Quote of the Day

Here is the quote of the day taken from the Mail On Line site:

Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, said that since 1980, climate models had on average overstated the extent of warming by between 79 and 159 per cent.
‘This does not mean that there is not some global warming, but it likely means that temperature rises will be lower than originally expected. That fact makes alarmist scenarios ever more implausible.’
He added: ‘The EU will pay $250 billion [£166 billion] for its current climate policies each and every year until the end of the century. For almost $20 trillion, temperatures will be reduced by a negligible 0.05C.’

The full article is here.

Remember, if the European Union is paying a quarter of a trillion dollars per year for essentially no result regarding climate change, the United States under president Obama is in the process of doing a similar thing.  The federal government is in the process of destroying the coal industry even though Congress has not agreed to that move.  Obama is using executive orders and regulations from the EPA to force low cost coal power plants to be shut.  This will raise energy costs and slow or stop America's economic growth while doing essentially nothing regarding the climate.

America deserves better.

 

The SLANT

Who is to blame if Congress does not pass a continuing resolution this week and the government "shuts down"?  If you read the mainstream media, there is only one answer to that question:  the Republicans, especially those who are part of the Tea Party.  But why is that correct?  We have a situation where two houses of Congress have to agree and the president has to sign the bill for a law to be passed.  Right now, the Senate and the House do not agree.  Why is that only the fault of the House?  For centuries, when the Senate and the House do not agree, they negotiate to find a middle ground.  The problem now is that the Senate Democrats and president Obama have announced that they will not negotiate.  For the Democrats, the only acceptable resolution is for their position to be adopted.  But guess what?  The Democrats do not control the House, and the House has to agree for there to be any resolution of the standoff.  That means that the Democrats have to be reasonable and negotiate a middle ground.  The refusal of the Democrats to do that means that it is they who will be responsible for any shutdown.

My point is not that the Democrats are responsible for any shutdown.  Rather, it is that the chorus blaming the Republicans for any shutdown that may happen are wrong.  The mainstream media goes on and on about how it is the Republicans doing this.  The funny thing, however, is that the public seems to be wising up to the reality of the situation.  The polling used to show that Republicans would be blamed by a margin of almost two to one for any shutdown.  Now, the margin of those blaming Republicans is just 3% in the latest polls.  It is really hard for Obama and the Obamacrats to keep saying that they will not negotiate at all and then blame the GOP for being obstinate.  People may not pay close attention, but they do understand reality. 

 

A Weiner Update

The New York Post is reporting that Anthony Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin were out for dinner at a restaurant in Tribeca on Thursday and that Weiner demanded a private room (which the restaurant does not have).  It seems strange that Weiner would want to keep his dinner private in view of what he had already shown the entire world.

On a more serious note, does Huma's dinner with her husband mean she is leaving Hillary?  I am sure that the Post will keep us informed.

 

So What do the Government's Experts Say about Obamacare?

Forget all the hype.  Forget the phony campaign promises.  We have Obamacare as the law and the question is what will this law accomplish?  To answer that we want to stay away from partisan talking points and instead look at what the government's own experts say.  Here are the three biggest things to take away from the debate:

1.  Obamacare was supposed to provide coverage for the uninsured in America.  According to the non-partisan GAO, however, ten years from now there will still be over 30 million Americans who will have no health insurance.  To be clear, this figure does not include people who are here illegally; it only deals with American citizens and permanent residents.  Simply put, Obamacare will not get insurance to all Americans as was promised.

2.  Costs for healthcare under Obamacare will go up for the average American.  The actuaries for the Medicare system calculate that an average family will spend between $800 and $900 more per year on healthcare under Obamacare than it would without that law.  That additional cost may come from increased insurance premiums or reduced coverage for medical items by the insurance.  Most Obamacare policies have huge deductibles, so even if premiums get reduced, the total amount spent on healthcare will go up.

To be clear, the costs calculated by the Medicare actuaries are average costs for a family.  Obviously some people will see their costs fall and others will see much bigger increases than just that $900 discussed above.  The problem, however, is that many, many more people will see big increases rather than decreases.

3.  About a third of all insurance plans that were in place prior to the passage of Obamacare do not meet the requirements of that law.  That means that people who had those policies could not keep their current plans, and for many it means that they had to change their doctors.

