Indeed. But a "near panic" because they were stupid enough to believe that a federal health care takeover would actually work as originally advertised, or because it collapsed before it could collapse the health care system?
Remember what the endgame was: ObamaCare was supposed to appear to "work" in order to coercively lure the American people into the exchanges - which is where the healthcare.gov web portal came in. While "shoppers" were reluctantly entering their "experience," the health insurance plans they "liked" would start dropping like flies, and they would then have no place else to go.
But since the portal(s) didn't, and don't, work, and are utterly unsecure and thus an identity theft gold mine, "shoppers" don't have anyplace to go and are facing the individual mandate penalty through no fault of their own. The entire process was discredited from day one before "the settled law" could even begin the "liked" plan cancellation death spiral, making the latter "insult to injury".
It's like the fembot seduction scene in Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:
If this Decepticon hottie had clanked into Sam Witwicky's dorm room in its robotic form, he'd have shrieked, leaped three feet in the air, and dived out the nearest window; that was the whole point of the hottie disguise. healthcare.gov was ObamaCare's "hottie" disguise, but O and Sebelius couldn't get it to "transform," and the American people have shrieked, leaped three feet in the air, and dived out the nearest window. Or, rather, they would have if all the windows hadn't been bricked up by Regime diktat and "settled law".
And that is why Democrats are in a "near" panic. Or at least the ones who still think this country is a representative republic and don't realize what their Dear Leader truly is.
And this, in turn, is why the GOP has to drive a hard bargain. These "panicked" Dems don't want to cross their "messiah," and they don't want to terminate their party's most cherished dream and greatest "accomplishment". Sure, they'll beg Republicans for help, but it will be to help "fix" it, or put a bandaid on it, or plausibly cover it up, anything to buy time and get them past next year's midterms with their offices and careers intact. GOPers have to, politely but firmly, make it crystal clear that the one and only thing with which they will cooperate in "bipartisan comity" is ObamaCare's dismantling and replacement with genuine, market-based reforms. And they should not wait for "panicked" Dems to start "working" them to start advancing these reform alternatives.
If Dems are truly "panicked," and enough so to effectively concede defeat, the work of repairing the health care system Barack Obama has "mangled" can begin - in January 2017, since he'll never concede defeat. Or, more likely, never, since that may prove to be the catalyst for his final coup and formalization of his dictatorship, and the Dems who "betrayed" him will be herded into the same cattle cars as their Republican "colleagues". I'd speculate that that is what has at least a few of them panicked, but I don't think any of them have that much conscience, nobility, or perspicuity.
Seeing as how misery loves company, I hope we get to find out.
UPDATE: Here's the latest Panic Scoreboard.
MOTHER OF ALL UPDATES: Gods cave?:
Bowing to pressure, President Barack Obama on Thursday announced changes to his healthcare law that would give insurance companies the option to keep offering consumers plans that would otherwise be canceled.Oh, he announced changes to his healthcare law. Nothing that Article I would require him to run by Congress for actual, oh, I don't know, changes to the law, or anything. Because he wants the credit for it, and because, you know, it's good to be the king.
The administrative changes are good for just one year, though senior administration officials said they could be extended if problems with the law persist. Obama announced the changes at the White House.I do have to admit to some level of surprise. He was always going to do this, but I thought he'd do it piecemeal, one six-week chunk at a time. Doing the full year all at once suggests the White House perceived a greater immediate level of political peril to itself - they don't care about their congressional minions anymore, since they've served their purpose and are no longer needed - than they have previously let on.
Question is, will they extend this deadline again a year from now? Because the same damn vicious cycle will fire up again a month before the midterms. And if you think you've seen "near" panic from some Democrats to this point, you'll witness full-bore linear panic when this encore erupts, right alongside its employer plan counterpart, mere weeks before Election Day 2014.
Or....perhaps you won't, because the bag-holders will be somebody else:
It's unclear what the impact of Thursday's changes will be for the millions of people who have already had their plans canceled. While officials said insurance companies will now be able to offer those people the option to renew their old plans, companies are not required to take that step....
America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, said on Thursday that the president's fix for canceled health plans could "destabilize" the insurance market and lead to higher costs for consumers.
"Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the (ObamaCare) law could destabilize the market and result in higher premiums," AHIP President Karen Ignagni said in a statement.
"Additional steps must be taken to stabilize the marketplace and mitigate the adverse impact on consumers," she said. [emphases added]
You can just hear The One a year from now, catcha? "A year ago, when Americans were losing their substandard policies, we magnanimously stepped in and allowed those policies to be continued while the problems with healthcare.gov were hampering access to better plans on the exchanges. And what did the bad apple insurance companies do? They gouged their policyholders in the worst imaginable way at a time of severe economic pain; they preyed on innocent Americans, exploited them for their own avarice to line their own bottom lines. Let me be clear, I will not make that mistake again."
