every other industrialized country has done it this way, and has had many years of experience doing it to show that it works.  (Heck, we have many years of doing it, if you count medicare.)

But the fact is that this is the easiest, cheapest, and best way to provide health insurance to Americans.  That’s what you like, right?  Saving money?

This will do it.

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Businesses must be free (except when they do things we disagree with)

“Yeah, gimme a pack of Marlboro Lights.”

“Sir, this is a Foot Locker.  We only sell shoes here.”

“What?  But that’s illegal!  You have to sell me cigarettes!”

So we find another gross injustice and example of discrimination in American society.

This has brought about some questioning from the media. “How can a business decide to not sell a legal product?” asks a reporter from Fox News. (Ha ha! I really didn’t need to add the “from Fox News” part, did I?)

Anyway, Miss America pageant contestant and Fox News “reporter” Gretchen Carlson was quite upset about CVS’s decision to no longer sell cigarettes.

cvs"Businesses need freedom!"  Fox News continually shouts. "A business owner shouldn't have to answer to anyone about their internal decision-making … Except when they decide things we here at Fox don't like.  That's different."

I think the real reason Fox is so upset is because President Obama applauded CVS for taking this position. And as we all know, if Obama is in favor of anything, Fox News is legally required to oppose it.

I anxiously await the day Obama proclaims that "breathing is good."