Love My Country, Loathe My Government: daily caller

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Sunday, September 10, 2017

September, 2017, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: All Kinds Of Insanity From Schumer, Hillary, and Wasserman-Schultz

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

1) Trump caused quite the ruffling of Democratic feathers recently when he said that he would give Congress six months to fix the so-called “Dreamer” problem as it related to illegal immigration. Basically, Obama unilaterally and illegally enacted legislation during his term which said that the Federal government would not deport illegal immigrants from this country if they illegally entered this country as children. The theory being that a child should not be made illegal because of an illegal action by their parents.

Trump put forth a very logical and fair policy. He would allow Congress six months to fix Obama’s illegal action and return the country to Constitutional and representative government where elected representatives represent the views of voters and the President does not rule by decree. No one would be deported in the six month window that Trump gave Congress to fix the problem legally.

But the Democrats were besides themselves and saw this as another opportunity to make Trump out to be pure evil. The leader of the opposition was Senator Chuck Schumer who seemed to be everywhere in the media decrying Trump’s heartless and evil action.

But according to Amber Athey, writing for the Daily Caller website on September 6, 2017, Mr. Schumer has a little/lot of hypocrisy going on:

Back in 2009, Schumer stated publicly that “Illegal immigration is wrong.”
He gave a speech back then at an immigration conference at Georgetown University and strongly argued against the concept of illegal immigration: “The American people are fundamentally pro-legal immigration and anti-illegal immigration.We will only pass comprehensive reform when we recognize this fundamental concept.”
He went on to say that, “First, illegal immigration is wrong and a primary goal of comprehensive immigration reform must be to dramatically curtail future illegal immigration.”

So when Trump proposes that Congress get its act together and pass comprehensive immigration reform, “as a fundamental concept,” and return Constitutional behavior to the country, Schumer goes off and calls him heartless even though he called for the exact same behavior 8 years ago. Insanity.

2) But Schumer was not the only hypocrite in the Democratic Party ranks. Hillary Clinton, a person who continues to stay around well past her over ripe date, also decried Trump’s actions. But given the beauty of historical video, we can see she was even more of a hypocrite than Schumer when it comes to “Dreamer” kids.

Amy Moreno of the Truth Feed News website on September 8, 2017 reported on how Hillary once said that “Dreamers” cannot stay in this country. And she was quite specific and blatant about it, saying that the country must send a “clear message - just because your child got across the border, doesn’t mean your child gets to stay.” This position is even more heartless than Trump’s. At least Trump gave a six month window to fix the problem, Hillary is saying basically, “get out.”

Her hypocrisy in her own words can be seen at:

http://truthfeednews.com/whoops-video-surfaces-of-hillary-telling-dreamers-they-cant-stay/

3) Let’s stay with Hillary insanity since, again, she refuses to go away. Phoenix Brooks, writing for the US Chronicle website recently reported that in a speech Hillary gave at the 84th annual Convention of Mayors, she argued that so-called “secret money” had to be removed out of the American electoral system: “I don’t say this as a Democrat, I say this as an American, I think we are really skating on thin ice. It’s getting to the point where we have no idea where the money is coming from. It’s not being disclosed, it could be foreign government money.”

While I completely agree with her concept, let’s be honest, Hillary is not the one to be talking about secret money or secret anything for that matter. This is a person who basically ran a crime syndicate while she was Secretary of State. She traded government favors for contributions to the Clinton Foundation which served as a front for her husband to make tens of millions of dollars giving half ass speeches to those organizations and countries that contributed to the Clinton Foundation charity.

This is a person whose foundation failed to report donations from foreign governments, funneling the donations through a Canadian front organization before moving it into this country, basically a form of money laundering.

This is a person who had a secret unsecured server in her house and then refused to turn over secret emails that passed through that illegal secret server.

This is a person who oversaw a charity, non-profit foundation that is currently under investigation for possibly violating laws that ban “foreign governments and corporations from donating to American politicians in an effort to influence them to provide political favors.”

Hillary is the last person in the world who should talk about the need to “restore confidence and trust” in the United States government, as Ms. Brooks points out: “The statement about the need to restore confidence and trust in the United States government may have been the most comical point that Clinton made during her speech. Clinton has become such an untrustworthy individual in American politics, that there has been no end to the memes dedicated to her lack of trustworthiness.” Insanity.

