Tag: health care

What to take away from this Rasmussen AZ-GOV poll.

The very short version: all four GOP candidates for Governor beat the likely Democratic nominee. The hidden message: Arizona voters don’t like the Democrats’ health care debacle.

Over the past month, despite even higher opposition to the new national health care plan in Arizona than is found nationally, [state AG General Terry] Goddard has refused to join other state attorneys general in suing to stop the plan from becoming law. He argues that the suit will be unsuccessful and is a waste of taxpayer money. [Republican governor Jan] Brewer has gone ahead with a lawsuit anyway, delegating the legal work to her general counsel.

Now Brewer, who became governor when Janet Napolitano moved to Washington to be secretary of Homeland Security and has been plagued with severe budget problems ever since, earns 44% to Goddard’s 40%. A month ago, Goddard posted a 45% to 36% lead over the governor. were virtually tied in January.

Which should surprise nobody, but probably will. Ach, well, maybe May will see the sudden blossoming of support by the American people for a scheme that threatens to extend governmental control over 1/6th of the economy.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Are you a brave Republican Congressional staffer?

Because if you are, you have a destiny.

Congress may be fined tens of millions of dollars a year under its own health-care law, in part because the bill dumps members of Congress and their staffs from their current health-care plans.

[snip]

Before Congress incurs any fines, a complex series of events would be required to happen under the law. Generally speaking, an lower-tier aide — one not making a six-figure salary like some 2,000 House employees — would have to apply for government subsidies. The way the law works is that employers incur a $2,000 or $3,000 fine for each employee, depending on the circumstances, if only one of their employees obtains the subsidies.

So one lowly staff assistant could think he’s just getting some health-care help, while actually triggering a $50 million annual fine for Congress.

Embrace your destiny.  Start the ball rolling.  Force the Obama administration to demonstrate – once again – that their slipshod and slapdash approach to legislation requires constant intervention to keep even themselves from the consequences of their actions. Here is your monkey-wrench.  There is some exposed machinery.

You know what you need to do.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

#rsrh Barney Frank gets yelled at for health care.

By two ophthalmologists, apparently.  That’s pretty much the story: he was on a flight with his partner, the two ophthalmologists decided to voice their disappointment with Frank’s error in government, Frank’s partner said something rude about the ophthalmologists’ gender, and it all went downhill from there.  Personally, I’m with Glenn Reynolds on this: if Barney Frank doesn’t want to hear unflattering things said in public about his legislative technique, Barney Frank is welcome to start driving more. And if he feels that dealing with this is beneath his dignity as House Finance Services chair, well, the way things are going that won’t be an issue anyway, starting next January.

Moe Lane

PS: I’d like to note for the record that the participants of only one side of this argument have actually ever worked for a living, and it ain’t the ones who were in favor of the Democrats’ health care debacle.

Congressional Democrats muck up Congressional insurance coverage.

Not. OUR. Fault.

Via Just One Minute (indeed…) comes your feel-good story of the day: Congressional Democrats have managed to thoroughly muck up Congress’ own health care coverage, particularly for new hires. Both staffers and legislators:

The law apparently bars members of Congress from the federal employees health program, on the assumption that lawmakers should join many of their constituents in getting coverage through new state-based markets known as insurance exchanges.

But the research service found that this provision was written in an imprecise, confusing way, so it is not clear when it takes effect.

The new exchanges do not have to be in operation until 2014. But because of a possible “drafting error,” the report says, Congress did not specify an effective date for the section excluding lawmakers from the existing program.

Under well-established canons of statutory interpretation, the report said, “a law takes effect on the date of its enactment” unless Congress clearly specifies otherwise. And Congress did not specify any other effective date for this part of the health care law. The law was enacted when President Obama signed it three weeks ago.

Continue reading Congressional Democrats muck up Congressional insurance coverage.

#rsrh QotD: Health Care DOOM edition.

The Washington Examiner’s Chris Stirewalt, on the fallout of Obamacare:

There was no health care bounce. In fact, there has been something of a health care swoon.

