We Trashed The Health System For A Supposed 5 Million Enrollments?

By William Teach March 18, 2014 – 8:58 am

HHS is thrilled with themselves

As this historic open enrollment period enters its final weeks, millions of Americans are finding quality, affordable coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act.  Fernando Valdez and Denise Schroeder were part of a weekend wave of consumers signing up for new coverage and bringing enrollment nationwide to more than 5 million through the Federal and State-based Marketplaces since October 1st.

Have they paid their premiums? If they haven’t they aren’t enrollments.

(Washington Post) About 800,000 people selected health plans on the state and federal insurance marketplaces in the beginning of March, officials said in a blog post — almost as many as signed up during the entire month of February. The figure brings the administration closer to Congressional Budget Office projections that 6 million people would enroll by the end of March.

I’ve selected many ebooks from Amazon and downloaded the free preview. But, I don’t always purchase them, because they might be boring, poorly formatted, dumb, or too expensive for the content. Joseph Curl

President Obama said it in August 2009: “I don’t have to explain to you that nearly 46 million Americans don’t have health insurance coverage today. In the wealthiest nation on Earth, 46 million of our fellow citizens have no coverage.”

He said it dozens more times, including in June 2013: “We are not a nation that accepts nearly 46 million uninsured men, women and children.”

He continues on with the 46 million theme for a bit, mentioning the creation of Obamacare to solve the “problem”, moving towards

But last week came word that with just 15 days left for people to enroll for federal coverage, just 4.2 million had. The math is simple: That’s just 9 percent of the supposedly 46 million uninsured.

Still, the obvious question is: We changed the $2.7 trillion health care system to sign up 4.2 million people?

OK, so it is now supposedly 5 million who put a plan in the shopping cart. Still, we changed the health care system for this? Most of the signups are people who had previously had health insurance, and lost their plans thanks to Obamcare.

Furthermore, according to Bloomberg, the federal website cost over a billion dollars, easily 2 1/2 times the original projected cost. Then there were and still are the costs for the state exchange websites, most of which received lots of federal money, and many, such as Oregon, which do not even work. Oregon has yet to sign up a single person through their website. Many of the states rely heavily on paper and pen to enroll …. or should that be re-enroll?… citizens.

And then the White House gives us this kind of insanity (via Twitchy)

https://twitter.com/cheriebone/statuses/445612576613752832

That’s under the banner of “Just one accident could mean huge medical bills that you can’t afford. HEALTHCARE.GOV”. Well, yeah, because due to the high cost of Obamcare deductibles, people won’t be able to afford them.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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NASA: Earth Is Going To Burn By 2099

By William Teach March 17, 2014 – 4:55 pm

This isn’t exactly new, NASA pimped it in September, 2013, but hardcore progressive/Warmist site RYOT is pimping this as “terrifying“. Oh, and just happens to want you to donate to the National Resources Defense Council.

I had to make it a bit small to fit on the page. The left shows if CO2 reaches 550ppm by 2100, the right is 800ppm by 2100. Gotta love the utter doom and gloom.

There are a few more GIFs at RYOT, and a video at the NASA site. Would it surprise you that this is all based on computer models? The same models that failed to predict the pause. The same ones that failed to predict this bitterly cold winter. The same models that failed to predict cold winters in Europe, the Middle East, and other parts of the world 5 out of the last 6 winters.

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If All You See…

By William Teach March 17, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible rising sea because someone drank CO2 infused beer, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Capitalist Preservation, with a big post on St. Paddy’s Day.

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Obama Blew Off Ukraine National Security Briefing

By William Teach March 17, 2014 – 12:53 pm

I quick interlude from all the climate change posts (I have several more in the hopper for today): as liberals complain that conservatives are undercutting Obama on dealing with Putin, calling Obama weak, feckless, and so on, remember this

(Yahoo News) President Barack Obama’s national security team discussed the Ukraine crisis in a session at the White House on Saturday after a last-ditch bid to find a diplomatic solution to the Cold War-style standoff with Russia floundered.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who just returned from talks with his Russian counterpart in London, was at the White House meeting along with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

Obama did not attend the meeting but was being briefed about it and other developments involving Ukraine, said Laura Lucas Magnuson, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council.

