Surprise: United Health Care To Cut Most Participation In Obamacare

By William Teach April 20, 2016 – 8:07 am

As it stands, there are only a handful of established health insurance companies that participate in Obamacare to start with. The co-ops are flatlining, and the tiny players created by Ocare are likewise having issues. Other big companies have dropped out, are considering dropping out, or are looking to reduce their participation.

(Fox News) The nation’s largest health insurer, fearing massive financial losses, announced Tuesday that it plans to pull back from ObamaCare in a big way and cut its participation in the program’s insurance exchanges to just a handful of states next year – in the latest sign of instability in the marketplace under the law.

UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley said the company expects losses from its exchange business to total more than $1 billion for this year and last.

Despite the company expanding to nearly three dozen state exchanges for this year, Hemsley said the company cannot continue to broadly serve the market created by the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion due partly to the higher risk that comes with its customers.

UnitedHealth Group Inc. said it now expects to lose $650 million this year on its exchange business, up from its previous projection for $525 million. The insurer lost $475 million in 2015, a spokesman said.

Don’t feel too bad for United for the losses, as they were big supporters of the terrible law going back to pre-passage. Feel bad for the people who want affordable health insurance. Of course, so many of them cannot actually use the insurance for a lot of things, since they cannot afford to use it, due to the deductibles, along with the restricted networks.

A big part of the problem is the number of high-risk enrollees. The Exchanges are not seeing the number of healthy signups they need. UHC has already left some Exchanges. Humana bolted. Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield have made noises about leaving the “Marketplace”.

This is all unsustainable as established, just like people said before passage. It still polls negatively. The next step, of course, is for liberals to push for single payer, proclaiming that if the insurance companies cannot “do their job”, then the federal government should take over.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Bernie Sanders Very Upset About T-Shirt

By William Teach April 19, 2016 – 5:52 pm

He apparently doesn’t want to share his own wealth

(Reason) Liberty Maniacs, a Minnesota-based “independent brand that designs and sells some of the world’s favorite political and satirical apparel and merchandise,” was served with a notice of infringement last week from Garvey, Schubert, Barer, the legal firm officially representing Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.

At issue is a T-shirt (which was unveiled last November) featuring the democratic socialist senator from Vermont beside some other socialist icons, namely philosophers Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels and their dictatorial admirers Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong, positioned over the words “Bernie IS MY COMRADE.” The word “Bernie” appears to be in the same font as the official Bernie 2016 logo, and the parody design also apes the campaign’s use of two wavy lines beneath the candidate’s name.

Liberty Maniacs founder Dan McCall told Reason in a phone call today that taking the five-point star that appears above the letter “i” in the “Bernie” logo and altering it to make it resemble the revolutionary communist red star is a classic example of parody, which is protected by the First Amendment.

Hey, they just want to share the wealth. What’s the problem?

Claire Hawkins, one of the lawyers from Garvey, Schubert, Barer, penned the letter demanding Liberty Maniacs “cease and desist” and “destroy and/or take offline all materials” bearing the Bernie 2016 official logo. Hawkins added:

As an intellectual property owner, our client is obligated to take steps to protect its trademark and copyright rights and to protect the good will built up in its name and brand.

This is from the lawyers of a guy who is dead set against capitalism, and loves him some socialist economics. Trademarks and copyrights are capitalist notions. With Bernie’s brand of socialism, everything is owned by the people and Government. Especially government. Strange that he doesn’t want to share his own stuff and income stream when he wants Everyone Else to do share theirs.

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If All You See…

By William Teach April 19, 2016 – 1:00 pm

…is a sea that will rise hundreds of feet soon because of moo cows that produce leather, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post on on Team Clinton’s whining about sexism.

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State AGs, Activist Collude To Attack Exxon

By William Teach April 19, 2016 – 12:43 pm

I’ve previously mentioned that a group of attorney generals (all Democrats) have joined together to go after Exxon, along with looking at ways to silence climate skeptics, such as the Virgin Islands AG going after a private group, Competitive Enterprise Institute. Now we get

(Fox News) State Democratic officials are facing mounting accusations they secretly coordinated with climate activists to investigate whether ExxonMobil hid the truth about global warming, as new documents show the collaboration went deeper than previously thought.

Emails obtained and released by the Energy & Environment Legal Institute show a number of state attorneys general and their staff received advice and guidance from environmental activists at a March 29 meeting in New York, on the same day as a major press conference.

