Tag: obamacare

Sardonic Comment of the Day, Obamacare edition.

Everybody say it with me, now:

Once provisions of the Affordable Care Act start to kick in during 2014, at least three of every 10 employers will probably stop offering health coverage, a survey released Monday shows.

While only 7% of employees will be forced to switch to subsidized-exchange programs, at least 30% of companies say they will “definitely or probably” stop offering employer-sponsored coverage, according to the study published in McKinsey Quarterly.

UNEXPECTEDLY! – Assuming that you actually believed the President when he told you that his shiny new health care rationing system would let you keep your old plan if you liked it, of course.

Oops?

Moe Lane

#rsrh 14 more states file anti-Obamacare amicus brief.

This one will be for Seven-Sky v. Holder, which is scheduled for oral argument in September.  The amicus brief will be on the individual mandate; more specifically, that the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

I mostly draw this to people’s attention because of the following list:

Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Maine*, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Bolded states had elections for Attorney General in 2010: underlined states are where the job flipped from from Democratic to Republican.

Elections matter.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Elected by legislature.

Supreme Court will not expedite Obamacare suit.

To summarize: Ken Cuccinelli, Attorney General for Virginia, requested that the US Supreme Court expedite its presumed-inevitable review of the Virginia Obamacare suit currently wending its way through the lower courts (this is the suit that found the individual mandate both unconstitutional, and severable, from the rest of Obamacare*).  The court has declined to do so; which means that the issue will probably not be actually addressed until the summer of 2012.  This decision is of note for two reasons:

  1. The eventual Supreme Court decision will be – no matter what it actually is – a burning issue in the 2012 Presidential election.  The White House apparently thinks that this will end up helping the President; to which I respond that the White House should stop and think about its to-date track record when it comes to predicting popular opinion.  Or, more accurately, that it should not, as so far said track record has been very helpful for the Republican party.
  2. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan apparently did not recuse herself from this particular situation – this, despite evidence that suggests that she should recuse herself, given her possible involvement in the Department of Justice’s original plans to challenge Obamacare (remember, Kagan at that time was Solicitor General).  There was a FOIA request made on these issues; it may not be wise for the White House to let that go unfilled until the summer of 2012, too.

Continue reading Supreme Court will not expedite Obamacare suit.

Missouri AG Chris Koster’s (D) cynical fight against Obamacare.

He’s not fully joining the fight against Obamacare – Koster has issued an amicus curiae brief in modified support of the Florida Obamacare lawsuit, instead of joining it – but he’s easily the most prominent Democrat on the state level to break with his party on Obamacare.  This is partially probably due to Missouri’s emphatic rejection of Obamacare last year (in the form of Proposition C), and partially probably due to Koster’s own desire to survive politically; Koster switched parties in 2007, when it looked like the promised forty-year dominance of the Democratic party in America might actually last, well, forty years.  As it stands, Koster is up for re-election next year, and as it’s promising to be a bad year for Missouri Democrats who like Obamacare… well.

Do read the brief, as it represents the Democratic party’s somewhat frantic desire to resolve the problem that they’re having with Obamacare right now.  To wit: the individual mandate is clearly unconstitutional, given that it requires people to engage in commerce, whether they want to or not.  Unfortunately, the same Geniuses From Beyond Space And Time that put that provision into Obamacare also neglected – willfully – a provision that explicitly stated that the various parts of Obamacare are severable from each other; so if the individual mandate goes it’s well within the court’s purview to declare the whole thing unconstitutional as well.  That would be… problematical for Democrats, given that they wasted a year on Obamacare in the first place.

 

Continue reading Missouri AG Chris Koster’s (D) cynical fight against Obamacare.

One day in at DNC, and Wasserman-Schultz already at work!

Stung by reports that the first Obama ad of 2012 was both a) insipid as all get-out and b) eclipsed by the NRSC parody video of it, the new DNC chair has reportedly authorized the re-release of what turned out to be the seminal Obamacare argument.  This is five years old, sure – but it spells out everything about the Democrats’ health care plan, strategy, and consequences.  Clearly, Wasserman-Schultz wants to make the point that the American people had been told in advance about the nature of Obamacare.  Plus, it also serendipitously draws on the most popular element from the NRSC video.  Which is a bonus!

