Category Archives: Democrats

UPDATE II: President Pinocchio’s Growing Proboscis

Barack Obama, Democrats, Healthcare, Individual Rights

“President Pinocchio’s Growing Proboscis” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

… Voluntarily, 14 million Americans had purchased and paid for their now-obsolete, outlawed health-care insurance. Stated differently, these individuals valued what the policy had to offer more than the money it cost them. They liked the product the president has proscribed.

And they don’t like what replaces it. George Schwab of North Carolina was “’perfectly happy” to continue paying Blue Cross Blue Shield a premium of $228 a month to insure himself and his wife.

President Obama wasn’t having any of it. By legislative fiat, he stopped what was a mutually beneficial arrangement between the two consenting parties.

On Oct. 30, Big Brother Obama claimed that Mr. Schwab and millions of happy customers like him were “underinsured.” So Obama ensured that for “underinsuring” themselves, these Americans would lose their insurance.

Mr. Schwab and his ilk are now without insurance.

From the president’s perspective, the 62-year-old man does not know what’s good for him. Fortunately for Mr. Schwab and other clueless clients like him, Big Brother does. To the rescue came Obama. Mr. Schwab had fallen prey to a “bad apple insurer,” grated the president. He is among “5 percent of Americans, who’ve got cut-rate plans that don’t offer real financial protection in the event of a serious illness or an accident.”

Foolish Mr. Schwab. He was content with a purchase Mr. Obama deemed “substandard.” Luckily for Mr. Schwab and a million other Americans, so far, the president removed their “substandard plan” before it could hurt them.

Better to be uninsured than to have “substandard” insurance.

Also on Oct. 30 did Mr. Obama vow to the Mr. Schwabs of America—roughly 14 million of them—that they would be “getting a better deal.” “Almost all the insurers,” cooed the president, “are encouraging people to join better plans with the same carrier and stronger benefits and stronger protections while others will be able to get better plans with new carriers through the marketplace …”

Desperate, Mr. Schwab went looking for the Promised Plan.

He discovered that Barack Obama’s command-and-control, nationalized “marketplace” would be charging him $948 a month for a plan that met the president’s requirements, one of which was that everybody must “contribute.” Everyone must “take some measure of responsibility,” preached Obama.

A monthly premium hike of more than 400 percent is to be Mr. Schwab’s “contribution” to the un-Affordable Care Act’s collective kitty. …

Read the complete column. “President Pinocchio’s Growing Proboscis” is now on WND.

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UPDATE I: MEGYN KELLY interviews MARC THIESSEN of the AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FELLOW, who explains why it was essential for Obama to finish off the individual market for health-care insurance: this relatively wealthy cohort must be funneled into his nationalized “markets” and made to fund it.

KELLY: … And tonight, we have dug up an IRS form from 2010 that shows that this administration knew that over 10 million Americans would not keep their plan, could not keep their doctor. And yet the president went out as recently as 2012 and said if you like your plan you could keep it. Meantime there is a regulation — an IRS regulation, it was pushed by HHS, Human Services, that said estimated that tens of millions would going to get dumped.

Marc Thiessen is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. And I mean, this is it. It is one thing to say — he said they were going to get to keep their plans, period. And now this regulation shows that months after ObamaCare was passed, July, it passed in March. July or before, I should say. Before, they knew. They were estimating internally in the administration ten million people are going to lose their insurance.

MARC THIESSEN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FELLOW: Yes. You’ve got the smoking gun right there in your hand. Look, they knew. When President Obama looked at the American people in the eye and said if you like your health insurance, you can keep your current plan, period, no matter what, that was a bald-faced lie.

And he intended — in fact, I think that they intended for these people to lose their health insurance. And the reason for that is — as you pointed out — it will be up to 14 million people. Why would they want those people to lose their health insurance? Because they need those people to move into the exchanges to subsidize the poor people.

The individual mandate is the most lucrative part — I’m sorry, the individual market is the most lucrative part of the segment of the health insurance industry because those people don’t use a lot of services and they are generally healthy. And so, those are the people that they need to move into the exchanges in order to subsidize ObamaCare.

