The IRS lays down the law of Obamacare

The IRS lays down the law of Obamacare

by Scott Johnson in Administrative state, Obamacare


New York Times health care reporter Robert Pear brings the latest news of Obamacare, courtesy of the IRS. Obamacare was signed into law in March 2010, yet four years later this comes as something of a surprise:

Many employers had thought they could shift health costs to the government by sending their employees to a health insurance exchange with a tax-free contribution of cash to help pay premiums, but the Obama administration has squelched the idea in a new ruling. Such arrangements do not satisfy the health care law, the administration said, and employers may be subject to a tax penalty of $100 a day — or $36,500 a year — for each employee who goes into the individual marketplace.
The ruling this month, by the Internal Revenue Service, blocks any wholesale move by employers to dump employees into the exchanges.
Under a central provision of the health care law, larger employers are required to offer health coverage to full-time workers, or else the employers may be subject to penalties.
Many employers — some that now offer coverage and some that do not — had concluded that it would be cheaper to provide each employee with a lump sum of money to buy insurance on an exchange, instead of providing coverage directly.
But the Obama administration raised objections, contained in an authoritative question-and-answer document released by the Internal Revenue Service, in consultation with other agencies….

Is this what Nancy Pelosi meant when she said that we had to pass the law to find out what was in it? Pear doesn’t pause to explain the relation between what is in the law passed by Congress and the rule announced by the IRS (in consultation with other agencies).
Pear does provide this background:

When employers provide coverage, their contributions, averaging more than $5,000 a year per employee, are not counted as taxable income to workers. But the Internal Revenue Service said employers could not meet their obligations under the health care law by simply reimbursing employees for some or all of their premium costs.
Christopher E. Condeluci, a former tax and benefits counsel to the Senate Finance Committee, said the ruling was significant because it made clear that “an employee cannot use tax-free contributions from an employer to purchase an insurance policy sold in the individual health insurance market, inside or outside an exchange.”
If an employer wants to help employees buy insurance on their own, Mr. Condeluci said, it can give them higher pay, in the form of taxable wages. But in such cases, he said, the employer and the employee would owe payroll taxes on those wages, and the change could be viewed by workers as reducing a valuable benefit.
Andrew R. Biebl, a tax partner at CliftonLarsonAllen, a large accounting firm based in Minneapolis, said the ruling could disrupt arrangements used in many industries.
“For decades,” Mr. Biebl said, “employers have been assisting employees by reimbursing them for health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs. The new federal ruling eliminates many of those arrangements by imposing an unusually punitive penalty.”
When an employer reimburses employees for premiums, the arrangement is known as an employer payment plan. “These employer payment plans are considered to be group health plans,” the I.R.S. said, but they do not satisfy requirements of the Affordable Care Act.
Under the law, insurers may not impose annual limits on the dollar amount of benefits for any individual, and they must provide certain preventive services, like mammograms and colon cancer screenings, without co-payments or other charges.
But the administration said employer payment plans do not meet those requirements.
Richard K. Lindquist, the president of Zane Benefits in Park City, Utah, a software company that helps employers reimburse workers for health insurance costs, said, “The I.R.S. is going out of its way to keep employers in the group insurance market and to reduce the incentives for them to drop coverage.”
The ruling came as the Obama administration rushed to provide guidance to employers and insurers deciding what types of coverage to offer in 2015.

Whole thing here.


http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/the-irs-lays-down-the-law-of-obamacare.php

Reid and Pelosi Go to the Movies [Updated: Is Capitol Screening Illegal?]

by John Hinderaker in Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, The War on the Koch Brothers

On Tuesday, the Democrats will screen a “documentary” film that attacks Charles and David Koch in the Visitor Center of the United States Capitol. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi plan to attend. Politico reports:

The two congressional Democratic leaders will appear at a screening in the Capitol of “Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition” — a documentary that Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-Nev.) participated in. Both Reid and Minority Leader Pelosi (D-Calif.) will participate in a question and answer session as well. …
The screening will be held on Tuesday evening in the Capitol Visitor Center. The movie is directed by Robert Greenwald and is a midterm update to a 2012 film of the same name.

Just when you think the Democrats’ Koch addiction can’t get any crazier, they surprise you. As it happens, we know all about “Koch Brothers Exposed,” which Robert Greenwald released in segments in 2011 and then combined into a single internet video. Greenwald is a failed Hollywood director whose most famous film, “Xanadu,” was one of the biggest flops ever. He is now reduced to making far-left propaganda videos, financed by a secret group of rich leftists.
Greenwald’s work is laughably bad, and we had fun ridiculing it when it first came out. We wrote here about the first segment of “Exposed,” noting among other things Greenwald’s shadowy financing by unnamed left-wing foundations and individuals. In that video, Greenwald sent people to the Koch brothers’ homes and rang the doorbell, demanding to interrogate one or the other of the brothers. We wrote more about this disreputable tactic, and about Greenwald’s own glass houses, here. In this post, we demolished Greenwald’s claim that the Keystone Pipeline is all about the Kochs–Greenwald was among the first to peddle that lie. (Do you suppose this thoroughly-discredited claim will be included in the updated version of his video, and cheered by the Democrats on Tuesday? I suspect so.) Here, we mocked Greenwald’s assertion that all proposals for Social Security reform somehow emanate from the Koch brothers–including those backed by many Democrats.
That Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would endorse such ridiculous internet videos should be shocking, but of course it isn’t. There is no depth to which the Democratic Party will not sink in its desperate bid to hang on to power. None.
But what about the fact that the Democrats are screening Greenwald’s video in the Capitol’s Visitor Center? Does this not represent, at a minimum, a lapse in judgment? In the Politico article linked above, Koch Industries’ general counsel, Mark Holden, was quoted:

It is “troubling that Senior Democratic party leaders are using taxpayer resources to publicize this partisan propaganda.”

