Tag: obamacare

The DOOM that came to Obamacare.

So. We move on. 

Gallup did a poll on Obamacare (news flash: people still aren’t supporting it), and came up with (among other things) this fascinating result:

That, folks, is about as close to a consensus among the American people as you’re likely to get on health care: the majority of the population thinks that the government does not have the right to force you to buy health insurance.  And that includes ‘a majority of Democrats’ and ‘a majority of people who like the idea of Obamacare.’  If I was working for this administration, I’d be praying right now that the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate; because if it’s still in place in November – and if this poll is accurate – then there’s going to be a lot of people out there who will be aware that the Republican nominee – whoever that is – will have explicitly campaigned on repealing it…

H/T The Volokh Conspiracy.

#rsrh Supreme Court to rule Obamacare is a tax on middle class?

If so… um, thanks?

To sum up the argument: the Obama administration has always been two-faced over whether the individual mandate is a tax or not, due to the horrifically botched way that the Democrats shoved Obamacare down America’s throat. If the mandate is not a tax, its constitutionality becomes highly iffy; and if it is a tax then Obama lied like a cheap rug when he promised the American people that their taxes weren’t going up:

Mind you, people shouldn’t have believed that nonsense from Obama in the first place.  Politicians lie, people. Continue reading #rsrh Supreme Court to rule Obamacare is a tax on middle class?

#rsrh Hey, when is a tax not a tax?

When it’s a mandate, of course!

In a hearing of the House Budget Committee Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., pressed [Acting OMB Director Jeffrey] Zients on whether the penalty that the health care law imposes on individuals who do not purchase health insurance constitutes a tax. Eventually, Zients said it did not.

So what?  Philip Klein goes on:

But this directly contradicts one of the arguments the Obama administration is making before the Supreme Court in defense of the health care law, which is that the mandate is Constitutional because it’s a tax and government has taxing power.

Which is kind of an important point, here: I mean, we’re all used to the idea that Obama lies when it suits him.  Too much of the rest of the country is not at that stage of awareness, though.

Yet.

Moe Lane Continue reading #rsrh Hey, when is a tax not a tax?

#rsrh …I give up; the post will not gel. Just read this link.

(H/T: RCP) It’s via the San Diego Union-Tribune, and it’s pretty harsh about the White House’s decision to ignore the consciences of religious-backed organizations when it comes to mandating that health plans cover birth control.  Of particular interest is this sentence:

An Associated Press story Thursday depicted administration officials as surprised by the furor, with none ready to strongly defend the policy – and no one able to offer a strong rationale for exempting churches from birth-control coverage mandates on religious liberty grounds but not church-run organizations dedicated to religious values.

It’s almost as if the Obama administration doesn’t understand that people remember it when you lie to them in the past; and that if you do it often enough nobody feels obligated to give you the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Moe Lane

If Romney becomes the candidate, Obamacare is off the table.

Deal with it.

Andrew McCarthy of NRO puts his thumb squarely on one of the two central problems that I have with a Romney candidacy:

In 2008, Obamacare did not exist. In 2012, it vies with our astronomical national debt — to which it will prodigiously contribute — as the most crucial issue in the campaign. It is Obamacare’s trespass against the private economy and individual liberty that transformed the Tea Party into a mass movement, perhaps the most dynamic one electoral politics has seen in decades. And of all the Republican candidates, Romney is the weakest, the most compromised, when it comes to taking that fight to the president.

Continue reading If Romney becomes the candidate, Obamacare is off the table.

#rsrh Obamacare, abortion, and the Catholic Church.

I just saw this:

In August, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that health insurance plans, as of January 1, 2013, will be required to cover contraception, including FDA-approved emergency contraception. “These historic guidelines are based on science and existing literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need,” she said. The Catholic Church has been pushing the White House to allow Catholic hospitals to opt out of providing contraception that it considers the termination of a life, and many in the abortion rights community are worried that the president will grant that exemption. Additionally, many Democrats invested in President Obama’s re-election are worried that if he grants that exemption, he will alienate liberal women voters they will need come November.

…and I feel the need to explain something, here.  The Roman Catholic Church considers ’emergency contraception’ – otherwise known as the ‘morning after’ pill – to be an abortificant.  The Roman Catholic Church does not permit its hospitals to perform abortions.  And the leadership (note the distinction) of the Roman Catholic Church is utterly indifferent to what taking a firm line on this might do to Barack Obama’s re-election chances. Continue reading #rsrh Obamacare, abortion, and the Catholic Church.

#rsrh Wanna see how to write an article on a constitutional challenge…

…to Obamacare’s individual mandate provision, without ever once explaining why there’s a constitutional challenge to the individual mandate?

Here you go. In the interests of educating the populace – even those poor unfortunates who are stuck getting their news from The New York Times. God help them – here’s the central argument: forcing individuals to engage in commercial activity is not a Constitutionally enumerated right of Congress.  Buying health insurance is a commercial activity.  Proponents argue that the Commerce Clause applies, but if it does then frankly the Tenth Amendment is meaningless.  The Ninth, for that matter.  This would, of course, shock the life out of the Federalists and the anti-Federalists, given that these Amendments were explicitly ratified to reassure the latter that there would be clear limits to governmental power in the new Republic.

No, I am not going to explain any of those terms: if you have to ask what any of them mean, then you are not qualified for participation in this conversation.

Anyway, via RCP.

Moe Lane

PS: Almost forgot: yes, most locales require you to buy car insurance if you wish to operate a car.  Guess what?  There’s no federal mandate requiring citizens to own a car.  That means that car ownership is ultimately a choice – unlike, say, breathing. That means that the analogy is too tenuous to succeed.

#rsrh QotD, Plenty of Blame To Go Around Edition.

Philip Klein, on why the President is not going to be able to avoid the shower of ordure that is even now busily descending upon our current ruling class:

When Obama came into office, he argued that we needed deficit spending to boost the economy, so he passed a $800 billion stimulus package. Then, in one of his first supposed pivots to the deficit, he convened a ‘fiscal responsibility summit’ in February 2009. But that actually turned out to be part of a different pivot altogether. It was during that summit that then White House Budget Director Peter Orszag declared, “health care reform is entitlement reform.”

And so, for the next 13 months, Obama spent all of his energies trying to get health care legislation across the finish line.

Continue reading #rsrh QotD, Plenty of Blame To Go Around Edition.

#rsrh Bias Watch: “Bias Watch: The Palin Emails.”

…I was going to try for the same pseudo-legal blather that Eric Wimple was using to try to pooh-pooh the idea that the Washington Post really needed to get its readership to paw through Sarah Palin’s emails, but fortunately I realized that all I actually wanted to say was “Eric Wimple is being a schmuck here.”

Well.

Eric Wimple is being a schmuck here.

Yeah, that’s a lot more straightforward. Continue reading #rsrh Bias Watch: “Bias Watch: The Palin Emails.”

#rsrh Ace reads the tea leaves…

…on some arguably tough questions asked by 11th Circuit judges towards the government with regard to the appeal of the Florida Obamacare decision, and comes up with… what you usually get when you read tea leaves, frankly. Which is to say, the opinion that you had in the first place.  That’s not a knock on Ace; it’s a knock on reading tea leaves.

Anyway, we’re just marking time until the Supreme Court decision.

Moe Lane