Guess Who Really, Really Likes Obamacare?

Many Liberals love Obamacare, as long as they aren’t the ones paying for it. Obama and Congressional Democrats (at least the ones in safe Districts who haven’t lost their seats) love it, because they, for the most part, aren’t using it themselves. Know who else really likes it? Big Insurance

(Daily Caller) Critics charge Obamacare’s individual mandate is boosting the profits of insurance companies, securing their loyalty to Democratic politicians.

Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin argued Tuesday that “the individual mandate is the greatest single act of corporate welfare in memory,” creating new customers for the insurance companies by fiat and subsidizing that coverage with tax dollars.

Rubin pointed out that during the debate over Obamacare, “Many conservatives bitterly criticized the influence of Big Insurance, correctly labeling it a prime example of corporate cronyism.” Now, she says, “it is both good politics and good policy to end this incestuous relationship.”

According to The New York Times, “the relationship between the Obama administration and insurers,” while initially contentious, “has evolved into a powerful, mutually beneficial partnership that has been a boon to the nation’s largest private health plans and led to a profitable surge in their Medicaid enrollment.”

Of course they love it. They’re making oodles of cash off of it. They’re able to offer expensive plans with high deductibles that people can’t afford to use. People are forced to obtain health insurance as the price of being a U.S. citizen

By a variety of measures, insurers are already benefitting from Obamacare. Since the law was signed, the Times notes, “share prices for four of the major insurance companies—Aetna, Cigna, Humana and UnitedHealth—have more than doubled, while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has increased about 70 percent.”

Remember when Liberals were against Big Insurance, accusing them of all sorts of Bad Behavior? That was before BI was involved in crafting Obamacare, and is now wedded to the Democrat Party and Obama. They’re going to love it even more when all the delays unilaterally put in place by Obama, in total disregard to the actual law, come into force. Things like the employer mandate. Insurance companies certainly love when people are forced to purchase their products.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Guess Who Really, Really Likes Obamacare? »

Washington Post: Say, What If A President Cruz Followed Obama’s Executive Actions Lead?

The Washington Post Editorial Board makes a salient point

In Mr. Obama’s own words, acting alone is ‘not how our democracy functions’

DEMOCRATS URGING President Obama to “go big” in his executive order on immigration might pause to consider the following scenario:

It is 2017. Newly elected President Ted Cruz (R) insists he has won a mandate to repeal Obamacare. The Senate, narrowly back in Democratic hands, disagrees. Mr. Cruz instructs the Internal Revenue Service not to collect a fine from anyone who opts out of the individual mandate to buy health insurance, thereby neutering a key element of the program. It is a matter of prosecutorial discretion, Mr. Cruz explains; tax cheats are defrauding the government of billions, and he wants the IRS to concentrate on them. Of course, he is willing to modify his order as soon as Congress agrees to fix what he considers a “broken” health system.

That is not a perfect analogy to Mr. Obama’s proposed action on immigration. But it captures the unilateral spirit that Mr. Obama seems to have embraced since Republicans swept to victory in the midterm elections. He is vowing to go it alone on immigration. On Iran, he is reportedly designing an agreement that he need not bring to Congress. He already has gone that route on climate change with China.

Certainly, the Washington Post has been mostly a cheerleader for Obama and his lawless and barely lawless executive actions, actions that 100% blow off the point of our Constitution. That said, what they are doing is noting that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. They’re thinking ahead, because at some point a Republican will be elected president, and they could simply say “hey, you Democrats approved when Obama did it. Why are you complaining now?”

Of course, we all know that Democrats are hypocritical, and the minute a President Cruz or any other Republican did the same as Obama the liberal media would go Barking Moonbat Level 10.

Read: Washington Post: Say, What If A President Cruz Followed Obama’s Executive Actions Lead? »

If All You See…

…is scary fossil fuels created snow, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Capitalism Is Freedom, with a post on 5 weird trends that can tell you about the economy.