4) We have already covered some of the following insanity but it keeps on growing and getting worse. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has been entangled in a scandal where she allowed foreign nationals to operate her data systems requirements as a member of Congress. She also recommended her data systems people to other members of Congress and almost two dozen Congressional members took her up on her recommendation. These actions allowed foreign nationals to have access to emails, documents, and computers of many members of Congress.

Things eventually went south for Wasserman-Schultz and her data systems friends. People started leaving the country, suspicious money trails developed, and the head of the operations was arrested at the airport with plans to leave the country for Pakistan. He has since been indicted on four felony counts, mostly related to potentially illegal financial transactions.

When police went to his house, they found smashed hard discs from computers, raising even more suspicions. When Capitol police refused to turn over a laptop that belonged to Wasserman-Schultz’s office because it was part of a criminal investigation, Wasserman-Schultz came unhinged and actually threatened the chief of the Capitol police.

And now we have the latest twist in the scandal, as reported by the Twitchy website on September 7, 2017:

Apparently, Capitol police found that contested computer laptop from Wasserman-Schultz’s office stashed in a phone booth at 3:00 am in early April.
Attached to the laptop was a note from that top data systems guy, the one that we cited above who was arrested at the airport about to leave the country.
The police found the laptop in a tiny room that was once a phone booth in the Rayburn House Office Building.
Next to the laptop was a Pakistani id card, the driver’s license of Wasserman-Schultz’s head data systems guy, his Congressional ID badge, letters to the U.S Attorney General, and a notebook labeled “attorney-client privilege.”

As we stated above, we now know why Wasserman-Schultz was so anxious/desperate to get her hands on the laptop, going so far as to threaten the police chief. Looks like the data system guy was making sure that the truth came out since he was going to leave the country. Should be interesting to see what was actually in that letter, that notebook, and on that computer, more political class insanity and possibly criminal activity.

That will do it for today’s insanity: a desperate, scandal ridden Congresswoman, Hillary’s delusions and hypocrisy, and Schumer’s words come back to bite him. One more dose of insanity to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Thursday, December 22, 2016

December, 2016, Part 3, I Am A Global Warming Doubter and a Believer In Science: The Poles Are Not Melting , Solar Panels are Not Great and More

Every month we have enough material to return to a continuing theme in this blog, namely that “I am a global warming doubter AND a believer in science.” This became of interest because of people like Al Gore who fanatically and verbosely claimed that you had to be an idiot to not believe in manmade global warming. It has been my life belief that anyone that is that loud and that obnoxious is hiding something, that rather than argue facts and reality it is better to beat down and insult anyone who disagrees.

As we have dove into the whole issue of manmade global warming, or its new rebranded title of climate change, we found that Al Gore and people like him were guilty of a number of things:

Ignoring science and realities that did not support their opinions and positions.
Rather than have an adult conversation about climate, these types of advocates like Gore sank to the level of insulting those who dared look at ALL science by calling them a variety of names including racists, homophobes, terrorists, flat earth believers, and other slanderous names.
Continuing to insist that politicians step up their intrusions into our lives with higher taxes, more regulations, and more control of our freedoms and standards of living based on a shaky theory at best.

To see the past posts and the multitude of evidence that we have compiled that showed it is perfectly okay to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science, enter the phrase "global warming doubter” in the search box above or go through the monthly historical posts listed on the right side of this page.

Thus, let’s see the latest facts and science that prove you can be a global warming doubter and a believer in science, regardless of what Al Gore proclaims:

1) Two days ago we discussed the reality that the latest climate satellite data from NASA shows that if anything, the polar ice sheets could be as much as 5% larger than they were in 1979 when this data began being tracked. This, of course, is completely contrary to global warming theory that says 37 years worth of carbon being released into the atmosphere by mankind should have greatly reduced, if not melted, all of the polar ice caps.

As a followup to that discussion, Michael Bastasch, writing for the Daily Caller website on November 25, 2016, pointed out that:

The Antarctic ice sheet is a about the same size it was one hundred years ago.
That is the conclusion of researchers that have been reading and analyzing the accounts from a south pole expedition that was led by explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1917 and other early 20th century explorers.
Head researcher Jonathan Day and his team concluded that the current Antarctic sea ice “is just 14 per cent smaller than at the highest point of the 1900s and 12 per cent bigger than than the lowest point.”
This indicates that the Antarctic ice sheet has gone through cycles of shrinking and growing over the past 100 years despite mankind dumping an unknown amount of carbon into the atmosphere during that period.
Also, according to Day: “We know that sea ice in the Antarctic has increased slightly over the past 30 years, since satellite observations began. Scientists have been grappling to understand this trend in the context of global warming, but these new findings suggest it may not be anything new.”
The article goes on to point out that a 2015 NASA study showed that Antarctic’s ice sheet actually increased in mass from 1992 to 2008 during the height of the global warming hysteria.