Asked by me for further comment, Holden added:

With this type of nonsense going on, it is no surprise the public approval ratings of Congress are at an all-time low.

Which reminds me that the Koch brothers’ approval ratings are better than Harry Reid’s. I doubt that Reid’s embrace of Robert Greenwald’s recycled videos–in the new version of which, Reid apparently has a cameo–will do anything to improve Reid’s, or the Democrats’, standing with voters.
One last thing: in one of our 2011 posts, we included this parody video, titled “Comrades! Stop the Kochs!” I am not sure who made it, but it is more entertaining than Greenwald’s fevered productions:


(use link to view): http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/reid-and-pelosi-go-to-the-movies.php


UPDATE: Is it legal for Reid and Pelosi to use the Capitol building’s Visitor Center to show partisan propaganda directed at two private citizens? That certainly isn’t the intended use of the Visitor Center. This is what the controlling statute (2 U.S.C. §2201(b)) says:

The Capitol Visitor Center shall be used–(1) to provide enhanced security for persons working in or visiting the United States Capitol; (2) to improve the visitor experience by providing a structure that will afford improved visitor orientation and enhance the educational experience of those who have come to learn about the Congress and the Capitol; and (3) for other purposes as determined by Congress or the Committee on Rules and Administration of the Senate and the Committee on House Administration of the House of Representatives.

The Greenwald video obviously doesn’t enhance security for employees or visitors, nor does it “provid[e] a structure that will afford improved visitor orientation,” so using the Visitor Center to screen the Greenwald video is illegal unless both the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and the House Committee on House Administration have adopted rules permitting use of the Visitor Center for showing partisan propaganda films. I am skeptical that those committees have done any such thing, and I can’t find any public record of such action. So how about it, Harry? Nancy? What legal basis do you have for using the Capitol’s Visitor Center for partisan political purposes?


http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/reid-and-pelosi-go-to-the-movies.php

Hillary Clinton and the release of thousands of criminal aliens

by Paul Mirengoff in Crime, Hillary Clinton, Immigration, Law

Here’s an underreported scandal brought to my attention by Bill Otis. CBS News reports:

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released 36,007 convicted criminal aliens last year who were awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings, according to a report issued Monday by the Center for Immigration Studies.
The group of released criminals includes those convicted of homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping and aggravated assault, according to the report, which cites a document prepared by the ICE. . . .
According to the report, the 36,007 individuals released represented nearly 88,000 convictions, including:

•193 homicide convictions
•426 sexual assault convictions
•303 kidnapping convictions
•1,075 aggravated assault convictions
•1,160 stolen vehicle convictions
•9,187 dangerous drug convictions
•16,070 drunk or drugged driving convictions

In effect, the administration has, as Bill Otis puts it, “unleashed its own crime wave.” But who within the administration was responsible for this for wanton indifference to public safety?
One responsible party is Hillary Clinton. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies explains why:

The Supreme Court [has] held that the federal government can detain aliens for deportation up to six months but generally must release the alien into the United States after that point if there is “no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future.” One of the main reasons such a situation arises is that a criminal alien’s home country will refuse to take its nationals back.

Why would a criminal alien’s home country take the criminal back? Because federal law requires the secretary of state to stop issuing visas to the citizens of any country that refuses to take back its nationals.
Refusing to issue visas to citizens of a foreign country would provide a powerful incentive for that country to take back its nationals and thus create a significant likelihood of removal in the foreseeable future. This, in turn, would enable the U.S. to avoid releasing criminal aliens onto our streets.
But according to Krikorian, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have ignored the law and continued issuing visas to citizens of countries that refuse to take back their citizens. Apparently, they don’t wish to risk alienating these countries. They would rather see dangerous criminals on the loose in the United States.
It’s a strange and irresponsible preference. More than that, it’s an illegal one. 8 U.S.C. Section 1253(d) commands that:

On being notified by the [DHS Secretary] that the government of a foreign country denies or unreasonably delays accepting an alien who is a citizen, subject, national, or resident of that country after the [DHS Secretary] asks whether the government will accept the alien under this section, the Secretary of State shall order consular officers in that foreign country to discontinue granting immigrant visas or nonimmigrant visas, or both, to citizens, subjects, nationals, and residents of that country until the [DHS Secretary] notifies the Secretary that the country has accepted the alien.

