This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Health Care debate

  • Thursdays Are For Cooking….

    Yes, that is the Honorable Morel.  Almost looks like a duckbilled dinosaur. The head was about 6 inches long, sticking up out of the forest floor. At that size, it’s probably too woody to be very good, but they are delicious when used properly.

    There are other fungi in the woodlands. The truffle, for instances, is exclusive to France, is sold at auctions by weight, can grow to any size, and is found by pigs whose capacity for finding fungi is legendary. The white truffle is less flavorful than the black truffle, but still worth something to truffle connoisseurs.

    Me, I just like mushrooms, period. They contain, among other things, potassium, and are used medicinally to fight cancer and enhance and modulate immune responses.

    To the fungus among us: Salute!

     

  • Another Healthcare Insurer Leaves ObamaCare Exchanges

    This time it’s Aetna.  They’ve just announced that 2017 is the last year they’ll participate in the ObamaCare healthcare insurance exchanges.  They will not offer policies for 2018 on those exchanges.

    Why?  Simple.  Last year, in 15 states Aetna lost nearly $700 million on policies issued through said exchanges.  This year, they’re predicted to lose nearly $200 million in only 4 states (VA, DE, IA, NE) – obviously, on substantially reduced enrollment.

    There’s a term for companies whose business practices consistently lose money by the ton.  That term is, “Bankrupt.”

    And no, Gruber:  this isn’t Trump’s fault.  It’s because the whole asinine system is an abomination that is so structurally flawed it cannot possibly succeed.

    “Free stuff” – isn’t.  Someone, somewhere, pays for it.

    And Aetna just said, “Find another patsy.”

  • Predictable. And Asinine.

    Remember John Gruber? You know, that Harvard-educated “intellectual” who help the previous      gang of naïve and foolish children that somehow conned the American voters into letting them run things in DC      last Administration draft that abomination called the     Patently Pathetic and Awful Collection of Asininity      Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (AKA “ObamaCare”)?  That incredibly bad law that our new adult leadership in DC is trying to change before it bankrupts the nation?

    Sure you remember him. That’s the same elitist jerk who believes – and stated – that American voters have a “lack of economic understanding”. He’s also the same tool who was caught on video discussing ObamaCare and saying, “The stupidity of the American voter . . . was really critical for the thing to pass.”

    Well, he’s running his yap yet again. Now, he’s saying that ObamaCare price increases (presumably the ones that just occurred) are Trump’s fault. And he’s also claiming those increases were a “one time” event that “fixed” ObamaCare.

    I’d say YGBSM, but we see these kind of      bald-faced lies      “creative stories” all the time from the political left.

    Um, dipstick . . . the 2017 premium increases were announced about two weeks prior to the 2016 Presidential election. Trump wasn’t POTUS then; the SCoaMF that lent “ObamaCare” it’s nickname was the POTUS when those price increased were determined and announced. And until the early morning of 9 November 2016, few expected Trump to be the next POTUS.

    In short, Trump had nothing to do with this mess.  This one’s the SCoaMF’s “baby” – warts and all.

    Further, the 2017 increases announced in late 2016 were hardly a one-time deal. ObamaCare premiums have been rising in most markets for years. And the system is hardly “fixed” now – it’s so bad off financially that virtually no insurers are making any money from their ObamaCare policies. Instead, they’re losing money in bundles.  And they’re still pulling out of state health insurance exchanges.

    You know, for a highly educated “eliteist”, the man just doesn’t seem particularly bright. He can’t manage to figure out that the temporal sequence here (price increases announced prior to the election, which Trump was widely expected to lose) kinda rules out Trump having anything whatsoever to do with this year’s ObamaCare price increases. He also can’t seem to grasp that a multi-year pattern of moderate to large annual premium increases virtually nationwide demonstrates rather conclusively that the last such premium increase was hardly a “one time event”. And, finally, he doesn’t seem to realize that insurers opting out of the market in droves because they’re losing money by the ton annually is evidence that the system is broken – badly.

