Primum non nocere

(This post is dedicated to my #1 fan, who keeps track of my posts and subsequent comments.)

Re: Obamacare. Its problems, costs, damage, and supposed benefits.

From Wikipedia:

Primum non nocere is a Latin phrase that means "first, do no harm." The phrase is sometimes recorded as primum nil nocere.

Non-maleficence, which is derived from the maxim, is one of the principal precepts of bioethics that all healthcare students are taught in school and is a fundamental principle throughout the world. Another way to state it is that, "given an existing problem, it may be better not to do something, or even to do nothing, than to risk causing more harm than good." It reminds the health care provider that they must consider the possible harm that any intervention might do. It is invoked when debating the use of an intervention that carries an obvious risk of harm but a less certain chance of benefit.

Get it?

Others Say Smart Stuff, Too - Part XLVII

From Victor Davis Hansen ("The Orphaned Middle Class"):

The problem with Obamacare is that its well-connected and influential supporters -- pet businesses, unions and congressional insiders -- have already won exemption from it. 

Obamacare,the hard sell

The Weekly Standard has a story detailing the adventures of members of "nonpartisan" Enroll America (a huge percentage of which are former Obama campaign staffers) as they try to give members of a Florida neighborhood information on Obamacare. "Hard Sell: Going door-to-door for Obamacare" finishes up with a seminar to help 100 people navigate the Obamacare website to enroll for insurance. (Spoiler alert: After three hours none of them are able to enroll.)

Worth reading to see the crumbling cogs in this Rube Goldberg machine.

Others Say Smart Stuff, Too - Part XLV

The Hoover Institution's Richard Epstein, writing about "Obamacare's Death Spiral":

"The tragedy remains that it is far easier to force people out of healthcare plans that they want than it is to enroll them in healthcare plans that they don’t."

How Obamacare Fails (but Democrats win)

Obama: "more flexibility"

What in the world

"Nope. Nothing wrong here."

In a surprise turnaround from their Liberal Lapdog misinformation campaign of the last two generations, the New York Times ran a critical story on the Obama administration's repeated assertions that Obama himself didn't know the Obamacare website was such a disaster until after it failed. Here, in a nutshell, is the rest of the Times story:

According to the White House:
Obamacare website fail? Obama didn't know.
NSA spying on allied leaders? Obama didn't know.
Operation Fast and Furious gets an American border agent killed? Obama didn't know.
IRS targeting conservative groups? Obama didn't know.
Obama Justice Department stealing phone logs from a reporter? Obama didn't know.

We can only assume that when Obama repeatedly told Americans "If you want to keep your doctor, you can. If you want to keep your insurance, you can" that he simply "didn't know." (But every other Democrat in Washington did.) 

Liberal Answer to Everything: Reject Reality

The prime characteristic of Liberals -- their ability to twist reality to conform to their beliefs -- was dramatically illustrated to me a couple of days ago. In the film Hating Breitbart, a documentary about the conservative firebrand, several minutes are devoted to the John Lewis "n-word" controversy.

A refresher on the subject: At one point during the 2010 debates over the Obamacare legislation, Tea Partiers held a rally against the Democrat law in Washington. While approaching the building where Obama was to speak, several black Democrat congressmen, including Lewis, passed through the Tea Party protest. The congressmen subsequently reported that they were repeatedly called "n***er" and spat upon by Tea Partiers. The media, of course, ran with the story as an excuse to blast the Tea Party movement as racist.

Andrew Breitbart, deeply acquainted with the Tea Party movement and rallies, doubted the reports. He offered $10,000 -- later increased to $100,000 -- to anyone who could provide video or audio proof of the n-word being used just once.

In the sea of television cameras and microphones, hundreds if not thousands of cell phones and video cameras held by individuals that day, not a single instance of anyone using the n-word has turned up. Remember, this was not an incident that occurred in a room with a closed door and no one else present. This was as public as it gets.

The bounty is uncollected to this day.

Breitbart analyzed the situation, I think accurately. "I think the press release was written before they walked through the crowd, and the reality of it didn't materialize, but they went ahead with their plan anyway." Regardless of what happened (or didn't) they were claiming Tea Partiers called them names.

Despite the lack of a single shred of evidence or proof, Liberals still believe the story. In Hating Breitbart, Mediaite political editor Tommy Christopher says, "My assumption, especially for someone like John Lewis, uh, is that that guy's not gonna lie......about that." 

So the fact that he agrees with someone politically outweighs anything else, including reality. And that's why arguments against Liberals are essentially pointless. Liberalism is their religion, and anything that refutes or disproves that religion is to be ignored.  

In case you actually believe in math

The math of Obamacare explained.

Others Say Smart Stuff Too - Part XLII

The Democrats have made a lot of stew out of the supposed "unconstitutionality" of the Republican House's actions regarding funding the government. The Republicans have been described as anarchists, terrorists, hostage takers, and other names less savory. Critics say, "Obamacare was passed by both (Democrat) houses of Congress, signed into law by the (Democrat) President, and ruled Constitutional." (My notes added to improve accuracy.) The overall Democrat theme is "How dare Republicans use funding in this way?"

The answer lies in the words of James Madison, America's fourth President, and the man often referred to as "The Father of the Constitution." Here's what he had to say about the House of Representatives and funding (Some emphasis is mine):

"The House of Representatives can not only refuse, but they alone can propose the supplies requisite for the support of Government. They, in a word, hold the purse; that powerful instrument by which we behold, in the history of the British Constitution, an infant and humble representation of the People gradually enlarging the sphere of its activity and importance, and finally reducing, as far as it seems to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the Government.

