Monthly Archives: November 2013

An Implication of Obamacare

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…that’s little talked about.  It follows, though, Obamacare’s segmentation of “insurance” coverage into high-payers—the young, who are poor—and the low-payers—the elderly, who are well established—and into metal groups differentiated solely by what per centage of costs will be covered after deductibles have been consumed for the year.

The implication is this, a buried one-liner in a Wall Street Journal article:

…the health law bars insurers from taking medical history into account when setting prices.

Imagine that.  Underwriters, when designing an “insurance” policy intended to transfer health-related risk, aren’t allowed to incorporate questions of health into their risk assessments.

Hmm….

Democrats are Terrified of Democracy

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Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) destroyed the Senate filibuster.  Breaking Senate Rules to do so (it takes a two-thirds majority to change the rules), the Senate Democrats voted to eliminate the filibuster for Executive Branch and non-Supreme Court judicial nominees.  The rule these Democrats violated?  Rule XXII, which says in pertinent part [emphasis added]

…if that question [to suspend debate] shall be decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn — except on a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules, in which case the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the Senators present and voting — then said measure, motion, or other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished business, shall be the unfinished business to the exclusion of all other business until disposed of.

Of course, this is just the first step.  These Democrats now will move quickly to the despotism of one-party rule.

Reid’s rationale?  The Republicans had “unprecedentedly” filibustered President Barack Obama’s appellate court nominees.

Never mind that it was Reid’s Party of Jim Crow that invented the process and label of Borking judicial nominees with their shameful assault on the character of Judge Robert Bork when President Ronald Reagan nominated him to the Supreme Court.  Not satisfied with simply blocking his confirmation, this Party chose to smear his character.

Recall, further, that this Party of Jim Crow also attempted, not merely to block confirmation, but to destroy with blatantly racist smears President George Bush the Elder’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas, an American of black heritage.

These Democrats, with this vote, have said to the minority party, “You refused repeatedly to do what your Betters instructed you to do; you kept objecting.  Now we’ve cut out your voice.  Sit down, and shut up.”

Remember this in the upcoming primaries and the fall election cycle.

Another Failed Government Farm Policy

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The US government is being forced to support sugar companies even though taxpayers are already footing a $280 million bill stemming from loans the companies can’t repay.

The loans are all part of the Feds’ farm policy of propping up sugar prices.  So 300 million American sugar consumers can pay artificially high prices to benefit a few sugar farmers.

All told, Alexandra Wexler wrote in her Wall Street Journal article at the above link,

processors defaulted on $171.5 million in 2013, even after the USDA spent $106.7 million buying sugar to boost prices.

Wexler quite properly decries the matter, but she lays it off to a government problem.  No.  This failure, and these bankruptcies, in fact aren’t costing the US government anything, and the US government isn’t at all being “forced to support sugar companies.”  This failure is costing American citizens—us taxpayers—those of us who fund the government—all this money.  This failure is a part of we American citizens’ being “forced to support sugar companies.”

Wealth Redistribution, Industrial Style

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…additionally, with industry as helpless victim, a taxpayer bailout.  It’s an Obama two-fer: spreading the money around and bailing out an industry.

Built in to Obamacare, it turns out, is another form of wealth redistribution.  In order to guarantee every insurance company a profit (as opposed to, more properly, engendering an economic environment within which every insurance company has an opportunity for a profit), Obamacare has embedded in it something called a “risk corridor.”  Here’s Power Line‘s description of what this corridor is:

The risk corridor program, by its design, is basically a risk sharing program among insurance companies, administered by the government.  Companies that make out better than expected provide funds for companies that make out worse.

Wealth redistribution on an industrial scale.  But wait—there’s more:

If essentially all insurance companies make out much worse than expected, as may well be the case, the risk corridor concept won’t work as intended.  It will work only if reinvented to force taxpayers to subsidize the industry.

The Obama bailout.