    In fact, it certainly seems like he’s an “elitist” educated at a “highly-prestegious liberal university” with delusions of superiority who in reality appears have significant difficulties with both logic and getting his facts straight, and who also can’t accept the fact that they’re far from infallible.  In other words:  rather than being “superior”, he doesn’t have much of a clue.  But he thinks he does.

    Sounds familiar.  All too familiar.

  • Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is “Nancy”

    SanFranNan, March 2010:
    “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.”

    SanFranNan, March 2017:
    “The American people and Members have a right to know the full impact of this legislation before any vote in Committee or in the whole House.”

    Along with monumental chutzpah, the abject hypocrisy and utter dishonesty shown by the combination of those two statements is simply sickening.

    But I’d expect nothing less from a committed     Socialist     “Progressive” like SanFranNan.  After all:  the Left’s modus operandi for years has been, “Fine for me – but not for thee.”

  • Another One Bites The Dust

    I’ve written multiple times previously on the problems inherent in that “wonderful” law called the      Puerile, Pathetic, and Abominable Collection of Asininity       Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, AKA “ObamaCare”.  Short version:  totally stupid idea, ignores basic economic realities, and is completely unaffordable.

    Well, for that “wonderful” law . . . “the hits just keep on coming”.

    Yesterday, Humana announced that it will withdraw from ObamaCare health insurance exchanges next year.  That’s assuming, of course, that those exchanges still exist next year.

    Why?  Simple.  Insurance companies exist to make money.  Requiring immediate coverage of preexisting conditions makes that virtually impossible – because making money under those conditions requires premiums so high that they’re unaffordable.   That leaves insurers two choices:  leave the market . . . or lose money.  And if they lose enough money, they go bankrupt.

    All of this was completely predictable.  Well, it was to anyone with a functional understanding of real-world economics.

    Hopefully the current Administration and Congress will euthanize the ignorant economic abomination called ObamaCare before Humana acts.

  • Yer 2017 ObamaCare Enrollment Period Update

    The 2017 premiums for that      Pathetically Puerile Abominable Collection of Asininity
    “wonderful” law called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – AKA “ObamaCare” – have been released.

    The numbers for next year?  Well, as they might have said where I was raised:  “Them numbers ain’t lookin’ so good.”

    Nationwide, for the 39 states using the Federal healthcare exchange the average premium increase is about 25%.  But if your premium “only” goes up 25% next year when you purchase healthcare through the Federal insurance exchange – count your blessings.  In many states premiums increase by far more than that.

    In 10 states, a “Silver” plan (2nd lowest before tax credit) purchased through an insurance exchange has a premium increase of 40% or more.  And in Arizona, that Silver plan rate increase puts the emphasis on “more” – as in, next year it will cost a whopping 145% more.

    Hey, they’ve got the proverbial “captive audience” – coverage is legally mandatory, remember?  So yeah, they can do that and get away with it.

    Choices are much more limited next year as well.  In 11 states, only one or two insurers are offering insurance through an insurance exchange.  So much for “robust competition” happening simply because “the government said so”, eh?

    Seriously:  anyone with common sense could have seen this coming.  Insurers don’t exist as public services; they exist to make money – and they can’t do that at anything approaching a reasonable cost to consumers under the conditions mandated by ObamaCare.  (Not being able to exclude preexisting conditions essentially guarantees that.)  The result was predictable:  many insurers opted to leave the marketplace, and those which remained raised prices through the roof.

    Result:  few or no choices, and they’re all expensive as hell.  Ain’t legalized monopoly grand?

    Oh, and since all this utter idiocy is subsidized by the US taxpayer . . . wanna guess who’s paying a sh!tload of the cost?  Yeah, you’re right:  US taxpayers.  You and me.

    But never fear, fellow citizens!  The current       phalanx of fools fecklessly fornicating things up by-the-numbers in DC       Administration still predicts an increase in ObamaCare enrollment of 9% this coming year!  All is simply wonderful, right?

