From How to silence GOP nuts — and stop the Obamacare repeal campaign by Brian Beutler at Salon:
That leaves two possible futures for the Affordable Care Act. One in which it limps ahead. Another in which it undertakes a swift reversal of fortune.
The nightmare scenario isn’t that Obamacare will be repealed. It’s actually hard to imagine a scenario in which Obama leaves office in 2017 without having overseen a massive expansion of health insurance coverage in the U.S. But getting there could be excruciatingly difficult.
If fixing Healthcare.gov takes significantly longer than the Obama administration is forecasting — if the bottleneck persists and enrollments never spike — political, moral and substantive considerations change. What happens, for instance, if fewer people enroll through the exchanges than see their policies canceled?
A net reduction in individual market coverage would be politically humiliating. It would also raise the moral question of whether it’s fair to impose penalties on people for not entering a system that they can’t access and probably don’t trust. At that point, Democrats would face intense pressure to vote for a delay of the individual mandate. They might do it, too. To stave off a full-scale rebellion, the administration would probably act unilaterally, agree to provide hardship exemptions en masse, and hope to hold the votes for a universal delay below a veto-proof threshold, to protect markets in states like Kentucky with functioning exchanges.
Vastly preferable is a “nowhere to go but up” scenario where the website works pretty well in a couple of weeks, enrollments shoot upward, quickly overtaking the number of people whose policies have been canceled. Ideally many of the people who just lost their coverage (motivated insurance purchasers) turn to the exchanges and find policies that they like, or at that they’re happy enough with to quiet their anger over the cancellation of their old plans.
In this scenario, aggregates will begin to matter. The media’s bias toward anecdote and hardship — which has dominated the news for the past month and a half — will have to contend with raw numbers. If total enrollments, including new Medicaid beneficiaries, approach anywhere near the 16 million the Congressional Budget Office initially projected, the tale of the ACA’s success will be impossible for the media to ignore.
Starting Dec. 1, opponents of the law will screen-grab and disseminate every website failure they happen upon. But if the law truly is working well “for the vast majority of users” as the administration likes to say, it will be reflected in swelling enrollment figures and regular updates on the law’s improving progress. That’ll take the sting out of “you can keep it” attacks. Democrats won’t have anything to run from anymore. You can even imagine them repurposing the Upton bill, to put Republicans on the record against stripping new beneficiaries of their health plans.
I imagine a volte-face like that would stop the repeal campaign dead in its tracks.
Beutler thinks it will take a veto-proof majority in both houses of Congress to repeal Obamacare and he’s probably right. On the other hand I suspect that getting enough Democrats to sign on to repeal is a bit more likely than Beutler thinks.
The title of Beutler’s post is deceptive because it doesn’t tell you how to silence anyone, it just lays out a scenario in which Obamacare suddenly becomes popular. I got some bad news for the paste-eating morons at Salon: You ain’t getting a pony!
The problems with the Obamacare website are separate and distinct from what is wrong with the program. Right now is supposed to be the enrollment period for people who were self-insured. That’s like 5 million people, which is less than 1% of our total population. Even the ones who managed to get enrolled haven’t started paying premiums or using their new healthcare plans yet.
The real fun starts when the employer mandate kicks in. That’s where most people get their insurance but Obama delayed the employer mandate until next year and may delay it again. Sooner or later it will take effect and when it does there will be no hiding or spinning the effects.
Remember Obama’s promise that “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor?” That was a lie, and a lot of people are gonna be upset about that. New plans, new doctors, and higher premiums are what millions of full-time employees across the nation will facing. It’s gonna be u-g-l-y, and this is all before people actually start using Obamacare.
Ironically, the website glitch has prevented people from finding out exactly how fucked they are gonna be.
How bad is Obamacare? It might kill liberalism.
If the Democrats were smart (ROFL) they would repeal Obamacare NOW before it causes any more damage.
Repealing ObamaCare would mean they put People over Party.
Na. Ga. Happen.
😆
RAP:
Obamanation might be closer than we think to making these Kool-aid references un-funny.
150th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address today.
Obama is not going to attend the ceremony.
Of course not, if one celebrates Lincoln, one must acknowledge just how long it’s been since emancipation. Doesn’t fit in with the victimhood narrative.
Not to mention, Gettysburg is in bitter-clinger country. Heh.
I guess there aren’t any good golf courses in the area.
