IT’S POTEMKIN VILLAGES ALL THE WAY DOWN: “The Potemkin village of a CEO meeting — it was really just a photo op — was a Potemkin village for a sales pitch to hide a Potemkin village of a website.”
Archive for 2013
December 19, 2013
MEGAN MCARDLE: More Obamacare Delays. Surprised?
Last week, the Barack Obama administration asked health insurers to allow “retroactive payment” for policies that begin Jan. 1. The move was widely seen as a response to the problems the exchanges have been having. With millions of current policies being canceled, the administration understandably wants to minimize the possibility that people will be left uninsured because of a paperwork error.
This week, Reuters reported that insurers are a little worried about the possibility that people will game the system: have a bad emergency room visit on Jan. 3, pay for their insurance Jan. 4. Unsurprisingly, I’ve seen this popping up here and there in the conservative media world. Is this yet another unfolding Obamacare disaster?
Related: Is Obamacare Really an Improvement on the Status Quo?
“So far, at least 4.8 million Americans have received insurance cancellations notices, but Laszewski predicts that the total Obamacare enrollment will be less than half that number on January 1.
“‘My guess is that we’ll have somewhere around a million and a half people signed up for Obamacare on January 1 in the states and in healthcare.gov,’ he says. The big question then, he adds, is ‘why have we gone through this whole dislocation of the American health insurance system if only a million and a half to two million buy health insurance?'”
Maybe we’ll make up some of the gap with Medicaid. But at the current pace of enrollment, it would be a big hurdle to make up all the losses. Which means that we may well start the year with fewer people insured than we had in January 2013. There’s reason to think that that may be what the administration is seeing in the latest enrollment numbers.
One of the major defenses being offered for Obamacare — botched rollout and all — is that the status quo was so awful. Obamacare may have its issues, but at least it’s not the bad old days.
The problem with reformers is rarely that they’re wrong about the status quo; there are a lot of awful things in the world that could use fixing, and the reformers have usually correctly identified at least a few of them. The problem with radical reformers is that they tend to forget that things can get worse, as well as better.
If I’d sketched out the current scenario last summer — computer systems don’t work for months, millions lose insurance, and by the beginning of December, only 1.2 million people have picked up coverage from the exchanges and Medicare combined — the law’s supporters would have rolled their eyes and shaken their heads at the wishful thinking of the law’s critics. And now they generally assume that it will of course get better — that by March 31, if not sooner, we will see a measurable and substantial reduction in the number of uninsured.
But while that’s certainly very possible, it doesn’t exactly seem inevitable.
Based on experience to date, it doesn’t even seem especially likely. Then, of course, there’s the problem of whether people who are “covered” will be able to actually see doctors. . . .
PEELING THE ONION OF FAIL: Medical Experts Tell Congress about the Obamacare ‘Damage’ to Come. “One neurologist said that in return for ordering necessary scans, ‘CMS and insurance companies are going to post negative grades in my name.'”
WHEN CANADA WAS a major military power.
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INSTAVISION: I talk with Mickey Kaus about the state of ObamaCare. And deliver an uncharacteristically Mark Levin-like rant about right-wing legal outfits. Plus, what Republicans can learn from Mike Bloomberg’s failures.
THE INSTA-WIFE WILL BE ON THE RADIO at 9 a.m. Eastern, talking about her book, Men On Strike. You can listen live here. And the call-in number is (800) 951-8255.
ED KRAYEWSKI: Angela Merkel’s comparison of NSA to Stasi is unfair — to the Stasi. “Merkel may have been born and raised in East Germany, but former Stasi officials themselves say it would’ve been a dream come true to collect the amount of data on citizens that the NSA does. Where the information collected by the Stasi would fill an estimated 48,000 filing cabinets, were the information the NSA Collects printed out it would take an estimated 42 trillion filing cabinets to store. . . . President Obama may make a lot of media appearances, but he manages to avoid being confronted by uncomfortable truths, largely by manipulating a friendly press and cultivating friendly opinion-makers. Have you seen the president take a tough question on the revelations about the NSA’s spying activities? Apparently he was outraged as you were when he read it in the papers. Nevertheless, Obama has been getting an earful on the NSA in private.”
Some wonder if the NSA gave him tips on Mitt Romney’s campaign. We don’t know, but in a world full of spies and lies, it’s natural to have such doubts. President Asterisk, indeed.
CATHY REISENWITZ ON THE REALITY OF “DARK MONEY:”
The left’s preferred narrative is simple, easy-to-understand and has a ring of truth. It goes like this: Regulation helps consumers but hurts business’ profitability. Individuals give money to big-government organizations to promote regulation. Corporations donate to small-government organizations like Americans for Prosperity, the American Enterprise Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute to fight regulation.