Video after the fold. Continue reading One day in at DNC, and Wasserman-Schultz already at work!

RedState Interview: Senator Ron Johnson (R, WI) on Obamacare repeal.

The topic was on Obamacare: specifically, its repeal.  Senator Johnson had an article in the Wall Street Journal today on his personal issue with health care rationing; we discussed that, the ongoing judicial struggles over Obamacare, and what activists can do to help resolve this problem.

Senator Johnson’s decision to run for office in the first place can be ‘credited’ with the passage of Obamacare, which is news that will no doubt delight supporters of former Senator Russ Feingold.  Also, some further details of the future economic effects of the health care legislation can be found here, via the American Action Forum.  Check it out.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

#rsrh Obamacare losing Starbucks?

Oops.  In its way, it’s very much a baby step, but it’s beginning to dawn on Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz that 2014 is getting closer and closer – and with it comes a regulatory regime that includes health care mandates that are going to put “too great” a pressure on small businesses.  This might even be a principled position of Schultz: I assumed at first that he’s worried about how Starbucks franchises would get hammered by increased health care costs, but it turns out that Starbucks doesn’t actually have franchises*.  Which means that Schultz could solve the whole problem personally by having Starbucks apply for a waiver.

I mean, why not?  Everybody else is.

(via @amandacarpenter)

Moe Lane

PS: I still don’t like their coffee, but that’s probably not their fault.

*They admittedly have a franchise system for Seattle’s Best Coffee, but Starbucks is the primary earner here.

This week is the first anniversary of Obamacare.

And the Democrats are going to – very entertainingly – try to put the best face on that particular electoral disaster that they possibly can: they have a week’s worth of events planned, apparently in the hope that the only thing wrong with their party’s messaging thus far was that they did not speak loudly enough, or slowly enough, or use small enough words, or any combination thereof. They also plan to “shine a spotlight on Republicans who have opposed the law at every turn” – which, the last time that I checked, included not only every Republican sitting in Congress now, but the net +6 Senators and +63 Representatives who were not in their current Congressional seats in March 2010.  Put another way, Republicans do not so much worry that their opposition to Obamacare be highlighted as they demand that it be.

Seriously, when you have people like notorious pro-union violence columnist Greg Sargent saying things like “…hope for the best,” you have a serious problem.  It wasn’t the messaging that’s the problem here for Democrats.  It was the slipshod crafting of Obamacare, the blatant attempts to provoke a violent response to Obamacare, the numerous payoffs and corrupt deals used to bring Obamacare to fruition, the cowardice displayed by numerous Democratic politicians (many of whom are now suddenly private lobbyists) in their ‘defense’ of Obamacare, the arrogance displayed by other Democratic politicians (typically from districts where God couldn’t win as a Republican) ditto, the wholesale lying, libeling, and slandering of Obamacare’s opponents, the ongoing payoffs and corrupt deals being made for Obamacare after the fact, and – most importantly – the ongoing demonstration that not only is Obamacare dysfunctional: it’s probably unconstitutional as well. Continue reading This week is the first anniversary of Obamacare.

#rsrh OBAMACARE! OBAMACARE! OBAMACARE!

OBAMACARE!
OBAMACARE!
OBAMACARE!

Oh!  Hi, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz!  I understand that you’re claiming that calling Obamacare “Obamacare” is derogatory towards the President!

OBAMACARE!
OBAMACARE!
OBAMACARE!

Guess you shouldn’t have passed Obamacare – and that the President shouldn’t have signed Obamacare into law then, huh?

OBAMACARE!
OBAMACARE!
OBAMACARE!

Moe Lane

PS: OBAMACARE!
OBAMACARE!
OBAMACARE!

The Obamacare comic book!

Excuse me: the Obamacare graphic novel.  What’s the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel?  The same difference as the one between dolls and action figures, but never mind that right now.  What’s important is that there’s somebody out there who feels that the ideas behind a 2,400 page monstrosity of a health bill that nobody understands and even its defenders secretly hate can be explained by literally drawing some pictures:

Jonathan Gruber, a nationally recognized health economist who devised the economic underpinnings of Obamacare (Gruber hates the term), said his three comic-loving kids encouraged him to use the hip format of the graphic novel — basically an expensive comic published in book form — to tell the story of the complicated plan to 300 million Americans.

Continue reading The Obamacare comic book!