Month: July 2014

Meanwhile, back at Obamacare…

…there’s a problem with the signup totals that the administration was pushing.  They’re a tad* off:

The inspector general said the federal insurance exchange reported a total of 2.9 million so-called “inconsistencies” with consumer data from October through December 2013.

Officials had the technical capability to resolve roughly 330,000 of those cases, but only about 10,000 cases were actually closed during the period covered by the report.

So… almost 3 million problem accounts. The government thinks that they can fix about 11% of them; they’ve actually fixed .3% (note the decimal). And note that this is from roughly half of the sign-up period. It’s the first half, which leads one to hope** that there were less problems with the second wave of signups.  Anyone planning to place a bet with their bookie on that? Continue reading Meanwhile, back at Obamacare…

Why Barack Obama won’t just unilaterally fund access to abortifacients.

In the course of a not-entirely-unfair piece by Time magazine that makes it clear that the Obama administration has decided to play partisan politics with the Hobby Lobby decision*, the magazine article noted something interesting.  At issue is the centerpiece of the ruling – that companies are not actually required to violate their owners’ religious principles by paying for abortifacients – and the funny thing here is that the government never really had to seek a ruling in the first place:

Legal observers say it would not be difficult for the Obama Administration to resolve the situation unilaterally. The Department of Health and Human Services has already taken unilateral executive action to ensure that women employed by religious nonprofits get contraception coverage in cases where the employer declines to pay. “There was nothing in the statute that specifically allowed them to create the exemption for non-profit organizations so I don’t see why they couldn’t extend that to for-profit corporations,” said Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University and an expert on the Affordable Care Act’s regulations. “I don’t know why they couldn’t do it themselves.”

Two answers to that: first, then the Democrats couldn’t fundraise on the issue. Second, if the administration decided to fund procedures that an extremely large swath of the population considers to be abortifacients then they’d be in for several more exquisitely painful months in the public disapproval barrel.  Better by far to send it to Congress, let it die there, then blame it all on the Republicans.  And, of course, fundraise on the issue. Continue reading Why Barack Obama won’t just unilaterally fund access to abortifacients.

Add me to the list of people who think the Pill should be sold over the counter.

TO ADULTS, mind you. I don’t have an issue with contraception in and of itself, I think that we’ve had enough time to assess the potential risks involved, and God knows we already sell adults plenty of stuff that can mess them up if they’re not careful.  So sell the damn drug at the pharmacy and be done with it.

You’re going to see a bunch of people on the Right saying this in the next few days. Including a lot of people who previously went to the wall for Hobby Lobby and liberty of conscience, so there’s that. I think John Boehner should get a bill on the floor with all due speed: let the Democrats explain why they want to oppose such a reasonable measure…

(This one definitely H/T: Hot Air Headlines)