I'm awfully confused about what the ACA does and not permit in the way of escape. I've just been on the phone with a very helpful health insurance broker, recommended by our State Farm agent, who says that there will be off-exchange policies available as well as exchange policies. The prices quoted to me by Blue Cross so far, and all the price quotations that I've been able to find on the internet, apparently are for exchange policies: Bronze, Silver, and so on. They can be bought without going on the non-functional website, but their prices (not counting subsidies) are the same either way. Off-exchange policies have to comply with some aspects of the ACA but perhaps not all; it may be possible, for instance, to get more flexibility about deductibles. If we stay with Blue Cross, we can avoid the pre-existing condition problem. Even better, it may be that we can avoid it even if we switch to a new company like United Healthcare, which the broker believes has a better network and a better claims-paying record. He also claims that many doctors and hospitals (like the Memorial-Hermann networks and Baylor University here in South/Southeast Texas) are dropping Blue Cross at the end of this year. United Healthcare, in contrast, is preserving its network.
Because all the insurance companies are scrambling to make sense of the new regulatory environment, he can't get us options and prices yet, but he believes he will be able to do so in a few weeks. Possibly there's still some way out of this mess--some way for us to continue to buy the cheaper, higher-deductible catastrophic stop-loss coverage we prefer.
I enjoyed talking to the guy. He hates the new law as much as I do, and enjoyed hearing about Chris Matthews's hilarious new outrage about Benghazi.
"Why wasn't I told about this?"
I guess this is what happens when you let the veil of denial slip. First, 60 Minutes has the gall to do a piece on Benghazi. Softball, and sadly late, but better than the nothing-burger than preceded it. Next, Chris Matthews actually watches it, because I guess it's inside his bubble, and wakes up in a whole new world with some questions scratching irritably at his brain:
JAY NEWTON-SMALL: Well, Hillary in her testimony before Congress said she was there, she was, you know, on the ground, in the State Department listening to the response in real time on the phone as it was happening, and so, she knew what was happening. But again, they also testified that there were waves of attacks, so they thought that, you know, after the first wave that things were quieting down. That’s when they said, well, maybe we don’t need to send help, and help was really far away. It wasn’t like it was next door. It was several hours away in Italy, so –
MATTHEWS: But the fight went on for seven hours.
NEWTON-SMALL: Yeah, but then if you’re doing it in waves, you think the attack is over and sending somebody is not going to help anymore, right? Then all of a sudden, they attack again.
MATTHEWS: I’m going to ask you something. If that what your brother or father in there, would you say that’s an acceptable response? ‘Oh, it’s probably over by now, it’s no good to send anybody.’ Or would you say, ‘I don’t care if it’s over or not, I’m going to collect the bodies if nothing else. I’m going to get there and show I cared.’ That’s what I’d do.Wakey, wakey.
A Winning Platform for 2014 & 2016
Over the next week, I would like to introduce a set of ideas I have for building a winning political platform for 2014 & 2016.
My proposed platform for either major party would go something like this:
The X Party: Pro-Immigration, Pro-Transparency, Pro-Opportunity, Pro-Conscience, Pro-Health Freedom, Pro-Cannabis Freedom
Certainly, I am not an expert in government, politics, policy, etc., and it's likely one or more of my ideas will be dumb, unworkable, etc. But I thought I'd take a swing at it anyway.
I'll post details on my ideas for each plank over the next week. Meanwhile, I'm interested in hearing your ideas for a 2014 / 2016 platform in the comments.
My proposed platform for either major party would go something like this:
The X Party: Pro-Immigration, Pro-Transparency, Pro-Opportunity, Pro-Conscience, Pro-Health Freedom, Pro-Cannabis Freedom
Certainly, I am not an expert in government, politics, policy, etc., and it's likely one or more of my ideas will be dumb, unworkable, etc. But I thought I'd take a swing at it anyway.
I'll post details on my ideas for each plank over the next week. Meanwhile, I'm interested in hearing your ideas for a 2014 / 2016 platform in the comments.
When you lose NBC
About six hours ago, NBC posted an article pointing out that President Obama had known all along that millions of Americans would lose their insurance coverage. As of this posting, there were almost 3,400 comments, mostly of the mad-as-hornets variety. No one seems much interested in listening to administration mouthpieces explain how we all really should have known this was coming, so it wasn't exactly the same thing as a lie. (I actually did expect part of it; I always believed they'd find a way to kill my individual policy, and have said so often. But I confess I didn't expect that it would be almost twice as expensive to buy a replacement with a somewhat lower deductible, or that others would see increases of 300% or 400%.)