Why would anyone, especially Putin, take Obama seriously when he can’t even take the time to do the job of POTUS? The other day Jonah Goldberg wrote

As I wrote in my “Obamacare Schadenfreudarama“ screed, Obama often seems to think saying “X must happen” is all he needs to do to ensure that X happens. Saying “the website is great” means the website is great. Talking about “red lines” is the same thing as enforcing “red lines.” It seems to me, this is because Obama is only comfortable running for president not being president. That’s why he always reverts to campaign mode.

That goes with the notion that Obama likes to BE president, he doesn’t like to DO president.

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“Unusually Late” Winter Storm Buries D.C.

By William Teach March 17, 2014 – 10:37 am

Good thing the Senate Warmists held their little sleepover last Monday. This is bit of a delay in the Gore Effect

(USA Today) A winter storm slammed the mid-Atlantic early Monday, dumping at least seven inches of snow on Washington, D.C., forcing the federal government to shut down and disrupting travelers at area airports.

National Weather Service meteorologist David Hamrick called it an “unusually late winter storm.” Winter storm warnings remained in effect for additional light snow across much of West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey, though the heaviest snow had moved out to sea as of early morning.

Washington D.C., which often dodges some of the biggest snow totals from Mid-Atlantic storms, registered a hefty 7.2 inches, the Capital Weather Gang reported. This made it the third-biggest snowstorm so late in the season and the 10th-greatest March snowstorm on record for the nation’s capital.

I blame Senate Democrats for keeping the power cranked up last Monday for their cranky “climate change” sleepover last Monday, putting out carbon pollution which makes it so hot that it gets cold and produces heavy snow.

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Civilization Is Doomed From “Climate Change” Or Something

By William Teach March 17, 2014 – 8:41 am

But not immediately. It “could” happen sometime in the future

(Huffington Post) Civilisation is almost inevitably doomed, a Nasa-funded study has found.

Human society is founded on a level of economic and environmental stability which almost certainly cannot be sustained, it said.

The study used simplified models of civilisation designed to experiment with the balance of resources and climate that creates stability – or not – in our world.

These theoretical models – designed to extrapolate from simple principles the future of our industrialised world – ran into almost intractable problems.

Almost any model “closely reflecting the reality of the world today… we find that collapse is difficult to avoid”, the report said.

I love this quote from the report

“The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent.”

The Roman Empire fell as the Earth’s climate moved into a cool period. Weird. And none of those civilizations had the benefit of modern technology as we do now. But, then, this is simply about scaring people that something might happen in the future because of tiny, barely noticeable temperature increase, despite 17+ years of a statistically insignificant temperature rise, and only a 1.4F increase since 1850.

But, hey, what else is NASA supposed to do since they aren’t bothering with the “space” part of their name?

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Posted in AGW Scaremongering, Global Warming | 8 Comments | Trackback URL

Are You Ready For Obamacare March Madness?

By William Teach March 17, 2014 – 8:04 am

Yet another event Team Obama plans to ruin

(CNN) As hoop heads across the country prepare for the Big Dance, President Barack Obama’s administration is banking on a new March Madness-focused campaign to help boost Obamacare enrollment.

To coincide with the start of NCAA basketball tournament, a White House official says the administration is launching an all-encompassing push around the annual basketball bonanza that will feature athletes, coaches, and others, in hopes of spurring more Americans to sign up for health care before the March 31 deadline.

Nothing like highly paid athletic figures who aren’t obtaining Obamacare health insurance themselves telling others to do it.

According to the official, the effort starts in earnest Monday morning when Univision Radio’s Locura Deportiva airs an interview with President Obama.

The White House is also set to release a “16 Sweetest Reasons to Get Covered Bracket,” detailing the administration’s top reasons to get insured. The administration believes it can parlay the popularity of the President’s bracket – a recent tradition that registered the most views of any blog on WhiteHouse.gov during 2013 – into tangible enrollments by updating the results of the ACA bracket based on the “winning” votes from online users.

From there, the White House will pitch basketball fans on all fronts – television, radio, digital, online, and social media – throughout the coming week.