He'd be providing congressional Dems and the LIVs that vote for them both a scapegoat to hang around the necks of congressional 'Pubbies. And, bam, Donks keep the Senate, retake the House, and the Obamunist Blitzkrieg can continue. That would seem to be the Big Picture thinking in the White House O-Care war room this fine mid-November day.
At any rate, the fundamental battle lines for Shutdowngeddon II two months from now haven't changed one jot or tittle....:
While admitting that the online marketplace for consumers to find new health plans had had a "rough start," Obama warned his political opponents not to try to overturn the entire law.
"I will not accept proposals that are just another brazen attempt to undermine or repeal the overall law and drag us back into a broken system," he said.
Republicans were unimpressed with the president's changes.
House Speaker John Boehner, speaking in advance of the president's announcement, insisted it was time to "scrap this law once and for all."
"You can't fix this government-run health care plan called ObamaCare . ... It's just not fix-able."
.....but the battlefield itself has changed dramatically, because the public now sees that it is Barack Obama and "his" law that has broken the health care system. But that perception won't last for long without massive reinforcement.
Battle stations, Senator Cruz.....
UPDATE III: Yep, the "fix" is unfixable
UPDATE IV: Just what O's non-fix needs - a companion non-fix from Crazy Nancy:
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that, despite President Obama's impending announcement of a fix to ObamaCare's canceled insurance plans, House Democrats will also pursue a legislative fix themselves
Pelosi said to think of it as a "belt and suspenders."
"I want to do both," Pelosi said[.]
Well, at least we know what's in this one before she passes it - just check the garment bag.
UPDATE V: Some day, my children (okay, grandchildren) will ask me where I was when the literal shit hit the fan. And I will be able to tell mine, "right next to Bob Uecker in the front row":
[Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike] Kreidler says Thursday he has "serious concerns" about how Obama's proposal would be implemented and its potential impact on the overall stability of the state's health insurance market.
"I do not believe his proposal is a good deal for the state of Washington," Kreidler said in a statement announcing his decision. "In the interest of keeping the consumer protections, we have enacted and ensuring that we keep health insurance costs down for all consumers, we are staying the course. We will not be allowing insurance companies to extend their policies. I believe this is in the best interest of the health insurance market in Washington."
What if a dictator gives an order, and his minions....ignore it? Does this mean that O is "selling out" the 14 or 16 or whatever states that did set up their own exchanges? Is this some bizarro leftwing assertion of state sovereignty? Is it competing tyrannies? And isn't this kind of chaos precisely what the United States Constitution and the consequent rule of law were written, originated, designed, and intended to prevent?
Ace gets the final word (until the next update, or Doug chimes in, whichever comes first):
I would like to propose a lawsuit to repeal ObamaCare on [its fundamental lawlessness]. The Constitution does not permit executive law-making, and apparently executive law-making is central to ObamaCare. The law violates our Constitution on separation of powers grounds [among others].
This is, as Charles C.W. Cooke put it, pure Chavez-level banana republic tyranny, and the nation will not stand if this is permitted.
If the Supreme Court stands for anything, it stands for guaranteeing that the United States have [note the plural] a small-r republican form of government with enumerated powers, separation of powers, and checks and balances; ObamaCare, in actual practice, ignores all that, and constitutes an indefensible change of our government from a republican one to an executive [dictator]ship.
File the suit. Roll the dice. Get this abomination off the books before there is simply no law left to enforce. [emphases added]
UPDATE VI: Bet Doug wishes he had more time:
Arkansas looks to be a no-go on Obama plan. MT @ArkDavey Arkansas Ins commissioner: Plans NOT to allow Obama's GF renewals into 2015.
Why, oh why, couldn't I be guest-hosting Constitution Radio THIS Saturday?
UPDATE VII: Last one - You know how O's "fix" on the blizzard of health plan cancellation letters is designed to screw over insurance carriers and make them the scapegoats for what OCare forced them to do? They're not going to go gently into that bad night:
The health insurance industry is already attacking a White House fix to ObamaCare on Thursday even before the plan is formally announced by the president.So, explain how O-Care makes "flexibility" functionally impossible, and that any such attempt at it would gouge premiums for (temporarily) re-grandfathered policies AND exchange plans. Draw attention to the Landrieu-Feinstein version of O's "fix" that would force insurance carriers to re-grandfather terminated policies, highlighting the reality that the flagrant gougers in this equation reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
“This doesn’t change anything other than force insurers to be the political flack jackets for the administration,” said an industry insider. “So now when we don’t offer these policies the White House can say it’s the insurers doing this and not being flexible.”
Above all, do not let up on the pressure. This has to be a ferocious, swarm-like attack from all sides that continues, unrelentingly, until there's not a scrap of flesh left on the Regime's malignant carcass, and the rest of the Democrat Party has been split from its big-eared lame duck.
To modify the Jem'Hadar motto:
I am dead. I go into battle to reclaim my life. This I do gladly, for I am an American. Victory is life.
Surely any and every Tea Partier can endorse that.
No comments:
Post a Comment