A man quoted in the article is coming to the same conclusion Raven and I are mulling over: shouldn't we withdraw from this crooked game? I want to see civil disobedience on a scale so massive it changes how all Americans look at the progressive agenda for decades.
It's almost unbelievable, but Valerie Jarrett and other administration hacks have taken to Twitter to push this talking point:
A handful of them are starting to make a fuss about demanding a refund from CGI for its work on the website. It's the wrong part to focus on, and it shouldn't keep them from getting hung upside-down from lampposts, but it's a slight movement in the right direction: a cheering sign that there is a healthy panic building in Congress. I'd like it to reach the quivering, heart-palpitation stage, so I was pleased to read this purported quotation from someone described as high up in Democratic party circles: "The Democratic Party is f**ked." I couldn't agree more, sir. It should be discarded entirely, and we should start with something new.
But something tells me that, after a few days of this, many of them will decide that it's really only about 15 million people affected, and they can afford to ignore them. It will be up to the rest of the voters to decide if they'll be allowed to get away with that.
A man quoted in the article is coming to the same conclusion Raven and I are mulling over: shouldn't we withdraw from this crooked game? I want to see civil disobedience on a scale so massive it changes how all Americans look at the progressive agenda for decades.
It's almost unbelievable, but Valerie Jarrett and other administration hacks have taken to Twitter to push this talking point:
Nothing in the ACA forces people out of their plans. No change is required unless ins. companies change their existing plan.Right, so it's not the law that's destroying your insurance policy, it's just the insurance company's compliance with the law that could cause a little problem. That's how much respect they have for us. Well, it's slightly comforting to know they're desperate to pretend the law isn't destroying the insurance coverage of millions of Americans; up to now, they were trotting out the explanation that, yes, the coverage was being taken away, but it was for our own good. Also, it should be easy to get bi-partisan support for that bill to allow us to keep our existing coverage, right? Because the law's not destroying it in the first place, so we're all good here. I know I can count on Democrats in Congress to step up.
A handful of them are starting to make a fuss about demanding a refund from CGI for its work on the website. It's the wrong part to focus on, and it shouldn't keep them from getting hung upside-down from lampposts, but it's a slight movement in the right direction: a cheering sign that there is a healthy panic building in Congress. I'd like it to reach the quivering, heart-palpitation stage, so I was pleased to read this purported quotation from someone described as high up in Democratic party circles: "The Democratic Party is f**ked." I couldn't agree more, sir. It should be discarded entirely, and we should start with something new.
But something tells me that, after a few days of this, many of them will decide that it's really only about 15 million people affected, and they can afford to ignore them. It will be up to the rest of the voters to decide if they'll be allowed to get away with that.
Improving old stories
Or at least, finding a new hook. We recently watched the 2004 movie "King Arthur," whose conceit was that it would be a more historically plausible approach to the traditional tale. In this version, Arthur is the son of a Roman father and a Celtic mother. He leads a band of mounted warriors commandeered from a conquered Sarmatian tribe somewhere in the Caucasus, who are promised that if they serve for 15 years they will earn their freedom. Lancelot is one of the Sarmatians, conscripted as a teenager. Guinevere is a young Woad woman rescued from the dungeon of a Roman aristocrat whom Arthur is sent to rescue from Injun territory north of Hadrian's wall, on the eve of Rome's abrupt withdrawal from Britain in "453 A.D." Merlin is the mysterious leader of Guinevere's blue-painted people. There's kind of a plot, in which Woads and Sarmatians resent their subjugation by both Romans and newly arrived Saxon invaders. Arthur carries a grudge against the Saxons for having killed his Celtic mother in a raid some years earlier and, in any case, is disgruntled by his superiors in the Roman army and thinks Guinevere isn't too hard to look at. There are some battles at Hadrian's wall involving cavalry attacks, zillions of flaming arrows, something in the nature of napalm, and trebuchets with flaming missiles. The Romans leave, the Saxons lose, and the Celtic Woads take Arthur as their king while looking forward to a couple of years of security before the Saxons return and overrun their territory completely.
The timing is a bit odd, since Rome withdrew from Britain in 407 A.D., not 453 A.D. Setting aside the minor chronological slippage, I suppose it's not hard to buy the retreating Romans, about to take the last helicopter out of Saigon, as privileged types with a somewhat nominal approach to their Christianity and an effete Italian accent; the fact remains that all the Christians are two-faced cowards. The Sarmatians are real enough; the Romans did conscript some of them, possibly for use in pacifying Britain, among other tasks. It doesn't seem likely, however, that they should have had such elaborate armor, or even stirrups, let alone "Greek fire," in 5th century Britain. Someone involved in the screenplay should probably have dreamed up a plot device whereby ancient Asian knowledge came over with the Sarmatians, like Conan with his "secret of the steel."