But the fact that corporations also fund big-government organizations raises questions about this narrative. If regulation hurts corporations, why are they funding think tanks which promote it?
The truth is that most regulation is written by and for incumbent businesses to erect barriers to entry and to buy advantages over their competitors. That’s why corporations fund groups like the Center for American Progress.
Earlier this year, Center for American Progress donor Citibank hired lobbyists to literally write 70 out of 85 lines of a bill regulating derivatives trading which passed the House. If this regulation was meant to hurt Citibank’s profitability while defending their customers it’s unlikely to have done so.
There are three main reasons corporations like Citibank write their own legislation. First, lawmakers feel pressure from constituents to regulate industries about which their staffs know nothing; corporate lobbyists and lawyers provide much-needed information. Second, it’s much easier and faster for a company to understand and comply with a regulation it wrote. Third, and most important, companies write regulation that is easier and cheaper to comply for them than for their competitors.
And outfits like the Podesta-linked Center for American Progress are there to help. All in service of the .0001 percent. To the pitchforks!
GOOD LUCK WITH THAT: Roll Call: Reid Wants 8 More Years as Senate Leader.
Reid is up for re-election in 2016 and has repeatedly said he intends to run again. He reiterated that intention again on Wednesday and indicated he’s looking at serving another full term running the Senate, if Democrats hold onto the majority the entire time. If he and Democrats are able to hold onto power that long, Reid would be the leader for 16 years, matching the current record set by the legendary Montana Democrat Mike Mansfield.
Reid dismissed the idea he was particularly looking to the Mansfield record as a marker, however. Reid celebrated his 74th birthday earlier this month, meaning he would be into his 80s by the time his next term would end at the beginning of 2023.
As long as he remains leader, Reid said he would not rule out more changes to Senate rules and precedents as a way to impose further limits on debate and filibusters. Just last month, Reid used the “nuclear option” to eliminate filibusters on most nominations.
He didn’t sound eager to make more changes in the immediate future, however.
I think memories of Reid’s tenure will be more “cautionary” than “legendary.”
HE’S A SMOOTH OPERATOR: Podesta apologizes for Jonestown crack.
John Podesta, the former Clinton chief of staff who was recently named a special adviser to President Obama, apologized Wednesday for comparing the Republican Party to the cult at Jonestown in an interview earlier this year.
Hmm. Is it the GOP who’s suicidally following a cult-like figure? . . . .
LIFE IS FAT IN CAPITAL CITY: K Street mints money from regs surge. “Lobbyists are minting money from the surge in government regulations. Top K Street officials say their regulatory work has accelerated in recent years thanks to the sprawling rule-making from the healthcare and financial reform laws.”
Who could have seen this coming? I thought Obama was going to put an end to this sort of thing. . . .
I’M NOT SO SURE ABOUT THAT: Andy McCarthy: Judge’s Decision Striking NSA Program Will Not Stand.
GALLUP POLL: Record High Percentage Of Americans Who Say Big Government Is The Greatest Threat To The U.S.
Oddly enough, the millions started seeing big government as a big threat in 2009. Note the right end of the graph.
Change.
DESPERATION: Obamas Pitch Moms On ObamaCare.
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why does China’s Moon Rover exhibit show a nuclear mushroom cloud over Europe? “While it’s probably just an embarrassing error, it’s still an unsettling image given the Chinese government’s recent statements concerning plans to build a missile base on the Moon.”
People need to be paying attention.
December 18, 2013
CAPITALISM WILL SELL YOU THE ROPE YOU USE TO HANG YOURSELF: Wal-Mart is selling an Occupy Wall Street poster.
PEELING THE ONION OF FAIL (CONT’D): ObamaCare May Devastate the Real Estate and Travel Industries. “Americans are among the most mobile people on earth, but ObamaCare may soon start freezing them in place. Millions are losing their health insurance policies and being forced onto the ObamaCare exchanges, where most plans only provide local medical coverage.”
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NEW DOCUMENTARY THREATENS TO MAKE YOU LIKE MITT ROMNEY. Well, Obama’s doing that every day on his own. But Romney was always a better man than Obama — he’s quite possibly the best human being to run for the White House in quite a few election cycles — but he was a worse candidate, and that’s what determines elections. The voters decided what they wanted, and now they’re getting it good and hard. Unsurprisingly Romney looks better.
IT’S NOT LIKE CALIFORNIA’S GOING BROKE OR ANYTHING: The LAPD’s Six Million Dollar Motorcycle Cops.
REPORT: CNN Courting Jay Leno.