Use of ‘fallout’ deliberate, by the way: there was a big explosion that wrecked the immediate landscape, followed by a poisonous rain that will make everything it touches radioactive for the next couple of years – but still can be cleaned up, provided that people are willing to work at getting rid of all the contaminated bits.

Quote of the Day, insulting analogies edition.

(Via neo-neocon, via Instapundit) Nancy Pelosi:

”It’s like the back of the refrigerator. You see all these wires and the rest,” said Pelosi. “All you need to know is, you open the door. The light goes on. You open this door, you go through a whole different path, in terms of access to quality, affordable healthcare for all Americans.”

So, you know, never you worry about the fact that the wires seem to be hooked up to a baby. Which is crying. And on fire.

Moe Lane

PS: Yes, she really thinks that you’re this stupid.  Sorry.

Crossposted to RedState.

Please upgrade Phil “I read the bill 3X” Hare’s (D, IL-17) status, Mr. Cook.

Because after this performance surely ‘Safe Democrat‘ is too generous. Phil Hare did everything wrong:

…from claiming that he didn’t worry about the Constitution, then proving it by mixing it up with the Declaration of Independence; to bragging that he read the bill three times, after falsely claiming that said bill protected uninsured children; to running away at the end, only to have to sit there embarrassingly because he had to make a left-hand turn out of the parking lot. Really: that last bit was what did it for me. Democrats tend to be much better at the panicked fleeing of inconvenient questions.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

[UPDATE] In my haste to get this up I omitted mentioning Hare’s opponent: Bobby Schilling.

#rsrh Not liking the analogy is not *my* problem.

Excuse me while I infuriate some lurkers by quoting this annoyed response to a NYT piece on Tea Partiers:

Ok, we get the point. Anyone mad at government is just acting like a spoiled hypocrite, ignorantly decrying the very thing that makes life worth living. Tea Party people are ungrateful wretches who will someday regret the effects of their protests. In the same spirit, we can imagine what the New York Times would be writing in the 1850s, reporting on new political movements in slave states.

When the middle-aged slave Jim developed a boil on his foot after a long day in the fields, he went crawling to the plantation to get it treated and bandaged. The master gladly obliged. Today Jim expresses a rising interest in the new abolitionist movement and is even demanding what he calls his freedom. This new freedom would mean an end to the amenities that are a mainstay of his life. He depends of plantation-provided food, housing, and medical care, but his living quarters are filled with pamphlets by William Lloyd Garrison and others agitating for a “new liberty.”

I imagine that it is… frustrating to some, the way that opponents to ballooning government interference adamantly refuse to just shut up and go die in fires.  The best ones are the ones that try to laugh it off…

Man, I’m worried about getting punched by that Obamacare bill!

Because when they finally pass that thing, it’s supposed to have this massive and immediate effect on public opinion (ten points to the President was former President Clinton’s guess, I believe)…

What?  It passed last week?  Well, what was the result?

One week after the House of Representatives passed the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats, 54% of the nation’s likely voters still favor repealing the new law. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 42% oppose repeal.

Those figures are virtually unchanged from last week. They include 44% who Strongly Favor repeal and 34% who Strongly Oppose it.

So, you’re saying that I’ve already gotten hit, and I never even noticed?

Well, we are talking about Democrats, here. Can’t take a punch; can’t throw one, either.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

#rsrh, Hey made Vodkapundit’s Week in Blogs!

As seen here, for this.

By the way, would it be unkind of me to note that the poll situation that we’re seeing now, post health-care passage, is starting to look for the Democrats like that scene in Apollo 13 where they tried shutting off the reactant valves for the fuel cells? – I mean, is it kind for me to note it again?  I can’t remember if I mentioned it on this blog, and it’s a startlingly apt reference.  If passing that health care bill wasn’t enough to recoup the President’s steady losses in popularity (their primary strategy to get at-risk Democrats re-elected), then ‘victory’ just got redefined for the Democratic party as ‘survival.’

Just saying.

Moe Lane