While the shape of the ice sheet may have changed, i.e. there were ice gains in the east that offset ice losses in the west, in total global warming had not reduced the overall ice volume.

So, more evidence that humanity knows very little about how nature works, humanity is even worse at predicting how nature works, and real data analyzed by real scientists shows that manmade global warming, assuming it it is not a myth, may not be anywhere close being as bad as Al Gore types claim it be be.

2) An article on the Defund website on December 12, 2016 reviewed some interesting and surprising data relative to solar panels, the darlings of the global warming advocate crew:

A scientific study from Utrecht University, that was published in the science journal Nature, showed that on a long term basis, the use of solar panels actual has a bigger negative impact relative to global warming than a positive impact.
The study examined 40 years worth of data and concluded that while more modern versions of solar panels might eventually have a net reduction in carbon emissions, most solar panels actually do not stay in use long enough to attain that net positive impact.
The study looked at the entire solar panel production process, not just the endgame where only the clean solar energy that is generated is hyped by global warming advocates.
That process included the incremental energy and carbon expended for mining materials that eventually go into the production and transportation of the final solar panel products.
In a further hit against solar panels relative to global warming, the study estimated that while the annual carbon emissions in the U.S. have gone about 21% since 2007, only 1% of that decrease was because of the increased use of solar panels while 20% was a result of the country using more natural gas in place of coal, courtesy of fracking.

Another global warming myth busted: while solar panels are certainly a viable alternative energy source, they are not even close to being as clean or beneficial that global warming advocates might want to believe.

3) Michael Bastasch, writing for the Daily Caller News Foundation, reviewed how the Obama administration is spending billions of taxpayer dollars on global warming projects and programs. When reviewing the article highlights below, keep in mind that we have already discussed the reality that when Americans are asked to rank order the most important issues in their lives today, global warming usually ranks behind about two dozen other issues and challenges facing Americans.

Despite the low ranking of importance of global warming, consider some of the expensive shenanigans that the Obama administration has been up to lately:

A group of Congressional members have asked the Obama administration for a complete accounting of how much taxpayer money is being spent on global warming programs and projects, as required by a 2015 law.
This information was supposed to be given to Congress by last June but so far it has not happened.
Back in 2013 the Obama administration told Congress that it had spent $22.2 billion on global warming efforts that included scientific research, international climate assistance and green energy technology subsidies.
In 2013, that was about twice as much that was spent on customs and border enforcement efforts.
The Congressional Research Service reported back in 2013 that the Federal government had spent an amazing $77 billion over the previous five years.

All of this money being spent, secrets being kept from Congress, all for a man made global warming theory that may or not be true, especially considering that the world’s temperatures have been flat for about the past twenty years.

Imagine how many veterans could have gotten the needed medical care they need and were promised for $77 billion, how many hungry Americans could have been fed for $77 billion, how many homeless Americans could have gotten shelter and job training for $77 billion, and put that in perspective on how little society got back from the Obama administration spending $77 billion chasing a potential myth called global warming.

That will do it for this today’s and this month’s discussion on how it is perfectly sane and rational to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science. Today we showed how some science realities are showing that polar ice activity is not consistent with global warming adovcates’ views that global warming is having catastrophic negative impacts at the poles, that solar panels are not the salvation from CO2 emissions that some Al Gore types claim they are, and that the Obama administration has spent tens of billions of dollars on an issue that has very little importance to Americans. More myth busting next month.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

November, 2015, Part 2, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Costs Conitnue To Skyrocket While Enrollment Continues To Crater

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements it rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
Americans smoke too much.
Americans do not exercise enough.
The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here but with a big exception: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctor2, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused deductibles and co-pays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

For the next several days we will be reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington:

1) One aspect of Obama Care that we have not discussed recently is the employer mandate that forces employers to offer their full time staffs health insurance options or be fined $2,000 a year per employee. Previously, we have reported how hundreds, if not thousands of companies, could not afford either option, providing health insurance or paying the fine, and as a result took two actions in order to stay in business.

First, many business owners made sure that most of their employees never worked enough hours to be considered full time employees, defined by Obama Care as those working more than 30 hours a week. The law allowed businesses to avoid paying the fine or providing health insurance coverage for those part time workers. The second option was to insure that businesses fell below certain thresholds of total number of employees employed.

