Healthcare!!!

The Obama Administration has repeatably told the media, and the American people, that the Affordable Healthcare Act was designed to better peoples lives. Too provide better care at lower costs for all Americans.  They've made it very clear that the new healthcare law, along with it's timing, isn't political, and has a presence that exists merely to represent the people.  They wanted us all to experience the amazing deal that was being offered, and of course couldn't stand to see us wait any further.  I guess this means that the go ahead with the roll out wasn't at all for political reasons, but only in-order to benefit the people.

In reality, the Obama administration new damn-well that the Affordable Healthcare Act wasn't ready.  In March of 2013 McKinsey & Co, a private consulting firm, compiled a report dealing with the subject matter of whether or not the exchange would be ready for the set launch date.  The report was filled with red flags and went on to say that without the existence of multiple glitches and errors,the set launch date wouldn't be feasible.   

So if the President and his administration knew about all the current problems that we're facing today back in March, why in the hell did they go through it?  I mean, the government is supposed to serve the people.

 Now I know that all my liberal friends out there think that this administration can do no wrong, and that it's all the right wingers who're making them look bad.

ABSOLUTELY!

If it weren't for those pesky conservatives the government would surely start working right! 

Just know this, the Obama administration knew that millions of Americans were going to be dropped from their insurance policies after the launch of the healthcare act. They also knew that the exchange wouldn't be ready in time to meet the demands of the people.  A portion of these policy holders were receiving critical care and, still today, haven't received treatment because the government is dealing with ongoing technical issues.  They also knew that premium costs, on average, were going to double, and that the extra cost wouldn't provide any additional beneficial care.  

They told us that its a

GOOD!

deal, and that we should

APPRECIATE!

such efficient care.  I'm ever so

GRATEFUL!

that we're so well taken care of.....       

  

The "Confused" Citizen

The most recent post from The Bemused Citizen is a critique on my defending of Ted Cruz in my last blog post.  I have to say that I think my point was misunderstood.  The "money bags" that the critique refers to, are actually a large group of voters from the state of Texas, whom which understand the devastation that the Affordable Healthcare Act has on our Macro-Economy.  The fact that the website doesn't work and that millions of Americans haven't shown any interest of even signing up is just an annoyance before the true problems occur.
The Affordable Healthcare act, under it's current design, cannot sustain itself without forcing all individual policy holders off of private insurance and onto a different policy through the exchange, where premium costs are more in order to pay for the acceptance of pre-existing conditions, and by forcing individuals to pay high tax penalties if they opted out of coverage which, by 2016, people making between thirty-eight thousand and eight thousand a year will be charged $695.  That number will have to rise if people decide to stay on private policies, which is why the Affordable Care act is designed to force people onto government policies.
It also puts Employers in a tough spot on how to deal with higher premium costs.  Most small businesses have already dropped under the employee minimum to avoid paying higher premiums. Those individuals that were dropped will either pay a tax penalty, buy private insurance, or sign up for Obamacare.  In that situation private insurance is out of the question because they can no longer offer discounted premiums because they don't meet the standards set forth in the Affordable Healthcare Act.
So far, if you are under the age of twenty-eight, single, healthy and don't have any dependents, you haven't signed up for health insurance and most likely have no intentions to do so in the future.  It is that demographic that has the largest percentage of individuals with no pre-existing conditions.  If those people fail to sign up and pay into the system, the much larger demographic of the elderly and disabled with medicare/medicaid benefits will dominate the system; the amount being paid into the system won't cover the amount of care that's being provided.  If that situation were to occur, care would have to be rationed among those of importance.  How that will be decided is unknown, however one would assume it would be an administrative agency of sort.
The private sector of the Health Industry is slowly being bankrupted due to the false promise of the President that individual plans could remain the same.  The most important thing to realize is that the original debate over healthcare was that it was too expensive and that was why people were taking the risk of not acquiring health insurance.  All policies thus far have increased in price and the President justifies that because he claims that we're better off with the new policies.  I guess we need the government to tell us what's best for our own lives.  I mean we're all just way to stupid to make these decisions on our own. 
To finish I'd like to address these "glitches" that are just hiccups along the way.  A number of cancer patients have been dropped from their insurance due to Obamacare.  These individuals were cut from their treatment because apparently Obamacare was designed to protect people with pre-existing conditions, especially ones with serious illness. Those Liberal heroes that care, not to gain power, but to serve only the people, don't seem to want to address those cancer patients.
I guess will just let it work itself out.

Politicians and Their Brilliant Ideas

In my last post I touched briefly on the blasting of Ted Cruz that has been taking place of late.  A whole slew of accusations were cast upon him with some Democratic Senators going so far as to calling him a terrorist.  All of this finger pointing came about because Ted Cruz was calling for an extension and a revision of the current Affordable Care Act.  Democratic Senators expressed to the media that the reason he was calling for it was because of his bad intentions and insensitive outlook on the Nation's less fortunate.  All of which I disagree with and, come to find out, so do the Democratic leaders.

