Tag Archives: responsibilities

Jeff Flake Misunderstands

Posted on by
Reply

Senator Jeff Flake (R, AZ) thinks the Republican Party should have put the kibosh on then-citizen Donald Trump’s birtherism regarding then-candidate and later then-President Barack Obama, and he’s right about that.  The birtherism bit was just a bit of trolling and head gamesmanship, but it spread and became a distraction for Republicans.

But on the matter of Hillary Clinton and Trump-supported and occasionally -led chants of “lock her up,” Flake misunderstands.

We shouldn’t be the party for jailing your political opponents[.]

It’s true that the Republican Party shouldn’t be that party.  However, the Republican Party should be the party of law enforcement and of putting criminals in jail or otherwise holding them to account and sanctioning them for their criminal behavior.  The political status of a criminal should not make that criminal immune to jail or other sanction for her criminal behavior.

That’s a fine line to draw, but it is drawable, and it should be drawn.  Juries are fully capable of drawing that line, and politicians should be, too.

Collapsing Obamacare

Posted on by
Reply

These data are from the Kaiser Family Foundation.  There was such hope by the health care coverage providers at the start; then the realities of the “market” place hit, and hit hard.  Following the early expansion of coverage providers into ObamaMart, the drop-off in companies between 2016 and 2017, and the resulting collapse of choice—in too many counties, even of any availability at all—is stark.  It’s expected to get worse in 2018 and 2019, too.

The State-by-State drop off is presented in the table below, constructed from KFF‘s table at the link.  The average drop-off across all States is nearly 23%.

Obamacare must be eliminated, and a free market set of parameters that would facilitate actual health insurance must be set in place.  Republicans need to get on the stick, and promptly.

Location Number of Issuers in 2014 Number of Issuers in 2015 Number of Issuers in 2016 Number of Issuers in 2017 Per Cent Drop-off
Alabama 2 3 3 1 66.7%
Alaska 2 2 2 1 50.0%
Arizona 8 11 8 2 75.0%
Arkansas 3 3 4 3 25.0%
California 11 10 12 11 8.3%
Colorado 10 10 8 7 12.5%
Connecticut 3 4 4 2 50.0%
Delaware 2 2 2 2 0.0%
District of Columbia 3 3 2 2 0.0%
Florida 8 10 7 5 28.6%
Georgia 5 9 8 5 37.5%
Hawaii 2 2 2 2 0.0%
Idaho 4 5 5 5 0.0%
Illinois 5 8 7 5 28.6%
Indiana 4 8 7 4 42.9%
Iowa 4 4 4 4 0.0%
Kansas 3 3 3 3 0.0%
Kentucky 3 5 7 3 57.1%
Louisiana 4 5 4 3 25.0%
Maine 2 3 3 3 0.0%
Maryland 4 5 5 3 40.0%
Massachusetts 10 10 10 9 10.0%
Michigan 9 13 11 9 18.2%
Minnesota 5 4 4 4 0.0%
Mississippi 2 3 3 2 33.3%
Missouri 3 6 6 4 33.3%
Montana 3 4 3 3 0.0%
Nebraska 4 4 4 2 50.0%
Nevada 4 5 3 3 0.0%
New Hampshire 1 5 5 4 20.0%
New Jersey 3 5 5 2 60.0%
New Mexico 4 5 4 4 0.0%
New York 16 16 15 14 6.7%
North Carolina 2 3 3 2 33.3%
North Dakota 3 3 3 3 0.0%
Ohio 12 15 14 10 28.6%
Oklahoma 4 4 2 1 50.0%
Oregon 11 10 10 6 40.0%
Pennsylvania 7 8 7 5 28.6%
Rhode Island 2 3 3 2 33.3%
South Carolina 3 4 3 1 66.7%
South Dakota 3 3 2 2 0.0%
Tennessee 4 5 4 3 25.0%
Texas 11 14 16 10 37.5%
Utah 6 6 4 3 25.0%
Vermont 2 2 2 2 0.0%
Virginia 5 6 7 8 -14.3%
Washington 7 9 8 6 25.0%
West Virginia 1 1 2 2 0.0%
Wisconsin 13 15 16 15 6.3%
Wyoming 2 2 1 1 0.0%

