Grasping at straws

Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review

"Substandard Plans" Offered by "Bad Apple Insurers"––Does the Obama Administration Understand How the Health Insurance Market Works?

What a silly question. Of course they don't. They don't like or understand markets of any kind.

See the link above for a table showing the number of health insurance mandates, by state, and the most and least popular mandates.  For example, mammography screening is mandated by all 50 states, and so it maternity minimum stay.  Breast reconstruction is mandated in 49 states, mental health parity in 48. The state with the fewest mandates is Idaho with 13. The average for all states is 45. Virginia has 70, Texas 62.

Obama and his supporters are trying to argue that 73 million people are losing their existing health insurance because what they have is "substandard." The idea that we have a substandard insurance market that pumps out junk policies is preposterous.

Byron

Death Panels

ObamaCare has prompted much discussion about how to handle end-of-life issues, especially the financial ones.

One complication is that both taxpayers/government and family heirs have a similar objective interest in having Uncle Fritz dispatched before the medical establishment can empty his estate.

One clever commenter finds the solution in Roe v. Wade:

"Sorry, Grandma, but you are in your 228th trimester and this is all about choice."

: )

Byron

Precisely

Ed Morrissey (Hotair.com) on the ObamaCare website debacle:

This is what happens when government takes over what should be private-sector tasks.  No private-sector organization would have tolerated a $634 million web-portal project in the first place, nor would it have tolerated a three-and-a-half year rollout.  A firm competing in the private sector would have tested its software before release to make sure it at least FUNCTIONED, well enough to sell the product if nothing else.
Every step of the path for this exchange, including its price tag, reminds us why we don’t want government eclipsing the private sector, if on no other basis than rational use of resources.

That, along with a host of other very good reasons, including a corrosive concentration of political/economic power, and the subversion and defeat of democracy that inevitably follows.

How many times do we have to re-learn the same lesson?  Vast inefficiency/waste and political oppression are two sides of the same miserable coin of Government Control.  Better currency is the opposite: Only as much government as is necessary to maintain individual liberty and orderly markets.  Of course, reality is always far too complex to match either theoretical model, and that's no doubt a good thing.  But we ought to know enough about history and economics to have no doubt about which pole we should lean toward.

Byron

Thugocracy

All your base are belong to us...

Report: Armed rangers forced senior-citizen tourists to stay inside their hotel during Yellowstone visit because of shutdown

Keep it up, GovThugs.  Give all your subjects a nice big helping of arbitrary Government, right in the face.

The classical definition of the State is the entity that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

Legitimate force, in turn, is force exercised with the consent and approval of the public -- those over whom it is wielded.

When the use of force by State Power becomes arbitrary, Government loses that consent and approval, and undermines its own legitimacy.

An old curse says, "May you live in interesting times."  History shows that when Government loses legitimacy, the consequences are interesting, to say the least.

Byron

Sham panic

Moody's isn't buying the hype:

Moody’s dismisses default talk, says US will pay bills even if debt ceiling not lifted

But things definitely are not OK.

The current debt ceiling is $16.4 TRILLION. That's a literally unimaginable amount of money, a tsunami of debt rolling forward to crush younger generations.

But it's not enough for Obama, who wants to spend even more, and petulantly demands what will be another trillion-dollar increase in debt.  That seems to me either madness or malevolence, and it hardly matter which.

Instead of increasing the debt ceiling, here's an alternative idea:

STOP THE SPENDING!

Byron

The people own NOTHING

EVERYTHING belongs to GOVERNMENT:


Police prevent drivers from pulling over and viewing Mt. Rushmore. 

In an open highway viewing area.


Government thugs are doing the same thing in Grand Canyon, and all around the country.

I think this is what's known as a "clarifying moment."  It certainly should be.

Byron

Shameful

How low can you go?

Commander-in-Chief < gag > Obysmal throws a tantrum



WWII VETS THREATENED WITH ARREST

REPORT: WH REJECTED WWII VET REQUEST...

BARRYCADES: Park Service workers erect fences...

Vets 'plan to storm Lincoln memorial'...

Closed 'except for 1st Amendment activities'...