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The Right Prescription
Obama’s Most Audacious SOTU Lie
Obamacare is slowing the growth of health care costs?
It is difficult to say with certainly which of the many whoppers President Obama told tonight took the most crust to utter, but my money is going on this assertion, made a few minutes into the speech: “Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs.” I know “Orwellian” has now become rather hackneyed, but there is simply no other adjective that better describes this statement. It is not merely a lie. It is the precise opposite of the truth. It is just as absurd as “war is peace” or “freedom is slavery.”
Portents of this stretcher began appearing over the weekend in the usual media outlets, and a particularly transparent harbinger appeared in Forbes of all places. In a column titled, “New Data Suggests Obamacare Is Actually Bending The Healthcare Cost Curve,” Rick Unger writes that “A new Congressional Budget Office report out last week has the healthcare world scratching its head over the possibility that Obamacare might—in part—be responsible for what is being described as a significant slowdown in the growth of healthcare costs in America.”
It hardly needs to be said that the report to which Unger refers fails to support his or the President’s claims. First of all, the slowdown began before Obamacare passed. Specifically, it began to manifest itself in an obvious way during 2009. Moreover, cost data are only available through last year: “National health expenditures grew at an estimated annual rate of 4.3 percent in 2012, a bit higher than the 3.9 percent experienced for each of the years 2009-2011. While this estimate is subject to revisions, it portends a fourth consecutive year of record-low growth.”
In other words, the President and his media toadies are crediting Obamacare with a slowdown that began a year before it passed and four years before the law took effect. Thus, having set the bait in his headline, Unger switches to the primary reason for the slowdown: “To be sure, a big part of the decline in healthcare spending is the result of the recession’s impact.… Indeed, up until this point, most analysts have agreed that the poor economy was pretty much the sole cause for the improvement we have seen in containing the explosion of healthcare spending.”
Unger makes much of the fact that Douglas Elmendorf, director of the CBO, is cautiously “willing to say that a ‘significant part’ of the savings are the result of structural change in how healthcare is now being delivered.” But even the New York Times admits that “A major question raised by Mr. Elmendorf and others is whether the spending will accelerate again. (It slowed in the 1990s only to pick up again last decade.)” The Gray Lady quotes former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin thus: “Premature celebration never makes sense when it comes to health care.”
Meanwhile, more objective observers are a good deal less sanguine about Obamacare’s effect on health care costs. The Wall Street Journal, for example, puts it as follows: “Health-insurance premiums have been rising—and consumers will experience another series of price shocks later this year when some see their premiums skyrocket thanks to the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare.” Why? Because Obamacare forces health insurers to accept everyone, forbids them from charging more based on the insured’s medical condition, and includes numerous coverage mandates whose upward pressure on premiums I wrote about years ago.
All of this puts upward pressure on health care costs in general. When Obama was running for President, he promised to save the average family a lot of money in insurance premiums. But the Wall Street Journal goes on to point out, “Although President Obama repeatedly claimed that health-insurance premiums for a family would be $2,500 lower by the end of his first term, they are actually about $3,000 higher — a spread of about $5,500 per family.” It would have been interesting to hear Obama address that point in his State of the Union address.
Listening to Obama’s address on Tuesday night, I was reminded of something I read last week from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison. Bonhoeffer was, of course, a German theologian who lived during the Hitler era. Unlike today’s progressive poseurs, he spoke truth to power when it cost something. While sitting in a cell, awaiting death for that crime, he wrote: “For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts.”
No, I’m not comparing Obama to Hitler. But I am saying that the never-ending stream of prevarication that emanates from the White House and its media toadies is indeed bewildering to anyone who tries to live honestly. And most of the propaganda is specifically designed to camouflage crimes against democracy like Obamacare. That abomination is not helping to slow the growth of health care costs. It is driving them through the roof. Obama lied yet again.
