Posted on 11/13/2013 4:40:54 PM PST by Kaslin
I don’t get it. Sebelius claims that “the marketplace is working.” What is there to talk about?
Actually, I can think of two items on the agenda.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday will convene a special meeting of the Senate Democratic caucus and senior White Officials to discuss the troubled rollout of ObamaCare…
The Senate leader said President Obama called him Tuesday evening to discuss healthcare and other issues.
Several Democrats have signed onto a proposal sponsored by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) that would force insurance companies to let people keep their health plans if they like them.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said he would have a better idea of what proposals Democrats will push to improve the new law after the Thursday meeting.
Agenda item one: Are they really going to cover their asses politically by passing Mary Landrieu’s bill knowing that it’ll increase the damage to ObamaCare? If you support the law, as every Democrat does, the last thing you should want to do in the wake of the website meltdown is further discourage healthy people from signing up on the exchanges. Give ‘em back their old plans and you’re guaranteeing that the risk pools for new ObamaCare-approved policies will be even sicker and older than they already are. And the older and sicker they get, the higher premiums will have to be next year to make up for the losses, which will further discourage healthy people from enrolling. There’s a two-word term to describe that phenomenon. Hint: One of the words is “spiral.” And yet, not only is Landrieu’s bill still in play, other Democrats like Mark Udall are introducing their own “keep your plan” bills.
Agenda item two: How long before the Healthcare.gov Chernobyl is finally contained? Administration sources keep reassuring the media that November 30th is still the target date, but Sebelius told people listening to today’s HHS conference call that they might want to consider enrolling directly on individual insurance companies’ websites instead. (You’d lose your subsidy if you do that, but something like 41 percent of people whose plans have been dropped aren’t eligible for subsidies anyway.) Jim Moran went so far as to say, “They are not going to meet the November 30th deadline, I would bet anything on that. If I had a farm I’d bet the farm on that.” (Another Democrat who spoke to BuzzFeed for the story at the last link described the meeting with White House aides this morning as “incredibly tense.”) How much longer do they have to wait for good news? If the website is still in ruins next month, Obama — and congressional Democrats — will be forced to consider extending the enrollment period or delaying the mandate. If there’s no avoiding a shinola-eating vote in December, why not take a more politically popular one now on “keep your plan” to mitigate the damage?
I’ll leave you with this, from health-industry expert Bob Laszewski: “The audacity of this administration to continue telling people to keep going back to the website and the call center when they knew full well that only 25 people per day per state were making it thorough the gauntlet that is Healthcare.gov is startling. This program is in grave danger of collapsing if the administration cannot dramatically grow the size of the risk pool and attract healthy people to it.”
bh0 will order Reid not to go ‘wobbly,’ but to stand fast and teach those ignorant masses who actually runs this country and is giving them what they wanted when they re-elected him.
RedState says the Upton bill is a trap:
EXCERPT:
IT’s A Trap!
Republicans are walking into a trap and they don’t even realize it.
They are about to consider, in the House of Representatives, legislation by Congressman Upton that would allow people to keep their insurance plans.
There’s a problem though. It is widely acknowledged that Congressman Upton’s legislation is more messaging than substance. His legislation does not have anything in it that can force insurance companies, in the topsy-turvy world of Obamacare, to keep insurance plans going.
But there is a plan than does. Senator Mary Landrieu has written legislation in the United States Senate that the Democrats love. It mandates insurance companies have to keep people on their present insurance. The GOP is supposedly against mandates and against government forcing private businesses and individuals into contracts they don’t want.
Here’s what is going to happen.
The House, with the help of a good number of Democrats, will pass the Upton plan and send it to the Senate. Harry Reid will substitute the Landrieu plan and send it back to the House. The House will be forced to either vote for the Landrieu plan or be characterized as siding with insurance companies against people.
In one fell swoop, the Democrats will have the GOP on record saving Mary Landrieu’s re-election in Louisiana by casting her as the one who saved Americans’ health care plans, and also getting on record as really being in favor of fixing Obamacare with the use of mandates.
In truth, Obamacare is not fixable. The only solution is to fully repeal it. The Republicans should not be helping Democrats with their re-election plans, which is all the are doing with Upton/Landrieu.
The GOP is walking right into the trap.
http://www.redstate.com/2013/11/13/its-a-trap/
-— The GOP is walking right into the trap. -—
Unnnnngh.
I expect republicans to once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
how many will die because of this?
Health insurance companies are also culprits in this Obamacare scam. Many want to eliminate the individual policy market in exchange for a larger mandatory market. More policies with higher premiums would be sold under Obamacare then current system. In other words many large health insurance companies love Obamacare because it is a law that requires all citizens to buy their products. Just look at their stock prices after Obamacare passed.
I say go ahead and vote for the Senate version. Burn the insurance companies for scheming. At the same time in the long run the Democrat Obamacare will be deprived of healthy and young policy holders thus imploding the policy several years down the road.
The real culprits, Dems and Health Insurance companies will be burned for the scheme they hatched.
Ah, it's the evil insurance companies that's responsible. Have to "force" them to undo what Obamacare forced them to do.
The Republicans are always behind the curve.
RATS play chess and the Pubbies cower in the corner.
Harry was a boxer and will try to beat them into submission
This is what you really meant to say
the liberals voted for it. Let them own it
RATS will NEVER let it collapse. They will get the Republicans on the record for a BIPARTISAN FIX—the they will drag one concession after another from the Republicans until they get the SINGLKE PAYER SYSTEM THEY REALLY WANT.
Socialized medicine is the endgame. After all the chicanery, lying, and perversion of procedural rules to get Obamacare to this point, will Reid and Pelosi give up? NO.
Everyone dies, regardless of whether or not they have health insurance.
I think the question you want to ask is “how many will die earlier than they would have, had the health insurance system just been left alone?”
Oh, absolutely. Call Morty and make book on it.
BHO back down on his one and only signature achievement? No way. Pigs will fly over DC in combat formation before that happens.
Of course that is what I meant. silly to even clarify
After all the Obama administration has used him as tool several times before...
Mostly giving them the ability to report it was a bipartisan effort...
Wow. What this is all about is Obamacare. They are obsessed. I don’t know what other word I can use. They’re obsessed with this Obamacare. It’s working now and it will continue to work and people will love it more than they do now by far. So they have no right to pick and choose..
Harry (the booty) Reid 10/2/13
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