Thus, Obama Care’s insurance coverage regulations reduced working hours of thousands of Americans, turning them into part time employees, without giving them the benefit of health insurance coverage, or restricted job and economic growth, denying a lot of unemployed Americans the opportunity to get a job.

But another problem has arisen as Obama Care has unfolded. It seems that even when businesses tried to offer health insurance to their currently uncovered employees, the vast number of employees decided to pass on the opportunity.

For example, consider the situation of Billy Sewell who employs 600 restaurant employees at the Golden Corral restaurants he owns. He tried to do what the Obama Care legislation told him to do, i.e. offer a company sponsored health insurance program to all of his employees.

Despite trepidations that his business could not afford to do so, he went ahead and offered health insurance to all of his 600 employees. His costs turned out to be far lower than anticipated because a grand total of TWO employees took him up on his insurance program offer. Why? It was too expensive even with Sewell picking up a majority of the insurance tab.

And according to New York Times reporting, Sewell and his experience is not unique. Many small business companies with over 100 employees are finding that very few of those employees are taking the health insurance when offered. Michael A. Bodack, an insurance broker in Harrison, New York: “Based on what we’ve seen in the marketplace, we’re advising some of our clients to expect single-digit take rates. One to 2 percent isn’t unusual.”

Brad Mete, the managing partner of Affinity Resources, a staffing agency in Dania Beach, Fla., began offering insurance in 2015 to avoid the $2,000 per employee fine. He also saw a very low take on those employees who signed up for his company’s new insurance program. The cost of insurance to his employees is $30 a week to many of his employees who make $300 a week. Thus, many decided that giving up a whopping 10% of their weekly earnings for insurance is not worth it, given that there are annual deductibles that have to be met before the insurance coverage kicks in.

Which comes back to the point we have been making over and over during the past few years of covering the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. The law never addressed the root causes of our high insurance costs, as listed above. As a result, insurance costs did not go down and we are now seeing that even when offered health insurance coverage through their company, it is still too expensive for the employees of companies that Obama Care forced to starting offering an insurance program.

2) Rich Edson, writing for Fox News on October 27, 2015, did a nice job summarizing the insurance policy cost increases that are going on around the country as people enroll in Obama Care policies for 2016:

The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced that the average cost for the average “silver” plan on the Obama Care Federal exchange will go up 7.5% in 2016.
Keep in mind that Obama frequently promised that the typical American family would see up to a $2,500 reduction in their annual insurance premium costs, not a 7.5% INCREASE.
In Oklahoma, the silver plan average will go up a whopping 36%, in Alaska the cost will go up about a third, and more than 34% in Montana.
Some states will actually see an average decrease with Indiana silver Obama Care policy holders seeing about a 13% decrease and those in Mississippi seeing an 8% decrease.
These double digit increases may be the reason that Obama Care is now forecasted to attain no more than half of the enrollees it expected and promised when the law was passed, 10 million enrollees vs. the 20 million forecasted.
According to Robert Laszewski, president of the Health Policy and Strategy Associates: "Insurance companies by and large are losing lots of money in Obama Care. Obama Care's got some really serious problems here and the enrollment, the only way for Obama Care to solve problems is for enrollment to increase dramatically."
But if enrollment does not go up the financial losses will mount which will force more increases in the cost of Obama Care policies which will cause fewer people to keep their insurance which will force more increases in costs = death spiral.

Higher costs, lower than expected enrollments, disaster.

3) Richard Pollock, writing for the Daily Caller on November 1, 2105, reported that the increase in Obama Care policies in 2016 will not be 7.5% as described above but upwards of three times as much. Why? Because the Obama administration released cost increase information for only “silver” plans but withheld cost increase information for the other three types of plans that are available under Obama Care.

When the cost increase for the other plans, bronze, gold and platinum, are considered, the cost increases for ALL Obama Care plans jumps to over 20%. Which obviously means that if the silver plans were at 7% or so, than the other plans must be experiencing increases that are much higher than the average of 20%.

The Daily Caller News Foundation found the following bad news for Obama Care policy holders once one looks at all types of Obama Care policies:

Some Obama Care policies in Utah will see a 45% price increase.
In Illinois, the highest price increase will be 42.4%.
In Tennessee, the highest price increase will be 36.3%.
In South Dakota, silver plans will increase 24.7% in 2016 but the average increase across all plans will be 39%.
In South Carolina, the average silver increase will be 10.8%, compared to 23.4% when all four plans are considering.
In Colorado, silver customers will see a 12.94% price hike, but Gold users will see a 20.33% increase, and Platinum enrollees will see a 29.80% price rise.