(emphasis added)
In sum, the lawless behavior of the State Department, beginning under Hillary Clinton, has created a threat to public safety in America. That will be worth remembering when criminal aliens released because of the State Department’s unwillingness to follow the law commit grisly crimes in the future.
Hillary Clinton might be a shoe-in for the presidency if only she had done no harm as Secretary of State. Having failed in multiple ways to meet this low standard, she is not a shoe-in.


http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/hillary-clinton-and-the-release-of-criminal-aliens.php

Dictatorship of virtue

by Scott Johnson in Culture, Higher education, The sick left

In his weekly Wall Street Journal column Daniel Henninger chronicles the commencement speakers who have become collateral damage to the tyranny of the lunatic left on campus. As the distance between the left and the lunatic left grows ever closer, attention must be paid. Henninger performs a real service in going in compiling the body count, with respect to which all but the great Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Brandeis was news to me.
Henninger begins with the disinvitation of Ayaan Hirsi Ali from the Brandeis commencement, allegedly for violating the “core values” of Brandeis in her published views of Islam. The powers-that-be at Brandeis had supposedly failed to discern her views before they invited Ms. Hirsi Ali; they duly confessed error and dismissed her. Here we have on display the tyrannical regime of political correctness on campus combined with the cowardice and dishonesty of university administrators.
Henninger continues: “This week higher education’s ritualistic burning of college-commencement heretics spread to Smith College and Haverford College.” Here is the report from Smith:

On Monday, Smith announced the withdrawal of Christine Lagarde, the French head of the International Monetary Fund. And what might the problem be with Madame Lagarde, considered one of the world’s most accomplished women? An online petition signed by some 480 offended Smithies said the IMF is associated with “imperialistic and patriarchal systems that oppress and abuse women worldwide.” With unmistakable French irony, Ms. Lagarde withdrew “to preserve the celebratory spirit” of Smith’s commencement.

Somewhere far, far beyond satire, here is Henninger’s report from Haverford:

On Tuesday, Haverford College’s graduating intellectuals forced commencement speaker Robert J. Birgeneau to withdraw. Get this: Mr. Birgeneau is the former chancellor of UC Berkeley, the big bang of political correctness. It gets better.
Berkeley’s Mr. Birgeneau is famous as an ardent defender of minority students, the LGBT community and undocumented illegal immigrants. What could possibly be wrong with this guy speaking at Haverford??? Haverfordians were upset that in 2011 the Berkeley police used “force” against Occupy protesters in Sproul Plaza. They said Mr. Birgeneau could speak at Haverford if he agreed to nine conditions, including his support for reparations for the victims of Berkeley’s violence.
In a letter, Mr. Birgeneau replied, “As a longtime civil rights activist and firm supporter of nonviolence, I do not respond to untruthful, violent verbal attacks.”

What do these now departed commencement speakers have in common? Henninger concludes: “You’re all conservatives now.”
This credits the forces at work on these campuses with a rationale and a rationality that are sorely lacking. Could one have predicted by the application of any logic or analysis that Birgenau would not pass muster at at Haverford? Henninger’s string of question marks posing the question above correctly implies the negative answer to that question.
“You’re all conservatives now” does not capture the phenomenon. Crane Brinton’s anatomy of the phases of revolution may or may not hold up as a matter of historical analysis, but it has its uses here.
First we have the revolutionary overthrow of the old regime followed by a honeymoon period. Then comes the Reign of Terror during which the revolution devours its own (and others). The Reign of Terror is to be followed in short order by Thermidor, according to Brinton, but the Reign of Terror now in place feels like forever. For those whose heads fall to the guillotine, it is forever.
In “Roots of totalitarian liberalism” I cited former New York Times reporter Richard Bernstein’s analysis of the terror in its manifestation as multiculturalism. Alluding to the French Revolution, Bernstein titled his book Dictatorship of Virtue.
Bernstein took the epigraph that prefaces the text of his book from Robespierre: “Terror is naught but prompt, severe, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue.” He titled his prologue “Dérapage,” invoking the “school of French historians that uses the word dérapage to describe the fateful moment when the Great Revolution of 1789…skidded from the enlightened universalism of the Declaration of the Rights of Man into the Committee of Public Safety and the Terror.”
Bernstein explains that it “refers to the way fanaticism and dogmatism swept the great upheaval from constitutionalism to dictatorship, from eighteenth-century rationalism, inspired by the thinkers of the Englightenment, to a dramatic foreshadowing of twentieth-century rationalism, urged on by grim, prim Robespierrean despots with a gift for demagogy who believed they were serving the cause of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.”
Bernstein’s book was published in the glorious dawn of the Clinton administration, and yet it resonates. It resonates because the Reign of Terror has grown roots and entrenched itself.
Bernstein’s analysis extends beyond the operation of the articles of the multicultural faith. Bernstein describes the doctrine: “It often operates, not through the usual means of civil discourse and persuasion, but via intimidation and intellectual decree. It rewrites history.” HE complained that multiculturalism limits discussion: “it makes people feel afraid to say what they think and feel; it presents dubious and cranky interpretations as self-evident, indisputable truths.”
Bernstein aptly describes the culture on display in Henninger’s column: “…a cultivation of aggrievement, a constant claim of victimization, an excessive, fussy self-pitying sort of wariness that induces others to spout pieties. And that, in turn, covers public discussion of crucial issues with a layer of fear, so that we can no longer speak forthrightly and honestly about matters such as crime, race, poverty, AIDS, the failure of schools, single-parenthood, affirmative action, racial preferences, welfare, college admissions, merit, the breakup of the family, and the disintegration of urban life.” Roughly speaking, this is where we are now.


http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/bonfire-of-the-humanities.php

Barack Obama — too cool to be madder than hell

Barack Obama — too cool to be madder than hell

by Paul Mirengoff in Barack Obama, Obama Administration Scandals, Veterans affairs


When a president notifies us that he’s “madder than hell,” the least he can do is feign a little anger. But according to the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, President Obama failed to meet that low standard yesterday in his remarks about the VA scandal.
For starters, Obama was late to the event:

It doesn’t inspire great confidence that President Obama, on the day he finally decided to comment about excessive wait times for veterans’ medical appointments, showed up late to read his statement.
The White House briefing room is about 100 feet from the Oval Office, but Obama arrived 13 minutes after the scheduled time for his remarks, the first since the day the scandal broke late last month with a report that 40 veterans had died in Phoenix while waiting to see doctors.

