Daily Archives: 15 October 2013

The End of the Republican Party?

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As the thrust of the budget and debt ceiling battle shifts, and the Democrats in the Senate gain the upper hand in the overall battle, those Democrats now are making their long-awaited “counteroffer.”

These worthies now are demanding more than that Republicans merely accept an end to the sequester that has cut government spending for two years in a row, if trivially.  In return for being allowed a vote on a budget bill that the Democrats in the Senate will agree, Democrats are demanding that Republicans walk away from their core reason for being: reducing Federal spending.  Senate Democrats are floating a bill that includes outright spending increases.

Republicans already have surrendered on Obamacare, now being reduced to begging for Democrats’ table scraps in the form of token delays in tiny parts of it.  If the Republicans roll on this Democrat demand that Republicans increase Federal spending, that Republicans publicly beg for complete surrender, it’ll be the end of the Republican Party.

And rightfully so.

An Evil Banker Steps In

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At a meeting of the Institute of International Finance on Saturday, Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase & Co CEO, said…his bank would fund the $6 billion to $8 billion in [Social Security payments] that the bank processes each week for its clients, even if the government doesn’t actually pay those obligations.
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“Instead of the government putting it in, we are.  We’ll let them overdraft for it and won’t charge them for it, and then hopefully the government will give us the funds back[.]”

Just like a predecessor Evil (JPM) Banker did 100 years ago, during the Panic of 1907.

The Mendacity of Obamacare

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The Federal government, speaking through HHS officials directly responsible for managing Obamacare, is laying off the first two weeks’…glitches…to unexpectedly high initial use attempts.  They’re claiming the delays and problems are the result of nine million visitors as of last Friday (4 October at the time they were talking).  This compares with the two million users who tried HealthCare.gov through last Sunday (6 Oct) according to an estimate by comScore.

HHS says the high rate of initial use was “unexpected.”  Never mind that the Feds have been pushing the magical wonderfulness of Obamacare for three years and that there are 40 million (or 30 million, or…) Americans who don’t have health insurance and desperately need and want it.

ComScore also estimates that about 125,000 of those two million made it to the end of the account creation process, but they had no idea of how many of that small number actually bought a health insurance policy.  This compares with HHS’ outright refusal (as recently as today) to say how many have actually bought health insurance through HealthCare.gov.

And there’s this gem:

Federal officials had debated internally whether to allow users to view plans without applying, according to people familiar with the process.

An HHS spokeswoman said the agency wanted to ensure that users were aware of their eligibility for subsidies that could help pay for coverage, before they started seeing the prices of policies.

Hmm….