Another case of the Obama administration not being transparent in publishing only a subset of data or an honest mistake? Given there has been very little honesty in any aspect of this administration, I vote for lack of transparency...again.

That will do it for today’s unfolding Obama Care disasters. Unfortunately, more disasters will be unveiled tomorrow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

October, 2015, Bonus Post, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Epic Co-op Failures

Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
Americans smoke too much.
Americans do not exercise enough.
The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here but with a big exception: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused deductibles and co-pays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

A week ago or so we spend several days reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington. I had thought I would not do any more Obama Care stuff until next month but since last week a number disasters from the law have already popped so I decided to cover them today rather than wait until next month:

1) Benjamin Miller is an ordinary American who lives in Indiana. His plight and run-in with the IRA illustrates how inane and stupid the Obama Care legislation is relative to its personal insurance mandate. This part of the bill requires Americans to pay a fine via their IRS tax filings if they did not have health insurance coverage.

Before Obama Care was enacted, Mr. Miller was paying $398 a month for a health insurance plan that he was perfectly happy with. Once the legislation was enacted, the cost of his monthly health insurance premiums jumped over a thousand dollars to a whopping $1,400 month, a more than three fold increase. He decided that $1,400 was more than he could afford and thus, he dropped the insurance policy rather than pay an EXTRA $12,000 a year.

So then the IRS got involved and send him a bill for $2,344 for not having health insurance coverage as required by Obama Care. He posted the IRS bill on Facebook to prove he was not being deceptive. Accompanying the Facebook post were his comments: “So I chose not to pay $1,400 a month so [I] got a nice little fine. Thanks Obama for the fine for not having insurance … Thanks for the Affordable Care Act. Thanks for making it so affordable!”

This insanity shows why the legislation is so horrible and so little thought was put into it. This American was going through life, very happy with an affordable health insurance plan that suited his needs. The Federal government comes along with Obama Care and says we know best, your insurance costs is going to go up three fold, increase more than a thousand dollars a month for basically the same coverage and if you do not do what we tell you, we will treat you as a criminal and fine you over $2,000, an number that will go up in the future if Mr. Miller does not get insurance coverage.

In either case, he pays an extra $12,000 a year for the same coverage or he pays over $2,000 for the Obama Care fine, that is thousands of dollars that are not being spent to grow the economy. Less dinners out, less movies, less disposable income.

Is it any wonder the economic recovery that has transpired concurrently with the rollout of Obama Care is probably the weakest recovery ever? Mr. Miller’s saga is being repeated millions of times across the country as Obama Care has caused household insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays to skyrocket, putting more money in the coffers of insurance companies and the U.S. Treasury and taking it out of the economy.

2) One reason for doing this bonus post on the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care is that at the rate that Obama Care insurance co-ops are failing across the country, they might all be gone by next month. Recall what an Obama Care co-op is:

A co-op is basically a state based, newly created private insurance company concept that was established via Obama Care.
The legislation spent $2.4 billion to establish health insurance co-ops in 24 states across the country, supposedly offering affordable health insurance policies to those without insurance coverage.
The purpose of the co-op was to provide a competitive market place in mostly rural areas where it was felt there would not be enough existing health insurance companies competing to drive down costs.

In our update last week we reported on how four of those co-ops, Iowa, Louisiana, Nevada, and New York had already gone bankrupt and out of business or had announced they were going out of business because of their failing financial situation.

Well, since then, according to writing by Melissa Quinn, writing for the Heritage Foundation, the number of failed co-ops is now up to six, more than 25% of all co-ops created with taxpayer money, with Kentucky and Tennessee joining the failure parade. Ms. Quinn’s article totalled up the damage and debris so far in Obama Care’s co-op world:

Tennessee - $73,306,700 received from the American taxpayer, 31,109 people enrolled, cost per enrollment = $2,356
Iowa - $145,312,100 received from the American taxpayer, 91,477 people enrolled, cost per enrollment = $1,588
New York - $265,133,000 received from the American taxpayer, 209,136 people enrolled, cost per enrollment = $1,268
Kentucky - $146,494,772 received from the American taxpayer, 51,655 people enrolled, cost per enrollment = $2,836
Louisiana - $65,790,660 received from the American taxpayer, 16,322 people enrolled, cost per enrollment = $4,031
Iowa - $65,925,396 received from the American taxpayer, 20,578 people enrolled, cost per enrollment = $3,204
Total - $761,962,620 received from the American taxpayer, 420,277 people enrolled,cost per enrollment = $1,813

What a waste of money. Three quarters of a billion dollars wasted for no return. Pretty inefficient process when it costs about $2,000 to sign up a single customer on average. Pathetic execution.