Read: If All You See… »

Latest Warmist Scaremongering Is For A Possible 4C Temp Increase By 2100

That is if Other People do not immediately stop using fossil fuels and energy and anything that puts out CO2, especially those Black people in Africa

Global Warming: Earth could be 4 degrees higher by century’s end

The global temperature is likely to increase between 3.3 and 5.6 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, and if strong measures are not taken to curb global warming. This is the grim conclusion reached in a report by the Joint Program on Science and Policy of Global Change, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US city of Cambridge.

Interesting, since the trend line from overwrought Warmists is just .63C per century

https://twitter.com/PeterGleick/status/533306236184186880

The forecast increase in temperature exceeds the threshold identified by the UN as the limit beyond which it will not be possible to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, which include extreme alterations of precipitation patterns and exacerbate socioeconomic pressures that supports humanity. “Our world is changing rapidly,” says John Reilly, co-director of the MIT Joint Program and coauthor of the report. “We need to know well the nature of the risks we face in order to prepare for them.”

By “changing rapidly”, does Mr. Reilly mean 18+ years with no statistically significant warming?

The MIT team estimated that global energy use by 2050 will double, largely due to increased use in countries developing where an industry is growing fast and getting bigger population and more wealthy have more access to personal vehicles. Globally, clean energy sources achieved some important advances, but the use of energy will continue essentially been dominated by fossil fuels. As a result, there are fears that global emissions will double by the end of the century. To stay below the 2 ° C warming above the average temperature on Earth was just before the Industrial Revolution, global emissions would have to stop further increase in the near future or even now, the report concludes.

What they mean by this is that non-Whites in places like Africa and India need to be stopped from living the same lives as these rich White Warmists.

Read: Latest Warmist Scaremongering Is For A Possible 4C Temp Increase By 2100 »

Gallup Poll: People Still Pretty Much Hate Obamacare

Obamacare has been underwater in every Gallup poll since December, 2012 (and has been underwater in virtually every other poll taken by other pollsters). It has hit a new low as the new enrollment period starts

(Gallup) As the Affordable Care Act’s second open enrollment period begins, 37% of Americans say they approve of the law, one percentage point below the previous low in January. Fifty-six percent disapprove, the high in disapproval by one point.

Americans were slightly more positive than negative about the law around the time of the 2012 election, but they have consistently been more likely to disapprove than approve of the law in all surveys that have been conducted since then. Approval has been in the low 40% or high 30% range after a noticeable dip that occurred in early November 2013. This was shortly after millions of Americans received notices that their current policies were being canceled, which was at odds with President Barack Obama’s pledge that those who liked their plans could keep them. The president later said, by way of clarification, that Americans could keep their plans if those plans didn’t change after the ACA was passed.

Approval is only at 33% for Independents, and 8% for Republicans. Obviously, Democrats mostly approve of the law at 74%, and are so brainwashed most will still probably approve of Ocare after they have lost the plans they like, lost their employer sponsored plans, get downgraded to less than 30 hours a week, and/or lost their jobs due to costs.

Repeal is highly unlikely, given Obama’s veto power, but the law’s new low in approval — and new high in disapproval (56%) — could potentially have an impact on its future. The president himself has acknowledged he will consider modifications to the law, which could include repealing the tax on medical devices.

As long as Obama is president, repeal is unlikely. This creates a further problem in that by the time a Republican can take over the Presidency, the earliest being January 2017, this horrible law will have been imbedded for too long, so straight repeal will cause people problems. It will be incumbent on the GOP to make sure they have replace legislation ready to go which creates a smooth transition to a system that works much better.

As for repealing a few of the measures such as the tax on medical devices, while important, the underlying issues with the entire system remain.