Little known fact, JFK dissed the 100th anniversary, went to Dallas instead. 😦
karma?
couldn’t resist tweeting that 🙂
Sadly so. 😦
More important things to do, like the destruction of Israel or something 😉
10:00 am || Receives the Presidential Daily Briefing
10:45 am || Meets with bipartisan group of senators to discuss Iran; Roosevelt Room
3:15 pm || Delivers remarks and answers questions at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council annual meeting; Washington
4:30 pm || Meets with Secretary of Defense Hagel
He is very tired. He also talking a bunch of shit. “A weary-sounding Obama made his gaffe during the call…” “That number is at odds with reality, but Obama didn’t skip a beat or make any effort to correct himself, and his next comments did little to clear up the mistake.”
The good news is “During the call, Organizing For Action executive director Jon Carson announced that ‘at the national level’ his organization would be ‘partnering with fantastic progressive organizations’ to persuade more Americans to enroll in the Obamacare exchanges.”He named the Center for American Progress, Planned Parenthood ,the Service Employees International Union and Enroll America.” Oh goody. The propagandists and crooks are ready to take over the lying. And everything is FANTASTIC.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509715/Obama-flubs-health-care-conference-community-organizers-More-100-million-Americans-successfully-enrolled.html#ixzz2l6FubWwH
I tried following #OFAcall on twitter, but nobody seemed to be getting through. Seems the excuse was hundreds of thousands were trying to log in at the same time. Yeah, right.
I was a complete bust apparently. Static, delusional, happy talk, and he was “tired”. Today the White House will not want to talk about it. It will be another “pivot”.
Of course he isn’t going. It’s not about him.
That is so weird. It is the perfect opportunity to look like everyone’s President and change the topic of conversation. He is not bright to pass up this opportunity. He could even fake like Lincoln was a Democrat and none of his supporters would know the difference.
But he loved him before. 🙂
If I could have a mulligan, I’d vote for Romney twice.
Good idea.
Looks like Romney picked up 2% of those 47%ers 😀 Still, 45% seems high for Obama today when he’s hovering around 40% in the approvals.
They’re the RD contingent. Obama might be awful, but any Republican would be worse.
You know what’s funny I used to think the same thing, not sure when I had my epiphany, but the Republicans really aren’t the worse. Of course, I can’t find the Democratic party these days, what have they done with them !? 😉
Oh yeah!! 😆
The Vile Progs are working themselves into mass hysteria. It is like listening to 10 year old kids trying to figure out why their tree house fell down. Or why Batman is better than Superman. It is simply delusional for adults to act this way. If they wish it hard enough it will come true aka the Tinkerbell effect.
I noticed it too and it’s sort of disturbing to watch. To many of the Obots Progressivisim is their religion and you know how insane people get when they are losing their religion.
Meanwhile, Michelle was in NYC last night emptying donor wallets after going on BET-tv to tell kids to go to college (her new thang).
http://www.popsugar.com/Michelle-Obama-106-Park-32525412
Her message is as muddled as her “eat good stuff and move” one, she just tells kids “go to college” just like me!
But hey, it paid her expenses to that fundraiser 😀
Swampland:
Yeah we “can’t” keep our doctors. We received our new plan a few weeks ago, and the insurance is much, much worse than the plan we had. The big difference seems to be the insurance company will no longer pay for “out of network” doctors. We didn’t have in-network doctors with the old plan – we just went to a doctor. Apparently there is no where to hide from an HMO now.
When we questioned what the new plan covered (other than the major negative differences highlighted), we received a letter that basically said – like what we gave you, or hit the exchange.
Since the exchange terrifies us, we decided to keep the crappier insurance we were mapped too. The one upside? Our new plan is $350 a month less (NYS… we were one of the “winners”) per month. Hubby and I figured we could pay for a lot of doctor visits OOP with the $350 monthly savings. We are just concerned what else we will find out we lost when the giant booklet comes in the mail with the new coverage details.
How the democrats think they will survive this is beyond me. Even if they drag it out past 2014, at some point there is a day of reckoning. When that day comes, even the most vile opposing party politician will get elected running against the person who voted for this mess.
They were going to shame everyone into shutting up. That was the plan which is very similar (Axeldouche strikes again) to how the Liar president got the nomination and was elected. If you don’t like it and don’t want to “share” (really means give up) your healthcare it is because you are a greedy racist dirtbag. The crony kickback incompetent freak website threw them off their game plan and they haven’t caught up with PR spin. They thought they could lie and spin their way out of it. They can’t. The preference cascade has run them over.