Her article goes on to report more disturbing and depressing results about the co-ops, based on official government documents:

More than 400,000 Americans now have to go out and somehow find new insurance coverage as a result of these six co-ops failing or face stiff fines like Mr. Miller got hit with.
23 out of the 24 original co-ops lost money in 2014.
13 of the co-ops signed up significantly fewer customers than forecasted.
It is unknown if any of the Federal taxpayer money loaned to these failed co-ops would ever be recovered.

What an incredibly poorly thought through process. More than 25% failure rate already, over $700 million likely lost taxpayer wealth, and over 400,000 Americans having their lives inconvenienced and their health coverage endangered. Three disasters at one pop.

3) But since I came across the Heritage Foundation article above, I stumbled across even more bad news from the Obama Care co-op world. According to an article on the Daily Caller website on October 16, 2015, writer Richard Pollock reported that now seven of the co-ops have already closed or announced those closing in the near future. And more importantly, according to a recent report from the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general, the remaining co-ops are in deep financial trouble and the inspector general expects more to go out of business soon.

But to show you how quickly things are falling apart, just three days later, October 19, 2015, Richard Pollock, also writing for the Daily Caller reported on some startling new developments:

According to various news reports and Congressional members, the Obama administration is hiding a secret list of 11 Obama Care insurance co-ops that they fear could be the next co-ops to go out of business in addition to the others that have already failed.
And despite the constantly broken promise of being the “most transparent administration ever,” the Obama administration refuses to release the names of those co-ops in financial trouble despite calls from Congress and news journalists to do so.
Even worse, Mr. Pollock claims that the number of failed co-ops is already up to eight, with five having tanked in the past three weeks.
If correct, than nineteen out of the 24 co-ops are either financially dead or about to be financially dead, likely taking with them much of the $2.4 billion in taxpayer funds that they were staked to.
The defunct or soon to be defunct co-ops will force almost half a million Americans to find a new source for health insurance.
The secret 11 co-ops are on so-called “enhanced oversight” by the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), which manages the Obama Care program.
The 11 received formal letters from CMS demanding that they take urgent actions to avoid closing.
Aaron Albright, chief CMS spokesman, said 11 co-ops “are either on a corrective action plan or enhanced oversight. We have not released the letters or names.” He gave no grounds for withholding the information from either the public or Congress.
The CMS has so far ignored a formal request from members of Congress investigating the failure of the co-op program.
Senator Charles Grassley, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, is not happy with the CMS stonewalling situation: “Since the public’s business generally ought to be public, CMS should have a good reason for not disclosing which co-ops are troubled.”
He was joined in criticism of the CMS’s lack of transparency by Congressman Adrian Smith: “It’s time for CMS to stop shielding these failures from the public and start identifying faltering co-ops. Taxpayers deserve more accountability and consumers deserve to know whether the insurance they are forced to buy will still exist at the end of next year.”

You can now see why we did this bonus piece. At the current rate, if we had waited until next month for our usual Obama Care disaster review, the entire co-op infrastructure could be gone. Never has so much failed in any piece of Washington legislation that was ever passed. Costs go up, co-ops go down, the unfolding disasters that are Obama Care.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

August, 2015, Part 4, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Sandbagging Information, A Scandalous Nomination, and Personal Obama Care Horror Stories

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements it rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
Americans smoke too much.
Americans do not exercise enough.
The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