For all this historical revision, did we at least get a creative re-imagination of the classic elements of the Arthurian legend, such as the extraordinary honor of a band of men beating back brutal chaos, or the famous love triangle? Eh, not really. When the story begins, Arthur has been leading his band of proudly pagan Sarmatians for 15 years and enjoys their loyalty and respect. His callous Roman superiors force him to lead his men on a suicide mission on the eve of an honorable retirement that would have allowed their promised return to Sarmatia. While rescuing the unappealing Roman V.I.P., Arthur frees some mistreated Woads, including Guinevere, and begins to lecture them about natural rights. He becomes disillusioned with the decadent and faithless Romans, choosing instead to make common cause with the Woads in a forlorn-hope stand against the invading Saxons. Guinevere joins the battle as a prenaturally effective archer and broadswordsman, all 105 bright blue pounds of her. Lancelot and Guinevere share about two misty glances before Lancelot is killed in battle, after which Arthur defeats the Saxons with the Woads' help and marries Guinevere to unite their people. There's barely an Excalibur and only a few lines for Merlin.
All in all, I preferred the 1981 "Excalibur." If the story's going to be anachronistic anyway, it would have been nice to preserve the aura of fantasy and mystery along with a plot and characters that made more sense. Although the cast included some of my favorite actors, they were mostly wasted.
It's been a while since I've seen a really satisfying historical drama with a real plot come out of Hollywood. On the other hand, we watched a surprisingly engaging if silly Godzilla-eats-New-York flick the other night: an indie production purporting to have been filmed with a hand-held video camera operated by a small band of hip young urban dwellers. If you grant them the Godzilla, much of the rest of the story was believable and even moving.
The timing is a bit odd, since Rome withdrew from Britain in 407 A.D., not 453 A.D. Setting aside the minor chronological slippage, I suppose it's not hard to buy the retreating Romans, about to take the last helicopter out of Saigon, as privileged types with a somewhat nominal approach to their Christianity and an effete Italian accent; the fact remains that all the Christians are two-faced cowards. The Sarmatians are real enough; the Romans did conscript some of them, possibly for use in pacifying Britain, among other tasks. It doesn't seem likely, however, that they should have had such elaborate armor, or even stirrups, let alone "Greek fire," in 5th century Britain. Someone involved in the screenplay should probably have dreamed up a plot device whereby ancient Asian knowledge came over with the Sarmatians, like Conan with his "secret of the steel."
For all this historical revision, did we at least get a creative re-imagination of the classic elements of the Arthurian legend, such as the extraordinary honor of a band of men beating back brutal chaos, or the famous love triangle? Eh, not really. When the story begins, Arthur has been leading his band of proudly pagan Sarmatians for 15 years and enjoys their loyalty and respect. His callous Roman superiors force him to lead his men on a suicide mission on the eve of an honorable retirement that would have allowed their promised return to Sarmatia. While rescuing the unappealing Roman V.I.P., Arthur frees some mistreated Woads, including Guinevere, and begins to lecture them about natural rights. He becomes disillusioned with the decadent and faithless Romans, choosing instead to make common cause with the Woads in a forlorn-hope stand against the invading Saxons. Guinevere joins the battle as a prenaturally effective archer and broadswordsman, all 105 bright blue pounds of her. Lancelot and Guinevere share about two misty glances before Lancelot is killed in battle, after which Arthur defeats the Saxons with the Woads' help and marries Guinevere to unite their people. There's barely an Excalibur and only a few lines for Merlin.
All in all, I preferred the 1981 "Excalibur." If the story's going to be anachronistic anyway, it would have been nice to preserve the aura of fantasy and mystery along with a plot and characters that made more sense. Although the cast included some of my favorite actors, they were mostly wasted.
It's been a while since I've seen a really satisfying historical drama with a real plot come out of Hollywood. On the other hand, we watched a surprisingly engaging if silly Godzilla-eats-New-York flick the other night: an indie production purporting to have been filmed with a hand-held video camera operated by a small band of hip young urban dwellers. If you grant them the Godzilla, much of the rest of the story was believable and even moving.
