The latest Good and Evil opinion article, (Republicans bad, Democrats good) written by Paul Waldman on April 18th is a worn attempt to elect Hillary Clinton based on the misinformed "goodness" of Obamacare, "Obamacare is helping a lot of people. Not everyone thinks that’s good news," https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/04/18/obamacare-is-helping-a-lot-of-people-not-everyone-thinks-thats-good-news/.
Unfortunately, the wolf in sheep's clothing gig is getting pretty old and Obamacare is a great example of the good intentions fallacy perpetrated by this President with his disguise of perpetration as morality with the words that should make us all cringe---"the right thing to do."
As this presidency fades, there are some who apparently, like Mr. Waldman cannot move on, who rather are stuck in the phony morality that brought us Obamacare and the singular mission to use the middle class as a piggy bank to finance government world which apparently has no limits beyond destroying the last remnants of a nongovernmental middle class in the US. Hardly a moral high-ground.
Mr. Waldman frames his Obamacare/good intentions argument describing how sometimes people want the same thing but differ on how to get there, like less crime, and then other times people want different things, asserting that, for example, NOT everyone wants women to have reproductive rights, and then throws Obamacare into the second category. Well, there it is--if you don't like Obamacare you're a person who is against women's reproductive rights.
The silliness of this type of argument is second only to the threat of this phony morality that has thrust the US middle class into the category of an endangered species.
Mr. Waldman hasn't noticed, I suppose, so we'll point out some of what's occurred:
The rich got richer and the middle class got poorer with Obama: “Wealth gap between middle class and rich widest ever,” CNN, 1/30/2015. (http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/2015/04/reality-pro-redistributive-and-anti.html).
The government class is the ONLY middle class set to survive in the US, “US Federal Employment Related to Higher Financial Well-Being,” March 5, 2015, Jessica Mangskau and Steve Ander, http://www.gallup.com/poll/181820/federal-employment-related-higher-financial.aspx. Wow, a corrupt government protecting itself--also not a very "liberal" idea.
Worker participation has not been worse in 38 years than it is under Obama--The Obama Administration CUT unemployment benefits not only putting millions of long-term unemployed at risk but as an effort to fudge the numbers of unemployed by simply not counting them, the worker participation rate in the United States is at its lowest since 1978, (“…the civilian labor force participation rate between 1948 and 2015. As the graph shows, the participation rate in February 2015 (62.8 percent) is the lowest since March 1978,” factcheck.org.
Affordable Health Care for Insurance Companies and Payers, not Insureds: Obama's promises about what exactly the Affordable Care Act was going to do? A distant memory of the biggest lies told to the American people by this President: http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/2009/02/oh-obama-health-care-reform-for-middle.html, "…affordable, accessible health care for every single American - because you shouldn't have to worry about being one illness away from bankruptcy. If you like the health care you have, you'll see lower premiums under my plan. If you don't have health care, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves," Obama, 2008.
Hardly evidence of some moral high-ground. But familiarly, facts don't really matter to those whose allegiance is sworn to the good intentions fallacy.
Obamacare is a microcosm of everything wrong, both morally and physically in what we got with this Presidency.
Founded on the lies described in 2008, Obamacare was enacted and soon we realized that Obama was focused on one thing--ENROLLMENT, largely because we didn't realize that he'd accepted without argument the proposition of the insurers (AHIP, 2008)--force people by law to buy our consumer financial product and we won't turn away those with preexisting conditions.
Unfortunately the number of uninsured and the number of those unable to purchase health insurance because of preexisting conditions were also both OVERSTATED. In 2015 the government admitted, "…somewhat fewer people are now projected to gain insurance coverage because of the ACA, because CBO and JCT estimate that fewer people would be uninsured in the absence of the ACA…” (emphasis added)(Pub. 49973 page 22), http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/p/lies-that-matter-2015-obamacare-number.html.
2/4/2011, Lori Robertson for Factcheck answered the question: "Is it true — as the Obama administration claims — that '129 million Americans with a pre-existing condition could be denied coverage without new health reform law'?" Answer: "No." http://www.factcheck.org/2011/02/millions-with-preexisting-conditions/.
And the "ENROLLMENT" upon which every good Obamacare soldier relies? According to the government, "…an estimated range of 9.4 to 11.4 million effectuated enrollees in the Marketplace at the end of 2016," https://aspe.hhs.gov/affordable-care-act-research.
Lets get that straight, according to the government of the alleged 47 million uninsured, at the end of 2016, 9.4 to 11.4 million will have Obamacare policies--Even after making it a taxable offense not to purchase health insurance, even after the government undertook to pay premiums or a portion thereof for anyone using health exchanges (including millionaires since there's no assets test just an income test), FEWER THAN ONE-QUARTER of the alleged "47 million uninsured" have gained insurance with exchanges according to the Government: "…an estimated range of 9.4 to 11.4 million effectuated enrollees in the Marketplace at the end of 2016," https://aspe.hhs.gov/affordable-care-act-research.
What does work? Giving free health insurance and free healthcare all on the federal government dime (at least for the first years and mostly on the federal government dime thereafter)--Expanded Medicaid. 12.3 MILLION people are now getting free stuff: "Over 12.3 additional individuals are enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP as of April 2015, compared to before October 2013," http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/facts-and-features/fact-sheets/aca-is-working/index.html#.
What else worked? Forcing families of grown children to carry the cost of health insurance for those under 26 because of no other options. (This number is usually included as part of the fake "enrollment in Obamacare" because numbers don't bother to separate out Obamacare plan enrollees from Medicaid and parents paying for health insurance.)
Mr. Waldman weakly tries to argue that people who don't like Obamacare, in addition to apparently being against women's reproductive rights are simply against "government involvement." Nonsense, though admittedly the nuttiest conservatives will still hold out the old-time "anti-big guvment" phony philosophy much as Democrats use the "Obamacare is working" phony philosophy ignoring facts and reality from their partisan perches.
When all his lukewarm and half-truth praises of this bad law fail, Mr. Walden slips into the Democratic warning zone, flapping his words like an inflatable advertising blow-up man--"It’s one thing to keep people from getting insurance, but it’s something quite different, and far more politically dangerous, to take away insurance people already have."
Mr. Waldman doesn't show a very clear understanding of health insurance. Health insurance is an ANNUAL election, there is an ANNUAL enrollment. Every time an insurance plan is no longer offered, there is a legislation change, or a court decision, or a plan becomes too expensive or there are changes the income levels necessary for participation or a change of life event like change of job, loss of job, marriage, parenthood, there is IN FACT a "tak[ing] away [of] insurance people already have." Not only is his argument false, but it's designed to fear-monger. Anyone with any understanding of health insurance knows that it is good for this year only.
And, Hillary Clinton will make things worse if she has her way. She addresses none of the myriad of problems created by or perpetuated by Obamacare but instead focuses in on feeding the insurance companies, who despite being guaranteed customers by a government forcing people to purchase their products, want more and more.
So how do you get more people to buy these products after you've forced every US citizen who can to buy them? Go to nonUS citizens, so, Hillary Clinton came up with offering up illegal immigrants--let them participate in Obamacare plans too! And further disguise the rising costs of these forced purchased by an industry now accustomed to the bribes offered by law in order to please, please offer plans on the exchanges, Hillary Clinton will sweeten the pot making exchange plans cheaper for purchasers by throwing in another $5,000 from the federal government per Obamacare exchange participant as a tax credit. https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/.
Mr. Waldman is the worst kind of wrong and the worst kind of liberal, expressing opinion as fact and claiming to be on the side of "good," dismissing everyone else as "evil."