Seven years ago, Slavitt was linked to a massive fraud scheme that eventually resulted in the largest settlement paid out by an insurance company.
At that time, Slavitt was the CEO of a company called Ingenix, a healthcare analytics company.
The New York state attorney general and the American Medical Association alleged that Ingenix supplied databases to insurance companies that intentionally and fraudulently calculated payments for out-of-network medical services provided to policyholders.
The eventual settlement of the charges was $350 million.
The attorney general charged that Ingenix and UnitedHealth Group, which owned Ingenix at that time, “rigged” reimbursement rates that forced patients to overpay up to 30 percent for out-of-network doctors and hospitals.
Additionally the attorney general claimed that Ingenix was running a “scheme” that sought “to defraud consumers by manipulating reimbursement rate. This involves fraud in the hundreds of millions of dollars, affecting thousands and thousands of families. Too many people have been hurt. It has to stop.”
At that time, it was estimated that years of data manipulation by Ingenix affected as many as 110 million Americans — about one in three patients — who used doctors, labs or hospitals that were out of their insurance network.
According to Senator Jay Rockefeller, who chaired a couple days of Congressional hearings on the scandal: “Everywhere experts have looked at this data, they have found what statisticians called a ‘downward skew’ in the numbers. For 10 years or even longer, this skewed data was used to stick consumers with billions of dollars that the insurance industry should have been paying.”

Despite all of this investigation by the New York attorney general, despite the massive settlement figure, despite the findings of a Senate investigation, Obama still named this guy to be in charge of Obama Care, Medicare, and Medicaid. Unbelievable insanity.

Many more details on this scandal and issue can be found at:

http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/02/obamas-top-healthcare-nominee-was-once-embroiled-in-medical-fraud-case/#ixzz3hlTjHXMF

3) One topic we never discussed relative to Obama Care in much depth is that now that Obama Care has been through two years or enrollments, what do those enrolled in Obama Care policies think about them? We have often reviewed how Obama Care requirements destroyed the preferred medical and healthcare arrangements of millions of Americans, i.e. the promise that if you like your prefered doctor, your insurance plan or your hospital was a bold face lie. However, what do those Obama Care policyholders think about their policies?

Well, now we know. A recent article in the Washington Times by Tom Howell, Jr. reviewed the survey findings by the Deloitte consulting company of Obama Care customers' degree of satisfaction with their Obama Care policies:

The survey found that only 30% were satisfied with the health care coverage they were getting with their Obama Care policy.
Only one in four surveyed were confident they could get healthcare when they needed it.
Only 16% though they were financially prepared to handle future healthcare costs despite having an Obama Care insurance policy.
In a classic understatement, Paul Lambdin, a director for Deloitte said: “Those are not high numbers.”
Fourteen percent of Obama Care health insurance exchange users said they were “not satisfied.” By comparison, those who have coverage through Medicare, Medicaid or plans through their employers had dissatisfaction rates in the single digits.
Also, only 35% had a high level of confidence that the exchanges are providing good information.

Just another failure of a failed piece of legislation, unmet or unfulfilled customer expectations for the money they are paying.

4) In past discussions of Obama Care we have often included the personal and often tragic stories of American families that had their lives, their wallets, and healthcare disrupted by Obama Care. The source of those stories with the website:

www.ourhealthcarestories.com

But it turns out that this is not the only website collecting the heartbreaking stories from Americans relative to Obama Care. There is another website doing the same service called:

www.myhealthcarestory.com

So today and for this month, we will use this source to share with you some of the personal stories of the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care:

Mick - Mississippi: I was dropped from my wife’s insurance which I had been on for 10 years or more. They just came out and told us that all spouses would be dropped because of Obamacare. I had to get insurance through my company which added about $340 to our cost of insurance. Our premiums went up about 60%.

Laura - Texas: I am a truck driver and this past December I had to quit working due to my own health problems. I was driving for an owner operator so I didn’t have insurance in the first place. The first thing I thought I would do was to try and get on the county healthcare, but that was taking too long and they were wanting information that there was no way that I could provide. So, as much as I hated to, I thought I’d try to get on Obamacare. I needed health insurance bad. I could barely walk and was in a lot of pain. So, I went online and put in my info, and for me, not working with no income, the cheapest plan was almost $400! How is that suppose to help anyone? And the deductible/out-of-pocket was outrageous!

So how is this helping people that need insurance? It doesn’t!

John - California: We are in a small town with only one medical clinic. Wife retired as City Employee. City paid, as part of retirement benefits, our health insurance premium as well as a retirement check. Note: Health insurance premium is greater than retirement paycheck. December 2014, at an all-retirees meeting, City announced that increase in premiums due to Obamacare was more than city could handle and city would send us a check, we add to it, then pay our own health insurance. Insurance saw us as new enrollees, wanted 2 months premiums in advance. We paid 2 months, then city said they worked it out where city would pay towards our premium directly, we just pay the difference. Not enough to say that we are just prepaid, Insurance company said they wanted the difference sent in AGAIN, while they investigate the double payment. Now we get no retirement check, as that check didn’t cover the premium, we must come up with difference, and we are prepaid now 4 months, we cannot get a refund for the overpayment, and when wife went to doctor in Feb, we learned that our doctor no longer takes Blue Shield, because of Obamacare, and they will give no refund for our overpayment, and we have no insurance and we are a family not happy with Mr Obama. Thank you for giving me a platform to vent! In fairness, we are covered by health insurance, just not by any doctors that we know or who are in our geographic area.