Samhain
The festival of "summer's end" falls traditionally on the thirty-first of October, but the hour came early this year. We had our first freeze on Saturday, a light freeze of exactly thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit that nevertheless brought ruin to many of the herbs. In preparation we took in the last harvest from the garden that we expect; if we get one more out of this week of warmer weather, that will be nice but unexpected.
The last tomatillos and some of the jalapenos got turned into a salsa verde, while the last guajillo chiles and some more of the jalapenos became a fiery red pepper sauce. We drew up many sweet potatoes and ordinary ones as well.
What really made the day, though, was the final basil harvest. Because it was dark by the time I got to it, and I didn't want the leaves to lose any of their freshness before I made them into pesto, I substituted some ingredients. I was out of both Parmesan and Romano cheeses, but I had some very strong and crumbly three-year-old cheddar that I used instead. I was also out of pine nuts, so I substituted walnuts. The result was an exceptionally creamy pesto with a smoother flavor.
The last tomatillos and some of the jalapenos got turned into a salsa verde, while the last guajillo chiles and some more of the jalapenos became a fiery red pepper sauce. We drew up many sweet potatoes and ordinary ones as well.
What really made the day, though, was the final basil harvest. Because it was dark by the time I got to it, and I didn't want the leaves to lose any of their freshness before I made them into pesto, I substituted some ingredients. I was out of both Parmesan and Romano cheeses, but I had some very strong and crumbly three-year-old cheddar that I used instead. I was also out of pine nuts, so I substituted walnuts. The result was an exceptionally creamy pesto with a smoother flavor.
The Longest Three Inches
Presumably the longest three inches in the universe is the distance across the event horizon of a black hole. If one ship was just this side of it and the other just the other side they would be completely and irrevocably out of communication with each other, presuming the first ship could stay away from the horizon.
Aside from that, the 'longest three inches' is the distance between you and the bolt you need that just fell down inside your motorcycle. You know it's there. You know, as a matter of physics, that it can't be more than three inches away. But finding it -- ah! Two hours went by taking apart everything I could easily disassemble and reassemble in that time. I ran a magnet all over everything, rocked the bike back and forth, and rolled it forward and back. Nothing.
I finally just found another bolt of the same diameter and cut it with a Dremel to fit the length.
Aside from that, the 'longest three inches' is the distance between you and the bolt you need that just fell down inside your motorcycle. You know it's there. You know, as a matter of physics, that it can't be more than three inches away. But finding it -- ah! Two hours went by taking apart everything I could easily disassemble and reassemble in that time. I ran a magnet all over everything, rocked the bike back and forth, and rolled it forward and back. Nothing.
I finally just found another bolt of the same diameter and cut it with a Dremel to fit the length.
A Request for My Fellow Bloggers
Would you mind if I added labels to some of your posts? I am trying to go back and review discussions we've had on various topics, and labels would make it easier to find things in the archives.
I would only add labels for the topics I'm looking at, and I would be careful to only use the general topics for label names. E.g., education, health care, logic, Aristotle, chivalry, etc. I would avoid adjectives and category names that might be seen as imposing judgments (e.g., bad government, idiocy). You could always remove or change labels as well, though I understand that might be a bit of a hassle if you felt it was necessary to do that to preserve the integrity of the original.
My goal is to be able to find all the posts that relate to a particular topic of discussion so I can review them, learn from them, avoid repeating discussions, use them as a springboard for future posts, etc.
What do you think?
I would only add labels for the topics I'm looking at, and I would be careful to only use the general topics for label names. E.g., education, health care, logic, Aristotle, chivalry, etc. I would avoid adjectives and category names that might be seen as imposing judgments (e.g., bad government, idiocy). You could always remove or change labels as well, though I understand that might be a bit of a hassle if you felt it was necessary to do that to preserve the integrity of the original.
My goal is to be able to find all the posts that relate to a particular topic of discussion so I can review them, learn from them, avoid repeating discussions, use them as a springboard for future posts, etc.
What do you think?
Health, political variety
I'm seeing an encouraging trend. Even on comments sections at progressive bastions like The New York, New York Magazine, the L.A. Times, and the Washington Post, the sentiment is vehement and very nearly unanimous against the Obamacare rollout. A lot of things about the program are confusing, but the idea that millions of Americans are losing their insurance invokes the crystal clear, infuriating memory of the repeated promise "If you like your plan, you can keep it. Period." The sticker-shock is dramatic. There are critical comments on many centrist or left-of-center sites (not just National Review or the Wall Street Journal) getting hundreds of up votes and zero down, which I've never seen before. Something's changing. To the occasional complaint that any opposition to the plan is a vote for heartless treatment of the uninsured, the routine answer is "Where is your compassion for the millions of people losing their insurance?" It's not just the broken website that's a problem any more.
