"Conservatives Scare More Easily Than Liberals"
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Dear Fred,
I am not comfortable with Obama's false assurance that 'anyone satisfied with their health insurance can keep it.'
That said, the falsehood that has bothered me most in my "political adulthood" is Bush-Cheney's bogus allegation that Saddam Hussein - who was Ronald Reagan's bosom ally when The Butcher of Baghdad was at his very worst -- had weapons of mass destruction.
"Dead Wrong: Colin Powell's U.N. Speech"
I may be comparing apples and oranges but both are fruits and life is a salad.
In a toss-up between Universal Healthcare and the murder of a million -- coupled with the maiming of millions more -- for no other end than destabilized global security and the surrender of Iraq to Iran's sphere of influence, I choose the former.
Krauthammer is more intelligent than most, but he too is afflicted -- and addled -- by the cornerstone "conservative" belief that any secondary imperfection should be made central while ignoring the heart of the matter.
At bottom, The Party of Shylock -- insisting on the strict "justice" of free market brutality -- might redeem its soul this Season of Scrooge by heeding Pope Francis' insight: "Mercy makes the world more just." http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/03/pope-francis-mercy-makes-world-more-just.html
What Cowboy Capitalism -- and "the tyranny of markets" -- have made clear is that "justice without mercy" is not justice at all, but 1% justification for inhuman heartlessness.
Personally, I prefer Portia.
Conservatives prefer Porsche.
See "Inside Job" at http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2011/10/daily-dose-october-152011.html
In the following article I have made interlineal comments in blue.
Pax tecum
Alan
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Story of the year
By Charles Krauthammer, Published: December 19, 2013
The lie of the year, according to Politifact, is “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” But the story of the year is a nation waking up to just how radical Obamacare is — which is why it required such outright deception to get it passed in the first place.
Obamacare was sold as simply a refinement of the current system, retaining competition among independent insurers but making things more efficient, fair and generous. Free contraceptives for Sandra Fluke. Free mammograms and checkups for you and me. Free (or subsidized) insurance for some 30 million uninsured. And, mirabile dictu, not costing the government a dime.
Alan: Notice how Krauthammer pretends to champion freedom but uses the word "free" like a pornographic cuss word.
In fact, Obamacare is a full-scale federal takeover.
Alan:"A full-scale federal takeover..." and "Bob's your uncle..." See "Conservatives Scare More Easily Than Liberals." http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/07/conservatives-scare-more-easily-than.html Not only is Fear is the worst possible master, American conservatives might consider implementation of the straight face test. "A full-scale federal takeover?"
The keep-your-plan-if-you-like-your-plan ruse was a way of saying to the millions of Americans who had insurance and liked what they had: Don’t worry. You’ll be left unmolested. For you, everything goes on as before.
That was a fraud from the very beginning. The law was designed to throw people off their private plans and into government-run exchanges where they would be made to overpay — forced to purchase government-mandated services they don’t need — as a way to subsidize others. (That’s how you get to the ostensible free lunch.)
Alan: "Insurance" works only because it offers "covered services" most people do not need. At bedrock, the purpose of "homeowner's insurance" is to forfend the catastrophe of conflagration. Yet most Americans have never seen a house fire, much less experienced one. Krauthammer should be ashamed of himself for misrepresenting this indispensable rubric of "the insurance market."
It wasn’t until the first cancellation notices went out in late 2013 that the deception began to be understood. And felt. Six million Americans with private insurance have just lost it. And that’s just the beginning. By the Department of Health and Human Services’ own estimates, about 75 million Americans would have plans that their employers would have the right to cancel. And millions of middle-class workers who will migrate to the exchanges and don’t qualify for government subsidies will see their premiums, deductibles and co-pays go up.
It gets worse. The dislocation extends to losing one’s doctor and drug coverage, as insurance companies narrow availability to compensate for the huge costs imposed on them by the extended coverage and “free” services the new law mandates.
Alan: As always, the proof is in the pudding. It remains to be seen whether "the nation's health" improves and care costs come under control. In the early going, it appears that per capita cost-of-care is trending downward.
But it’s not just individuals seeing their medical care turned upside down. The insurance providers, the backbone of the system, are being utterly transformed. They are rapidly becoming mere extensions of the federal government.
Alan: In the main, insurance providers"signed off" on Obamacare. Would Krauthammer argue that he knows better than "the free marketeers?" See "93% Of Hospital Executives Think Obamacare Will Make Healthcare Better." http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/12/93-percent-of-hospital-executives-think.html
Look what happened just last week. Health and Human Services unilaterally and without warning changed coverage deadlines and guidelines. It asked insurers to start covering people on Jan. 1 even if they signed up as late as the day before and even if they hadn’t paid their premiums. And is “strongly encouraging” them to pay during the transition for doctor visits and medicines not covered in their current plans (if covered in the patient’s previous — canceled — plan).
On what authority does a Cabinet secretary tell private companies to pay for services not in their plans and cover people not on their rolls?