The thing is they could have enticed people to leave their old Doctors. I’m not talking about cancer patients or heart disease patients or people who need careful monitoring to live a healthy life, it is asking too much to make those people change. But my health maintenance org, which I chose, offers mothers calling about possible strep throat, head lice, warts, and any number of nuisance childhood illnesses a same day appointment with a nurse practitioner or a MD appointment tomorrow. Pretty soon they have a relationship with the nurse practitioners and if their kid is really sick they get referred to a MD immediately at the nurse appointment. Another thing they do is have a Resident Family Practice group with young doctors and they “offer” to set up appointments with “young” doctors to their 16-25 year olds. Sure their doctors change all the time but my kids don’t care they just like having a Dr they can relate to. These are effective ways to manage very healthy but acutely ill young people. But just saying “we your good progressive overlords have determined you will take XYZ coverage and if you complain you must be one of those evil greedy Republicans” is the most ineffective way to manage the situation possible.
Hahahahaha parody of What Does The Fox Say
What Does the Farmer Say
Rude Awakening for Federal Way Woman Who Got Shout-Out From President – Can’t Afford Obamacare Policy After All
After Jessica Sanford Sends Fan Letter to Obama for Making Insurance Affordable, State Says She Must Pay Full Ticket
http://washingtonstatewire.com/blog/rude-awakening-for-federal-way-woman-who-got-shout-out-from-president-cant-afford-obamacare-policy-after-all
“But to me there is a big problem with the way the state is handling it. It is like a big machine – you put your stuff in there and once you do it, it is impossible to do anything. You can’t get through to them [on the phone], the website is really limited. So you are stuck on this big treadmill of bureaucracy, and you know, it feels very out of control.”
Hahahahahahahaha…..
WTF did you think would happen if you turned your health care and info over to the government???????
Kool-aid does make you Cray Cray!!
That is just pathetic. Multiply that by millions of people. It is shit insurance for big bucks. Worthless and ruinous to most people. Just awful and everyone knows it. The best Democrats can come up with to justify it is everyone gets maternity and birth control pills. If that need was so urgent why not just pay for all reproductive stuff as a national program? Because it is a fucking lie is why.
Just some source for that JFK/Gettysburg snub …..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A3224792
The Parasites of DC should be the title of the map. They produce nothing but a mess.
And it is worse than top three. It is 7 out of 15 in DC metro. They are like ticks.
I’ll second that! and we can’t afford them. They suck up all our time and energy and money.
Mean girls:
When little girls strip their Barbies naked they are practicing how to humiliate rivals.
LOL
But of course it is reasonable for women to have contempt for women who are so stupid they don’t even charge for sex. And really I don’t think the sluts compromise the position of the women who control their sexuality. With many men even though they are getting regular cheap sex it won’t stop them from “coveting” sex from a woman who is in control of life and her sexuality. In fact men seem to enjoy having a run for their money or a mountain to climb something a slut can never offer. Actually animal sexual pleasure and anticipating or planning for sex take place in different parts of the brain and I don’t think sluts ever activate the thoughtful part of the brain and thus really don’t present a threat to other women.
Now if the slut gets pregnant her vermin spawn and causes the thoughtful woman’s children to have their resources reduced or threatened that is a different story. This woman’s theory of slut shaming is interesting but not fully developed.
More cray-cray
Don’t forget about hospitals. You might be able to keep your doctor but the hospitals at which he has privileges might NOT be an in network hospital on your insurance so you could be stuck with another unpleasant shock when you exit the hospital with a huge bill.
Even if the hospital is on the plan certain services may not be covered. Listing a hospital as a preferred provider but excluding certain services typically pathology or radiology has been a trend in the past decade anyway. I’ve even heard of some hospitals that are supposedly preferred providers but their ER isn’t. If most services are covered then they can be listed at a preferred provider. Sadly many of the biggest ticket items are excluded in the insurance company’s contract with the hospital.
So the individual follows what they think are the rules and goes to a covered/preferred hospital and still ends up with a huge bill. The insurance companies don’t even tell you that certain services are excluded, it’s not listed anywhere in your policy. You end up with a huge bill and no recourse.
That happened to us and we just had to suck it up. I bet
good post
Historical Parallels between Progressivism, Nazism, Fascism & Marxism are not Accidental
http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/11/historical-parallels-progressivism-nazism-fascism-marxism-accidental
As someone mentioned earlier, those Hitler videos just write themselves 😉
Most of the time I don’t pay attention to TV ads but this one caught my ear. United Healthcare is encouraging seniors to sign up for supplemental insurance in which they’re touting the benefits. One line – United would cover “Some” of your bill that Medicare doesn’t pay – meaning you’re going to pay out of pocket – interesting – you pay for Medicare coverage, plus supplemental insurance and out of pocket. When my Mother had Medicare plus supplemental – BCBS picked up the difference.