Once he arrived, moreover, “Obama didn’t seem very angry.” Indeed, he professed agnosticism as to whether there was anything to be angry about:

Like VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, Obama wasn’t entirely convinced something bad had happened.
“If these allegations prove to be true, it is dishonorable,” he said. “If there is misconduct, it will be punished.”
Obama spoke of only “the possibility that somebody was trying to manipulate the data” on appointment wait lists, and he suggested that “whatever is wrong” may be “just an episodic problem.”

Milbank, liberal though he is, wasn’t buying it:

[T]here are no “ifs” about it: Numerous inquiries and leaked memos over several years point to “gaming strategies” employed at VA facilities to make wait times for medical appointments seem shorter — and these clearly aren’t limited to those reported in Phoenix, Albuquerque, Fort Collins, Colo., and elsewhere. Lawmakers in both parties have spoken of a systemic problem at the agency, and the American Legion, citing “poor oversight,” has called for Shinseki’s resignation — the first time it has made such a gesture in more than 70 years.

This isn’t the case of a president declining to rush to judgment. Either Obama hasn’t done his homework or he is intentionally downplaying the scandal by ignoring established facts.
Obama insisted that we must wait for the VA inspector general to complete his investigation into the Phoenix deaths before reaching conclusions. But as Milbank puts it, Obama needs only his eyes and ears to determine that there has been mismanagement and misconduct.
Milbank dubs Obama “President Passive” for his approach to the VA scandal and, I imagine, other instances of presidential detachment. It’s not a bad label; Milbank has always been a world class name-caller.
But Obama’s passivity is selective. He aggressively pushes left-wing agenda items through various Executive Orders. And his administration aggressively persecutes its political opponents.
It’s only with respect to the mundane business of everyday governance that Obama becomes President Passive. He didn’t run for president out of any desire to provide high-quality, or even competent, administration regarding what should be routine matters. He ran for president to transform America. You don’t transform America by worrying about the quality of health care wounded veterans receive.
But this doesn’t quite explain Obama’s passivity — his inability even to feign anger — now that the scandal has broken. That passivity is, I suspect, the product of Obama’s arrogance. Obama seems temperamentally incapable of going before the press and expressing alarm over mismanagement and misconduct that has occurred on his watch. He’s too cool to want to show alarm and he’s too defensive to want to confess error.
These traits have served Obama fairly well during most of his time in office. But lately, they seem to be wearing thin. And they simply won’t do when the issue is the health of wounded warriors, as Dana Milbank’s hard-hitting piece makes clear.


http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/barack-obama-too-cool-to-be-madder-than-hell.php

Despite IPCC doom report, this dataset of datasets shows no warming this millennium

Despite IPCC doom report, this dataset of datasets shows no warming this millennium

 by Anthony Watts           

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
HadCRUT4, the last of the five monthly global datasets to report its February value, shows the same sharp drop in global temperature over the month as the other datasets.

Our dataset-of-datasets graph averages the monthly anomalies for the three terrestrial and two satellite temperature records. It shows there has still been no global warming this millennium. Over 13 years 2 months, the trend is zero.
 

Start any further back and the trend becomes one of warming – but not of rapid warming. The Archdruids of Thermageddon, therefore, can get away with declaring that there is no such thing as a Pause – but only just. Pause denial is now endemic among the acutely embarrassed governing class.
This month Railroad Engineer Pachauri denied the Pause: yet it was he who had proclaimed its existence only a year ago in Australia.
However, it is no longer plausible to suggest, as the preposterous Sir David King did in front of the House of Commons Environment Committee earlier this month, that there will be as much as 4.5 Cº global warming this century unless CO2 emissions are drastically reduced.
More than an eighth of the century has passed with no global warming at all. Therefore, from now to 2100 warming would have to occur at a rate equivalent to 5.2 Cº/century to bring global temperature up by 4.5 Cº in 2100.
How likely is that? Well, for comparison, HadCRUT4 shows that the fastest global warming rate that endured for more than a decade in the 20^th century, during the 33 years 1974-2006, was equivalent to just 2 Cº/century.
Even if that record rate were now to commence, and were to continue for the rest of the century, the world would be only 1.75 Cº warmer in 2100 than it was in 2000.
The fastest supra-decadal warming rate ever recorded was during the 40 years 1694-1733, before the industrial revolution began. Then the Central England record, the world’s oldest and a demonstrably respectable proxy for global temperature change, showed warming at a rate equivalent to 4.3 K/century. Nothing like it has been seen since.
Even if that rapid post-Little-Ice-Age naturally-driven rate of naturally-occurring warming were to commence at once and persist till 2100, there would only be 3.75 Cº global warming this century.
Yet the ridiculous Sir David King said he expected 4.5 Cº global warming this century. Even the excitable IPCC, on its most extreme scenario, gives a central estimate of only 3.7 Cº warming this century. Not one of the puddings on the committee challenged him.
Meanwhile, the discrepancy between prediction and observation continues to grow. Here is the IPCC’s predicted global warming trend since January 2005, taken from Fig. 11.25 of the Fifth Assessment Report, compared with the trend on the dataset of datasets since then. At present, the overshoot is equivalent to 2 Cº/century.