So, while President Obama was going out there saying you won’t lose your health insurance, period, all along they were planning for those people to lose their health insurance — 14 million of them and move into the exchanges.

UPDATE II: Pat Buchanan quips in his latest column:

Obama’s assurances of keeping your insurance plan if you like it now enters presidential history alongside George H.W. Bush’s “Read my lips! No new taxes,” Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” and George W. Bush’s tales of yellow cake in Niger and hidden arsenals of WMDs.

Priceless.

REP. PALLONE(Y)’S Health-Care Baloney

Democrats, Healthcare, Media, Morality, Politics

Lying is second nature to politicians, but there can be no doubt that Democrats have notched it up, becoming increasingly brazen about, well, lying. Small mercies, Fox News still provides a transcript here and there for those of us who prefer to speed READ, rather than waste time watching video clips. Read through this interview with Democrat Frank Pallone, a ghastly congressman from New Jersey. Watch him in the act, and your skin will crawl.

MEGYN KELLY, HOST: Joining me now, Democratic New Jersey Congressman, Frank Pallone. He’s a member of the Energy & Commerce Committee. He was one of the lawmakers questioning the Secretary today. Congressman, thank you for being here.

REP. FRANK PALLONE, D-N.J.: Thank you.

KELLY: We’re struggling to understand how Ms. Sebelius can say the president kept that promise. That specific one of if you like your healthcare you can keep it, period, I guarantee it, when we’ve seen 2 million Americans have policies cancelled so far. And the estimates are it will top 10 million.

REP. PALLONE: Well you can keep it as long as the insurance company agrees to continue to sell it. But the problem is a lot of insurance companies now have been caught because they’re selling lousy plans at a high price that are skeletal and don’t provide any benefits. So they are now cancelling those lousy plans. In which case many of them are just a scam and saying, look we’re not going to sell this anymore because nobody’s going to buy it. And therefore we’ll try to get, we’ll give you a better plan that has better benefits at a more affordable price.

So the president never said that he could stop the insurance companies from cancelling plans. This is a private market. This is a competitive market. They’re not going to sell something they can’t sell.

KELLY: Okay. But that’s only partially true. But what you’re saying is only partially true.

REP. PALLONE: What’s only partially true?

KELLY: There are some insurance companies who cancelled policies. And that’s what insurance companies–

REP. PALLONE: They cancelled the policies —

KELLY: Wait a minute, let me just, let me pose —

REP. PALLONE: They don’t have to sell them. It’s a private market.

KELLY: Let me pose the question. Then you respond. Some of the insurance companies said, all right, I’m going to cancel the policies because that happens on the insurance market.

REP. PALLONE: Right.

KELLY: But many, many other policies — in fact, according to the insurance companies the vast majority of these policies that are being cancelled are being cancelled because the regulations imposed on them by ObamaCare left them with no choice. The way the HHS —

REP. PALLONE: That is absolutely not true.

KELLY: The HHS regulations —

REP. PALLONE: They have a right to continue the policies —

KELLY: She admitted it. She admitted it today, sir.

REP. PALLONE: She did not admit that.

KELLY: She did too.

REP. PALLONE: That’s simply not true.

KELLY: She was asked about whether —

REP. PALLONE: The insurance companies can cancel the policies if they want to. They can offer policies at the same price for the same lousy benefits if they want to.

KELLY: If they change the policies in any marginal way then ObamaCare requires that they be cancelled and the people get kicked off.

REP. PALLONE: No, that’s not true.

KELLY: Yes. She was asked about this today by a $5 increase in the premium.

REP. PALLONE: It’s not true. ObamaCare —

KELLY: Let’s run the sound bite. Let’s run the sound bit, $5 change, $5 change and you’re kicked off. Watch.

REP. PALLONE: ObamaCare simply says that —

KELLY: Stand by.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. WILLIAM CASSIDY: If coinsurance went up by any amount, even by a dollar according to your regulations that would not qualify as a grandfathered clause? Just to have that out there for the record. I gather even by a dollar.

