Obama: Dead in the Water...is it true?

Post by **WBU ALUM** » July 10, 2013, 9:18 am

Astana wrote:I wouldn't worry the war industry machine will find somewhere else to bomb, invade and kill soon enough given the track record since WWII.

Obama won't let that happen. He's the "Peace President", remember?

Post by **Astana** » July 10, 2013, 9:50 am

Its the only thing that is really keeping the economy afloat being the only bipartisan occupation of Federal government.

Post by **WBU ALUM** » July 10, 2013, 12:37 pm

ObamaCare Delays Show Law Is Unworkable
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government ... unworkable

I have said it repeatedly in different venues, and it is bearing out to be true again. Mixing socialist programs with free enterprise is like trying to play American football on a baseball field with baseball rules. They're two different things that operate under different rules. Attempting to force this mix on society gets people hurt.

This is not good for all the People.

Before the dust settled on the news that the Obama Administration was delaying the intrusive employer mandate until 2015, a new 606-page regulation was issued on Friday by the Department of Health and Human Services stating it would now rely on self-reported income and employment verification in the state-run exchanges under ObamaCare. In other words, a welcome mat for fraud.

This is another startling development which is becoming part of a larger theme as ObamaCare is rolled out to the public. It is clear that the Affordable Care Act is unworkable. For those like myself who opposed it from the start, we saw the writing on the wall early on as President Obama’s signature health care legislation was rammed through the halls of Congress. If only then-Speaker Pelosi had insisted that her party read the legislation before passing it, maybe some of this would have come to light earlier on. While the eventual passage of the legislation was certain under Democrat control of Congress, maybe some Democrats now sounding the alarm about the devastating impact of the legislation would have done so sooner if they had read it while it was still a bill, not only after it became law.

As of now, ObamaCare is $1 trillion over budget; I say “as of now” because it’s almost certain that with the elimination of the anti-fraud measures the cost will further skyrocket, and there are examples to back up this theory.

In January, the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services began an effort to remove ineligible people from the state’s Medicaid rolls. The initial audit concluded that of the first 20,500 recipients screened, it was recommended 13,709 be removed from eligibility. The Chicago Tribune reports that “since 2000, Illinois Medicaid rolls have doubled, from fewer than 1.4 million people to nearly 2.8 million, or more than 1 in 5 Illinoisans.” In part because of the rising Medicaid rolls, the state’s backlog of unpaid bills is expected to grow to $21 billion by fiscal year 2018.

States are fascinating laboratories of democracy that can provide brilliant blueprints for other states and the federal government to follow. However, states can also serve as flashing red lights when plans go wrong. Illinois is a great example of how a lack of anti-fraud measures can drain a state’s coffers. As President Obama’s home state, he would be wise to take notice.

President Reagan famously said “trust but verify.” In light of the notion that the U.S. health care system makes up one-eighth of the economy, it’s my hope that this administration will grasp hold of this sensible advice.

Yes, some say ObamaCare is a good start. I have yet to see any evidence of how or where or with whom. The good start would be to start over.

Post by **WBU ALUM** » July 10, 2013, 3:46 pm

Implosion.

White House Has Known For Months Obamacare Implementation Wouldn't Work
http://www.nationaljournal.com/domestic ... k-20130709

There have been a number of recent waivers from the Obama administration on the implementation of ObamaCare. Margot Sanger says we should get ready for more.

If you’ve been reading all the Obamacare stories lately, you might get the impression that the administration has just realized it will not be able to implement the massive health reform as designed.

It has known for months.

As far back as March, a top IT official at the Department of Health and Human Services said the department’s current ambition for the law’s new online insurance marketplaces was that they not be “a Third-World experience.” Several provisions had already been abandoned in an effort to simplify the administration’s task and maximize the chances that the new systems would be ready to go live in October, when customers are supposed to start signing up for insurance.

In April, several consultants focusing on the new online marketplaces, known as exchanges, told National Journal that the idealized, seamless user experience initially envisioned under the Affordable Care Act was no longer possible, as the administration axed non-essential provisions that were too complex to implement in time. (Read the story for some examples and commentary.) That focus has intensified lately, as officials announced that they would not be requiring employers to cover their workers next year or states to verify residents’ incomes before signing them up for insurance.

“There’s been a focusing in not on: ‘What is the full ACA vision?’ but: ‘What are the pieces we have to get running by October 1?” said Cindy Gillespie, senior managing director at McKenna Long and Aldridge, who is working with states and health plans.