It is this graph of the widening gap between the predicted and observed trends that will continue to demonstrate the absence of skill in the models that, until recently, the IPCC had relied upon.
Finally, it is noteworthy that the IPCC’s mid-range estimate of global warming from 1990 onward was 0.35 Cº/decade. The IPCC now predicts less than half that, at 0.17 Cº/decade. At that time, it was advocating a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions. It is now transparent that no such reduction is necessary: for the warming rate is already below what it would have been if any such reduction had been achieved or achievable, desired or desirable.
Within a few days, the RSS satellite record for March will be available. I shall report again then. So far, that record shows no global warming for 17 years 6 months.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/31/dataset-of-datasets-shows-no-warming-this-millennium/

Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   5/27/2014

Remembering the fallen and government’s broken promises

It is always with heavy hearts and reverential regard that Americans give pause amidst the Memorial Day festivities, picnics and time off; the day exists to commemorate the fallen in every war, every conflict and in every service. Those left to carry on with their lives—whether as a spouse or relative, a fellow worker, or church member—have always known first hand what the death of a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine means. The rest of us can only offer thanks for their sacrifices and know that their souls were greeted and welcomed home into heavenly arms for healing, comfort and succor.

You’ve read how government agencies (i.e. BLM) acted in bad faith, even malice, towards Americans whose only fault was to think they could, unmolested by “guv’mint,” live their lives responsibly and productively on behalf of their families and communities. The IRS, the BLM, the Forest Service, the EPA, and regulators and bureaucrats at all levels, are placing America at a crossroads, a “Y” in the path of this once-free republic. Our Constitution is suffering relentless efforts to diminish the rights we ought never fear losing. Is America “of, by and for” the people or the government?

That question goes directly to the Democrats’ health care/insurance boondoggle, Obamacare, an ongoing fiasco implemented by the Department of Health and Human Services and state exchanges. Some say that 8 million signups proves otherwise. I hope to show that this is yet another example of misinformation, broken promises and corruption, even the inducement of corruption by those misstating their income in order to qualify for more subsidies than they rightfully deserve.

This column last opined on Obamacare in conjunction with the April 15 tax day. I wrote of the lies and hypocrisies inherent in the abusive legislative manipulation used to foist an unpopular (then and now) nationalized health insurance scheme and massive tax burden on an unwilling citizenry. Witness the current scandal and shame as Veterans Affairs (VA) allowed delayed, misrepresented and ultimately fatal medical mistreatment of those who served in America’s military. Nothing that you have read is really surprising when you consider the sad history of government-run health care, and the associated waiting lists, shoddy and abusive treatment, denied services, rationing and (by other names) “death panels.” Sarah Palin was excoriated for using the term; then-Senator Obama offered an otherwise-worded proposal for selected experts to gather and establish criteria for using limited medical resources for those approaching life’s end. Same difference.

Daily News articles included the AP (“1.2 million enroll in California health plans,” April 4) and Bay Area News Group (“Affordable Care Act sign-ups beat projections in US, California,” 4/18). There was little critical scrutiny beyond the obvious “Flooded call centers” and the admitted estimate that only 85 percent will complete the process by paying their premium. Otherwise, it was “We do have something to celebrate …” (Covered California’s Peter Lee) and “It’s a Super Bowl moment, and Covered California and the president deserve to celebrate” (UCLA health care policy professor Gerald Kominski). Obama, spinning, gloating and chest-thumping, proclaimed “This thing is working” on his short rhetorical hop/skip to announcing that “the debate is over,” and that anyone opposing the law is guilty of wanting people to lose insurance, get sick and die—or whatever.

A trip back in time is warranted: On Dec. 29, 2013, Cathy Burke (Newsmax) assembled “Ten Obamacare Promises Broken in 2013.” I think the past is, in many cases, prologue; past lies and broken promises have spawned the current situation. See if you agree that “hope and change” has turned into disappointment and failure.

1. “The website is simple and user-friendly” was the title of a USA Today editorial on October 8 by then-HHS Secretary Sebelius. Subsequent improvements fail to erase that blatant lie, in print more than a month after the initial catastrophic rollout. Websites are fixable—veracity (or lack thereof) is not.

2. and 3. “If you like your plan/doctor, you can keep your plan/doctor, period.” This blatant falsehood was exposed almost immediately as 15,000 spouses of UPS employees, due to Obamacare policies, found they would lose their coverage. Conservative bloggers like Cam Harris, and columnists like Charles Krauthammer, had been saying for years that the very language of the law “was designed to throw people off their private plans and into government-run exchanges where they would be made to overpay—forced to purchase government-mandated services they don’t need—as a way to subsidize others.” The only reason we haven’t had massive cancellations of employer-provided policies is that Obama postponed that deadline for crass political purposes surrounding this November’s elections.

4. “Premiums will fall by as much as $2,500 per family.” Forbes magazine (9/25/2013) and the Manhattan Institute analyzed HHS numbers and determined that “Obamacare will jack up underlying insurance rates for young men by an average of 97 to 99 percent, and for young women by an average of 55 to 62 percent.”

To be continued next week.