About the Author
David Catron is a health care revenue cycle expert who has spent more than twenty years working for and consulting with hospitals and medical practices. He has an MBA from the University of Georgia and blogs at Health Care BS.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (72) | Leave a comment
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Robbins Mitchell| 2.13.13 @ 6:20AM
Hey,he's a Chicago dirtbag...he can't tell the truth,won't abide by the law,and doesn't know his @$$ from the proverbial hole in the ground....why is anybody who writes a column here surprised by this?....it's what he is...and he isn't capable of being anything else
spike59| 2.13.13 @ 6:30AM
that pretty much sums it up...
davidh| 2.13.13 @ 4:11PM
A bigger question is what does he intend to do while he still holds the office.
The concept of evil is difficult for most people to believe or understand.
I believe the next false flag 911 has been planned. The repeated proclamations from the administration for additional internet security is the clue. He signed an executive order right before the SOTU.
1. Attack the internet
2. Blame an enemy (China, Iran, N. Korea, right wing etc)
3. Take control of the internet
4. Then a major false flag attack on a city or infrastructure
5. Shut down internet
6. Marshall law
People are sheep and will believe anything the media tells them. Obama will be like a king.
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 5:15PM
You sound like you really need a Contest.
davidh| 2.13.13 @ 5:20PM
I need a beer my friend.....
hope you are well
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 6:13PM
I am, thank you.
I'd give you my Beer, but I'm drinking it.
Sorry.
stop telling lies| 2.13.13 @ 6:24AM
Obama lied again? That is all he does. His lips moved, didn't they?
Jack London| 2.13.13 @ 7:19AM
So here we have a Jeffrey Lord acolyte saying he's not comparing Obama to Hitler and then doing just that.
For the record, the factcheckers have confirmed that the ACA is making some impact because quite a few hospitals and insurers have already changed incentives in line with the law.
Stephie| 2.13.13 @ 7:54AM
You know what one of those is Jack? Many many hospitals are now refusing to deliver babies.
Did you know in CA abortions are now done by lay people. Not a physician, but a lay person. Is this the kind of dumbing down of the system we want? Physicians are leaving in droves and we are going to be cared for by nurses. We already see a NP who is okay but we get sent off to a specialist if ever there is something she can't handle. On the flip side, my husband had a CT scan recently and do you know what it cost? For 20 mins in a tube? $5500! I don't see THAT as lowering prices. And of course, we had to pay for more than half of that cost.
No, obamacare will not help us, it will only make things worse. And I'll get back with you when my Anthem policy is renewed in May with the price increase. I expect a large increase.
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 8:16AM
Don't waste your time on the guy from Londonistan, where they bury their Kings under Parking Lots, and put Fags in their mouths and suck on'em.
aquanomics| 2.13.13 @ 10:39AM
"....Londonistan, where they bury their Kings under Parking Lots, and put Fags in their mouths and suck on'em....."
Awesome! I don't think you could have said more with fewer words. Awesome.
JD| 2.13.13 @ 1:21PM
Jack is right. Catron did compare Obama to Hitler. And in many ways, the comparison is valid.
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 1:46PM
Historically speaking?
They're Brothas from another Mutha.
And you can throw Mussolini in there, as well.
John - The Mighty Fahvaag| 2.13.13 @ 7:45AM
@London
And here we have a DNC Troll asserting the party line as fact.
Tell that to my stressed insurance plan where my copays just increased by nearly double, and my hospitalization is now so limited that it won't cover intensive care.
Your "factcheckers" are your fellow DNC toadies reasserting your Newspeak talking points.
As to Obama being compared to Hitler.... I won't compare him to Hitler, because it wouldn't be completely accurate. I'd compare him to Il Duce, Benito Mussolini and his Fascists of the 1920's. Brutal, thuggish, lying, bully Socialists. And no, Mussolini never actually really got the trains to run on time, either.... that was a big lie, too.
The Democrat Party is running a Corporate-State. Obummer - nonCare hasn't even gone into effect yet and it's already costing millions.