Is it possible that the Obama administration has finally overplayed its hand? The arguments in support of Obamacare are increasingly desperate--it's really a Republican plan, it's too soon to panic over a few unimportant glitches, if people are losing their insurance we're really doing them a favor--and they're being met with derision. Even better, they're being met with some clear thinking about why it's wrong for the proponents to make these decisions for other people, and to dragoon other people into their misguided redistributionist ambitions. Suddenly everyone understands that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Some of these ideas have been taking form for a long time, but it's as though they're suddenly ready to burst onto the stage.
Is it possible that the Obama administration has finally overplayed its hand? The arguments in support of Obamacare are increasingly desperate--it's really a Republican plan, it's too soon to panic over a few unimportant glitches, if people are losing their insurance we're really doing them a favor--and they're being met with derision. Even better, they're being met with some clear thinking about why it's wrong for the proponents to make these decisions for other people, and to dragoon other people into their misguided redistributionist ambitions. Suddenly everyone understands that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Some of these ideas have been taking form for a long time, but it's as though they're suddenly ready to burst onto the stage.
A comment to cheer me up
From the comments section to a puff piece at the New Yorker:
The President prefers it when his stenographers say "quality, affordable health care." So work on incorporating that next time.
It is also important not to mention the flagrant deceptions he and most other Democrats have ladled out about the ACA for the last four years. You get full marks on this.
You could have blamed Republicans more for their complicity in this mess. You typed "Republicans" three times as often as "Democrats" so I know your heart's in the right place, but more diversion/distraction is needed. No R's voted for the ACA, making it all the more vital that they be invoked as much as possible.
Overall this is B- propaganda. We expect A-level work from The New Yorker.
Don't blame us, we wanted single-payer
I'm confused. Democrats passed Obamacare without a single Republican vote in the House or Senate. If they really wanted single-payer, couldn't they have passed it the same way?
Looks like what stopped them wasn't the threat of Republican "nay" votes; they got those anyway. What stopped them was a whole bunch of Democrats who would have jumped ship.
Looks like what stopped them wasn't the threat of Republican "nay" votes; they got those anyway. What stopped them was a whole bunch of Democrats who would have jumped ship.
Down from the ledge again
After days of unceasing worry about how to deal with health insurance that will suddenly start costing an additional $5,000 a year because Congress has taken the cheaper product I preferred off the market, I achieved some clarity last night. First, at some price, it makes more sense for me to bank the premiums and save them each year against a medical catastrophe. We must just have reached that price. In the past, I always defined "medical catastrophe" as expensive medical treatments that would be needed for years and years, possibly for the rest of our lives, which might well be decades. Now, a medical catastrophe is only what we may be faced with for a year of treatment, after which we can sign back up, assuming Obamacare is not repealed--and when are entitlements ever repealed?
If by some miracle it is repealed, and we couldn't get reinsured, well, we'd have to join the ever-growing ranks of people traveling to Mexico, Costa Rica, or Asia for some treatments. Anyway, who says the expensive medical treatments are ever going to make sense just because they exist? We'll always have the choice of dying in whatever comfort can be achieved with some morphine. Morphine will always be available one way or the other, if only on the black market. I'm amazed by what my friends at church routinely bring back from periodic trips over the border to the south. We're not quite as trapped as I frantically imagined. It's only in very recent years that people thought there was some alternative to facing illness and death with as much simple dignity and comfort as possible, especially once they'd reached middle age. Maybe the alternative is simply more illusory than I always assumed.
I've also been giving a lot of thought to how to avoid, at all costs, dying in a hospital or nursing home. I've seen how that works too many times now. It came to me: I don't have to. Morphine again. I've seen at least two people now review their medical situations dispassionately and say, no, thanks, not for me. It's not something to save up for or insure against the expense of. It's something to be declined, like an invitation to be tortured to death over a period of months or years. Thanks, but no!
In the light of these realizations, when Congress destroys my health insurance next year, maybe I'm not facing a $5,000 annual increase in living expenses. Maybe I'm about to cut $5,000 out of my living expenses instead, by going bare. (Sure, there will be a fine, but if I had enough income to care, I probably could shrug off the doubled premiums. What's more, I never overpay my taxes and therefore never ask for a refund.) Maybe, for people not working full-time for an employer who provides (and can obtain) what HHS thinks is proper insurance, insurance is simply a thing of the past. Maybe for us, it's a strictly cash-basis medical system from now on.