So the President who says he's looking out for "the little guy" is going to help business by not mandating that they cover employees -- which was his target of attack all along remember? Those evil businesses that don't provide health coverage to their employees. I remember it well. Obama is going to give business a pass, but the "the little guy" still has to comply with the law. What a guy. Some of his philosophy now has an expiration date, too.

Gotta hide all this stuff before the 2014 midterm elections ...

Another thing to keep in mind is that this is Obama's signature accomplishment. For the past five years, they have had no higher priority than to make this work. They claimed at the time of passage that it would be nowhere near as complicated as their critics claimed. Now they can’t even make the key employer mandate work after three years. In the meantime, employers and their employees have been forced to adjust to it by taking on more expensive insurance or cutting hours to their staffs.

Yes, great leadership and a good start.

And now, CBS News reports this:

Smokers may get temporary break from Obamacare penalties
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-575 ... penalties/

Some smokers trying to get coverage next year under President Obama’s health care law may get a break from tobacco-use penalties that could have made their premiums unaffordable.

The Obama administration — in yet another health care overhaul delay — has quietly notified insurers that a computer system glitch will limit penalties that the law says the companies may charge smokers. A fix will take at least a year to put in place.

Older smokers are more likely to benefit from the glitch, experts say. But depending on how insurers respond to it, it’s also possible that younger smokers could wind up facing higher penalties than they otherwise would have.

So if you smoke, you will get a break.

While those who have taken care of their health and will be less expensive to the system, are punished. I think that's how it usually works anyway in Utopian Dreams. The productive pay for themselves AND the unproductive.

Three years to figure out how to charge smokers a higher rate. Insurance companies have done this for years. It's that difficult? It's easy to see why there are so many missteps in Obama's White House when they can't even implement their signature effort and their highest priority.

Post by **gudtymchuk** » July 10, 2013, 5:21 pm

Careful WBU. You're gonna upset our resident ebonics linguist. Posting factual sources will surely bring upon yourself more "Jane" accusations by exposing the Obamacare fallacy .....

Drip, drip, drip, drip... 2014 right around the corner.

Post by **WBU ALUM** » July 10, 2013, 5:30 pm

gudtymchuk wrote:Careful WBU. You're gonna upset our resident ebonics linguist. Posting factual sources will surely bring upon yourself more "Jane" accusations by exposing the Obamacare fallacy .....

Drip, drip, drip, drip... 2014 right around the corner.

[

Post by **gudtymchuk** » July 10, 2013, 6:11 pm

According to Obama you can profile your co-workers =D> but you can't profile Islamic Jihadists

.....

In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues based on behavioral profiling techniques that are not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and government documents.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/09/1 ... d1AXBzfaEA

Post by **LilRed** » July 10, 2013, 7:14 pm

http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/spend.php

Anybody else got any more credible numbers?

I do NOT see any proposals from our conservatives for improving our health care system performance, and, PRICE... (PRICE = cost + OVERHEAD + PROFIT...)

Am I wrong? (I was wrong a coupla times before... Lemme see, the last time was in '05...)

How about some serious:

- Rate reductions in doctor's fees, for example...

- Return of Profit back into the premium pool...

- Real national service for doctors...

(Yeah, I know, I repeated something from the past... I figured in our renewed climate, I'd re-ask, in hope of getting polite, substantive answers...)

I do believe there needs to be a lot less profit and OH, and far better performance. The free market has failed to perform satisfactorily.

Anybody got more credible stats, or, info on a GOP/conservative national health program?

ATB

Post by **WBU ALUM** » July 10, 2013, 8:37 pm

gudtymchuk wrote:According to Obama you can profile your co-workers =D> but you can't profile Islamic Jihadists .....

In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues based on behavioral profiling techniques that are not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and government documents.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/09/1 ... d1AXBzfaEA

Yeah, I saw that. Haven't read the article yet though. I do know that it's been in place since 2011. It didn't catch Snowden. Uh oh. Maybe it doesn't work so well -- like a lot of the Child Emperor's other plans.

Post by **WBU ALUM** » July 11, 2013, 5:28 am

So if ObamaCare is so great, why do they have to spend $1 BILLION promoting it? If it's so great, why did Congress exempt themselves and the President from having to use it?

Obamacare Ad Spending To Top $1 Billion
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/201 ... -1-billion

Counting money spent on ads since debate on the measure heated up in 2009 until the most recent spending records available, the Campaign Media Analysis Group, part of Kantar Media, found more than $500 million has already been spent on trying to sway public opinion and political races tied to the issue.