Wait until the insurance plans start to die off, and people start having to pay the Feds $20,000 a year for crappy socialized medicine at the hands of a nurse practitioner. Betcha the working poor are going to love paying that....
Obamacare is the capstone of the effort to enserf us all. The party of Slavery (Democrat) is ever thus.
-TMF
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 8:01AM
Thou truly art Mighty.
Well done.
He - Jack Homo from Homo World London - seems to schluff off all of the Stories of Hospital Closings, Doctor Shortages due to so many who have Left the Business, as well as the Hundreds of Thousands of LAYOFFS, and people who would have been Hired, if not for the All Powerful Gloved Hand of President Death to America.
Jack London| 2.13.13 @ 8:11AM
Your side just say and did nothing while premiums doubled under GW Bush, and you know perfectly well they would go on rising without the ACA.
George S| 2.13.13 @ 8:35AM
My premiums did not "double under GW Bush". As a matter of fact, they didn't even go up one penny and my broker would occasionally ask if I was interested in saving money on competing policies because I never made a payment past the due date for all the years I had the policy.
Now I am being told to brace for a 16 to 24 percent hike and whatever I do not to modify the copay, deductible or terms of coverage -- as well as never making a late payment -- because the policy may very well be pulled right from under me.
Oh, and I am still waiting for my $2,500 annual savings. Can you do the math for me... how does a 16 to 24 percent increase reduce my policy by $2,500 at the end of the year? Maybe one of the 47 million uninsured who are now magically insured can chime in.
Jack London| 2.13.13 @ 9:12AM
Your premiums aren't the national average George. go look up the surveys by Kaiser and others and you'll see that premiums on average went up 8-12% a year under Bush. In 2011, the increase came down a lot, to 4%.
Anthony| 2.13.13 @ 9:20AM
Jack, please keep posting today at TAS. I am trying to get a fix on you so that I can report your position to Drone Commander Obozo.
Once I get a good coordinate, hopefully, I can report your position and get an Obozo drone to drop on you, an Obozo drone.
Never mind that whine, it's your tin foil hat receiving old Geraldo, Jerry Springer reruns.
So long Jack.....
George S| 2.13.13 @ 10:43AM
Jack, just for your info:
Double means 100 percent
Not 8 to 12 percent.
Time to get new fact checkers.
Jack London| 2.13.13 @ 11:12AM
Er George that was 8-12% a year over 9-10 years. Time to get a new brain.
WhiteBikerTrash| 2.13.13 @ 1:13PM
How did I get so lucky? from 2000 to 2009 my premiums dropped by 20% and my co-pay dropped by 33%. Since 2009 my co-pay has gone up 100% and the premium has risen 27% So today I pay more for less.
Drunken Sailor| 2.13.13 @ 11:16AM
Hey Jack, we can save even more money. Lets tax those making less than 15% a income tax rate of 23% and put that money toward health care. Not fair you say?
But that is how Italy and the other countries pay for their socialized medicine don't you know. The left is always comparing our health care to theirs so lets follow their example if it such a damn good idea.
http://www.taxrates.cc/html/italy-tax-rates.html
spike59| 2.13.13 @ 12:21PM
hahahahaha...good one! our premiums have gone up 20% since 2010, and our co-pays are up by 50%
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 1:48PM
No.
You're Stupidity is the National Average.
Which is why we're where we are, right now.
Idiot.
John - The Mighty Fahvaag| 2.13.13 @ 8:46AM
Nonsense...
Both United and Anthem premiums held relatively steady (very low inflation rate) for the last 12 years. My copays were $15 for a GP and $30 for a specialist, and $150 for an emergency room visit, and my hospitalization had no daily capitations. Courtesy of ACA, the premiums increased 20% - of which my company traded me a raise to pay for.. and my copay went to 25/50/300 and a 179 per day capitation hospital stay (meaning I eat the differential cost of intensive care...) right...
Within the next three years, people who do not have insurance will be FINED to the tune of roughly $20,000 a year for a family of four.