I haven't decided for sure to go bare. It's possible I can eat the problem as long as the current estimate of our future premiums holds true. But I don't believe it will; we're in a death spiral on enrollment and premiums. Something will have to give. The premiums will have to go up even further. To the extent that the public is clamoring for a change, they're appalled that deductibles are so high, not that they can't buy higher ones. If they get their way, I still won't be able to buy the high deductible I want, and premiums will go up to compensate for the lower deductibles. There have to be an awful lot of people like me who are just now realizing that going bare is now a one-year risk calculation. It's got to fly apart.
Many people have advised me to shoot for some of the wonderful new subsidies they'll be handing out if they ever get the website working. Having assets rather than income to live on, I probably could qualify for subsidies until they get smarter about the needs-based restrictions. I'm of two painfully divided minds. On the one hand, it feels like giving in to a particularly filthy shakedown: we double your costs and then get you dependent on a subsidy to make it humanly possible to pay the new bill. On top of that, it feels not only humiliating but wrong, like taking money out of the collection plate at church. On the other hand, if my church were taken over by smiling, caring thugs who robbed me as I came in the door, maybe I'd feel differently about robbing the collection plate on the way back out.
I feel the social contract has been broken. I have to rethink how I will live with these people. My final moment of clarity last night was this: these idiots should not have the power to cause me to live one more moment in fury and anxiety. I have a good life. I'll keep living it until they come down the driveway, armed, to roust me. If I get sick, I get sick. If the system is going to crash and burn, I'm in as good a position as anyone to make the best of it. After that, I got a good night's sleep.
If by some miracle it is repealed, and we couldn't get reinsured, well, we'd have to join the ever-growing ranks of people traveling to Mexico, Costa Rica, or Asia for some treatments. Anyway, who says the expensive medical treatments are ever going to make sense just because they exist? We'll always have the choice of dying in whatever comfort can be achieved with some morphine. Morphine will always be available one way or the other, if only on the black market. I'm amazed by what my friends at church routinely bring back from periodic trips over the border to the south. We're not quite as trapped as I frantically imagined. It's only in very recent years that people thought there was some alternative to facing illness and death with as much simple dignity and comfort as possible, especially once they'd reached middle age. Maybe the alternative is simply more illusory than I always assumed.
I've also been giving a lot of thought to how to avoid, at all costs, dying in a hospital or nursing home. I've seen how that works too many times now. It came to me: I don't have to. Morphine again. I've seen at least two people now review their medical situations dispassionately and say, no, thanks, not for me. It's not something to save up for or insure against the expense of. It's something to be declined, like an invitation to be tortured to death over a period of months or years. Thanks, but no!
In the light of these realizations, when Congress destroys my health insurance next year, maybe I'm not facing a $5,000 annual increase in living expenses. Maybe I'm about to cut $5,000 out of my living expenses instead, by going bare. (Sure, there will be a fine, but if I had enough income to care, I probably could shrug off the doubled premiums. What's more, I never overpay my taxes and therefore never ask for a refund.) Maybe, for people not working full-time for an employer who provides (and can obtain) what HHS thinks is proper insurance, insurance is simply a thing of the past. Maybe for us, it's a strictly cash-basis medical system from now on.
I haven't decided for sure to go bare. It's possible I can eat the problem as long as the current estimate of our future premiums holds true. But I don't believe it will; we're in a death spiral on enrollment and premiums. Something will have to give. The premiums will have to go up even further. To the extent that the public is clamoring for a change, they're appalled that deductibles are so high, not that they can't buy higher ones. If they get their way, I still won't be able to buy the high deductible I want, and premiums will go up to compensate for the lower deductibles. There have to be an awful lot of people like me who are just now realizing that going bare is now a one-year risk calculation. It's got to fly apart.
Many people have advised me to shoot for some of the wonderful new subsidies they'll be handing out if they ever get the website working. Having assets rather than income to live on, I probably could qualify for subsidies until they get smarter about the needs-based restrictions. I'm of two painfully divided minds. On the one hand, it feels like giving in to a particularly filthy shakedown: we double your costs and then get you dependent on a subsidy to make it humanly possible to pay the new bill. On top of that, it feels not only humiliating but wrong, like taking money out of the collection plate at church. On the other hand, if my church were taken over by smiling, caring thugs who robbed me as I came in the door, maybe I'd feel differently about robbing the collection plate on the way back out.