Survey: US sees sharpest health insurance premium increases in years

by Sarah Hurtubise

Americans have recently been hit with some of the largest premium increases in years, according to a Morgan Stanley survey of insurance brokers.
The investment bank’s April survey of 148 brokers found that this quarter, the average premium increase for customers renewing an insurance plan is 12 percent in the small group market and 11 percent in the individual market, according to Forbes’ Scott Gottlieb.
The hikes — the largest in the past three years, according to Morgan Stanley’s quarterly reports — are “largely due to changes under the [Affordable Care Act],” analysts concluded. Rates have been growing increasingly fast throughout all of 2013, after a period of drops in 2012.
While insurers were hiking premiums since 2012 by smaller amounts, the lead-up to the Obamacare’s launch has seen the average rate at which premiums are growing fourfold.
The small group market saw a jump from a growth rate of close to 3 percent during Morgan Stanley’s September 2013 survey to just above 6 percent three months later in December — the month before a surge of Obamacare regulations hit insurance companies.
Over the next three months, the rate doubled again to the current average small growth premium growth rate of 12 percent.
Individual policies saw a much starker jump after the Obamacare exchanges launched, in anticipation of the health care law going live in 2014. Morgan Stanley’s September 2013 survey, like the previous three quarters, found a fairly constant growth rate around 2 percent — but in December, the rate had shot up to above 9 percent.
Morgan Stanley’s results echo what consumers are already seeing: the Affordable Care Act’s intensive regulation of the insurance market is driving health care premiums up strikingly.

The survey found that premium increases are due to several specific Obamacare policies. The most talked about may be the new benefits all insurance plans are required to offer and excise taxes targeted at insurers themselves, Forbes reports.
But there are two other big contributors to the rise in costs. Age restrictions on premiums prevent the insurer from charging older customers who cost more to cover a higher premium — hiking the costs for young and healthy people disproportionately. Commercial underwriting restrictions also bump up insurers’ costs and are reflected in premiums.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/07/survey-u-s-sees-sharpest-health-insurance-premium-increases-in-years/?advD=1248,657751

Climate McCarthyism: The Scandal Grows

Climate McCarthyism: The Scandal Grows

 

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by James Delingpole               

Related News

Climate Science Defector Forced to Resign by Alarmist 'Fatwa'

by James Delingpole   

Professor Lennart Bengtsson - the scientist at the heart of the "Climate McCarthyism" row - has hit back at his critics by accusing them of suppressing one of his studies for political reasons.

The paper, which Prof Bengtsson wrote with four co-authors, suggested that climate is probably less sensitive to greenhouse gases than is admitted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and that more research needs to be done to "reduce the underlying uncertainty". However, when submitted for publication in the leading journal Environmental Research Letters, the paper failed the peer-review process and was rejected.
One of the peer-reviewers reportedly wrote:

‘It is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of “errors” and worse from the climate sceptics media side.’

This, Prof Bengtsson told the Times, was "utterly unacceptable" and "an indication of how science is gradually being influenced by political views."
He added:

‘The problem we now have in the climate community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of a climate activist.’

In truth, to anyone familiar with the Climategate emails there will be nothing surprising or unusual in this incident or this claim. As the emails leaked in 2009 made abundantly clear, the organised suppression of sceptical papers in learned journals by the alarmist establishment has long been rife within the field of climate science.
What's more significant is that this story has made it to the front page of the Times. Like most of the mainstream media, the Times has been remarkably slow to latch onto the corruption, malfeasance, waste, dishonesty, bullying and lies which are rife throughout the climate change industry. If it hadn't been for the internet and sites like Watts Up With That? and blogposts like this one the Climategate scandal would have passed almost without notice.
Finally, it seems, the MSM is beginning to wake up to something it really ought to have picked up on long ago: the greatest and most expensive scientific scandal in history, in which a cabal of lavishly grant-funded, activist-scientists from Britain to Australia, Germany to the US, has exaggerated the evidence for "man-made global warming" and attempted ruthlessly to suppress the work of sceptical scientists who dispute the "consensus."
Professor Bengtsson's McCarthyite purging may one day come to be seen as the climate alarmists' "Bridge Too Far" moment. As Judith Curry, climatologist and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has argued, "It has the potential to do as much harm to climate science as did the Climategate emails."
The reason, quite simply, is that it shows the climate change establishment in such an appalling light. These people have long traded on the public's acceptance that they are the "experts", the guys we can trust. Yet here they are shown behaving not like loftily-minded seekers-after-truth but simple playground bullies. One German physicist is said hysterically to have compared Bengtsson's decision to join the Global Warming Policy Foundation (a politically neutral think tank) to joining the Ku Klux Klan. Another warmist scientist - an American one this time - petulantly refused to be named as co-author on any of Bengtsson's papers, a form of professional assassination.
This does all rather invite the question: if the climate establishment is really so sure of the solidity of the science underpinning its doomsday predictions, how come it needs to adopt such desperate, unethical and unscientific methods to shut out dissenting voices?
The Bengtsson scandal comes at the end of an exceedingly bad week for the cause of climate alarmism. In other news, still further scorn has been poured on the methodology of the Cook et al paper on the "97 per cent consensus."
John Cook is an Australian alarmist who a year ago produced a paper purporting to show that 97 per cent of studies supported the "consensus" on man-made global warming. It was eagerly seized on by the left-wing activists who run President Obama's Twitter account, who gleefully tweeted under the name @barackobama "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous" - with a link to the paper.
But the paper, in fact, showed nothing of the kind. Recently a researcher named Brandon Shollenberger gained access to some of the data used in Cook's paper and found the statistical methodology to be fatally flawed. However, when he raised these points with Cook's employer the University of Queensland he received a stiff lawyer's letter forbidding him from contacting Cook or even making any mention that he had been sent the letter.
Given how often the "97 per cent" consensus figure is quoted by politicians and scientists alike to justify the extreme measures being adopted to "combat climate change", you can well understand why the alarmist establishment is so eager to suppress this inconvenient truth.
Their ability to do so for much longer, however, looks increasingly doubtful. The word is out: establishment climate science is little more than pseudo-science, propped up by bullying political activists, but unsupported by real-world data.


http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/16/Climate-McCarthyism-the-scandal-grows

Down With Choice!

