Posted on 12/02/2014 7:42:00 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Well, she may claim to not know who Jonathan Gruber is, but she sure did get a copy of his talking points. Discussing Obamacare with a USA Today reporter, former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius blamed many of the law’s problems on the fact that Americans lack her sophisticated understanding of insurance:
Still, Sebelius didn’t dispute the point that many Americans don’t fully understand how health insurance and the Affordable Care Act work, including the trade-offs involved in expanding coverage.
“A lot of Americans have no idea what insurance is about,” she said. “I think the financial literacy of a lot of people, particularly people who did not have insurance coverage or whose employers chose their coverage and kind of present it to them, is very low — and that has been a sort of stunning revelation. It’s not because people hid it from folks. It’s because this is a complicated product.”
Sebelius served as insurance commissioner for the state of Kansas before epically botching the roll-out of a federal entitlement program in historic and ostentatious fashion. So, she knows a thing or two, America.
Here’s the thing about Gruber and Sebelius. They decry the stupidity of Americans who have the temerity to express displeasure with their giant, ill-conceived, and iller-implemented social and policy engineering experiment. Americans just don’t understand the trade-offs, they say. Americans just don’t understand all the good stuff they’re getting. Americans just couldn’t be trusted with the truth of what we were passing because we had to force them into what’s best for them. But Americans, as they have shown in poll after poll after poll, have seen through all of this every single step of the way. They’ve had the architects and the bureaucrats pegged from Day One, and the architects and the bureaucrats are none too happy about it.
And here’s one more thing about Gruber and Sebelius. The American people, though wise enough to spot this lemon coming off the lot, are a generous folk. They might, indeed, have warmed to the law a bit if it had been executed comptently, if the interface for exchanges was as elegant and user-friendly as, say, Obama’s campaign website, if disruption had been manageable, managed smartly, and damage minimized, they might have given Gruber and Sebelius and Obamacare yet another chance. (I would have advised against this, but the American people are more generous than I.)
Guess whose job it was to get all of that right? The architects and the bureaucrats— the people who know so much better than we do. When Sebelius says the illiteracy of Americans about complicated insurance was a “stunning revelation,” she’s projecting her own lack of preparation and perception on us. Americans knew it was a complicated product and a complex undertaking and were rightly skeptical of her ability to deliver. She, on the other hand, was stunned to find out that micromanaging an entire country’s health care might not work out as smoothly as she envisioned. She was as stunned as Obama was that this didn’t come off without a hitch (though she may have been stunned a couple weeks earlier than Obama, as she saw her project hurtling inexorably toward IT disaster). They had both told themselves and voters that the federal government could do big things, especially when run by the Cult of Competence. There is no evidence that she or Obama tried very hard or even knew how to try to ensure that it would go well.
They had one job. They didn’t do it. Who’s stupid?
Sebelius is a clueless ditz. Just another arrogant Obamanoid insulting the intelligence of the American people. We’re stupid, da ho is smart.
In junior high school, I was trained in business, both personal and corporate, and what budgets, checkbooks and finances are all about.
In high school, I was trained in Bookkeeping and Accounting.
In the military, for the first part of my many years, I was taught about supply and inventory management.
All of this was before the advent of the hand-held calculator, which meant pad, pencil, and mental exercises, galore.
For many years as a writer, I kept my own books, as well as having done my own taxes from the first year I entered the military, till now.
As for healthcare, I was a health benefits examiner employed by Great West and Annuity, in Portland, OR, in the 1990’s. (I’m was the sort of guy that disallowed your prescription aspirin, and paid you back 80% of your 80% benefit.)
I wrote all of this, to preface this retort to this Sibelius wench:
“Janet, you ignorant s**t! I know more about MY finances, and MY healthcare costs, and have managed them better than YOU ever will!”
In short, I believe they call that a "nasty old bich".
MAybe if they don’t understand it perhaps maybe KAthleen and the Obamabots didn’texplain it very well?
And what they DID tell them it would and wouldn’t be, they RENEGED on and outright lied about it to their “stupid” (Gruber) faces????
Losing health insurance beginning first of the year.
I refuse to subsidize abortion for women who don’t know how to keep their legs closed and have a deficit of self respect.
I consider BarrySoetoro”Care” PRE-MEDITATED MURDER on middle class Americans.
There...I said it.
States are raising the minimum wage so that more people make enough money to qualify for obamacare and subsidies.
Isn’t there a rule here at FR that any article written by Mary Katherine Ham must include a photo of the author?
This female was an embarrassment beginning Day 1. If anything, the embarrassment got worse for her, The Messiah and the media.
o...33% more abortions in half the time
o...abortions performed while you wait
o...every third abortion FREE!
o...free concert tickets with every abortion
o...luxury abortions in the Caribbean, just $495 (hotel & travel included)
Kate, just say it - we’re dumb.
Grubbels! OH I LOVE IT!
Lois Lerner saying Americans financial literacy is low......duh George....is that like Grubbels saying Stupid Americans are too dumb to understand basic economic concepts....uh duhhhhhh
STFU, Cruella!
If there isn’t, there should be! She’s easy on the eyes.
Kathleen Sebaceous: Let them eat 0bamacare!
Let’s move our Financial Understanding to a new low and shove it up her @ss!
Yup. And she will be the last to recognize that fact. That is why it is so sad.
People, generally speaking, can see and understand who has put him/herself first and others second. She has not been a servant of the people, but a servant of self and tyrant. Or, to put it another way, her philanthropic “literacy is low.” She should read up on the Russian aristocracy just before the Bolshevik Revolution. She would, if her eyes were opened, see herself in them. Talk about irony.
Costs more, get less.
Seems she and her communist buddies are the ones thinking they get more because we don’t.
“Why doesn’t she have Obamacare, if it’s so damned great?”
You already forgot? There would be a brain drain in Washington if these standards were forced unto their health insurance policies. Therefore taxpayers pay for their “Cadillac Plans”.
Keep up...
I know what insurance is you moron. It is to pay for any large unexpected costs due to a injury. I want to buy a policy that meets my needs, I.e. Covering any major injury,mhispiltization, surgery, etc, not every possible preventive procedure under the sun. As a melinnial I don’t need most of possible procedures covered for a long time.
ObamaCare is the equivalent of a auto insurance policy that you pay $300/month for, but it covers all oil changes, burnt out light bulbs and new tires but if you crash your car the first 10k is on you. But you saved so much by not spending $25 on that last oil change. What a great deal.
I’m so financially illiterate I thought I heard 0bama say the average family would save $2,500 a year but instead it has cost me at least $2,500.
The thoughts I have towards this administration and its former hacks are unprintable.
I do not wish anything well for this woman.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.