So there you have it.  Obama told us that Obamacare would cut premiums for the average family by $2500 per year.  Obama told us that Obamacare would provide insurance for the uninsured.  Obama told us that if we liked our plans and our doctors we could keep them.  Not a single one of those promises was true.  NOT ONE.

Now that all this has become clear, one would think that Washington would rethink the entire Obamacare law.  That has not happened.  Instead, Obama and the Obamacrats have dug in to insist on full implementation of this disaster.

America deserves better.

What's The Difference

No, this post is not about Hillary Clinton and her famous indifference to the murder of four Americans in Libya.  The "difference" that I am discussing is between two proposed modifications to Obamacare.  The first change to the law is one which delays for a year the implementation of the employer mandate, the section that requires businesses that employ over 50 full time workers to provide those employees with insurance.  The second change to the law is one which delays for a year the implementation of the individual mandate, the section  that requires individuals to purchase health insurance.  There really does not seem to be much of a difference between the two proposed changes.

The reason I ask is that ABC describes the first change (to the employer mandate) as an "adjustment" to the law, but ABC also describes the second change (to the individual mandate) as one that would "gut" the law.  Why is that?  The answer is simple:  president Obama made the first change and the House GOP wants to make the second change.  For ABC, reality seems to be only a question of who made the change, not what the change actually is.

 

The Next Move By the House

This morning the House Republican caucus met and arrived at their position in response to the funding resolution that the Senate passed yesterday.  As expected, the House is not giving up its fight regarding Obamacare.  They will not defund Obamacare, but they will insist on a one year delay in implementation of the individual mandate.  The House will also insist that the medical device tax imposed by Obamacare be repealed. 

These changes make sense.  President Obama has already delayed the law by one year for big businesses.  He has also delayed the law for small businesses, although not by a full year.  Those changes were actually illegal since Obama does not have the authority to delay a law.  Nevertheless, it makes no sense for individuals to have to comply with a law when the employers/businesses do not.  There is supposed to be equal treatment of all under American law.  In addition, the Obamacare exchanges are clearly not ready to start going next week.  There is going to be chaos at first because the federal government has not managed to set up the exchanges in a coherent and complete way.  An extra year to prepare makes sense. 

The medical device tax has already resulted in some manufacturing jobs leaving the country.  Each day that it stays in place, it will just send more jobs overseas.  Even worse, the tax just makes healthcare more expensive.  We need for healthcare to get LESS expensive.

The media will undoubtedly describe this latest move by the GOP as some sort of terror attack.  It is not.  It is a move to try to help the average American survive the onslaught that is coming from Obamacare.

 

Losing One's Identity

One of the items that have been totally mishandled by the federal government in the roll out of Obamacare is the security of the insurance exchanges.  Washington is responsible for nearly two-thirds of these exchanges, and they are easy targets for hackers and identity thieves.  Think about it.

First of all, in order to get insurance, a person will need to give over a whole host of important information.  This includes the applicant's 1) full name; 2) social security number; 3) home address; 4) employment information; 5) income details; 6) some asset information like car and home ownership and bank accounts; and 7) details used for identification.  Let me amplify a bit about item seven, the identification details.  When one sets up an account at the exchanges, there will be passwords, user names and other details like mother's maiden name that get taken by the exchange to improve security.  The vast majority of people use the same user name and password for most sites.  This information is more than enough for any identity thief to steal nearly anything he or she wants. 

Second, the exchanges are going into operation even though the security systems that are supposed to protect the sites from hackers and other identity thieves are not finished and tested.  Even worse, the fact of this inadequate security has been well publicized so that the entire community of hackers and thieves is well aware of it.  The federal government is serving up the critical personal information about millions of Americans to hackers and thieves.

The idea behind the exchanges was to help individuals, not to open them up to identity theft.  Nevertheless, because of incompetence by the federal government, people will be subject to having the identities stolen if they use the exchanges to buy insurance.

I know that president Obama has said that he will not negotiate a delay in the roll out of the individual mandate, but his refusal to be reasonable is likely to lead to enormous problems for some folks who just try to comply with the law by using the exchanges.

America deserves better.