These were people who did not have to pay for insurance because they could not afford to pay for insurance premiums. They were covered under various programs like Medicaid and S-Chip. Of course, how are they going to come up with the scratch to pay that $20K a year when they don't even have that sort of money.
Ugly.. Serfdom... Proletariat... Marxism... Utilitarianism... Death Panels... rationing... tyrannical government at its very worst.
I am not a slave, and will not surrender to the tyrants.
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 9:42AM
He's one of those guys that Touts the New York Times and Paul Krugman as his Sources, when he can't find anything from Arianna Huffington and Peter Beinart.
"A House, divided against itself, cannot stand."
The guy who made that Historic Statement, got a Bullet in his head for his troubles.
The guy who is doing Everything In His Power to make that statement a reality, will probably live to be 100.
Go re-listen to Dion's - Abraham, Martin, and John. And then take another look at the Thing that Killed America.
All of us are that Indian we saw on Television years ago, standing next to a Field of Garbage with a Tear running down his face, now. And, it's gonna get a lot Worse, before it gets better.
If that's even possible, after 4 More Years of this.
JD| 2.13.13 @ 1:25PM
Jack will not talk substance on this issue, because as usual, substance does not support his theology.
He will speak in vague generalities about how health care costs increased over time and require us to join him in assuming that correlation with the political party represented in the White House is the only relevant factor.
Jack has no answers for any of the points raised in the article.
Stan Redmond| 2.13.13 @ 8:53PM
Help me to understand liberal logic. Government intervention in the insurance market caused premiums to double so the answer is MORE government intervention?
And your facts are just wrong.
PolishKnight| 2.13.13 @ 4:25PM
What the left's goal was to take down the USA and free up world socialism was to make the USA suck. They did this via importing illegals, feminism, etc. along with lousy policies such as HMO's and then overregulating them to death.
This worked pretty well because they could blame "capitalism" which turned out to be a form of fascism and they had a point. The right loved importing illegals and then paying them starvation wages and putting them on welfare/taxpayer support while they ran off with the money. Or they imported H1B's who then turned into loyal Democrat voters. So capitalistic greed empowered the socialists in their agenda to make the USA into crap. And pushing tons of women into the workplace collapsed wages so now most people HAVE to have two parent working families. So much for the mainstream feminist dream during the 80's of "double dipping" (She gets a hobby job and spends her money on fun stuff or "independence" and he pays the real bills as a serf. Haha! Jokes on her!)
Anyways, Obama is making the USA suck due to his policies AND now he's re-elected meaning he'll be in office as they make the USA suck even more. Will it ever get tiring to blame GW Bush?
Stephie| 2.13.13 @ 7:47AM
obama is nothing but a lie. I was surprised that he didn't eviscerate the Republicans outwardly tho. It was nothing but a laundry list of promises that won't be fulfilled, thank God. I was pleased to hear that the soldier that received the medal of honor on Monday declined moochelle's invitation to sit in her box with her and other victims. I guess he felt he's been used enough by these awful people.
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 8:12AM
The worse part of all of this, is that some day, someone will gain access to those Documents that are Sealed in that Vault, in Hawaii.
And, we're gonna discover that he was never Eligible to be President.
This all could've been avoided if someone just had the balls to get to the bottom of this. Obama got his Political Opponent's Sealed Documents Unsealed. TWICE.
But, because of his Skin Colour, he was never forced to release those Papers, even though his WHITE Counterparts, back in Chicago, were.
aquanomics| 2.13.13 @ 10:43AM
America's greatest weakness; it's only real weakness, is its fear of non-white people and what they might say about us. We are not, nor have we even been, responsible for the sins of our forefathers.
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 1:56PM
Obviously, from the tone of your comment, you're one of those people who think Black People like Watermelon, Fried Chicken, Pork Chops, Kool Cigarettes, Chitlins, Collard Greens, Basketball, Sneakers, and Rap Music.
Is that what you're sayin?
