What Do You Mean My Premiums Are Going Up?

As I’ve pointed out before, the Democrats are going to have a hard time selling ObamaCare to the masses. Nothing about ObamaCare makes any sense, and each of the promises they made to entice people was false. Our vaunted media is now figuring this out. As usual, they are fifty days late and two trillion dollars short.

I previously discussed (HERE) how almost immediately after Obama signed the ObamaCare bill, companies began recording losses on their balance sheets, laying off their workers, and cutting their benefits, despite Obama’s assurances this would never happen.

A few days later, the first articles appeared talking about the shock received by ObamaCare supporters when they called private insurance companies and asked how to sign up for their free ObamaCare. According to various insurers, they’ve been fielding thousands of these calls, and none of Obama’s supporters are hearing what they expected. Indeed, rather than being enrolled in their new free care, they are finding out that there is no such thing, and that there won’t be. And they are learning that no matter what David Axelrod may be telling people in interviews, none of the benefits kick in until 2014 or later. People with pre-existing conditions also are finding themselves dismayed to learn that they don’t get covered until 2014, and even then, there are no price controls on what they can be charged.

But then, how could anyone have know this. . . it's not like it was in a bill for the world to see. Interestingly, these articles actually blame the Republicans for this problem because evil Republicans apparently lied. . . spreading lies like ObamaCare providing “universal coverage” and that the benefits kick in immediately. That’s right, the evil Republicans unfairly raised expectations by trying to make the bill sound better than it really is. Yeah, you read that right.

Now the L.A. Times has learned, much to its chagrin, that there are no mechanisms in ObamaCare that allow the government to set the rates that insurers can charge! Sacre bleu! Dianne Feinstein even calls this: “a very big loophole in health reform” and she wants to pass new legislation to give the government such powers. Good luck.

Seriously, how stupid do you have to be not to have noticed that the bill doesn’t allow the government to impose price controls? The bill was right there, ready to be read. And on this issue in particular, Obama himself proposed adding it to the bill, but the Democrats couldn’t do it without having to get the Senate to vote on it again, so they didn't. This was big news. There is no way Feinstein and the Times missed it.

In reality, I don’t think Feinstein is that stupid. She knew full well that there was nothing in the bill that allowed the government to control premiums, she’s just playing along now that the cat is out of the bag. To borrow from Casablanca, she’s “shocked! Shocked! That this isn’t in the bill.”

The L.A. Times, though, is being stupid. They genuinely didn’t have a clue that ObamaCare didn’t give the government this power. They took the word of the Democrats at face value and never assigned anyone to read the bill. Heck, it’s likely they don’t even have anyone on staff would could read the bill. And now they’re weeping into their printers ink that evil health insurance providers could impose massive premium hikes. They’re particularly terrified that such hikes could drive people to oppose ObamaCare. . . . hmmm, maybe they aren’t so stupid after all?

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Democrats Kill Bipartisanship

Bipartisanship means many things to many people. To some, it means trying to work together. To Obama it means the Republicans should accept the blame for his failures. To Harry Reid, it means killing any bill which the Republicans might like. So much for the new era of bipartisanship. Rest in peace dear friend, two days was too young to die.

When Obama met with the Republicans on Tuesday, his lips moved a lot and the word “bipartisan” kept falling out, but so did a lot of other nasty words. Still, we were supposed to believe that Obama wanted a new era of bipartisanship, and he particularly urged the Republicans to work with the Democrats on a jobs bill. But that was Tuesday and yesterday was Thursday, and two days is a long time in politics.

Thursday morning, Sen. Max Baucus and Sen. Chuck Grassley unveiled their long-awaited bipartisan jobs bill. But within minutes, the Democratic Party’s left flank was up in arms.

“Waaaaaah, this includes tax cuts,” sort of whined Dianne Feinstein. Actually, what she said was:

“It is my belief that tax credits only go to people who are making money, and they generally keep it. That’s the way I feel, I don’t know that anyone else agrees with me.”

Wow, that’s stupid! Note the use of the word “feel” rather than “think,” indicating the disuse of her brain -- and the lack of any research. But then, she may know what she’s talking about. . . considering that she apparently uses her Senate seat to benefit her husband financially:

1. She served on the Senate’s Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, while companies owned by her husband won extensive government contracts (worth more than $1 billion) without competitive bidding -- the same procedure Barack promised to halt until he found out he could reward his own friends using this practice; and

2. She requested $25 billion in extra federal funding for the FDIC, which three days later granted a huge contract to a real estate company on whose board her husband sits to sell foreclosed homes for the FDIC.

But DiFi wasn’t alone. No, where there is one rich socialist howling at the moon, there are more. Enter Tom Harkin, a man who "mistakenly" claimed to fly combat missions over North Vietnam when he was really in Japan. Rich farm boy doesn’t like the bill either, it doesn’t extend unemployment benefits far enough. . . here piggy piggy.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (SBD for short), who did not take campaign contributions from Jack Abramoff while his committee was investigating Abramoff. . . but did take them from Abramoff clients (that’s called a “bag man” in the criminal parlance), worries that “this has morphed into something different than just a jobs bill.” Oh no! You mean it’s become a regular Democratic bill? Liars and spenders and bagman, oh my!

And there are more: Sherrod Brown, who flosses his teeth with his underwear, and Jay Rockefeller, who flosses his tooth with Brown’s underwear, don’t like the bill either.

Thus, confronted with a wave of socialist anger, Dingy Harry Reid killed the bill. But not only did he kill it, he killed it only a couple hours after it was introduced, without even a chance to fix the bill. This was considered a major rebuke to Max Baucus for his misjudgment in trying to work with the Republicans. What were you thinking Max? Don't you know that bipartisanship doesn’t mean actually working with the Republicans!! Don't make me go all Rahm Emanuel on you!

So there you have it. We now know exactly what the Democrats mean when they say “bipartisan.” They mean they would rather do nothing than do anything the Republicans might like. . . funny, that sounds like spite? Oh well. And I guess we also know what Obama’s appeals for bipartisanship mean to his party.

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