Laurie - New Mexico: To begin with, I hardly make any money. I am a freelance writer, and that was my choice, so I don’t blame anyone for how little I make.

However, I also believe in personal responsibility. So, I had my own insurance through Blue Cross/Blue Shield. It was not always easy, but I always kept up my $120 a month payment. I only went to the doctor once a year, for my annual exam. Because it was an annual, it was paid for–I didn’t even have a copay. The insurance also paid for most of my prescription for the generic brand of Zoloft, which I need to handle depression and OCD.

Then I had my insurance taken away–apparently it wasn’t good enough for Obama, even though it suited me fine. Out of curiosity I went on the “exchange.” My premium would go up, but not by much–fine. However, the deductible would go up to $4,000! (Or $6,000, depending on which site I looked on.) The worst part–this insurance would pay for NOTHING until I met that deductible–no drugs, no annual, nothing. In essence I would be paying for all of my doctor’s visits, all of my prescriptions, AND insurance every month–what is the point of that??

Again, I have always hated this whole idea, so I felt slimey even trying this, but I went into the exchange to see how much of a subsidy I would get. It told me to go on Medicaid! So here we are. They have taken someone who is totally independent and tried to turn her into someone who is dependent on the taxpayer.

I do not have any insurance at all now. I hate to whine and complain, but the Zoloft generic is running out, and I can certainly tell the difference in how I handle things every day! The great irony, and what makes me the most mad, is the very idea that the government takes away my insurance, and next year I will be fined because I don’t have insurance!!!

Mike - Texas: I am a 60 year old single white male, non-smoker in excellent health. My employer-United AirLines, Houston, TX.

Prior to January 1st 2014 (and for the previous 10 years), I had a “Build Your Own Plan” policy with “0” Deductable and 100% coverage-no Out Of Pocket.

January 1st, 2014, (to “align” our corporate plans more with the Affordable Health Care options being offered), my premiums doubled and I have a 10% Co-Pay, even though I have NEVER used the plan or had a hospitalization.

Chelsea - Texas: Obamacare helped me in no way. I had to leave my apartment and move back in with my parents after the new health care reform took a toll on my job. I was once able to work 39 hours a week as a part time employee and i was comfortable with what i could afford. However, Obamacare changed the rules and all of the sudden my employer dropped my hours down to only 28 per week. This is a huge difference! Instead of helping me, all that Obamacare did was cut my pay dramatically. I should have known better than to think the government might actually be doing something for the good of the people.

But wait! Arlene from Minnesota had this good news relative to Obama Care: I went from $500.00 per month premium for $5000.00 deductible under Minnesota Comp to $442.00 premium per month for a $2000.00 deductible and no copay after the deductible is filled with MNSure. MNSure took patience to work through. It isn’t perfect but I have to say Thank You President Obama and Governor Dayton.

I am willing to look at other options, but I haven’t seen any.

So Arlene saw her insurance payments and deductible levels go down as a result of Obama Care. That is great news. But Chelsea, Mike, Laurie, John, Laura, and Mick saw high increases in their premiums and deductibles or had their lives complicated and endangered b y Obama Care. So despite Arlene's success story, the overwhelming number of people from both websites cited above have had very bad Obama Care experiences. It is truly an ever unfolding disaster.

That will do it for this month. Failed exchanges, failed co-ops, rising costs for premiums and deductibles, etc., one disaster after another. And you can be sure we will be back this time next month to continue this sad, sad saga.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Love My Country, Loathe My Government

Sunday, September 10, 2017

September, 2017, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: All Kinds Of Insanity From Schumer, Hillary, and Wasserman-Schultz

Thursday, December 22, 2016

December, 2016, Part 3, I Am A Global Warming Doubter and a Believer In Science: The Poles Are Not Melting , Solar Panels are Not Great and More

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

November, 2015, Part 2, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Costs Conitnue To Skyrocket While Enrollment Continues To Crater

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

October, 2015, Bonus Post, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Epic Co-op Failures

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

August, 2015, Part 4, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Sandbagging Information, A Scandalous Nomination, and Personal Obama Care Horror Stories

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