Read: Gallup Poll: People Still Pretty Much Hate Obamacare »

Illegal Aliens Given Executive “Amnesty” By Obama Will Be Eligible For Public Benefits

At a time when more and more American citizens are suffering under the Obama economy, Mr. Obama wants to give millions and millions of people who came to this country illegally/overstayed their visas what will amount to amnesty, since once these illegals are given parole/deferred action it will be tough to kick them out. What does it all mean? Here’s one of the outcomes

(Breitbart) Illegal aliens who get President Barack Obama’s likely forthcoming executive amnesty will have immediate access to welfare and other public benefits, according to a new report from the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR) exclusively provided to Breitbart News ahead of its public release shows.

“Obama’s executive amnesty isn’t only unconstitutional but costly; from day one it opens up federal  and state benefits to individuals who are still illegal aliens, regardless of the label the President puts on them,” FAIR executive director Julie Kirchner told Breitbart News.

“Deferred action and parole-in-place don’t fit neatly into statutory definitions that prohibit access to benefits, mostly because deferred action and parole-in-place have no statutory basis themselves,” FAIR communications director Bob Dane added. “Congress has never imagined a rouge president pulling rabbits out of a hat to justify a broad, transformational makeover of the country by way of amnesty. There will always be thousands of loopholes in the law and backdoor methods to achieve a desired agenda, but ultimately the intent of Congress is preeminent. It may be that the courts will have to review that.”

The report (link in the first excerpted paragraph) details that there are two main methods Obama can use, parole and deferred action.

Obama could give the millions of illegal aliens “humanitarian parole,” something the FAIR report notes is included in statute as a power of the executive branch under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) for “temporary” protections for people from outside the United States. But the Bill Clinton administration in 1998, via a Department of Justice (DOJ) memo, expanded the meaning of “humanitarian parole” to illegal aliens inside the U.S. That memo did not have any “statutory or regulatory basis,” FAIR wrote, but Obama has used it to grant “parole in place to illegal aliens and is expected to expand this practice.”

If that’s how Obama grants executive amnesty to the millions of illegal aliens he plans to, they’ll get near-immediate access to welfare and other public benefits.

“Aliens with parole generally receive work authorization and are eligible for most benefits under federal law,” FAIR wrote. “This is true regardless of whether they have humanitarian parole or parole in place because the eligibility rules for benefits programs make no distinction between the two. Indeed, the longer an alien’s parole, the more benefits he is eligible to receive.”

They will immediately be eligible for unemployment and Obamacare subsidies. Social Security and Medicare, SCHIP and Medicaid, and a whole raft of federal social net programs. This will happen too with those given deferred action. It will end up costing American taxpayers billions of dollars, to go along with all the other costs of executive amnesty.

Elsewhere, Katie Pavlich writes about the people who are being ignored, well, at least one segment, since Obama is likely to ignore the will of the people overall

There are some important voices that have been starkly absent as President Obama gets ready to issue an executive order that would usurp federal immigration law in the coming days.

“We’re all pretty much ticked,” a Border Patrol source told me shortly after details of the president’s plans hit the press last week.

He’s ignoring the voices of law enforcement, particularly those who deal directly with illegals.

“We are going to see what I’m seeing here on the border in larger and large numbers, which is a huge increase in illegal immigration coming across our border. An amnesty order is going to create [for] more people an incentive to come into the U.S.,” Hidalgo County Texas Sheriff Eddie Guerra said just two weeks ago. “The drug cartel will exploit any opportunity to come into the United States, and this will create the cover for them to continue exploiting our porous border. This will create the opportunity for kidnapping, trafficking, sexual abuse, prostitution, and smuggling. These smugglers have no regard for human life. They destroy private property. They have no respect for law enforcement. They circumvent US checkpoints. It’s a terrible situation.”

“If the president issues his executive amnesty, you’ll see a dramatic surge of people coming in from all countries, including Central America — and again we won’t know who’s coming in: gangs, drugs, cartels, public health threats, human trafficking. We’re not catching but a small percentage of those coming across. This will place public safety in our communities in danger, and taxpaying citizens will be left picking up the tab,” Rockingham County, N.C., Sheriff Sam Page also warned.