I feel the social contract has been broken. I have to rethink how I will live with these people. My final moment of clarity last night was this: these idiots should not have the power to cause me to live one more moment in fury and anxiety. I have a good life. I'll keep living it until they come down the driveway, armed, to roust me. If I get sick, I get sick. If the system is going to crash and burn, I'm in as good a position as anyone to make the best of it. After that, I got a good night's sleep.
Vote for Heinlein
I've never even heard of any of these other "famous" people from Missouri. Of course I'm voting for the Master.
It can't fail
Obamacare can't "fail," because it was never designed to work in the first place.
The only problem is that they didn't expect it to fail this fast. Such a brutally obvious face-plant playing out in the news within a year of the midterm elections, in ways obvious to some of the lowest-information voters with the murkiest political philosophies, can't have been in the game-plan.
The only problem is that they didn't expect it to fail this fast. Such a brutally obvious face-plant playing out in the news within a year of the midterm elections, in ways obvious to some of the lowest-information voters with the murkiest political philosophies, can't have been in the game-plan.
Warning
"I did not read the instructions, because I am a man." This Amazon product review page is worth a read. Many customers have been inspired to flights of composition by their remarkable experiences. It's a little rude, so don't go there if you're easily offended. My husband and I, being barbarians, have tears streaming down our faces, especially the part about the frozen brussels sprouts.
Talking me down from the ledge
Jonah Goldberg gives it a try:
Barack Obama, who holds a patent on a device that hurls aides and friends under a bus from great distances, also understands [the need to be the least acceptable available scapegoat]. That is why Kathleen Sebelius these days looks a lot like a Soviet general on his way to brief Stalin on the early "progress" in the battle of Stalingrad.
. . . [A]s I've written many times, I don't think we have much reason to fear traditional jack-booted dictators in this country. Ironically, the main reason we don't have to worry about them is that we worry about them so much. . . . Deep in American DNA is a visceral aversion to despotism. Sometimes, during a war or other crisis, it can be suspended for a while, but eventually we remember that we just don't like dictators.
The bad news is that we don't feel that way -- anymore -- about softer, more diffuse and bureaucratic forms of tyranny. Every American is taught from grade school up that they should fear living in the world of Orwell's 1984. Few Americans can tell you why we shouldn't live in Huxley's Brave New World. We've got the dogmatic muscle and rhetorical sinew to repel militarism, but we're intellectually flabby when it comes to rejecting statist maternalism. We hate hearing "Because I said so!" But we're increasingly powerless against, "It's for your own good!"
. . .
For instance, when the national-security types intrude on our privacy or civil liberties, even theoretically, all of the "responsible" voices in the media and academia wig out. But when Obamacare poses a vastly more intrusive and real threat to our privacy, the same people yawn and roll their eyes at anyone who complains. If the District of Columbia justified its omnipresent traffic cameras as an attempt to keep tabs on dissidents, they'd be torn down in a heartbeat by mobs of civil libertarians. But when justified on the grounds of public safety (or revenue for social services or as a way to make driving cars more difficult), well, that's different.
And it is different. Motives matter. But at the same time, I do wish we looked a bit more like the America Edmund Burke once described:
In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; [In America] they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.
. . .
The remarkable thing about this is that there's no real executive experience in his explication of his executive experience. Yes, the candidate can fire people from the campaign. But being the candidate and being the campaign manager are as different as being the lead singer for Spinal Tap and being the band's manager. On the campaign trail, Obama's job was to "be Barack Obama," to sound smart and charismatic and rev up the crowds. He's still playing that part rather than fulfilling the job description.
And no one will tell him. That's why, I suspect, when he went to check on the progress of the site's development he had no idea how to ask questions that would get at the reality of the situation. Bureaucrats, apparatchiks, and contractors blow smoke. That's what they do. Obama has no idea how to cut through the smoke. He thinks being president involves constantly going out and giving speeches to crowds that love him about how hard he's working rather than actually, you know, working. It's all very meta. He's playing president Obama because he doesn't know how to be president Obama. I think that when he went out on Monday and did his infomercial schtick in the Rose Garden -- Operators are standing by! It's not just a website; it's a floorwax! etc. -- he honestly thought he was fixing the problem. Well, I've done my part!I can't link to this, because it comes from his email feed, but Goldberg usually has good stuff up at NRO.
Ways to be effective
Tools:
When Virginia's Fauquier County cited farmer Martha Boneta last year for hosting a birthday party for eight 10-year-old girls because she did not have a permit and site plan, little did county officials think they would set off a revolution for legal remedies against such abuses.Push, keep pushing, and push some more.