Rule of Law

Posted on by
1

The DC Circuit Court stacked by President Barack Obama (D) seems to be iffy on the thing.  In an appeal concerning whether the monies the Federal government pays to health care plan providers as subsidies so the plan providers will hold down premiums and deductibles can actually be paid—the funds never were appropriated by Congress, so the payments aren’t legitimate, ruled the trial court—the Circuit Court ruled in part:

The States have shown a substantial risk that an injunction requiring termination of the payments at issue here…would lead directly and imminently to an increase in insurance prices, which in turn will increase the number of uninsured individuals for whom the States will have to provide health care[.]

That may well be true, and if true, it would be unfortunate.

However.

The law is clear: monies not actually appropriated by Congress cannot be spent by the Federal government—the money, in a very real legal sense, does not exist.  It’s also illegal to take funds from other, actually extant, appropriations to spend on non-appropriated-for activities.

The decisions whether to appropriate, and then to spend, are solely political decisions, and judges cannot—may not under our Constitution—decide in any way other than what the law actually says; in particular, they don’t get to rule in accordance with what they wish the law to say.  Doing the latter is nothing other than judge-made law.

In this case, the appellate court plainly has chosen rule by men—via judge-made law, here—over rule of law.

What’s in a Name?

Posted on by
Reply

Quite a lot, actually, and the Left has this right—even if they’re on the wrong side of the naming question.  DoJ has begun referring to those who’ve entered the US illegally as “illegal aliens,” and the Left has gotten its collective panties in a twist over it.

Here’s Chicago Tribune journalist Todd Slowik:

The phrase “illegal alien” plays into assumptions that immigrants living in this country without proper documentation are criminals[.]

Without proper documentation: in other words, in the US illegally.  Which is a crime, which makes these folks criminals.  Now, I’m one of those squishes who thinks illegal aliens whose only crime is entering illegally, and who since have been solid, contributing members of their community, should be offered a path to make good on their (really quite minor—on the order of a traffic violation) crime and then a path to legal permanent residency and eventual citizenship.  Illegal aliens who aren’t contributing members or who commit additional crimes ought to be tried for those additional crimes, and for the illegal entry now that that has become a problem; if convicted, jailed; and at the end of their sentence, deported with no option for reentry.

Hiding behind euphemisms—undocumented, unauthorized, migrants—just hides the damage illegal aliens who commit additional crimes do.  Just ask the two women who were raped in Portland, OR, because the city’s councilmen considered the PC rights of a multiply-deported illegal alien were more important than the right to security of those two women.  Just ask Kate Steinle.  Oh, wait.   Just ask the victims of MS-13 barbarians.  Oh.  Keep waiting.

As a side note, Fox News insider has it wrong, too, as they demonstrate in the opening sentence of their piece:

The Justice Department began calling illegal immigrants “illegal aliens….”

Illegal aliens aren’t immigrants, either.  Immigrants are in our nation legally.

A Bit More on Health Care Coverage

Posted on by
Reply

Senator Susan Collins (R, ME) is worried about health care plan availability to our poor, which she thinks would be endangered were President Donald Trump to act on his thoughts regarding cutting off the funds the Feds pay to health coverage plan providers to get them to charge (artificially) lower deductibles and copays from the poor.

It really would be detrimental to some of the most vulnerable citizens if those payments were cut off. They’re paid to the insurance companies, but the people that they benefit are people who make between 100% and 250% of the poverty rate.

Couple things about this. One is that folks making more than the poverty rate…aren’t poverty-stricken.

The other is that, if the money really is intended to help folks pay for health care coverage plans, the money should go directly to those folks and not to the insurance companies. That way there would be no loss to internal friction in the middlemen of health care plan providers—a friction loss extant even in the most honest and well-intended of providers.

And one more: these aren’t insurance companies selling insurance policies.  It isn’t insurance when risks are transferred by Government fiat and at fees that bear no relation to the risks being transferred.

Collins knows these things full well.