It Happened To Ann Coulter. She Lost IT. Guess What?

Ann Coulter, Healthcare

It happened to Ann Coulter. The health insurance she liked was outlawed. Her illegal, “undocumented” healthcare plan was deported. Read what’s coming down the pike for all Americans once the waivers expire and the employers give up on covering their employees. After scouring the healthcare terrain for her options, Coulter concludes the following in this superb column:

“Health insurance has been outlawed, replaced with a welfare program that has been renamed ‘insurance.'”

… That’s not insurance! It’s a huge transfer of wealth from people who work for a living to those who don’t, accomplished by forcing the workers to buy insurance that’s not insurance. Obamacare has made actual health insurance “illegal.”

It’s not “insurance” when what I want to insure against isn’t covered, but paying for other people’s health care needs — defined broadly — is mandatory.

It’s as if you wanted to buy a car, so you paid for a Toyota — but then all you got was a 10-speed bike, with the rest of your purchase price going to buy cars, bikes and helmets for other people.

Or, more precisely, it would be like having the option of car insurance that covers either collisions or liability, but not both. Your car insurance premium would be gargantuan, because most of it would go to buy insurance, gas and air fresheners for other people in the plan.

If you have employer-provided health care, you may not have to make the 400 phone calls I had to, but the result will be the same: You’re not getting what is commonly known as “insurance.” You’re getting a massive bill to pay for other people’s chiropractors, marriage counselors, birth control pills, smoking cessation programs, “preventive care” appointments and pre-existing conditions. …

… When Matt Drudge decided he’d rather pay for his own health care, liberals hysterically denounced him for not buying an Obamacare transfer-the-wealth, fake “insurance” plan. It used to be shameful to be a public charge. Now it’s shameful to pay for yourself.

And it’s shameful to work for yourself. The self-employed are currently the only Americans subjected to Obamacare. (In a way, it’s lucky for the Democrats that there aren’t enough of us to hurt them in this year’s midterm elections!)

But we’re the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. You may have an employer-provided plan now, but the waivers can’t go on forever. If you live in America, your health insurance is going to disappear, too.

The government simply cannot force all insurance companies to give subsidized health care to a third of the country, to ignore the pre-existing health conditions of its customers, to pay for every little thing tangentially related to health — like smoking cessation programs, marital counseling and pediatric dental care — and also expect them to cover your cancer treatment.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been paying for insurance your whole adult life. That policy is now “illegal.” Put your hands in the air, nice and easy, and step away from the policy …

You 99-percenters still unaffected by Obamacare will blithely go to the polls this November and vote on some teeny-tiny issue, completely unaware of the total destruction of health insurance in America. The waivers have worked.

Now we’ll have to wait 40 years for a future Mickey Kaus to come along and expose the disastrous consequences of this horrendous government program, just like the real Mickey Kaus did with welfare. But for now, I say: Screw you, Mickey Kaus.

.

The Christie Innocence Project On Mad TV

Criminal Injustice, Ethics, Government, Media, Republicans

News reporting is obsolete on cable and network TV, for the most. It has given way to The Endless Event Coverage. That, and the ubiquitous dog, cat, baby rescue “human-interest” stories. Today, the big event—literally BIG; it blanketed the screen—was Chris Christie. “A Christie marathon” mocked broadcaster Mark Levin, who was commenting sarcastically about the New Jersey governor’s self-appointed exoneration committee in the matter of his administration’s intentional closing of the George Washington Bridge as political retribution.

I’ll call it the Christie Innocence Project.

It is, however, encouraging to note that no major online newspaper or magazine featured fatso front-and-center. Except for Mad TV, aka MSNBC:

… the internal review conducted by his lawyers, who rather predictably exonerated their client, has clearly given him new mojo. When asked at the presser how so-called Bridgegate might affect the 2016 race, Christie said, “The fact of the matter is that I had nothing to do with this. As I said from the beginning, and this report has supported exactly what I said. And in the long sweep of things, any voters, if they consider this issue at all, in considering my candidacy — if there ever is one at all — I’ve got a feeling it’ll be a small element of it, if any element at all.”
In acknowledging his plummeting poll numbers, Christie added, “But there’s nothing that’s permanent about that. …
…in facing down the press on Friday, Christie was clearly trying to move beyond Bridgegate and regain his stature with a national audience. Indeed, on Thursday, Christie gave his first television interview since the scandal blew up, declaring to ABC News that he doesn’t think the scandal hurt him in Iowa, which holds the important, first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses.
“I think they love me in Iowa, too,” the governor said on World News with Diane Sawyer. “I’ve been there a lot. I think love me there too, especially because of the way I am. Not in spite of, especially because,” Christie added.
In continuing his media blitz, the governor has agreed to be interviewed by Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. The Q&A will air Friday night. ”

Christie is insufferable—his slobbering, verbose style grates.

UPDATED: V-Day For Vagina-Centric Libertarians? Not So Fast. (‘Brutality’ Alert)

Feminism, Gender, libertarianism, Liberty, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Pseudo-intellectualism

At EPJ, where “V-Day For Vagina-Centric Libertarians? Not So Fast” is now published, Lila Rajiva and myself exchange opinions about whether I was right or wrong to avoid naming the individuals discussed in the column.

Lila Rajiva March 28, 2014 at 12:37 PM

I think we should be truthful. She and Tucker ARE widely published so what’s the point of saying they are non-entities?

They are not. It just makes you sound as over-emotional as they are.

That was one thing with which I disagreed in this otherwise excellent piece.

