Obamacare timebomb

View 772 Tuesday, April 30, 2013

CAMERONE DAY

Another major shock awaits the American people as the clock ticks on toward the full implementation of Obamacare. Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article

Daniel Kessler: The Coming ObamaCare Shock

Millions of Americans will pay more for health insurance, lose their coverage, or have their hours of work cut back.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324874204578441032081716170.html

In recent weeks, there have been increasing expressions of concern from surprising quarters about the implementation of ObamaCare. Montana Sen. Max Baucus, a Democrat, called it a "train wreck." A Democratic colleague, West Virginia’s Sen. Jay Rockefeller, described the massive Affordable Care Act as "beyond comprehension." Henry Chao, the government’s chief technical officer in charge of putting in place the insurance exchanges mandated by the law, was quoted in the Congressional Quarterly as saying "I’m pretty nervous . . . Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience."

These individuals are worried for good reason. The unpopular health-care law’s rollout is going to be rough. It will also administer several price (and other) shocks to tens of millions of Americans.

It’s all true, and of course the effect is easily predictable. President Obama’s ‘guarantee’ that if you like your present plan you will be able to keep it is simply impossible. You cannot take an insurance program that selects among potential purchasers to reject those with pre-existing conditions, or charges them higher premiums than those who do not have those conditions, and continue it at its present rates. Those rates are set from statistical estimates of how many will get sick from lung cancer, or skin cancer, or brain cancer, or any other expensive illness, estimates the costs that will be incurred from treating them, and charges premiums based on averaging that cost among all the policy holders. If we now allow those with pre-existing conditions to join the policy holders at that same premium the policy will run out of money. The company can cut its salaries, cut the amounts it pays doctors, eliminate all profits, but it will not be able to operate without raising premiums, and since those premiums cannot be increased for those with pre-existing conditions nor can those who will inevitably require expensive care be rejected, there are no choices left. The new costs will have to be averaged among all the policy holders, and since there will be more expenses the premiums have to be higher. The alternative is simply to get out of the insurance business. Note that this is the case for both investor-owned and mutual insurance companies who have to sell all their health care policies at the same price. The same would be true, of course, if there were a “Right to Insurance” law that mandated that anyone, no matter of what age, has a right to a life insurance policy at the same price as anyone else.

Thus the compulsory health insurance: the only way insurance companies can survive under these conditions is to require that everyone buy a policy (or have it bought for him). Of course if the penalty for not having the insurance is low enough, it may still be better for an individual to pay the fines until he gets sick or has an accident: at which point his “living will” will, lo! have a provision applying for insurance and an instruction on how it should be paid for. I make no doubt that Obamacare will prove to be a boon for lawyers who can design such contingency plans. The government will then find ways to require everyone to take out a policy, the lawyers will find loopholes and the cycle will repeat. There are those in the Obama planning staff who full well understand this, and count on it, because it is a pretty sure spiral to universal “free” health care, which is the goal of a great number of liberal social theorists.

What then happens to health maintenance organizations like Kaiser, and to physicians who opt out of the whole system and maintain a private “fee for services” practice, whether the “country doctor GP” or the “concierge physician”? On the one hand you will have social theorists insisting on equal access for all to everywhere – everyone deserves the best, so the Mayo Clinic has to take everyone, not just those who will pay (as emergency rooms must do now, which is why more than half the emergency rooms in Los Angeles County have gone out of business in the last decades); on the other hand you will have the ruling class who full well understand that while universal free health care is what you deserve, it’s not good enough for them and their families.

Of course that has already started.

Exempting Congress From ObamaCare

The Members try to protect themselves from ‘Medicaid plus.’

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323335404578445042307824784.html

The Politico website broke the story Thursday morning that Congressional leaders were in hush-hush talks to exempt themselves and their staff from the wonders of ObamaCare. The story succeeded in blowing up the talks, but there’s a bigger story here about Congressional intentions that is worth telling.

House Speaker John Boehner quickly took to Twitter after the Politico story appeared, saying that he’s not "sneaking any language into bills to solve" a problem for Democrats. He added that full repeal of the law is "the solution to this & other ObamaCare nightmares."

We’re told that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer initiated the discussions. Mr. Reid now says he’s not trying to exempt anyone from the law. Mr. Hoyer’s spokesman says only that the Maryland Democrat wants the law to be "workable for everyone."

Mr. Reid’s office says he merely wants to ensure that the generous subsidies in the current federal-employee health plan can continue to flow to Congressional staff once they are required to obtain coverage via ObamaCare’s new insurance exchanges. Since insurance companies are referring to the ObamaCare policies that will be offered on exchanges as "Medicaid plus," you can see why Congress wants to protect its own.

The ruling class likes its current health care plan and wants to keep it. They won’t be able to under Obamacare. Something has to change. We can count on the establishment Democrats to offer the establishment Republicans some way to accomplish this. They may have to make some concessions to others, but you may be sure they will first take care of their own.

Sesquicentennial anniversary of the battle of Camarón de Tejeda <http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=35355>

http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=35355

"There is something odd in the human spirit that celebrates events where a small group of men, despite being badly outnumbered by a foe, will still resist and likely die. Greece has the 300 Spartans at the pass of Thermopylae; the United States has the Alamo and its “thirteen days of glory;” and Great Britain has the successful defense of Rorke’s Drift in the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War. Then, there is France and its Foreign Legion, which every year on April 30 at its headquarters in Aubagne, holds a solemn parade and celebration for the brave men who gave their lives far from home, defending their lives and honor, at a small town in Mexico called Camarón de Tejeda…"

Camerone Day. Somewhere and somewhen, Falkenberg’s Mercenary Legion is taking the day off.

Graves