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SOTU and Obamacare
January 24, 2012 | 5 comments
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Beinart’s Blood Libel
September 21, 2011 | 1 comment
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Cell Phone Cancer Democrats
June 2, 2011 | 6 comments
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Just How Dumb and Damaging?
May 19, 2011 | 37 comments
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Town Halls and Bigots
August 19, 2009 | 10 comments
The Spectacle Blog
I hope they enjoy the victory tweets and self-congratulatory retorts on MSNBC…
In a couple of years this “win” will make the Persian “triumph” in the battle of Thermoplyae look like a minor setback.
Roberts got Obamacare off on a technicality and turned it into a tax collection/IRS issue. All the happy talk about pre-existing condition coverage will fade. Now the question will be: Who voted to raise taxes on the middle class? On medical device companies? On the dividends of retirees? All for something that Congress does not have power to require people to buy? Are you serious?
When premiums rise, costs explode, government hands out Solyndra like contracts on the one hand while cutting Medicare benefits on the other, when new treatments are denied and things go wrong it’s the Democrats that people will blame.
Democrats will seek to shift the discussion by claiming Romney is the intellectual godfather of Obamacare.
Not even close.
True, Romney had a (small) penalty tied to a real mandate (not a mandate posing as a tax pretending to be penalty). He didn’t raise taxes. He took Medicaid money and state funds to extend Medicaid to cover low income people that did not have or could not afford insurance and required them to pay part of the cost of premiums and health care. That’s something forbidden under Obamacare. There were no boards to ration or control what technologies or treatments doctors used or patients could have.
Regardless of whether the president is re-elected or not or whether Republicans gain control of the Senate and hold on to the House, the Democrats and the interest groups that pushed so hard for government expansion of healthcare will and should be held responsible for the taxes, the premiums, and the implementation.
View all comments (26) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Robert M. Goldberg
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/06/28/the-democrats-now-own-obamacar
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C Bowen | 6.28.12 @ 6:01PM
Roberts, whom Bush and Conservative Inc alleged to be a conservative, has been entirely discredited.
One of the only decent things to say about the Bush Administration from a conservative perspective was the Justices, and now that is ruined.
Bob Grant| 6.28.12 @ 6:29PM
He was a disaster selecting judges. If left to his own devices, he would have appointed two liberal judges, Harriet Miers and John Roberts.
I cannot give him credit for Alito whom conservatives force on him after his disastrous first choice.
Second.Worse.President.Ever and not that far from the Worst President Ever (Obama).
GW Bush, a curse on this country.
Bob Grant| 6.28.12 @ 6:30PM
Corr: Second.Worst...
C Bowen | 6.28.12 @ 6:38PM
I agree with you.
My point was that it was formerly credible for a Conservative Inc scribe to say Bush was good on judges--and now they are all proved wrong.
BackToBasics| 6.29.12 @ 1:01AM
Bush II ignored conservatives after the large gains in 2004 in the House and Senate that conservatives handed to him. He demoralized conservatives. Just 2 years later he was mostly responsible for losing BOTH the House and Senate.
He preferred to work with Democrats rather than listen to his own base.
One of his greatest hopes was to grant amnesty to illegal aliens thinking that this one-time "gift" would win Hispanics to the republican party forever. Just pathetic in his lack of understanding of human nature.
He was a very weak leader, weaker than Obam or Johnson actually although those 2 did more damage to the country. But without his weakness, I do not think Obam would ever have been elected; another of his legacies to us. Because he pretended to be conservatives' friend, however, in some ways he's worse than any democrat.
JD| 6.28.12 @ 6:20PM
The author is wrong. He would be right if we had a media that reported honestly, but of course that's not true. As it is, the public will not complain about the things the author says they should complain about, because the public will never believe them to be true. They'll be too busy complaining about the evil corporate conspiracy to jack up premiums to make Obama look bad.
ggoblue| 6.28.12 @ 6:31PM
We get one shot to save tis country. It comes in 131 days.
This is it america.
C Bowen | 6.28.12 @ 6:40PM
Bush's Judge Roberts will still be there, no matter who wins. Barring Impeachment of Just-Us Roberts, it's going to be an awful slog.
spike59| 6.29.12 @ 5:53AM
CB, don't give up your fantasies, just keep them to yoursdelf, as you are making yourself look stupid; you have absolutely nothing upon which to base an ACTUAL impeachment. regardless of the pi$$-poor decision and Roberts' tortured logic ('Obama, you say it isn't a tax, but the only way it flies is for it to be a tax, so a tax it must be'), he hasn't done anything that qualifies Constitutionally as an impeachable offense
spike59| 6.29.12 @ 5:54AM
should've read 'yourself'-damn sausage fingers
Tom Kyba| 6.28.12 @ 6:55PM
Unfortunately George W. Bush turned out to be the Rodney King of politics.
bluecollarbytes| 6.28.12 @ 7:11PM
This is wishful thinking, like much of today's lipstick on a pig- conservative reactions trying to wring some bit of good news from disaster.
How is it that republicans will Now engage on obamacare? Bait and switch is more likely.