Horse Soldiers: USMC Edition
Tom sends a link to a page devoted to the China Marines. It's a chapter of the Corps' history that few know about, but a very interesting one.
On New Forms of Government
Over at VC, Elise and I began a discussion late in the comments to a post that probably deserves to be considered independently.
Elise asked:
That might also work, and really we should be talking about different ways of thinking about it. So, I'd like to propose a discussion of the subject. Consider it theoretical, if you like. There's no need to commit to doing it in actuality, but let's talk about how it might be done if we were to do it.
What I was thinking of was a Parliamentary form of government with a Civil Service, like the British have: but whereas the analog to the House of Commons and the heads of the departments of the Civil Service would be selected by lot (to avoid the corruption the Athenians saw, and to keep the Civil Service from overwhelming the elected branches as it has often done in Britain), the analog to the House of Lords would be elected.
This elected branch would be empowered both to repeal laws and Civil Service regulations it decided were out of line with the constitutional order, or the rights of citizens, but also to generally oversee in an adversarial way all the exercise of government. It would not be empowered to make laws, or to enact new regulations, or to exercise force of any kind against citizens not acting as a part of the government. It would serve a formally adversarial role to the government, with each member of this house responsible to their constituents and to a constitutional oath.
Against government actors, though, it would need the full array of powers: subpoena, arrest, and an independent power to punish according to whatever forms were usual (i.e., not 'cruel and unusual' punishments, but exactly the same order of punishments that would normally be applied against citizens).
Elise asked:
What does abandoning ship mean here? Secession for some States?I replied:
I think that's the right solution, really. Peaceful and constitutional dissolution of the union, followed by erecting new unions of like-minded states. The Federal government is dragging everyone down.Elise responded:
We might also give some thought to how to avoid the problem in the future. In ancient Athens they believed that any electoral system was going to be impossibly corrupt: even before the innovation of using public funds to buy votes (or whole constituencies), the rich could use private funds to buy them. Their belief was that no system based on elections was sustainable because of the bedrock corruption native to such systems.
They still wanted to distribute power among the many, though, and not to have an elite or a tyrant. So they did something very similar to what William F. Buckley suggested with his 'first 300 people in the phone book' quip: they chose citizens to fill political offices by lot. You held the office for as long as you held it, and then you were replaced by a new lot.
You'd want to think about how to build the pool so that the lot was taken only among people who were qualified. Having established some basic qualifications for given offices, though, everyone who met those qualifications would go into the pool and the chosen would hold the office for a term.
It might make sense to have a bifurcated system, with elections for direct representatives responsible to their constituents for some functions, but lotteries for other offices. In general I would think you'd want representatives empowered specifically to limit government's power over citizens, and lot-chosen officers to exercise power (rather than restrain it).
Having established some basic qualifications for given offices, though, everyone who met those qualifications would go into the pool and the chosen would hold the office for a term.To which I would respond:
Sounds kind of like jury duty - an interesting idea.
In general I would think you'd want representatives empowered specifically to limit government's power over citizens, and lot-chosen officers to exercise power (rather than restrain it).
Interesting again. Perhaps a variation on the tricameral idea: one house to propose laws; one to pass the proposals (or not); only that exists solely to repeal laws?
That might also work, and really we should be talking about different ways of thinking about it. So, I'd like to propose a discussion of the subject. Consider it theoretical, if you like. There's no need to commit to doing it in actuality, but let's talk about how it might be done if we were to do it.
What I was thinking of was a Parliamentary form of government with a Civil Service, like the British have: but whereas the analog to the House of Commons and the heads of the departments of the Civil Service would be selected by lot (to avoid the corruption the Athenians saw, and to keep the Civil Service from overwhelming the elected branches as it has often done in Britain), the analog to the House of Lords would be elected.
This elected branch would be empowered both to repeal laws and Civil Service regulations it decided were out of line with the constitutional order, or the rights of citizens, but also to generally oversee in an adversarial way all the exercise of government. It would not be empowered to make laws, or to enact new regulations, or to exercise force of any kind against citizens not acting as a part of the government. It would serve a formally adversarial role to the government, with each member of this house responsible to their constituents and to a constitutional oath.
Against government actors, though, it would need the full array of powers: subpoena, arrest, and an independent power to punish according to whatever forms were usual (i.e., not 'cruel and unusual' punishments, but exactly the same order of punishments that would normally be applied against citizens).
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