You make me Sick!
Mike G| 2.13.13 @ 9:04AM
"It was nothing but a laundry list of promises that won't be fulfilled, thank God."
After seeing the Repubs give the king so much over the last four years, I don't understand how you can believe that. Certainly, Congress nor the SC will stop him.
Nancy in NC| 2.13.13 @ 8:15AM
The only people who believe obamacare will save them money own an obama phone. What's your number, Jack?
Cobalt| 2.13.13 @ 8:36AM
The government spent 2.2 billion dollars on Obama phones last year.
http://www.newsmax.com/US/obam...../id/490022
George S| 2.13.13 @ 8:38AM
Of course the ACA is holding back the cost of medical care. Just look at how the stimulus helped save 3 million jobs. You can't argue with track record.
MickyC| 2.13.13 @ 8:49AM
Hospitals no longer accept Medicare patients for readmission -- in other words, go home and die old person!
Dr's offices are half empty most of the time I go -- people who aren't absolutely ill do not go --
Dr's in California are all changing to 'concierge' practices, where patients pay $1000 or more /year to be patients, in addition to the usual charges.
Jacob McCandles| 2.13.13 @ 9:18AM
Actually, there will be penalties to the hospital for readmission (they won't get paid for the care). This, of course, will have the opposite affect on cost because hospitals will keep patients longer to lower the risk of readmission. The government rates of reimbursement for doctors and hospitals barely covers cost, and in some cases does not. The reason we have some hospitals avoiding red ink is the private insurance system. It's the only thing keeping the entire house from crashing down.
RABart| 2.13.13 @ 8:57AM
Speaking of Obama phones, how is it that those walking around with them are doing the walking around in $200.00 Air Jordan Nike shoes? That is until someone shoots them to easily obtain their very own pair of fancy shoes. There motto seems to be why work, just do a little gang bangin and you to can have whatever you want. Obama's world.
PolishKnight| 2.13.13 @ 9:32AM
A quibble with the author's referral to Orwellian and Obama's lie. His claim that healthcare costs are going down is a lie. A bold lie, but a mere lie nonetheless. While an Orwellianism or "double speak" is where the language has a paradox that is unacknowledged. The biggest leftist doublespeak of all time, and unchallenged by the right, is the notion that ending racism and sexism is done via bashing white males and regarding white males as entitled to civil rights is sexist and racist. Even during the era of Jim Crow, a racist Democrat forcing blacks to sit in the back of the bus wouldn't be complaining about the blacks undermining civil rights.
Another example of leftist doublespeak is "tolerance" where they demand that opposing viewpoints be shut down because their opponents are "bigoted."
I'm sure there are others but those are the two biggest ones that come to mind. The rest of the time, they are simply opportunistic and dishonest such as claiming to care about the working and middle class while regarding them as a bunch of losers and suckers who couldn't get government lobbyist jobs or go on welfare like the smart leftists do. But that's just moral and intellectual bankruptcy on their part.
itsy_bitsy| 2.13.13 @ 9:46AM
It all comes back to a corrupt press corp! Their job is to report facts not Obama's lies, but for years they have abandoned the most important aspect of their job! They are like a crooked politician, for what ever reason they purposely refuse to challenge Obama and his lies in a public forum! They have chosen to become propagandists rather than newsmen and women!
SUBVET| 2.13.13 @ 10:14AM
In 1922 J.P. Morgan buys over 200 news papers to control the media................has their Fabian Society worked ?
Kwan| 2.13.13 @ 9:47AM
Dismissing the illusion that ObamaCare has anything to do with healthcare and everything to do with increasing the central government's control of the population, should expose the falsehoods that were told to the American people while this monstrosity was being passed by the totalitarian Democrat Party.