Down With Choice!

by John HinderakerMay 14, 2014

File this one under “Now they tell us.” The New York Times reports on narrowing options under Obamacare. Remember “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor?” They were just kidding:

In the midst of all the turmoil in health care these days, one thing is becoming clear: No matter what kind of health plan consumers choose, they will find fewer doctors and hospitals in their network — or pay much more for the privilege of going to any provider they want.
These so-called narrow networks, featuring limited groups of providers, have made a big entrance on the newly created state insurance exchanges, where they are a common feature in many of the plans.

This is the money quote:

“We have to break people away from the choice habit that everyone has,” said Marcus Merz, the chief executive of PreferredOne, an insurer in Golden Valley, Minn., that is owned by two health systems and a physician group. “We’re all trying to break away from this fixation on open access and broad networks.”

That “choice habit that everyone has” must give way to the dictates of the state. Where are all of those pro-choice Democrats when we need them?

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/down-with-choice.php

Obama and the Art of Phoniness

Obama and the Art of Phoniness
The president is more concerned about the effect of his words than their relation to fact.

ByThomas Sowell

Many years ago, I was a member of a committee that was recommending to whom grant money should be awarded. Since I knew one of the applicants, I asked if this meant that I should recuse myself from voting on his application.
“No,” the chairman said. “I know him too — and he is one of the truly great phonies of our time.”

The man was indeed a very talented phony. He could convince almost anybody of almost anything — provided that they were not already knowledgeable about the subject. He had once spoken to me very authoritatively about Marxian economics, apparently unaware that I was one of the few people who had read all three volumes of Marx’s Capital and had published articles on Marxian economics in scholarly journals. What our glib talker was saying might have seemed impressive to someone who had never read Capital, as most people have not. But it was complete nonsense to me.
Incidentally, he did not get the grant he applied for.
This episode came back to me recently, as I read an incisive column by Charles Krauthammer, citing some of the many gaffes in public statements by the president of the United States. One presidential gaffe in particular gives the flavor and suggests the reason for many others. It involved the Falkland Islands.
Argentina has recently been demanding that Britain return the Falkland Islands, which have been occupied by Britons for nearly two centuries. In 1982, Argentina seized these islands by force, only to have British prime minister Margaret Thatcher take the islands back by force.
With Argentina today beset by domestic problems, demanding the return of the Falklands is once again a way for Argentina’s government to distract the Argentine public’s attention from the country’s economic and other woes.
Because the Argentines call these islands “the Malvinas,” rather than “the Falklands,” Barack Obama decided to use the Argentine term. But he referred to them as “the Maldives.” It so happens that the Maldives are thousands of miles away from the Malvinas. The former are in the Indian Ocean, while the latter are in the South Atlantic.
Nor is this the only gross misstatement that President Obama has gotten away with, thanks to the mainstream media, which sees no evil, hears no evil, and speaks no evil when it comes to Obama.
The presidential gaffe that struck me when I heard it was Barack Obama’s reference to a military corps as a military “corpse.” He is obviously a man who is used to sounding off about things he has paid little or no attention to in the past. His mispronunciation of a common military term was especially revealing to someone who was once in the Marine Corps, not Marine “corpse.”
Like other truly talented phonies, Barack Obama concentrates his skills on the effect of his words on other people — most of whom do not have the time to become knowledgeable about the things he is talking about. Whether what he says bears any relationship to the facts is politically irrelevant. A talented con man or a slick politician does not waste his time trying to convince knowledgeable skeptics. His job is to keep the true believers believing. He is not going to convince the others anyway.
Back during Barack Obama’s first year in office, he kept repeating, with great apparent earnestness, that there were “shovel-ready” projects that would quickly provide many much-needed jobs, if only his spending plans were approved by Congress. He seemed very convincing — if you didn’t know how long it can take for any construction project to get started. Going through a bureaucratic maze of environmental-impact studies, zoning-commission rulings, and other procedures can delay even the smallest and simplest project for years.
Only about a year or so after his big spending programs were approved by Congress, Barack Obama himself laughed at how slowly everything was going on his supposedly “shovel-ready” projects.
One wonders how he will laugh when all his golden promises about Obamacare turn out to be false and a medical disaster. Or when his foreign-policy fiascoes in the Middle East are climaxed by a nuclear Iran.
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. © 2013 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/356900/obama-and-art-phoniness-thomas-sowell

What the Living Constitutionalists Don’t Get about Public Prayer

What the Living Constitutionalists Don’t Get about Public Prayer
Empathizing should be left to local communities, not the Supreme Court.