"This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon, with which any Constitution can arm the immediate Representatives of the People, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure." - James Madison, Federalist Papers #58 (1788)

As the closest representatives of the people (the majority of whom oppose Obamacare) it is the House's duty to use the power of the purse to fulfill the people's wishes. Refusing funding, reducing the prerogatives ("excesses") of other branches of government, and redressing ("remedying") the grievances of the people are right in line with what the Founders had in mind when they wrote the Constitution.

Reality Bites

Barack Obama said in 2009 that under Obamacare " If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan." 

However, a study by the journal Health Affairs said more than half of Americans who had individual insurance in 2010 were enrolled in plans that would not qualify because they didn't meet all the new requirements. To add the benefits Obamacare requires, insurance companies have to raise premiums, so that sick people and those who are in good health pay the same amounts. Yes, you can keep your health care plan, but costs will go through the roof.

Residents in Liberal mecca San Francisco are finding this out. One Obama supporter reports that his premiums went up $10,000 a year. Suddenly he understand the point Republicans have been making for the last three years. Another woman's premiums increased by $1200, and she's bewildered. ""Of course, I want people to have health care. I just didn't realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally."

Nothing Successful About Obamacare So Far

Explaining Obamacare

The Obama administration is spinning like a dreidel in their attempt to make the implementation of Obamacare look like something less than the complete disaster it is. Some of the news we have so far:

The first week of enrollment for Obamacare, the website either crashed completely or ran so slowly that people played a complete game of Monopoly between pages. The administration had three years to get the website right (twenty times longer than they took to actually think about the legislation.) The Obama administration tries to write off the problems because of the "intense interest" in enrolling, but IT experts disagree. They say the problem is the architecture of the website itself.

Chad Henderson, the Obamacare "hero" who the media swooned over as one of the first enrollees, turned out to be fake. Backtracking on his earlier claim, he never enrolled in an insurance plan. "When I said 'enroll,' I guess I got the terminology wrong. I meant that I was able to actually get in and have access to compare the prices," Chad said.

They don't know how many people have actually enrolled in Obamacare. When asked about the actual number, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew hemmed, hawed, and stonewalled.

Others Say Smart Stuff, Too - Part XLI

To a Liberal commenter's repeat of the Democrat talking point "Obamacare is the law, upheld by the Supreme court," John Ransom replied:

"Obamacare may be the law, but it is a law that is enforced very unevenly. Whole classes of people have been exempted under the law because of the dislocation "the law" could have to the economy.If you have clout with the administration, you get a waiver. If you have clout with the administration- and enough lobbyists- you get the law postponed.But if you are some poor sucker living in Peoria, you get stuck with the bill."

Obama's lips are moving again

Barack Obama, September 26, 2013: "There's no widespread evidence" that Obamacare is hurting jobs.

Unfortunately, real experts have already said otherwise.

Obamacare's secretly forcing you to pay for abortions

This article by Craig Bannister explains another up-to-now-unknown part of Obamacare. There's apparently actually a clause in the law that forbids consumers to know if their insurance plan includes an added "abortion surcharge" until they're about to enroll. In other words, abortion coverage is being kept intentionally secret from insurance customers until the last minute.

The HuffPo tried to rebut this information, but AUL offered a strong rebuttal of the rebuttal. Unless you (or your employer) pays attention, you'll pay extra so someone else can have an abortion on your tab.

That's another example of Obama's open government. Ask your Democrat neighbor for an apology and see what you get.

Others Say Smart Stuff, Too - Part XL

Pat Buchanan on Ted Cruz's filibuster and fight against Obamacare:

"His analysis is right, his instincts are right, his disposition to fight is right."

Well, here's a good sign

Joe Klein, the not-Conservative political columnist for Time magazine recently wrote a column entitled "Obamacare Incompetence." Some quotes: "We are now seeing weekly examples of this Administration’s inability to govern....the notion of activist government will be in peril—despite the demographics flowing the Democrats’ way—if institutions like the VA and Obamacare don’t deliver the goods." 

And I think we'll all agree that there's little chance of that. It's a shame we're only getting these stories after last November's elections.

I hate to say I told you so, but...

The "Beige Book," the report of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on current economic conditions, confirms a lot of what Republicans and other opponents predicted about Obamacare. The Governors report economic trends from their various Districts around the country, usually centered around a large city such as Kansas City, San Francisco, Minneapolis, etc.

From the section "Consumer Spending and Tourism" -- "Many District contacts commented on the expired payroll tax holiday and the Affordable Care Act as having restrained sales growth." 

From the section "Labor" -- "Employers across the District continued to cite the Affordable Care Act and its unknown impacts as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff."

From the section "Nonfinancial Services" -- "Some contacts noted concern that client companies are hiring the absolute minimum to get by due to uncertainty about the Affordable Care Act."

Remember how before the Obamacare legislation was passed, Democrats mocked opponents' predictions as "doom and gloom?" When you add the slowdown in consumer spending and business hiring to the already-more-expensive-than-Democrats-promised cost of Obamacare, it's not much of a leap to believe 1) Obamacare is going to cripple the American economy; and 2) The quality of our health care is just as likely to decline as it is to improve. So far Democrats have proven clueless in their predictions about its effects.