“The law both parties now call ‘Obamacare’ seems due to join Social Security and Medicare in one respect: as a public policy advertising phenom, a program that is reviled and perhaps eventually revered in political advertising for billions of dollars in ad spend to come,” said Elizabeth Wilner, vice president for strategic initiatives at CMAG in a release accompanying the analysis. “Yet while Social Security and Medicare have been litigated on the airwaves for more than 40 years, CMAG expects the ACA to break the $1 billion mark by its fifth birthday.”

Opponents of the legislation have outspent supporters by a 5-to-1 margin, according to CMAG’s estimates, but that ratio will likely shift as implementation deadlines approach in the coming years, coinciding with the midterm elections. …

“We expect Democrats on the ballot in 2014 to embrace the individual mandate in TV advertising after basically forfeiting the airwaves to Republicans and other critics for the past three years,” Wilner said. “Once the ACA begins to impact voters, we think Democrats will have no choice but to embrace the upsides in advertising.”

So it's about control and politics, not "the little guy." I've always known it.

Post by **papaguido** » July 11, 2013, 6:14 am

gudtymchuk wrote:According to Obama you can profile your co-workers =D> but you can't profile Islamic Jihadists .....

In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues based on behavioral profiling techniques that are not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and government documents.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/09/1 ... d1AXBzfaEA

Interesting read. Yet another double standard by this administration... Its okay to profile in the case of National Security, but not so in local law enforcement (U.S. v. Joe Arpaio).

In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues based on behavioral profiling techniques that are not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and government documents.

Another proven failure by this administration...

Obama mandated the program in an October 2011 executive order after Army Pfc. Bradley Manning downloaded hundreds of thousands of documents from a classified computer network and gave them to WikiLeaks, the anti-government secrecy group. The order covers virtually every federal department and agency, including the Peace Corps, the Department of Education and others not directly involved in national security.

Even so, the new effort failed to prevent former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden from taking top-secret documents detailing the agency’s domestic and international communications monitoring programs and leaking them to The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers.

Post by **WBU ALUM** » July 11, 2013, 10:22 am

I even remember Obama saying something similar to citizens to report those who they think are talking against his policies -- under the guise that they weren't being truthful. Even made a reference to "get in their face." That's what street corner, rabble-rousing community organizers do.

This Imperial President was unbelievable at one time. Today, I would believe anything. I expect him to divide people, steamroll the Constitution and free enterprise and ignore Individual Liberty any time they get in his way. He's done it already in various forms and degrees.

It is post-Constitution America.

Post by **WBU ALUM** » July 11, 2013, 3:12 pm

Philip Klein: Obamacare critics right, again
http://washingtonexaminer.com/philip-kl ... Gc.twitter

"For 19 months, experts inside and outside of government have examined how HHS might implement a financially sustainable, voluntary and self-financed long-term care insurance program under the law" Sebelius wrote to Congress. "Despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time."

The journey of the CLASS Act has become part of a growing pattern. From the time that the health care law was first making its way through Congress, Democrats have consistently dismissed reasonable criticisms of the law, only to see critics later vindicated by events. Time and again, the administration has had to acknowledge that many provisions of the law - minor and major — are unworkable.

Yet, the House Speaker at the time, Nancy Pelosi, dismissed everyone's concerns by urging the passage -- and then we can see what's in it.

Yes, the fog of the controversy created by Democrats.

At the time the legislation was being written, critics repeatedly pointed out that its requirement that larger employers provide government-approved health insurance to their workers or pay penalties would provide an incentive for businesses to slash their workforce (or cut worker hours).

Announcements by business executives over the past several years, as well as jobs reports reflecting a shift in the U.S. labor force toward part-time work, provided evidence to support this view. But critics were mocked as blowing things out of proportion. Then, the administration announced on July 2 that it was delaying the mandate for a year, citing the complexity of the new rules and complaints from businesses.

Obamacare skeptics have also spent the past several years predicting that there was no way the administration would meet the technological challenges posed by setting up new health insurance exchanges by the Oct. 1 deadline. Sure enough, the administration has delayed requirements that all applicants needed to have their income and insurance status verified before receiving federal health insurance subsidies — a change that will open the floodgates to fraud.

Yes, the cheerleaders keep talking about great leadership and ObamaCare being a good start, but all the evidence points to the fact that it hasn't even started -- and it's a mess.

The administration and its allies have spent years attacking opponents of Obamacare as uninformed bumpkins for suggesting that the law was unworkable. They should have been listening instead.

Post by **LilRed** » July 11, 2013, 3:25 pm

I wonder, how many countries in da world use "free market" vs. national health systems?...

Certainly, the US has... until Ocare... Which, in part, is directed at correcting the PP performance and price of our health care system... (Our PP performance is well documented statistically... as in the simple chart above...)

