On the very day that Sen. Ted Cruz was rallying patriots everywhere with his talk-a-thon filibuster, the Department of Health and Human Services put out a piece of Obamacare propaganda. According to this report, everyone will have several choices and premiums will be lower than expected. That tiny little, very general, anecdotal, 15-page report put out by HHS pales in comparison to a 2,000-page bill that no one read. How can anything be based on that?
Are we really supposed to believe that the report would, in any way, be impartial coming from Sebelius' HHS, anyway? Now that we have seen the corruption that this administration is willing to exact on the American people with the IRS, SEC, EPA, NSA, etc., why should anyone trust "findings" from HHS?
The timing is suspect, too. Why did this "report" come out the very day of Cruz's filibuster? This seems more like PR to me. If this isn't by design, Paula Deen doesn't make cakes!
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According to Forbes, former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin said, "There are literally no comparisons to current rates. That is, HHS has chosen to dodge the question of whose rates are going up, and how much. Instead they try to distract with a comparison to a hypothetical number that has nothing to do with the actual experience of real people."
That sounds like commentary based on real evidence that he would know. The reality is that no one really knows, because we haven't seen any real numbers yet. These are all estimates. Since when is it the responsibility of HHS to "guess" for purposes of public relations? Since when do government agencies get to publish their hypotheses based upon their own assumptions and made-up estimates?
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If the program itself is so good, why is it that 59 percent of people don't like it, and almost 50 percent actually want it repealed (according to a CBS poll)? Why do only 3 percent of federal bureaucrats even want to participate in it? Premiums are to double for Californians, worse for Carolinians, and this will hit those who can least afford it – old people and young people trying to get jobs (that are being cut due to Obamacare's part-time loophole). Twenty-seven year olds, for example, will see costs increase almost 300 percent, while jobs are disappearing.
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As the adoptive parents of a little boy with Down syndrome, I am curious how our costs will increase. I have not seen any HHS studies on children with special needs. I am the mother of five. I have seen cost estimates for average-sized families, and I can only imagine that my family and others like mine will be hit the hardest. Families like mine will get the double whack of higher premiums and higher taxes, plus my family lives in California – one of the states that will be hit the hardest! I wonder if HHS has any studies or guesses on what families like mine will endure.
These estimates are classic bureaucratic fuzzy math and accounting tricks – a guess, plus a hypothetical estimate based upon that guess for something that has not happened yet, cannot possibly be calculable.
The math doesn't add up. This really makes as little sense to me as the erroneous premise that a program that "covers more people" and "is better than the current system" will magically "cost less for families." (All quotes attributable to Barack Obama.)
And my personal favorite comment on Obamacare is that if health care is a basic human right, why isn't it in the U.S. Constitution? Our framers are that forgetful? What an arrogant assumption.
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Republicans are actually winning the PR battle for the first time since Reagan. Poll after poll shows a clear majority dislike Obamacare, and almost as many want it repealed.
Newt Gingrich and House Republicans shut down the government in the '90s and ended up with a balanced budget and a surplus. Republicans in Washington, led by Cruz, can accomplish the same thing if they hold strong. As we know now, the PR genius, Bill Clinton (who shut down the government twice during his administration, and managed to wind up with a balanced budget), received the credit for what the Gingrich and the GOP accomplished. This time, the GOP needs to simply deliver the message that they are not only being responsive to the American people who now realize the ACA was a mistake, they are doing what is fiscally responsible.
We the People are sending a message to our elected leadership who work for us: Stop Obamacare and the irresponsible spending by any means possible. Put the burden of proof on those who want ACA to make the changes necessary to make it fiscally palatable, with accurate projections and reasonable implementation. Then sell it to the American people forthrightly.
Those in government who understand that they work for a constituency, not their next election, need only message that they answered to the American people and stopped a multi-trillion-dollar train wreck that would have collapsed on itself. The power to re-open the government lies in the hands of this administration, but it would require them to fix this bill. The only question is: Does the GOP have the spine to withstand the spin of the elite in D.C. who want to scare them?
