The New York Times achieves Anagnorisis on #obamacare.

Don’t know that word? The invaluable RPG Trail of Cthulhu defines it in this case as “the moment that the main character pieces together the nature of the Mythos and goes to pieces:” basically, what happens is that your unlucky protagonist has an insight that allows him and her to understand the true nature of the universe. And the sudden understanding inevitably leads to madness.

So let us thus discuss the New York Times.

Freeing Workers From the Insurance Trap

The Congressional Budget Office estimated on Tuesday that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the number of full-time workers by 2.5 million over the next decade. That is mostly a good thing, a liberating result of the law.

The next sentence to that was “Of course, Republicans immediately tried to brand the findings as “devastating” and stark evidence of President Obama’s health care reform as a failure and a job killer.”  Two things: 1, that’s what those findings are; and 2, we didn’t try to brand anything.  The problem here is that people were engaging in economic activity, and now they will be no longer engaging in economic activity, and about three times as many people will be doing this as the administration expected would happen, and well everything about Obamacare turned out to be even worse than the Republicans said it was going to be and one half of the political class has staked their careers on this disaster and things are getting worse and the authorities know nothing and the men of science know nothing and we are but worms contemplating the awful infinity of the universe IA! so embrace the TRUTH you purblind fools, FOOLS!! it is our DUTY to free the blind masses from their petty delusions that you can “insure” yourself against the inevitable END of all IA! IA!  bow DOWN before the void in the center of the universe and WORSHIP it WORSHIP IT WORSHIP IT IA! IA! IA! PREPARE THE SACRIFICES SO THAT THE OPENER OF THE WAY MAY HAVE THE OFFERINGS THAT MOST PLEASE HIM YOG-SOTHOTH NEBLOD ZIN

…as I said: anagnorisis. Generally speaking, this is the point where you call the nice men who will take the babbling maniac somewhere quiet and safe, but I guess that you can’t do that to a major metropolitan newspaper’s editorial board.

Via

 

Moe Lane

16 thoughts on “The New York Times achieves Anagnorisis on #obamacare.”

  1. This premise presupposes what an inmate of the liberal asylum could only do – that 99.9% of full-time employed people work only for healthcare benefits. It doesn’t seem to enter their little pea-brain that the majority of people work 40hrs+ because they desire to pay a mortgage, buy a car, pay for college for their children, take a vacation, or heaven forbid, pay for their own groceries at the supermarket.

  2. The other thing that the CBO report said that isn’t being widely reported was that the reason that all of this is on the supply side of labor, not the demand side, is that the demand side items were primarily delayed until 2015 with the delay of the employer mandate. Now, to be fair, the CBO predicts that the demand reductions will be short-lived. Not because demand will pick back up, but because employers will be able to, over time, restrict wage growth. So at that point the effectively reduced wages will be a damper on the supply side again.

    1. That is about as clear as an unmuddied lake, Skip. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. And I mean that with the sincerity of a Young Alex.

      The demand for jobs by workers is still high while the supply of jobs offered by employers is not keeping up with population growth. The delay on the employer mandate was partial. Employers who offer health insurance are already experiencing an increase in costs because of the increased prices of the policies it are legal to offer. Employers are already cutting hours to minimize full time employees because 2014 is a base year for determining a company’s workforce.

      An employer will only hire a person if he thinks that that new employee will generate more profits than the cost of wages, benefits, taxes, training and work space. Obamacare has raised the cost of labor which will have a negative effect on the supply of jobs. This increase may be offset by increases in productivity but it will be a factor until the repeal of the PPACA.

  3. For the last 50 years. people have been taught to equate health insurance with health care. Now many of these liberated souls will qualify for free or subsidized health insurance and find it meaningless when they cannot find a doctor or cannot afford the deductible.

  4. The left views unemployed people as a good thing because they see them as dependent on the State.

        1. Oh, I read his blog. (And naturally, buy his books.) But the reference caused me to take a hard turn into AceofSpades mocking Olberman’s leafy brain…
          .
          (Shaddup. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but me.)

  6. “IA! IA! IA!” is what they chant at Hawkeye games here in Iowa City, IA. I’ve never really understood why it was supposed to be scary.

  7. Pingback: Ed Driscoll » Gray Lady Down

  9. The last paragraph is the most irrational people will be able to pursue careers (normally something that allows you to make money) or retirement (without funds?/ or does she mean they will get to lay around and wait to die?). Workers will be free to pursue careers they are most qualified for (that don’t produce incomes?). I don’t think the idiot has any real concept of the world, she doesn’t understand that there are jobs under the table (grey and black market) or that food can be found in places other than stores (poaching and foraging). The whole article reeks of a worldview that is not conducive to survival when the SHTF. She is utterly unable to conceive of the coming displacement of above board jobs with under the table jobs as the demand for jobs reduces wages and employment of current minimum wage workers with cash for work sub-minimum wage workers.

  10. ” So at that point the effectively reduced wages will be a damper on the supply side again.”
    Skip the CBO is saying that at that point the wages for those jobs will officially not be on the books anymore as the new employees will be getting paid in cash-under-the-table. I am not sure there is a bottom but there is a bottom to job demand that CBO can measure.
    “When having a job becomes illegal only outlaws will have jobs.”

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