Monthly Archives: June 2015

Health Care Subsidies

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President Barack Obama sent his HHS Secretary, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, to Congress to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee about, among other things, his plans should the Supreme Court rule against Federal subsidies for those who bought health plans through ObamaMart and not through state exchanges as Obama’s ACA requires. He said, through her,

If the court says that we do not have the authority to give subsidies, the critical decisions will sit with the Congress and states and governors to determine if those subsidies are available[.]

This is openly cynical. “If the court says…” the subsidies are not available, they’re not available. Full stop.

The Governors and states made their own critical decisions clear five years ago when, in full view of the ACA’s statement that Federal subsidies are available only through state exchanges, they carefully and with forethought declined to create state exchanges.

The Congress made its own critical decision all those years ago when it wrote the law that said Federal subsidies would not be available except through state exchanges.

Of course the better policy wonk than his policy wonks knows this, and he knew it when he sent Burwell up there to spout that nonsense. The only way the Court can upend those critical decisions will be through a twisted interpretation of the text of the law that leads them to uphold the Federal subsidies.

Hmm….

The SEC and its In-House Judges

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I wrote about this a bit ago; here’s a follow-up via a related case.

A federal judge ruled Monday that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s use of an in-house judge to preside over an insider-trading case was “likely unconstitutional,” a potential blow to the agency’s controversial use of its internal tribunal.

This is another case concerning the SEC’s practice of stacking cases it brings against alleged miscreants by using its own judges to decide the matter.

American Security

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Thinks about the Obama administration’s current, and ongoing, failure regarding the Office of Personnel Management. After having “lost” the background check data it had “stored” in its computer facility last fall, the Inspector General of OPM said that

parts of its network should be shut down because they were riddled with weaknesses that “could potentially have national security implications.”

OPM didn’t bother. Now we learn that People’s Republic of China hackers (should we start calling them invaders?) entered OPM’s computer network and stole the personal data of all 2+ million Federal employees and the personal data of a skosh under an addition 2 million past Federal employees. As The Wall Street Journal put it,

[T]his isn’t a James Bond movie. It’s a Dilbert cartoon.

The WSJ goes on to say that the Federal bureaucracy can’t protect its data. I say, given the long-term duration of these hacks, including those by Russian and Iranian hacks and that IG recommendation, it’s not a matter “can’t.” The Feds refuse to try.

Are these hacks or an ongoing invasion?

The episode is one more confirmation that China is waging an unrelenting if unacknowledged cyber war against the United States.

Does Obama care at all about the security of the United States or of individual Americans?

Another Reason

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…for Greece to leave the European Union. This time it’s the arrogance of the eurozone honchos.

Greece offered a proposal intended to break the current impasse over its debts and the payments due this month. Whether it was a good proposal or a bad one is beside the point as far as those eurozone honchoes are concerned. Greece’s proposal has these alleged problems:

Greece’s proposal includes targets for its primary surplus—the excess of revenues over expenditures before interest payments are made—that are lower than the targets presented to Greece in a deal struck between the commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, the three institutions representing Greece’s creditors [the so-called troika].

Here’s a carefully anonymous EU “official” on the situation:

That’s non-negotiable. The institutions have reached an agreement on fiscal targets.
What’s been submitted is not a basis for further political discussion[.]

We’ve decided the matter internally. You, Greece, have nothing to say on it.

Since Greece is to be treated as an unwanted stepchild whose own views are beneath notice, Greece should accept the unwanted part and depart from the EU and from the eurozone.

Partition

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Has President Barack Obama acquiesced in the partition of Ukraine?

At the G-7 meeting last Sunday, Obama appears to have written off the concept of restoring occupied Crimea to Ukraine.

[Obama’s Press Secretary Josh] Earnest said whether to keep or impose additional economic sanctions against Russia will depend on whether the country decides to keep its end of the so-called Minsk agreement, updated after Moscow annexed Crimea last year, not whether it returns the peninsula.

With Earnest’s voice, Obama talked also about the need for the G-7 to

show unity in confronting Russia over actions in Ukraine.

Meaning Obama wants everyone to stand together and in unison shake their fingers very firmly at Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Will Obama acquiesce to the further partition of Ukraine and allow Russia to keep the eastern provinces currently occupied by Russian forces and paramilitary forces?