The meeting included a presentation by Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists on the “imperative of taking action now on climate change.” Matt Pawa, who litigated against Exxon in a global warming case, was also in attendance, giving a presentation regarding climate change litigation to the AGs and their staff.

There was quite a bit of secrecy and collusion in this, with too much information to properly excerpt.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a January meeting in Manhattan was a key moment in the plan to unleash a Big Tobacco-style government probe of oil companies. The meeting brought together several veteran environmental activists to discuss how to “establish in [the] public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm.”

As more emails are released, Exxon is striking back.

“These revelations from the meeting in January, and now these emails, show that there is a lot of collaboration, collusion, conspiracy — pick a word — that shows these groups and trial lawyers working together to attack a company that has 75,000 employees and millions of shareholders,” Alan Jeffers, media relations manager for ExxonMobil told FoxNews.com. “That’s who these people are attacking, these employees and shareholders who benefit when the company does well.”

The one thing missing from this article, an opinion piece on it at Fox, and other articles is if this is illegal. It’s certainly unethical. How about this from Glenn Reynolds, in a piece publishes prior to the release of the emails

Federal law  makes it a felony “for two or more persons to agree together to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the Unites States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same).”

I wonder if U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker, or California Attorney General Kamala Harris, or New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman have read this federal statute. Because what they’re doing looks like a concerted scheme to restrict the First Amendment free speech rights of people they don’t agree with. They should look up 18 U.S.C. Sec. 241, I am sure they each have it somewhere in their offices.

For all their lofty claims, these groups and AGs are simply attempting to shut down Free Speech and other Rights.

But all is not lost for CEI. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985 provides a civil action for conspiracies to deprive individuals of civil rights. If I were CEI — or these attorneys general — I might give that law a read as well.

Discovery could be fun!

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Pearl Jam Cancels Raleigh Concert Over HB2: Who Does This Really Hurt?

By William Teach April 19, 2016 – 8:17 am

Another group taking a Brave Stance

(WNCN) The fallout from North Carolina’s passing of House Bill 2 continued Monday, with rock bands Pearl Jam and Boston dropping in North Carolina.

Pearl Jam was scheduled to play in Raleigh Wednesday night.

“The HB2 law that was recently passed is a despicable piece of legislation that encourages discrimination against an entire group of American citizens,” the band said in a statement. “The practical implications are expansive and its negative impact upon basic human rights is profound. We want America to be a place where no one can be turned away from a business because of who they love or fired from their job for who they are.”

Question for Pearl Jam: will the pledge to only play venues that have official written policies that allow the gender confused to use the bathroom of their “gender identity”? This goes for Boston, as well. Of course, no one can be fired for who they are, under existing state and federal law. Facts do not matter to any of these people. Perhaps Pearl Jam might cancel their Chicago concerts, over the way the police, as directed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (Democrat), are treating Blacks. From Twitchy

https://twitter.com/g_f_morris17/status/722187409388085250

Plenty more at the link.

All this concern over state law which restricts state, local, and county governments in North Carolina from forcing the private sector to create accommodations for the gender confused, who, at most, represent just .3% of the population, while telling the gender confused they have to use the bathroom of their biological identity on state, local, and county property. But, there are no penalties included if they do, because the law isn’t about the gender confused: it’s about restricting over-bearing government.

But, hey, this is all fine, because companies and groups and such are currently making Brave Stances, but it’ll all blow over in short order, and it’ll be back to business as usual.

https://twitter.com/WilliamTeach/status/722185927980937216

None of the upcoming venues have official policies about the gender confused using the bathroom of their choice.

Interestingly, none of these folks complaining about HB2 are particularly concerned about the way the LBGT community is treated by radical Islam and in Islamic countries. It’s almost like this is just a wedge issue and something to be used politically without any real deep caring.

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Jerusalem Hit With Terrorist Attack, Biden Attacks And Mostly Blames Israel

By William Teach April 19, 2016 – 7:41 am

This article from Haaretz was posted at 11:53pm Israel time. Israel is 7 hours ahead of East Coast time

At least 20 people were injured, two seriously, when a bomb exploded on a bus in Jerusalem on Monday. The Shin Bet security service confirmed that the incident was a terror attack.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “reach the perpetrators and those who support them, and ensure those who stand behind it are held accountable.” He also sent wishes “for a speedy recovery to all those who were wounded.”

The blast occurred at about 5:50 P.M. on Moshe Baram Street, near Hebron Road, in southwest Jerusalem. It is the first bombing attack in Jerusalem since the second intifada ended in 2005.