ByJonah Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg

The notion that something can simultaneously be wrong and constitutional really seems to bother a lot of people. Consider the Supreme Court’s recent decision on public prayer.
In Greece v. Galloway the court ruled, 5–4, that the little town of Greece, N.Y., could have predominantly Christian clergy deliver prayers at the beginning of city-council meetings.
As a constitutional matter, the majority’s decision seems like a no-brainer to me. The authors of the Constitution permitted — and required! — prayer at similar civic gatherings when they were writing the document and for years afterward, when many served as congressmen, senators, judges, and presidents.
As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion: “That the First Congress provided for the appointment of chaplains only days after approving language for the First Amendment demonstrates that the Framers considered legislative prayer a benign acknowledgment of religion’s role in society.”
Now, as I am someone who thinks the Constitution is not a “living” document (i.e. changing with the whims of whatever elite currently controls the judiciary) but an enduring one (its meaning is largely fixed until it is duly amended), that pretty much settles the debate for me. If you want to ban public displays of religiosity, even by public servants, you should amend the Constitution, not appoint more liberal justices who will simply impose their preferences on it.
But don’t tell that to members of the Cult of the Living Constitution, who believe that if something is wrong it has to be unconstitutional. For instance, the Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne penned an op-ed called “The Supreme Court Fails the Empathy Test” in which he argues that the Greece city council should have been more inclusive. It’s not nice to make atheists, Jews, Muslims, and other minority faiths and non-faiths feel unwelcome.
The problem is that the Supreme Court wasn’t set up to pass an “empathy test.” Indeed, despite much chattering and nattering about such things in liberal and Democratic circles, there is no such thing as a Supreme Court empathy test. There is however a more relevant — not to mention, real — test to be considered: Whether the justices of the Supreme Court are faithful to their oaths. And that oath suggests pretty strongly that empathy should be put aside as much as possible. Justices “solemnly swear (or affirm)” that “I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich . . . ” That doesn’t exactly scream out “go with your feelings” now does it?
Now here’s the hitch. Dionne and others have a point. Local governments and civic organizations generally shouldn’t exclude people of different faiths. But whining to Washington and asking the Supreme Court to fill the empathy deficit at the local level is not the answer.
Starting in 1999, Greece city-council meetings began with a prayer (before that it was just a moment of silence). The town relied on a list of clergy provided from the Chamber of Commerce and, for completely innocuous reasons, the list was overwhelmingly Christian — because the town is overwhelmingly Christian.
For a long time no one complained. Then, in 2008, with the backing of an activist group, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, a Jewish woman and an atheist woman launched a lawsuit. When the complaints went public, practices changed. A Jewish layman asked to offer a prayer and was permitted to do so twice. The city council invited a prominent Baha’i follower to deliver a prayer. A Wiccan priestess asked and was allowed to do her thing as well. Eventually, as the courts took ownership of the process, the town stopped reaching out to non-Christians, which is a shame. Maybe if those offended had simply spoken up earlier, without suing, all of this could have been avoided?
I believe that tolerance is a two-way street. Majority faiths need to make room for minorities and minorities need to show tolerance for majorities. But a climate of tolerance should be created by those who live in it, not imposed by a handful of lawyers in Washington.
— Jonah Goldberg is the author of The Tyranny of Clichés, now on sale in paperback. You can write to him by e-mail at goldbergcolumn@gmail.com , or via Twitter @JonahNRO. © 2014 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/377593/what-living-constitutionalists-dont-get-about-public-prayer-jonah-goldberg

Obamacare's Aim of Enrolling Previously Uninsured a 'Failure'

By Elliot Jager

 

Just 12 percent of Americans say that the Affordable Care Act has been a success, according to a new CNN poll. At the same time, the percentage of newly enrolled Americans who had previously been uninsured did not increase, according to a McKinsey & Co. report.

"Enrollment rates remained much lower among those previously uninsured than among those previously insured (13 percent vs. 90 percent in our April survey, for example)," the report said.  President Barack Obama has urged Democratic candidates to campaign on his signature healthcare law, which, while on the books for four years, continues to be unpopular, Breitbart reported.

The CNN poll found diminishing support for repealing the law, with 38 percent favoring revoking the legislation altogether, 49 favoring amending it, and 12 percent content to leave it as is. At one point in 2012, 54 percent wanted to see the law repealed, according to a Rasmussen poll.

Political analysts are forecasting that Obamacare will be a drag on Democrats in midterm elections and that Republican are poised for a major victory, according to Breitbart. A USA Today survey has just 41 percent of respondents approving of Obamacare and 55 percent disapproving.

The McKinsey & Co. report puts at 74 percent the number of enrollees who had coverage before Obamacare.

Only 26 percent of enrollees reported being previously uninsured – 22 percent if only those who have paid their first month's premium are tallied.

This makes the program a "failure," according to Breitbart since the stated reason for the Affordable Care Act was to give coverage to the formerly uninsured. Many enrollees simply replaced their healthcare coverage invalidated by the law with plans offered by the Obamacare exchanges, according to Breitbart.

Nearly half of the uninsured, or 48 percent, who do not plan to enroll in 2015 did not know that the individual mandate imposes a penalty for lack of coverage, the McKinsey & Co. study revealed. Still, only 29 percent of the currently uninsured said they would enroll in 2015.

 

http://www.newsmax.com/newswidget/Obamacare-healthcare-McKinsey-survey/2014/05/12/id/570732/?promo_code=EB8D-1&utm_source=National_Review&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1