Alan: "Asking" and "telling" are two different things. The reason many/most insurance companies will comply with the administration's request is because they realize Obamacare was the only politically viable way to keep "the free market alive" while preventing the whole system's collapse. (Dean Roper, the lifelong Republican who heads UNC-Hospitals is very clear on this point.)
Where in Obamacare’s 2,500 pages are such high-handed dictates authorized? Does anyone even ask? The bill itself is simply taken as a kind of blanket warrant for HHS to run, regulate and control the whole insurance system.
Alan: Again, "to ask" is not "to dictate." It is as false to allege dictatorial heavy-handedness as it was false for Obama to tell people they could keep their existing fecal policies - a prime driver of American bankruptcy. As to implicit coercion... We are all coerced to participate in an economic system that Woodrow Wilson rightly categorized as "heartless." (By the way... That's about to change. "This Is Why They Hate You And Want You To Die" http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2011/10/moribund-way-of-life-on-life-support.html)
Remember the uproar over forcing religious institutions to provide contraception coverage? The president’s “fix” was a new regulation ordering insurers to provide these services for free. Apart from the fact that this transparent ruse does nothing to resolve the underlying issue of conscience — God sees — by what right does the government order private companies to provide free services for anyone?
Alan: Leading up to the ACA, the private insurance industry was increasingly untenable, in part because it could not contain cost nor provide universal coverage. And so, in keeping with a minimally social contract -- and to put an end to profiteering depredation that was denying existing coverage to millions of Americans -- it was decided, by due process, to legislate "best practice" measures that would contain cost and provide universal coverage. Contraception is hugely less expensive than having unwanted children. Krauthammer might focus his attention on the tens of millions of erstwhile policies that were not renewed because policyholders had developed "pre-existing" conditions. Get sick, lose coverage. These tens of millions of snuffed clients dwarf the number of Americans who will now find themselves with more expensive policies. Most notably - although deliberately ignored by Krauthammer - No One Ever Again will be denied coverage. Nor does Krauthammer mention that the relatively small number of Americans whose insurance costs will rise had been beneficiaries of a private insurance system that had kept costs down by denying insurance to sick people whose coverage would have made "risk pools" too expensive for maximum profiteering. Krauthammer pules over principles of "freedom" when, in fact, those purported principles were deliberately deformed by "the tyranny of markets" (to use Pope Francis' phrase) so that people were not thrown directly into "the ovens"... but their suddenly "risky" insurance policies were.
"Pope Francis Links" - http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/11/pope-francis-links.html
Three years ago I predicted that Obamacare would turn insurers into the lapdog equivalent of utility companies. I undershot. They are being treated as wholly owned subsidiaries. Take the phrase “strongly encouraging.” Sweet persuasion? In reality, these are offers insurers can’t refuse. Disappoint your federal master and he has the power to kick you off the federal exchanges, where the health insurance business of the future is supposed to be conducted.
Alan: Health insurance is being re-visioned as a "utility" because it was legally decided during the legislation of Obamacare that "free market" insurance was useless in the quest for universal care. Although conservatives can make any word sound scabrous, "utilities" have done very good work - just as Obamacare will.
Moreover, if adverse selection drives insurers into a financial death spiral — too few healthy young people to offset more costly, sicker, older folks — their only recourse will be a government bailout. Do they really want to get on the wrong side of the White House, their only lifeline when facing insolvency?
Alan: Who knows? If too few young people sign up, perhaps circumstances will necessitate a cost-effective single-payer system which is how the healthcare mess should have been tidied in the first place.
I don’t care a whit for the insurance companies. They deserve what they get. They collaborated with the White House in concocting this scheme and are now being swallowed by it. But I do care about the citizenry and its access to a functioning, flourishing, choice-driven medical system.
Alan: Americans are famous for making bad choices -- especially when it comes to crucial health choices of diet and exercise. I am unabashedly in favor of a healthcare system that limits foolish choice by stressing "evidence-based medicine" coupled with "free services" (like the lifetime gymnasium pass Medicare now purchases on my behalf).
"Nope! Don't Need No Nanny State Here"
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Obamacare posed as a free-market alternative to a British-style single-payer system. Then, during congressional debate, the White House ostentatiously rejected the so-called “public option.” But that’s irrelevant. The whole damn thing is the public option. The federal government now runs the insurance market, dictating deadlines, procedures, rates, risk assessments and coverage requirements. It’s gotten so cocky it’s now telling insurers to cover the claims that, by law, they are not required to.
Alan: Obama is a political genius who suffered the slings and arrows of his own party by devising moderate legislation that Republicans were too stupid to see for what it was. And "what it was" was tremendous improvement over the murderous free market mess that had prevailed.
"Harvard Study: 45,000 Americans Die Annually For Lack Of Health Insurance"
Welcome 2014, our first taste of nationalized health care.
Read more from Charles Krauthammer’s archive
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"Politics and Economics: The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"
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Canadian Single Payer Ahead?
"21 Ways Canada's Single-Payer System Beats Obamacare"
Ralph Nader