Lebron James has a commercial. Magic Johnson and Alonzo Mourning will also be pimping Ocare. Will we see them signing up? Time has the official White House press release, and shows just how insane this whole push will be. Want to watch the NCAA’s in peace? Good luck with that. You’ll be spammed constantly.

This has a big chance of backfiring. The “Affordable’ Care Act is already more unpopular than popular. People see the negatives. They see losing your doctor, increased premiums and deductibles, people losing their plans, jobs being reduced to under 30 hours, people losing their jobs, companies being cautious in hiring, and all the other negatives. They saw the sheer incompetence in launching Healthcare.gov and so many of the other websites, and the massive costs of the websites, some of which do not even work, and haven’t signed up a single person (think Oregon). Constantly spamming viewers has the chance of annoying the hell out of those viewers, who just want to watch basketball.

But, then, there’s nothing that Team Obama and liberals won’t try to ruin with their hardcore politics.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Surprise! Warmist Wants “Denier” Scientists Jailed

By William Teach March 16, 2014 – 3:19 pm

I know, you’re shocked. And Warmists would agree that anyone who fails to believe what they believe should be jailed. Because Leftists are so tolerant of others. Here’s Lawrence Tortello, assistant professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology

We have good reason to consider the funding of climate denial to be criminally and morally negligent. The charge of criminal and moral negligence ought to extend to all activities of the climate deniers who receive funding as part of a sustained campaign to undermine the public’s understanding of scientific consensus.

Criminal negligence is normally understood to result from failures to avoid reasonably foreseeable harms, or the threat of harms to public safety, consequent of certain activities. Those funding climate denial campaigns can reasonably predict the public’s diminished ability to respond to climate change as a result of their behaviour. Indeed, public uncertainty regarding climate science, and the resulting failure to respond to climate change, is the intentional aim of politically and financially motivated denialists.

My argument probably raises an understandable, if misguided, concern regarding free speech. We must make the critical distinction between the protected voicing of one’s unpopular beliefs, and the funding of a strategically organised campaign to undermine the public’s ability to develop and voice informed opinions. Protecting the latter as a form of free speech stretches the definition of free speech to a degree that undermines the very concept.

Progressives/Warmists always seem to have excuses to shut people down, eh? Even when there’s been no statistically significant warming in over 17 years.

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Posted in Global Warming, New Climate Deniers | 19 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach March 16, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is an evil refrigerator with world killing gases, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Fire Andrea Mitchell, with a post on Obama filling out his NCAA brackets.

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Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

By William Teach March 16, 2014 – 10:26 am

Happy Sunday! Another fine day in the Once and Future Nation of America. The birds are singing, the sun is shining, Democrats are getting increasingly worried about losing the Senate. This pinup is by Bill Randall, with a wee bit of help. Yes, I know the French aspect. She’s really an American on a European trip!

What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. Villainous Company notes that it’s good to be the king
  2. Melanie at Victory Girls Blog is proud to be a Republican Conservative
  3. This ain’t Hell... notes that an icon has passed on
  4. Theodore’s World features thuggish Obama
  5. The Other McCain discusses feminists and their non-smelly vaginas
  6. The Lonely Conservative highlights another failure of the wacky left
  7. The Jawa Report notes a jihadi going all splody (premature detonation)
  8. The Gateway Pundit covers Obama’s ATF being lawless
  9. The First Street Journal is getting tired of all this snowy, cold global warming
  10. The Camp Of The Saints has a vote for the loser of the week: Ellmers or Issa
  11. Raised On Hoecakes has news from the tolerance front
  12. Public Secrets explains how you know a Democrat is panicking
  13. protein wisdom covers articles of impeachment
  14. Political Realities explains why he’s a Conservative
  15. And last, but not least, Pam Geller has another sickening story from the RoP
  16. And one to grow on: The H2 watched some network called Ms. NBC

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page. While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your “Pinups for Vets” calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me

Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list. (BTW, since someone asked, the reason I leave links for the previous week up (or you might see a *) is because they are place holders for later in the day or for next weeks. Easier than rewriting all the time. Also, the listing order has to do with how they are added over time, not how good a post is. I just copy and paste from the previous week, then edit. If you see one of the *’s, go ahead and check out the blog anyhow, see if there is an update. I cannot update with my Android during the day.

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