Giving parole/deferred action, an executive amnesty, will entice more illegals to come from all over the world illegally and for those here legally to overstay their visas. And not all these folks are “good people just looking for a better life”, as the saying goes.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

Read: Illegal Aliens Given Executive “Amnesty” By Obama Will Be Eligible For Public Benefits »

Team Obama Is Really Concerned About Climate Change Snow Shoveling

I love the picture that accompanies this Yahoo News/Reuters article

You’re welcome to read the article if you want. It’s pretty much about Team O integrating Hotcoldwetdry into everything the government does.

If you want more stupid, here you go (be careful clicking the link, either the article or the popup caused my Norton to stop a webroot attack)

We look at a new investigation by the Pulitzer Prize-winning website, InsideClimate News, titled “Meltdown: Terror at the Top of the World.” It tells the story of seven American hikers who went on a wilderness adventure into polar bear country in Canada’s Arctic tundra — and faced a harrowing attack. But despite taking proper steps to protect themselves, a polar bear came to their camp in the middle of the night and pulled one of the hikers out of his tent. Scientists say that climate change is greatly impacting polar bear habitat, which may be the cause of increased polar bear attacks on humans.

Hmm, I’d say it wasn’t climate change, but that 7 idiots went into….polar bear country.

Read: Team Obama Is Really Concerned About Climate Change Snow Shoveling »

Say, About That Hottest Year Ever Meme…

(Note: here’s for you, John, since you asked in a comment)

Is 2014 the “hottest year ever!!!!!!”? Paul Homewood takes a look at the real data in comparison to what NASA and NOAA are pushing. Here’s from the Warmists and how they are positioning it

Here’s the satellite data

UAH also shows similar data to RSS.

Besides, even if 2014 was the hottest on record, it still wouldn’t prove anthropogenic causation.

Read: Say, About That Hottest Year Ever Meme… »

If All You See…

…is a perfect day to stroll the beach before the sand melts into glass from too much CO2, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lonely Conservative, with a post on Obama denying he misled on Ocare.

Read: If All You See… »

Washington Post: You Authentic Conservatives Should Approve Of Market Based Carbon Pricing

The Washington Post Editorial Board is Very Upset about the GOP retaking the Senate and wonders if this is game over for the climate

GOP victory: Game over for the climate?

JUST BEFORE Republicans scored a big midterm-election victory two weeks ago, the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report that underscored the severity of the risk global warming poses and the level of certainty scientists have about their warnings. Then, shortly following the GOP’s win, President Obama concluded a historic agreement with China on climate change, undercutting Republican arguments that cutting emissions here would be useless because China wouldn’t sacrifice along with the United States.

Of course, China won’t actually be cutting emissions. As for being game over, the climate always changes. Hence the Pause.

Despite all of this, since the election Republican leaders have continued to indulge in hysterical “war on coal” rhetoric, and they attacked the climate breakthrough in Beijing. They still appear determined to repeal the country’s climate policies rather than replacing those policies with cheaper and more effective options, such as the market-based carbon-pricing programs that authentic conservatives would favor.

Say what? Authentic conservatives are supposed to be in favor of a government driven program that sets the price of “carbon”? There are no conservatives that would approve of that. But, hey, what are the market based prices? The Washington Post noted last year that the European market is collapsing. It’s trading at junk bond status. The entire world carbon market has essentially collapsed. The government’s instituted the markets, and the market determined that they are garbage. Without the government propping them up, such as in California, they are almost valueless.

I’m not sure the WPEB is aware of what Conservatives believe. Heck, the true Classical Conservative, which is different from an American Conservative (we are closer to Classical Liberals), wants exactly zero government input, regulations, restrictions, control, etc,  over economic action. Government is supposed to stay out of the way. American Conservatives want The Government involved as little as possible.

Read: Washington Post: You Authentic Conservatives Should Approve Of Market Based Carbon Pricing »

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