OregonBuzz| 2.13.13 @ 11:12AM
“One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. From there it’s a short step to all the rest of socialism.” Ronald Reagan
Kwan| 2.13.13 @ 12:30PM
Right. Obama and his Motley Crew of leftist dimwits are great admirers of the Cuban health care system. They eventually want to replace the qualified medical personnel that operate our health care system with affirmative action government stooges whose allegiance will be to the government and not the patients.
howard lohmuller| 2.13.13 @ 10:54AM
It is hard to remember a politician who told more lies than President Obama does. He has two favored methods. The first is to use anecdotal evidence which is the weakest form of evidence other than lies. The second is to quote statistics from a stream. Imagine flipping coins a million times. Mathematics would predict half a million heads and half a million tails, or very close to it. Obama could look for a pattern of two heads and one tails, find it, and say it represents the stream. That is how he portrayed wind power as gaining as a power source. The truth is that electrical power demand is down due to the recession and due to subsidies given to wind energy. Wind power can't compete with carbon and nuclear energy and would disappear without the subsidies.
OregonBuzz| 2.13.13 @ 11:10AM
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”. - Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Nazi Propaganda
vtwin| 2.13.13 @ 11:53AM
“Health-care costs grew slower than the rest of the economy in 2011 for the first time in more than a decade.”
Republican rebuttal: No, the slowdown began before Obama was elected.
Tea Baggers rebuttal: No no, the slowdown began after we took control of the House.
“Osama bin Laden dead: President Obama orders raid on Osama compound in Pakistan.”
Republican rebuttal: No, the hunt for Osama bin Laden began before Obama was elected.
Tea Baggers rebuttal: No no, Osama was killed after we took control of the House.
PolishKnight| 2.13.13 @ 12:24PM
I love the tea bagger slur coming from the left. Isn't the Democrat party the party of "tea baggers" and gays? One leftist was angry when I said the Democrat party is gay. It was fun watching all his various leftist dogmas collide. If there's nothing wrong with being gay, why the outrage at the alleged slur? It's like Sandra Fluke going on slutwalks and then crying when Rush calls her one.
If you're a straight, white man who likes pretty girls and you're not a wealthy lobbyist or party crony, then you're a fool.
vtwin| 2.13.13 @ 1:41PM
It is true the Democratic Party opposes discrimination because of sexual orientation but if think Democratic Party is the only "Gay Party" than how do you explain this list of prominent Republicans involved in homosexual scandals.
Charlie Crist
Larry Craig
Mark Foley
Ted Haggard
Paul Babeau
Troy King
Robert Arango
Robert L. Traynam
Jim McCrery
Dan Gurley
George Rekers
Roy Ashburn
Jim West
Bob Allen
Edward L. Schrock
Phil Hinkle
Richard Curtis
Jon Hinson
Glenn Murphy Jr.
Robert Bauman
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 2:05PM
There's a big difference between Accepting it, and Promoting it in the Elementary Schools. (The Joys of Anal Sex. The Joys of Gay Sex. The Joys of Having Sex with an Adult.)
Gay Scout Masters. Gays in the Military. Gay Marriage. Gay Adoptions. NAMBLA)
Even a Queer, like YOU, should be able to understand that.
Maybe.
Joellen| 2.13.13 @ 5:36PM
Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm, telling that vtwin knew all these names
TLP| 2.13.13 @ 6:16PM
They're all Friends, on his Facebook Page.
PolishKnight| 2.13.13 @ 4:19PM
Larry Craig? A "homosexual scandal" for tapping his foot in a bathroom stall?
Granted, I think he made a major mistake by taking the plea deal and hoping the problem would go away. Like most politicians, he's probably a lawyer. He should have reserved the right to remain silent, taken the write up, and gone on to his Senate vote. He didn't commit any "crime."
But yes, to the left someone tapping his foot in a bathroom stall is a hypocritical queer that it's ok to be charged with a homosexual sex act but on the other hand, Barney Frank and a NJ Governor using state money to bribe/pay off people they've engaged in pedophile sex with is ok so who cares. Yeah, moral equivalency there.
Drunken Sailor| 2.13.13 @ 3:24PM
PK, read a term the other day that is the perfect reply to any idiot using the term teabagger.