HHS SECRETARY KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Dr. Cassidy, I want to start by the amount that you gave is not accurate. I was told $5, not a dollar.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY: So she’s not saying, no, you’re wrong. They can’t cancel the people if the policy changes by five dollars. She’s saying, yes you’re right. If they up your premium by $5 it’s cancelled, ObamaCare kicks in, the person gets a cancellation notice and they’re wondering where to get their insurance.

REP. PALLONE: Look the bottom line is, they tell them where they can get the insurance. Look, the bottom line is, if you are selling a lousy policy at a price that’s too high, nobody is going to buy it. And so they’re cancelling these policies because they know people can’t, won’t buy them.

KELLY: OK.

REP. PALLONE: It’s a competitive marketplace.

Mainstream press, meantime, is every bit as allergic to the truth as the pols. WaPo’s Fact Checker is being lauded far and wide for doing what it’s supposed to do: award maximum “Pinocchio’s” to “Obama’s pledge that ‘no one will take away’ your health plan.” Sad. When mainstream media detect and report facts unflattering to O, it is considered a momentous event.

The president’s statements were sweeping and unequivocal — and made both before and after the bill became law. The White House now cites technicalities to avoid admitting that he went too far in his repeated pledge, which, after all, is one of the most famous statements of his presidency.
The president’s promise apparently came with a very large caveat: “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan — if we deem it to be adequate.”

MORE.

ObamaCare ‘Settled Law’? More Like Legislative Sleight Of Hand

Constitution, Democrats, Healthcare, Law

The “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” or whatever Obamacare’s undercover name was when it was smuggled into the books, was passed using legislative sleight of hand. Alluding to the broad consensus that gives law imprimatur, I quipped in “What If The Media Were Moral?” that Obamacare (unlike the Constitution) was not the law of the land.

More about the concept from Gerard Magliocca (in the WaPo):

The Affordable Care Act is not settled law because the public remains deeply divided over it: More than half of Americans are opposed. But even more critically, congressional Republicans have withheld their stamp of approval. Many Republican lawmakers refuse even to call it a law; they keep referring to it as a “bill.”

Republicans offer several explanations for their rejection of the act’s validity. Most often, they note that the law was passed entirely with Democratic votes. This is in contrast to other major legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was enacted with overwhelming bipartisan support and thus became settled much more quickly.

Republicans also cite the unusual procedures used to pass the health-care act — most notably, the budget reconciliation process that avoided a filibuster while moving the final legislation through the Senate. This tactic left many Senate Republicans feeling cheated.

Felt cheated? They were cheated. Via Michelle Malkin: The “procedural maneuver called ‘reconciliation,’ used to pass Obamacare, allows a bill to pass with 51 votes instead of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster. It is not intended for comprehensive and contentious pieces of legislation.

More from Prof. George Reisman on the House:

In 2010, a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, without a single Republican vote, passed “ObamaCare” by a margin of 219 to 212. In a staggering act of misfeasance, hardly a single member had read, let alone studied, the 1,900 page law (2,700 pages according to some authorities), which had been dumped into the House only days earlier. The 219 members of that House who voted for ObamaCare were willing to impose massive, and massively expensive, legislation on the American people without any real idea of what they were doing. Had those members been members of the board of directors of a private corporation, their complete and utter lack of due diligence would almost certainly have exposed them to enormous law suits and, quite possibly, criminal penalties.

UPDATED: The Senate Sucks, The President Lies: Just Another Day In The USA

Democrats, Healthcare, Intelligence, Republicans, Ron Paul

He made the statement brilliantly. Nevertheless, it is a sad statement Ted Cruz made, to the effect that Congress was “a profile in courage” for attempting to carry out the will of millions of Americans, and roll back the calamitous ObamaCare.

Sen. Cruz is extremely bright, better able to distill politicking into principle than the son of Ron Paul.

WATCH:

UPDATE: Via Newsmax:

Freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, who has led the tea party wing of Republicans in Congress in their effort to defund Obamacare, is an intelligent and principled debater, says his old Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.

Appearing Tuesday on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Live,” Dershowitz called the Texas Republican “one of the sharpest students I had, in terms of analytic skills. I’ve had 10,000 students over my 50 years at Harvard . . . He has to qualify among the brightest of the students.”