Tuesday, November 5, 2013

"We have to pass it to see what's in it."

Just in case future generations, our grand kids and great grand kids, log on to our humble site to see what we had to say about the absolute debacle of "Obamacare" (actually titled The Affordable Healthcare Act - if ever a law was misnamed.), I want to assure them of something. The only reason we haven't engaged in a full nuts and bolts strip down of this law post implementation is it is so massive, so utterly coming apart at the seams, so grand in its' failure, that we would have to quit jobs, abandon children, and use bed pans to fully gauge our reaction. Let me boil down what has FINALLY awoken the American people - and typically friendly press - to the realization that this thing is a disaster.

1) The website utterly failed.
All of us - from our little site to conservative talk - have been screaming about the unconstitutionality of mandating health insurance, a government take over of 1/6th of the economy, and another trillion dollars in spending. However, none of that dissuaded the president's admirers, and thus he was reelected. But when they can't "log on", when the site fails, when they are stranded with a little pinwheel icon that never loads, THEN they come unhinged. Limbaugh once said that it wouldn't be a major policy failure that does the president in or costs him popularity, but rather "dissing Beyonce's new album." I think this proves that theory right. 6 people were able to sign up on day one - SIX. A nation accustomed to the speed and versatility of Itunes cannot tolerate such tech incompetence.

2) "If you like your plan, you'll be able to keep your plan."
This will go down as bigger than "Read my lips", "I did not have sex with that woman", and "Mission accomplished." He repeated this phrase, with great emphasis - such as "this we promise", and "period" - at every major stump speech for the last 4 years. Over, and over, and over. In an article found HERE by the daily caller, economists and experts - at the university level - are now saying that at least, AT LEAST 68% of Americans will lose their current private health plans. And for a simple reason: the new "minimum standard", also known as the Essential Benefits floor disqualifies most private insurance as inadequate for not doing things like covering single males for maternity care. Not "leave", actual OBGYN care. This makes these plans illegal to sell now. The president's people will retort that "you're grandfathered in." The problem is that according to the law, if that plan changes in any substantial way, it becomes a "new" plan and loses grandfather status. So what do they declare as "substantial." If your copay goes up $5. Five bucks gets your plan invalidated. But the even bigger problem is the simple economics of healthcare plans - if I can no longer sell it, no longer bring new, healthy young people into that plan's pool, then I can't sustain that pool. I have a fixed group that will age within that plan. Thus I am forced to disband the plan all together before it bankrupts me. This is why people across America are getting notices that they're being kicked off... excuse me, "transitioned" into a new plan.

3.) The heavily subsidized plans offered under the exchange are too often more expensive. I put this under my ATM fee theory. The government can raise taxes to infinity, regulate entire businesses into extinction, and waste billions of tax payer dollars; but if ATM fees are increased from $2 to $3, all hell breaks loose and the people demand action. The same could be said here. The trillions upon trillions this debacle will cost us doesn't seem to register with the average voter (at least not as of 11/6/12). But if their premium goes from $155/mo to $368, they go nuts.

So there you have it. We finally have an uproar. Not over Constitutionality of mandates or universally declaring parts of that mandate void for special groups, or on  nation-ending levels of spending, but rather over pages that won't load and Obama's "read my lips" moments(s) . That's fine though... hell, Al Capone was jailed over tax fraud, so I'll take what I can get.