Dispassion and professional standards entail that when you read someone, you should cite them. Leave “vanishing” people to the state and to propagandists and hypesters.

Reply
ILANA MERCER March 28, 2014 at 2:18 PM

Respectfully, you’re wrong. You are looking at this storm in a C-Cup from the insular world of the libertarian. My piece was written for a wider audience. Good or bad, the bigger picture is that the two alluded to are insignificant, the one more so than the other. The one has the run of a publishing house, and, unethically in my opinion (as it involves a conflict of interest), uses the imprint to publish some of his own books. Yet these books have hardly any buyers (Amazon rank #649,120). My contention that in the bigger picture these people are unknown entities is correct. The female of the duo is certainly a non-entity. Given her aptitude, no matter how well promoted she is, and no matter how much she suctions face to camera, she will never muster an opinion or an analysis that isn’t second-hander material. She’s not working with much. To properly gauge the significance of these two one has to exit the libertarian orbit. Thus, addressing non-entities by name is unnecessary in a piece meant for popular consumption. On this topic, my dear friend and mentor, the influential and talented Walter Block, demeans himself and his stature by constantly addressing nobody bloggers by name, rather than just dealing with their arguments, to the extent these sorts make these.

Reply
Lila Rajiva March 28, 2014 at 2:40 PM

@Hi Ilana,

I agree with you in the wider world. But, in the wider world, since they are unknown, they don’t need to be rebutted at all.

However, in terms of libertarian in-fighting, everyone knows who Tucker is…

Still, it was an excellent piece. I am sick of this waving of the V. I actually thinks it’s some kind of propaganda offensive that began in 2012 with Naomi Wolf’s book.

Get us to talk, one way or other, about genitals all the time. Mainstreams the stuff, like the Lewinsky trial did.

Reply
ILANA MERCER March 28, 2014 at 3:16 PM

I see what you’re saying, Lila. As expected, we both make valid points. “Respec,” as Ali G. would say.

Ms. Rajiva is funny in the comment below. A woman with a sense of humor. Wicked (or “brutal”). Lila has to admit, though, apropos our exchange above, that the “brutal” wordplay (or swordplay) on this and other libertarian sites is an example of “inside baseball.” Everyone on here knows what is being mocked. But few outside our orbit will understand. This goes to my point about not needing to name names when addressing a wider audience.

Lila Rajiva March 28, 2014 at 10:15 AM

I think it’s grossly BRUTALIST and a violation of the civil rights of Tucker, Reisenwitz & the rest
to pit one whole Mercer in full throttle against them.

It’s downright violent and violence will not be tolerated… unless we’re for it.

I call for UN sanctions, economic sanctions (no more blintzers for you, Ms. Mercer), and carpet-bombing…..

Let the humanitarianism begin…..

UPDATE: VIA FACEBOOK:

David Colpo writes:

If the names of writers obscure to the general population aren’t worth publishing, then why bother refuting their equally obscure arguments to that same audience?
59 minutes ago · Like

Ilana Mercer replies:

David Colpo, b/c I care about truth and reality. And as a libertarian I care about Mises. I care about libertarianism. I don’t care for–or about—the people who are trying to make libertarianism appealing to throngs of bimbos by lying about white, old men in order to make them palatable and politically correct. As if, there was anything wrong with Mises the way he was.

Libertarian Feminists Make A Move On Von Mises

Gender, History, libertarianism, Private Property, Reason, Socialism

“Libertarian Feminists Make A Move On Von Mises” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“As I paged through the dog’s breakfast of an essay titled “The Feminism of Ludwig von Mises,” I found myself wondering:

What does midwifery have to do with Mises? Both find their way into the stream-of-consciousness non sequiturs that is the article. I suppose midwifery is an occupation dominated by women. Mises was an old-fashioned, European economist whose legacy women are attempting to occupy. That must be it!

Incidentally, naming the solipsistic feminists (a redundancy, I know) who’ve made a move on the Austrian-School economist is unnecessary. “Avoid naming names when dealing with marginal characters,” I was once instructed by a veteran journalist, who was responding to a devastating critique I had penned in reply to some self-important, insignificant sorts. Joseph Farah e-mailed one of his lacerating missives: “Good job. But who the hell are these people? Their arguments are of a piece with Yasser Arafat’s. Next time, tackle the Arafat argument instead,” he admonished.

Alas, “The Feminism of Ludwig von Mises” is devoid of argument to tackle. From the fact that Mises taught and mentored capable lady scholars, the FEE.org* feminists have concluded that the Austrian-School economist “actively promoted the interests of women in academia” and “saw women intellectuals in Vienna as an undervalued human resource.” …

… Indeed, it takes a degree of provincialism unique to our country’s feminists to claim that a European gentleman, born in Austria-Hungary in the late 1800s, was one of them—a rib from the feminist fraternity’s ribcage. This writer grew up in Israel at a time when quite a few elderly, highly educated Austrian gentlemen were still around. Grandfather, a master chess player, hung out with these men in Tel-Aviv chess clubs and cafés. Having actually encountered this creature in his natural habitat, I put this to you, gentle reader:

The proposition that Ludwig von Mises was a feminist is an apodictic impossibility. …

… Read on. The complete column is “Libertarian Feminists Make A Move On Von Mises” now on WND.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION:

• At the WND Comments Section. Scroll down and “Say it.”

• On my Facebook page.

• By clicking to “Like,” “Tweet” and “Share” this week’s “Return To Reason” column.