I got the same thing in the mail. I deep-sixed it. I’m not retiring for another couple of years, and I don’t need it. but when I do, I’m gonna talk to all my friends who’ve already done this “thing” successfully before I jump in the deep end.
So the jobs reports were “faked” before the 2012 election ?
http://nypost.com/2013/11/18/census-faked-2012-election-jobs-report/
Yeah, like some little toady in a Census cubicle thought to do this all by himself ? Like the IRS was putting a muffler on the tea parties about then and blaming their low level employees for the oopsies.
Make it stop!
Sad news in Virginia, a state senator was stabbed by his son, then son committed suicide. Breaking now …. this is how conservatives cover tragic Democratic news with a request for prayers up.
http://bearingdrift.com/2013/11/19/breaking-shootingstabbing-at-deeds-household/
Creigh Deeds ran for Gov in 2009.
An interesting perspective on that crack-smoking Toronto mayor
Reminds me of the pro-Bill Clinton arguments during his impeachment
“Don’t forget about hospitals. You might be able to keep your doctor but the hospitals at which he has privileges might NOT be an in network hospital on your insurance so you could be stuck with another unpleasant shock when you exit the hospital with a huge bill.”
******
That happened to me six years ago with my high dollar insurance. Surgeon in “network” hospital not. $50,000 in hospital and doctor balance billing. That is why getting on Medicare was like crossing the finish line in a race. Had similar surgery two months ago at an out of state hospital, total bills >$90,000…my out of pocket $499.
Obamacare pays nothing for out of network and I don’t think that out of network charges count against the yearly out of pocket maximums.
Saving his own ass always comes first. I think he may be afraid to show up in public now that the thrill is gone.
Obama turned down that invite months ago, probably while he was taking his second oath of the Presidency on Lincoln’s bible ?
I’m married to a Civil War nut, these milestone events are planned years in advance.
So I belong to an online sewing circle. Mostly old babes like me, but some younger women have infiltrated. Today’s discussion – what kind of baby sling could I sew so I don’t have to put my baby down while I sit on the toilet? Because he/she cries when I put him/her down. And we wonder how “special snowflakes” crystallize.
Is this a tacit acknowledgment that they have filthy bathrooms and a baby cannot be set down in the floor? Mine were in baby bouncer carriers while I bathed, put on makeup and did my hair. I was determined not to look like a worn out hag and by god I didn’t. I had a baby swing in the kitchen when I cooked and they always pooped while swinging. LOL.
Don’t houses have closets anymore?
LOL. Yes but the screaming reverberates.
That’s what empty bathtubs are for. Or worse, the dreaded playpen.
As soon as mine were old enough to crawl and pull up they would play in the toilet. That is why the bathroom had to be very, very clean.
I guess telling these moms that crying expands the kid’s lungs and is good for them does not work?
Wow….new WAPO/ABC poll shows that among registered voters, if they had a chance to re-vote on last presidential campaign, would vote for Romney instead: 49/45.
Huh. I thought MO wore a really nice wig.
Wig-hat styling is a very specialized field. If you use the wrong curling iron they melt.
that splains a lot 😆
Oh for pete’s sake, who’s expected to raise a family on 7.25/hr ? A snip from a recent obot “faux rage” email :
If you don’t get a raise from minimum in four years the something wrong is probably you.
honk
obamacare will not be repealed until it comes to the dems in congress saving their own a$$es or saving backtrack’s a$$.
self preservation will win. in the meantime to them it is not important that the people are hurting
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/11/why_my_late_great_uncle_loved_the_gettysburg_address.html
we Americans take a lot of things for granted. Sometime someone from another country sees the greatness of this country and reminds us of what we have
http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/11/19/warning-america-about-nationalizing-health-care-and-what-happens-when-government-grows
warning America about nationalizing health care and what happens when government grows
http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/11/19/most-devastating-poll-obama-and-obamacare-yet-young-voters-and-hispanics-turn-obama
young voters and hispanics running away from backtrack
Finally they are acting in their own best interest instead of doing kool-aid shots.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/11/just-awful-obama-removes-god-from-gettysburg-address-video/
backtrack omits the words ” under God” in his part of reciting the Gettysburg Address in the Ken Burns video