They know it’s a terror attack, one which we can certainly blame Islamists, most likely Palestinians, 100%. On to one of the Upper Class Twits

(Fox) Vice President Joe Biden said Monday night that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was leading the country “in the wrong direction” hours after a bus bombing in Jerusalem wounded at least 21 people.

In a speech to the Israel advocacy group J Street, Biden did single out Palestinian leaders, including Mahmoud Abbas, for declining to condemn specific acts of terrorism carried out against Israelis. The vice president said he didn’t know whether Monday’s explosion was a terrorist attack, but added that the U.S. condemns “misguided cowards” who resort to violence.

However, the bulk of the Biden’s criticism was reserved for Netanyahu, reflecting diminishing patience within the White House as President Barack Obama’s term nears an end, compounded by deep disagreements over Iran and a strained relationship between the two leaders.

This is the equivalent of blaming and shaming a woman for being raped for wearing a short skirt, a woman who was sober and attending a fancy shindig, rather than a sleazy bar. This all simply highlights the Israeli Derangement Syndrome present within the Obama administration and the Democrats as a whole.

Furthermore, the Village Idiot didn’t know if it was a terrorist attack. The attack would have occurred at 10:50am Washington, D.C. time. The Haaretz article went up at 4:53pm D.C. time. Other Israeli news services had their articles up between the time of the attack and late afternoon. Biden’s speech was scheduled for 8:45pm, so he had plenty of time to learn the facts. It was known that an explosive device was found in the back of the bus. It is known that Hamas is once again gearing up, including building tunnels into Israel again, though this doesn’t mean Hamas was involved with the bombing.

And here comes Biden, attacking the attacked, blaming and shaming, further enabling the anti-Israeli forces to continue their attacks, both verbal and physical.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Someone Really Doesn’t Want To Leave The park

By William Teach April 18, 2016 – 9:49 pm

Reminds me of trying to get some people out of bed.

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Ted Cruz On Gay Marriage: Leave It To The States

By William Teach April 18, 2016 – 3:17 pm

This is one of the things I love about Ted Cruz: he understands the point of American Conservatism, that one of the major foundations is based on federalism and the importance of the 10th Amendment

(ABC News) Sen. Ted Cruz today invoked the protections included in the Constitution when a gay man asked the Republican presidential candidate about his work protecting the rights of gay voters.

Responding to a question from Todd Calogne, a married gay man who is a registered Republican and owner of a pizza parlor in New York City, Cruz said the Constitution protects the rights of all citizens equally. (Snip)

When asked further about the Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriagenationally and what would happen to gay people who are already married, Cruz said marriage laws should be settled on the state level rather than the federal level.

On this he is correct, this should be left to the states to decide for themselves, until and unless those in favor want to have a Constitutional Convention to make it the law of the land, rather than, as he put it, 5 unelected justices deciding to create this so-called right.

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If All You See…

By William Teach April 18, 2016 – 1:00 pm

…is evil leather from evil moo cows which will cause the earth’s atmosphere to boil, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Other McCain, with a post on the trashification of America.

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Climate Change Is Like Cancer In Our Veins Or Something

By William Teach April 18, 2016 – 10:30 am

But, hey, don’t worry, this whole thing is completely rational and grounded in science

The Climate Change in Our Veins – Scott Poynton

My father was diagnosed with cancer at the end of the year 2000 and his doctors gave him just 12 months to live. They put him on chemotherapy in a bid to extend his life but in February 2002, he succumbed in something of a flurry, at home, in my arms.

Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” had been a big hit in Australia and it made a big impression on me; Tom Hanks’ star performance in the movie, Philadelphia, too. When my dad was battling his cancer, I’d listen to the song over and over, striving to make sense of it, grappling to understand what it must be like to hear your blood in your veins, knowing that it was at once giving you life while simultaneously carrying the disease that would kill you. I imagined a terrible, desperate despair.

I’m starting to feel again like I did during my father’s illness. I’m listening again to Springsteen’s song. This time I’m hearing the blood in my own veins and it’s tainted not by a privately borne disease but by climate change, the terrible malady affecting all humanity, all life on earth.

photo 52197-Picard-facepalm-gif-ubif_zpsz5zxfmue.gif

Oh, wait, it gets better

We lost Tom Hanks’ character in Philadelphia, dying in the arms of his beloved. Today, we cradle our own lives in our arms, not in any movie but in real, raw life. As long as blood still runs in our veins we have hope, but that blood carries indifference, the disease that could ultimately kill us. We’re fast running out of time to treat it and my despair is that we don’t appear to have the inclination.

photo laughing_zps3b740454.gif

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