Beppo| 6.28.12 @ 7:17PM
I don't know. On previous form Romney will be claiming credit for Obamacare in a couple of days like he did with the auto bailout. LOL. This judgement given Romney's introduction of Romneycare makes a farce of his promise to repeal....is he going to repeal Romneycare also. The entire position of the GOP has been rendered fatuous by the nominee and this judgement and all this stuff is just spinning the wind of reality. If Romney wants to make this the issue he's going to get crucified and laughed out of contention.
Zeppo| 6.28.12 @ 7:17PM
We are doomed.
Oldefarte| 6.28.12 @ 7:57PM
This was/is/forever will be just another form of governmental WELFARE. It's soletary intent is to gut Medicare [which seniors have previously paid for with their lifetimes of payroll deductions and who cna only begin receiving its benefits at 65] in political favor of the younger generation and indigents. $500 bil transferred from Medicare to the Affordable Care Act is a pretty clear indication of same. Screw the seniors, right! Who needs Death Panels with this? If the Grey Panthers don't come storming out of their nursing homes over this and vote Republican, then they can kiss their Medicare goodbye and then go crawl in a hole to die!!!!!!
ejp| 6.28.12 @ 9:42PM
I don't know what I'm finding more laughable, the Pollyanna attempts by so-called "conservatives" who find nice things in Roberts rulings, or the ones who are so naive enough to think that this narrative about Obamacare as a result of the ruling is going to hurt Obama. It isn't. Obama's lapdogs in the press are spinning this based on one simple line of reasoning-Obamacare is part of the great American tradition of "social reform" and the Court has validated it. The Court was supposed to be our lifeline for validating the rule of law and the separation of powers and instead John Roberts, who now exceeds the worthlessness of past botched GOP nominees to the Court starting with Earl Warren and William Brennan, proved that every GOP willing to whore himself for the sake of left-wing elite cocktail crowd adulation always has his price.
JD| 6.28.12 @ 10:00PM
Indeed, conservatives must learn to stop reading things logically and start seeing the liberal spin. That's what voters will see.
JD| 6.28.12 @ 10:05PM
I now have friends mad at me, because I predicted this, and they predicted otherwise. So they subconsciously blame me.
My rationale was simple: We already have boatloads of ObamaCare-style "taxes" on the books. "Penalties" for all manner of things. We also have "deductions and credits", which are functionally the same.
In a fixed system, does it matter if you raise taxes by X, then give a credit of X to all the "good" people, vs simply charging a penalty of X to all the "bad" people? There is no functional difference. That tax credit of $7,500 for buying a hybrid? It's a $7,500 penalty for the rest of us for violating the mandate to buy a hybrid.
We didn't lose this battle in 2012. We lost it in the late 1930s, when precedent from earlier that very decade was overturned by FDR's new justices, and the Court for the first time allowed "taxes" that weren't equitable forms of federal revenue-raising, but rather were redistributive, punitive, or incentivization. That's when we went from Madison to Hamilton on the power to tax.
Only today are most people understanding the full implications. But half of them cheer!
axbucxdu| 6.28.12 @ 11:13PM
This decision is an unmitigated disaster. I work for a medical devices manufacturer. The device tax that will be used to fund part of this law represents all of our net profit. I expect the firm to react in ways that will be helpful to the growth of GDP. The progs toasting this fix on-line this evening have obviously never run a business.
axbucxdu| 6.28.12 @ 11:15PM
should read: will NOT be helpful.
Hankb1961| 6.29.12 @ 3:05AM
My problem with the premise that the Dems will get the blame, if this so obvious, why aren't they bearing the brunt of the financial crises THEY created (of course with willing Republican accomplices that did not push back hard enough)
JP| 6.29.12 @ 9:16AM
The fact remains that 58% of the voters want ObamaCare repealed - not amended or tweaked- but repealed. If the GOP cannot turn this issue to its political advantage than it deserves to lose.
JP| 6.29.12 @ 9:21AM
I think many people do not realize that ObamaCare will eventually fail for lack of funds. Its costs estimate were recently revised upwards to $1.76 trillion (from the $900 billion promised by Bacus in 2009). And that includes trimming $500 billion in Medicaire spending.
All of these hidden "features" will now come to light if the GOP finds its courage and begins to pound the Obama and the Dems. I think Boehnner, McConnell, Romney as well as many in the conservative pundit class were expecting the Courts to do the dirty work. The were thinking, "why spend the money and effort in fighting ObamaCare when we have 5 conservative justices on the bench?".
R. Howell| 6.29.12 @ 12:09PM
No one is going to care that one out of nine justices called the penalty a "tax". That will be largely forgotten in about, oh, twenty minutes or so.
The party line will be: "who cares about those details, the law is constitutional and what matters is it provides everyone with a free puppy. What's the matter with you, do you hate puppies, you puppy-hating rightwing puppy-hater?"
Simon Templar| 6.29.12 @ 2:56PM
R.H.
You are absolutely correct. The general public gives a rats as about taxation when it comes down to getting something free or something they think is free. These republicans seem to not be able to grasp this and are stuck in this tax, 'read my lips no new tax' politics.
If there is a God, God help us, cause the Republic and Federalism just died this week and most are unable to see this...