In the America I hope for, all women with children, children, and old people get proper medical care, even if in the country illegally, and, penniless... Able bodied men? I don't know... Maybe work for treatment?

Everybody else, gets affordable insurance... Just like Ocare sez...

If rich conservatives and companies and doctors and lawyers, and hospitals, and drug manufacturers, and hospital supply companies say they don't wanna help pay for the unfortunates... I say:

Eat the Rich!

ATB

Post by **WBU ALUM** » July 12, 2013, 8:49 am

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-an ... aseID=1920

Quinnipiac (a liberal outlet/organization) released a poll Thursday that delivered mostly bad news for the Imperial President. On every important national issue, his numbers were negative. Every one.

Overall approval: 44% - 48%
Foreign policy: 40% - 52%
Economy: 41% - 55%
Immigration: 41% - 50%

Odd that his numbers would be so low on Immigration after the Senate passed the comprehensive immigration reform he asked for. You would think that would be seen as a win for Obama, since the complicit media assures us that the will of People is with Obama on the Senate bill. The media lies, and Obama doesn't care about the will of the People. It's about his transformative agenda and him. And of course, the complicit media gives this poll little or no attention.

Nope. Still no rainbow across the world ... or even across America.

Post by **gudtymchuk** » July 12, 2013, 1:45 pm

POTUS and Jay-Z get their SMS on: 'Of course' he gets texts from Obama, claims the mega-star
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -star.html

The Weasel 'n Chief is Mr. Cool with all the big celebs. Maybe that's why he was AWOL the night of the Benghazi Massacre and on the golf course when the Non-coup was happening in Cairo and just maybe why Obacacare is disintegrating right before our eyes. Leading from behind while texting...

Post by **WBU ALUM** » July 12, 2013, 3:13 pm

gudtymchuk wrote:POTUS and Jay-Z get their SMS on: 'Of course' he gets texts from Obama, claims the mega-star
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -star.html

The Weasel 'n Chief is Mr. Cool with all the big celebs. Maybe that's why he was AWOL the night of the Benghazi Massacre and on the golf course when the Non-coup was happening in Cairo and just maybe why Obacacare is disintegrating right before our eyes. Leading from behind while texting...

Obama is to leadership and the presidency what Paris Hilton is to the acting profession. Beyond celebrity, not much there. But he is the coolest president evah! At least, that's what I'm told.

Post by **WBU ALUM** » July 12, 2013, 5:44 pm

BOOM! Feel that? Not getting better.

Weekly Jobless Claims Jump to 360k
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government ... mp-to-360k

The Labor Department reported Thursday that weekly jobless claims rose to 360k, up from 344k claims the week before. Economists had been expecting this week's number to dip to around 330k. The 4-week moving average, a less volatile measure also increased to 351k from the previous 345k. The report is another sign that the job market remains weak.

The claims number represents the number of people making their first filing for unemployment benefits. In total, over 4.5 million Americans are collecting unemployment benefits. That number is down from last year, due primarily to benefits expiring.

The claims number has been stuck in a tight band of 330-375k for several months. With only weak economic growth, there is little appetite among employers to step-up hiring. Without sustained growth in jobs, however, the economy isn't able to grow much faster.

Stagnant is the new normal.

You know, four weeks in the 300K range of jobLESSness is over ONE MILLION. It's not getting better, and it will get worse. Add the fact that Obama's U3 numbers don't count those who have dropped out of the system and no longer getting unemployment benefits.

Post by **udonmarc** » July 12, 2013, 9:42 pm

WBU ALUM wrote:http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-an ... aseID=1920

Quinnipiac (a liberal outlet/organization) released a poll Thursday that delivered mostly bad news for the Imperial President. On every important national issue, his numbers were negative. Every one.

Overall approval: 44% - 48%
Foreign policy: 40% - 52%
Economy: 41% - 55%
Immigration: 41% - 50%

Odd that his numbers would be so low on Immigration after the Senate passed the comprehensive immigration reform he asked for. You would think that would be seen as a win for Obama, since the complicit media assures us that the will of People is with Obama on the Senate bill. The media lies, and Obama doesn't care about the will of the People. It's about his transformative agenda and him. And of course, the complicit media gives this poll little or no attention.

Nope. Still no rainbow across the world ... or even across America.

That strikes me as a little harsh. The Quinnipiac Polling Institute is a fairly well known and respected place, part of a university. I used to be a pollster, and Obama having a net of -4% with his weakest showing being the economy overall (at -14% net) strikes me as about right on a gut feel basis.

Post by **WBU ALUM** » July 12, 2013, 9:55 pm

Dr. HFH wrote:That strikes me as a little harsh.

What?