Tag Archives: morality

Some More on Obamacare

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…which Democrats want to shut down the government rather than negotiate about.

“Do you have a large deductible?” asks [former Congressional Budget Office Director Doug] Holtz-Eakin.  “How much do you have to pay before the insurance starts picking up the cost?”

Analysts expect deductibles to be in the $5,000 to $6,000 range for the lowest level of [Obamacare] coverage, the Bronze Plan.

Dan Mendelson, CEO and founder at Avalere Health in Washington,says, “So, if you’re in a Bronze Plan, the premiums are going to be relatively low, you know, as HHS said, in some cases people won’t pay premiums at all.

“But there are going to be very high out of pocket costs and deductibles in some cases are going to be over $5,500.”

And that $5,500 is, amortized, an additional $460/mo in potential medical expenses that have to be paid by the “insurance” policy holder before the policy itself pays a dime.  Co-pays are on top of that.

Look again at that deductible.  In order to be eligible for an HSA, a man had to buy a “high-deductible” insurance policy.  A policy with an annual deductible of $3,000 or more.  Hmm….

Current policies, which rapidly are becoming unavailable, were not that expensive.

Government Shutdown

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The Democrats are demanding one at the top of their lungs.  The House passed a bill that funds the government for the next few months; delays Obamacare for a year; removes Obamacare’s medical device tax that’s already costing jobs; and guarantees our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines get paid in the event of a government shutdown.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, UT) says, “No.”

To be absolutely clear, the Senate will reject both the one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act and the repeal of the medical device tax[.]

And

…the White House vowed President Obama would veto the plan….

What we have here, then, is the Democratic Party preferring to shut down the government—rejecting a bill that funds it.  We have the spectacle of the Democratic Party rejecting a bill that pays our military—the very men and women who defend with their lives, in Secretary John Kerry’s words, these Democrats’ right to be stupid.  We have the…foolishness…of the Democratic Party rejecting a bill that provides for the rescission of a job-killing tax.

Why? Because the bill also delays Obamacare for a year—after President Barack Obama, by diktat, already has delayed major parts of it, such as the Employer Mandate, for that same year.

How dishonest is this?  How destructive of our economy is this?  All for the sake of two egos.

Obama said last week that one shouldn’t “threaten to burn the house down simply because you haven’t gotten your way.”  Yet here he is doing exactly that.  He and Reid need to figure out how to yes to the 99% they’re getting in this bill instead of demanding to shut down the government over his precious 1%.

European Central Budget Authority?

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The IMF wants a central budget authority for the European Union: it wants the member nations of the EU to subordinate their sovereign budgetary duties to the demands of a “higher authority.”  However, it wants that without the federalism that must accompany such a subordination.

Worse, the IMF claims—they’re serious about this, mind you—that everything would be all right.  In answer to objections of nations like Germany, who wish to preserve their budgets and their sovereignty from the persistent demands of economically weaker nations, the IMF insists that such “risk sharing”

means that, at any point in time, countries experiencing better cyclical conditions support those at the other end of the spectrum; it does not mean the same country is always on the giving or receiving end[.]

Except, of course, that it means exactly that.  The nations rimming the Mediterranean, for instance, have entirely different concepts of the role of government in men’s lives and even of the purpose of money than have, for instance, the nations of central Europe—Germany, e.g., and Poland, whose concepts are different yet from those of England (not a member of the euro zone, to their benefit) or France (who is a member).  The risk transferors always will be the same, and those forced to accept the risk under the IMF’s scheme, also always will be the same.

The IMF says further:

A full-fledged budget at the euro-area level would allow for risk sharing both through revenues…and through spending.

Sound economies would be required, under the IMF’s scheme, to take on the risk the profligate economies are inflicting.

Unfortunately, the differences in fundamental principles make federalism across Europe a pipe dream.  The impossibility of federalism means a central budget authority can only be a disaster for the perennially stronger economies, while doing nothing at all to help the weaker.

It isn’t necessary to go any farther than that, except to note an example of the IMF’s breathtaking…naiveté.  They propose, for instance,

a “rainy day” fund that would distribute money to countries experiencing economic shocks.  The IMF says that annual contributions of 1.5%-2.5% of the euro zone’s gross national product would have been sufficient to provide…shock absorbers….

A built-in, automatic bailout fund.  No need for economic discipline by a government here.  There are other hare-brained schemes in the IMF’s…suggestions…but they’re all variations on this idea of automatic bailouts for the needy countries.

Obligations

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Under the smoke screen of the upcoming national debt ceiling…discussions…President Barack Obama had this about negotiating with the Russians Iranians Republicans:

We will not negotiate over whether or not America should keep its word and meet its obligations.

You mean like red lines (Syria)?  Or, support for our allies (Israel and forced concessions; Poland and the Czech Republic and missile defense systems)?  Support for freedom lovers (Syria, Libya, Iran’s Green Revolutionaries)?  Support for foreign nationals who’ve sacrificed on our behalf (Dr Shakil Afridi, Janis Shinwary)?

The Wages of Trust

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…or its lack.  Readers of this blog—all half-dozen of you—are well aware that I favor immigration reform (and of a broad, generous variety, but that’s neither here nor there in this post).

There is a serious immigration reform move in the House and Senate, or was until recently.  Congressmen Sam Johnson and John Carter (both R, TX) have walked away from the House’s Gang of … which was working a House version of comprehensive immigration reform.  Their reasons are telling, and they present the difficulty of achieving serious reform at any time in the near, or middle, future:

After years of hard work and countless meetings, we have reached a tipping point and can no longer continue working on a broad approach to immigration.  We want to be clear.  The problem is politics.  Instead of doing what’s right for America, President Obama time and again has unilaterally disregarded the US Constitution, the letter of the law and bypassed the Congress—the body most representative of the people—in order to advance his political agenda.  We will not tolerate it.  Laws passed by Congress are not merely suggestions, regardless of the current atmosphere in Washington.  Laws are to be respected and followed by all—particularly by the Commander-in-Chief.
…
If past actions are the best indicators of future behavior; we know that any measure depending on the president’s enforcement will not be faithfully executed.  It would be gravely irresponsible to further empower this administration by granting them additional authority or discretion with a new immigration system.  The bottom line is—the American people do not trust the president to enforce laws, and we don’t either.

And there’s the rub.  This president cannot be trusted.  Worse, though, Obama’s mendacity has reached the point that he’s badly stained the reputation of the office.  It will be difficult to pass any comprehensive immigration reform that depends on a President’s execution of it—indeed, this will be true of any serious legislation, since any law enacted depends on a President doing his Constitutional duty to enforce that law.