Call them "Freebagger".
PolishKnight| 2.13.13 @ 4:20PM
How about Democrat butt pirates? Digging for buried treasure...
Drunken Sailor| 2.13.13 @ 4:23PM
Well, that's a given.
spike59| 2.13.13 @ 12:28PM
“Osama bin Laden dead: President Obama orders raid on Osama compound in Pakistan.”
----------------------------------------------------
FACT:
AFTER refusing to authorize action on mutliple occasions (at the direction of 'Barry's Brain', noted military expert Valerie Jarrett) and 16 hours of dithering, at which time Leon Panetta, NOT Obama, gave the order
spike59| 2.13.13 @ 12:25PM
“Health-care costs grew slower than the rest of the economy in 2011 for the first time in more than a decade.”
------------------------------------
from FactCheck.org:
From 2009 to 2011, the growth in national health care spending was at its lowest rate in 50-plus years, the entire time the National Health Expenditure Accounts reports have been published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Spending grew by 3.9 percent each year for 2009, 2010 and 2011. )
But the Affordable Care Act wasn’t signed into law until 2010, AFTER the recent slowing began. And the bulk of the law, including the individual mandate and federal subsidies to help Americans buy insurance, has yet to take effect. Experts have mainly blamed the economic slowdown for a corresponding reduction in health care spending.
Who Knows?| 2.13.13 @ 1:06PM
“How many ways do I love thee? Prithee, let me count them”
How many ways are Orwellian lies “loving” us, these last days of the moral American experiment?
OF COURSE Obama tells lies! That’s what lairs DO.
Unfortunately, though, too many experts miss the lying forest for the lying trees. In the big scheme of things, really, who cares what Obama SAYS about Obamacare, and even what is going to happen when it’s fully implemented?
A confession---I belong to a self-selected bitterly clinging minority, who has eschewed having health insurance my whole life. At almost 71, why I’ve even refused Medicare, so my Social Security check is not docked $90 per month.
It just gets weirder and weirder, for me, to read about the vast majority of “normal” families, with, say, health insurance that costs over $1,000---or more!---per month. Whatever happened to self-reliance?
I can see getting catastrophic insurance, to cover the rare biggies, like cancer, or Parkinson’s disease, etc, but geez---why don’t people just go to a doctor when they HAVE to, like when they need stitches for a cut, say, and wake up to the moral hazard of relying on OTHER PEOPLE aka “health insurance” cum a “Medical Doctor”?
The Orwellian lie is “health insurance”, as it’s NOW being the tail, wagging the American “dog”!
Who Knows?| 2.13.13 @ 1:23PM
Here’s a “healthy” cautionary tale---
After I biked to the local mall, I took a seat on a bench and was reading a book. Note---I’m a lean and healthy 71-year-old male.
This fat woman, around 60 or so, lunged for the bench, and heavily sighed, out of breath. Her friend, another woman who looked like my old grandmother, wearily sat down, also barely able to stand up.
After their rest, I asked the latter a question---“So, how old ARE you?” Very much out of character for me.
She said 74! And, she said she’d already had “operations”, which meant, of course, Medical Doctors, galore.
The disconnect between my own feeling of vim and vigor, and her near death demeanor was severely jolting!
Oh well---or UN-well?---she’ll probably soon enough die, and come back as a bouncy new human, while I’m living the next 20 years or so as an old man. So, who’s the wise one, anyway?
Makes one wonder why one is born as a human. Me? I’ll tell my secret: be already dead, to your assumed egoic self, AND live as long and as healthily as possible, because, paradoxically, a long life gives the OPPORTUNITY to observe, understand, and most vitally, transcend more and more “stuff’, all the clingers of “me”.
Die, while living.
That’s true health. Be thus CARE-LESS, or care free.
John II| 2.13.13 @ 2:37PM
Well, "audacious" is not the word I would use to characterize the Professor's habitual mendacity.