    Yeah, right.  Just like I’m the Emperor of Japan.

    Oh, and remember that “Medicaid expansion” that was thrown in as a “sweetener” to drum up support for this      imbecilic squandering of Federal tax money      soup-sandwich of a Federal program?  Well, it looks like that “sweetener” means Medicaid is going to cost the Federal government somewhere around $550+ billion annually 7 years from now – with states ponying up another $160 billion on top of that.

    Doesn’t exactly sound so sweet when the bills finally come due, eh?

    Here are a couple of graphics from the 2nd article linked above.  They’re quite illustrative of the very predicable problems we’re seeing with Obama’s Abomination.  They are linked here for your convenience.  The first shows the premium increases by state for a “Silver” plan; the second, the drop-off in participation by insurers in the Federal exchange in various states.

    The second link above explains the death spiral in which ObamaCare finds itself today in detail.  Yeah, that’s a death-rattle cough you’re hearing.

    Whether that death-rattle cough is from ObamaCare or the US economy remains to be seen.  Remember:  it’s the latter which ultimately is funding this Socialist travesty.  And it’s being funded with money forcibly confiscated by the Federal government that would otherwise be put to  productive use in the private sector.

    Socialism works great until you run out of other people’s money.

  • Want to See “Single-Payer” Healthcare In Action? Read This.

    Linked story pretty much says it all. You might want to grab a tissue (and a dose of high-blood pressure medicine, if you think you might need it) before reading the link, though.

    ‘This is the saddest photo I have ever taken,’
    woman says of grandparents forced to live apart
     

    A real-world variant of the “golden rule” is operative here: “He who pays the gold makes the rules.” And in Canada, the folks running Canada’s      Socialized      single payer medicine pay the gold – and make these kinds of rules.

    Of course, under US “single payer” medicine it will be an agency of the Federal government effectively making those decisions – just like in Canada. That’s the same folks that have brought us those “wonderful examples of common sense, simplicity, and bureaucratic flexibility” called the IRS, the EPA, the BLM, and HHS.

    But remember: “single payer” will fix American healthcare’s “problems”.

    Just like it has in Canada.

  • Yet Another Installment of ObamaCare “Good News”

    Well, we have more “good news” about that wonderful Federal law called the      Patently Pathetic Accumulated Conglomerate of Asininity         Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, AKA “ObamaCare”.

    I’ve written before about issues with ObamaCare health care cooperatives  – and again here.  And I’ve also written about how some insurers were starting to abandon the ObamaCare market.

    Well, it seems another ObamaCare domino toppled yesterday.   Aetna – the nation’s 3rd largest health insurance provider – has announced that they’re largely pulling out of the ObamaCare insurance exchange market as well.

    This year, Aetna offered ObamaCare plans through government-run exchanges in 15 states.  Next year, they’re cutting back to a whopping four states:  VA, DE, IA, and NE.  They’re pulling out of the ObamaCare exchange market everywhere else – though they’ll still offer individual health insurance plans in some or all of those states.

    This is significant.  Earlier this year, Aetna was among those saying it was “too early to give up on” ObamaCare insurance exchanges.  Apparently they changed their minds.

    Why?  Simple:  they’re losing their butts financially.

    This year, Aetna had a 2nd quarter pretax loss on the ObamaCare exchange market of $200M.  They’ve lost $430M since those markets began in 2014.  Losing that much money – as well as losing money consistently over time – isn’t exactly conducive to staying in business.

    But don’t worry, folks.  Dear Leader will explain to us how we’ve misinterpreted what’s going on here.  We just need to give it more time, and it will work as desired!

    Yeah, right.  The Communist Party of the Soviet Union spent just short of 69 years trying to perfect their brand of command-driven economic socialism.  The idiotic concepts on which their cockamamie theories were based were no closer to being viable on day 25,198 than they were on day 0.

    ObamaCare will fare no differently.  It’s similarly based on ideology-driven idiocy that ignores economic reality.