These past couple weeks have consisted of multiple Congressional figures expressing concern about Healthcare.gov and the extreme failure it has been so far.  At the rate we're currently going the majority will be unable utilize the exchange to acquire their Insurance policies.  What's even worse is that there is a very large group of individuals that have dropped their current plan, either due to employer policy or regulation standards, and have still been unable to acquire their new one.  This means that these people will be required to pay a tax penalty on top of not being insured.  Blue Cross Blue Shield has sent out over fifteen-thousand letters of policy cancellations due to the fact that their plans didn't meet the standards set forth by the Affordable Care Act.  Big surprise that the promise to the American people that they could keep their current plan if they liked it was a complete lie.

Democratic Senators are now being faced with big issues with Obama Care and the outlook for the upcoming election doesn't appear to be all that well.  So now all of a sudden an extension seems like a good idea.  What a bunch a terrorists!  Every single thing that Ted Cruz expressed concern about is being repeated by the Democrats in Congress.  This is politics as usual and none of this surprises me at all.  Whats sad is the amount of people who love to demonize Ted Cruz for suggesting the same thing current Democratic members of Congress are suggesting.  Maybe if average citizens would allow themselves to stop listening to politicians promises and do a little research on their own, we as a society wouldn't be chained up in Plato's cave.

Critique on Ted Cruz blast

Jason Linkis, a political reporter for The Huffington Post, posted a commentary on his blog entitled Better Off Ted: Cruz Leaves A Bruise On Everyone's Bottom Line But His. He writes about how during the government stand-off Ted Cruz was able to raise $797,000 from individual donations.  He accuses Ted Cruz of misrepresenting the people for his own political gain and claims he would take advantage of his position in the Senate to gain future campaign funds.  He attempts to legitimize his blast on Ted Cruz by listing four negative impacts that our economy suffered during the government shutdown.  There is no question over whether or not that list is factual, it clearly is.  All are from credible sources.  The problem I have is that I get the sense that Jason is trying to blame Ted Cruz for this.

It is true that Ted Cruz acquired $797,000 during the government shutdown.  However, A number of politicians representing both sides of the aisle took multiple donations over that same time period. Furthermore, Ted Cruz is a republican senator which is currently the minority party.  It was the House republicans that posed the direct threat in delaying the shutdown.  Why wouldn't Jason Linkis single out a republican representative from there?  It is also the right of the people to donate money in support of their political figures.  The country is still very split on the major issues that our country is currently undergoing.  The majority of the people from the area Ted Cruz represents support his actions.  He is a civil servant and is simply holding true on his promises to the people that voted him into office.

Besides the fact that I very clearly disagree with Jason, my main complaint is that I just don't get it.  Half of his post seems to touch on the effect of the government shutdown, which I found very interesting, but the other half seems to be words of dislike towards Ted Cruz and his side of the argument.  Jason doesn't include either parties side of the argument nor any factual information sources about the donations Ted Cruz received. I had to do that research on my own. This is clearly a biased viewpoint, which is to be expected when reading an individuals blog. I feel that this post would inhibit someones ability to understand fully whats going on in politics today.    

Critique on Opinion Article.

In the opinion piece entitled: Obama Rewrites Debt-Limit History, authors Kevin Hasset and Abby McCloskey take a look at President Obama and the debt-ceiling.  Washington is closing in on reaching the debt-limit and Congress has yet to pass any bill to raise the ceiling.  House Republicans have conditions to be included in such a bill in order for their support.  The President claims that the behavior of the house is unacceptable and that they’re trying to extort him by threatening default.  President Obama, along with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, expressed to the media that this kind of political tactic hasn't been done before and that Congress has routinely passed a debt-ceiling increase with no strings attached.

  The authors attack the Presidents claim with two different sets of arguments.  They argue that Congress indeed has frequently and often passed debt-ceiling hikes, but the majority of those times the bill included different legislative conditions.  The next argument is that it is the Democratic Party who has used debt-ceiling limitations as leverage the most times out of the two parties.

This opinion piece was well written and I would say slightly geared towards right wingers.  Both the authors presented clear arguments and provided data to support their argument.  The article includes information on them stating Hasset is the director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.  McCloskey is also with the American Enterprise Institute where she is a program director.  What’s important to understand about this piece is that the authors aren't necessarily blaming the Democratic Party for our current governmental issues.  What they are doing is challenging the justification of finger pointing at the House Republicans.  Clearly they feel that the President is trying to essentially demonize the Republicans for doing what they've done time and time again over the past four decades.   

Article worth Reading

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article entitled Washington 101: Explaining the budget fiasco.  If your like me you've been extremely confused with the budget debate currently undergoing in congress.  The article seems to break the debate down into terms that the average American can understand.  It also brings to light exactly what is being argued about.  It explains that if Congress fails to act by October 1 there will be a partial government shutdown.  This means that hundreds of thousands of employees will be sent home without pay, military personnel will go unpaid, national parks will close etc.  Basically any discretionary spending will come to a halt.  It's up to the House and the Senate to fix this issue but it seems they can't come to an agreement.  What else is new?