The appropriate word is "shameless."
Shameless man. Shameless Presidency. Shameless culture. God bless and help America.
JD| 2.13.13 @ 5:25PM
CNN posts the following:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/13/.....hpt=hp_bn7
Interesting that they found a long-term unemployed woman who not only could identify John Boehner as he sat in the crowd at the SOTU, but went out of her way to condemn him for "getting in the way of all the good ideas". Of course she's black, too. What a "random" profile of a long-term unemployed person!
The article says the following:
For others, it's simply understood that the resumes of unemployed people will be tossed in the trash first. In a competitive job market, it's a quick way to weed out applicants.
Not only is this discriminatory, said Maurice Emsellem, policy co-director at the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group. "It's not in the interest of employers to artificially limit the applicant pool."
A false statement in several ways. First off, it's not "discriminatory" to judge a person's job worthiness using employment history. How else could we judge Obama unfit for the presidency? :P
JD| 2.13.13 @ 6:32PM
But more than that, who is this stuffed suit "Maurice Emsellem" to say that employers are doing something that is not in their interest?
Consider employers' situations.
The economy is tough. Hiring mistakes could be fatal. Wasted expenses could be fatal. Now you need to hire someone, and because of the bad economy, you're inundated with applicants. Some are unemployed. Some are long-term unemployed. But many more are America's now-famous "underemployed" - people who are working today, proving themselves well, but want to move up.
Now think about the job interview process. It costs the employer time and money, but it's still really hard to determine job worthiness in a mere interview. Track record is a far more reliable indicator.
So as an employer in a tight economy who can't afford to take risks on long-term unemployed types who interview well, but who has a mountain of applications from already-employed, what do you do? You don't waste time and energy on the applications of the unemployed. You don't need to. You're most likely to find the best person among the employed, and restricting the pool saves you money.
JD| 2.13.13 @ 6:35PM
The problem isn't the employer's actions. The problem is the economy, which made these actions smart for the employer. But Democrats, being stupid, seek to ban the employer's actions without solving the underlying problem.
This will simply cause employers to waste a lot more time sifting through mountains of applications. But after wasting all that time, they'll still hire someone who already has a job because of the aforementioned economic conditions, which introduce the need to avoid risk and the large volume of already-employed applicants.
Democrats will thus only make the problem worse by causing more employers to waste more money, leaving less for productive work and the employees who benefit from it.
Pecos Pete| 2.13.13 @ 8:07PM
JD: As always, well said! Beware of unintended consequences, something the regulators never understand.
Stan Redmond| 2.13.13 @ 9:08PM
I would say the biggest whopper is about spending.
This jackass rolled the "stimulus" in to the budget baseline and his party has not passed a single budget in his term as president (excuse me I spit up in my mouth a little bit.)
So 800,000,000,000 gets rolled in to the baseline and he runs up a trillion dollar a year deficit and he will responsibly handle even more money. He's still crying we need "investment" in infrastructures after these trillions of wasted stimulus money?
The man's entire life is one big lie. Or, shall I nicely say, his whole life is one big made up composite.
John II| 2.13.13 @ 10:40PM
Like Bubba before him, the Professor lies even when there's no obvious political gain in doing so. It's a kind of compulsion, apparently.
Maybe it's too loose to call him "the Professor." Perhaps, for the three years and eleven months left in his ghastly tenure, I should cut to the chase and refer to the Professor as "the Prince of Darkness."
The trolls DO remind me of Satan's minions--I mean, the farcical devils in Canto 21 of Dante's Inferno.
clicketeer | 2.13.13 @ 11:42PM
On the day the president Obama the showed his great statement. I 100 percent agree with the policy regarding the US. troops in Afghanistan.
Just Free Afghanistan and Free USA
Bob Armstrong | 2.18.13 @ 6:29PM
With all due appreciation for the magnitude of ObaMedScam , I consider his criminally stupidity labeling carbon , the element of life itself , "pollution" a lie against tested physical reality .