Friday, October 24, 2014
Obamacare - Another Election Day Disaster for Democrats
Karl Rove reported yesterday on the return of Obamacare as another election albatross around the necks of Democrat candidates. The policy cancellations and price increases caused by Obamacare are arriving just in time for Election Day. Earlier this year, Democrats thought that having enacted and supported Obamacare would be a political advantage by Election Day 2014. North Carolina Democrat Senator Kay Hagan, in a fight for survival on November 4, said last February that she wanted to show Obamacare “is something whose time is come.” Later, Colorado Democrat Senator Mark Udall, in a fight for survival on November 4, said : “we did the right thing” in passing the law and told voters he “would do it again,” a vow repeated by incumbent Democrat Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, in a fight for survival on November 4, and Louisiana Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu, in a fight for survival on November 4. ~~~~~ But, an October 2 Gallup poll shows that 54% of Americans say Obamacare has hurt them and their families, while only 27% say it has helped them. There is no clarion call from President Obama or his White House insiders about the upcoming open-enrollment period when Americans can sign up for Obamacare health coverage -- maybe because an estimated 10% of last year’s 8 million enrollees have never fully enrolled by paying their premiums. Or maybe it's because on November 1, just three days before Election Day, Americans will receive the bad news that their Obamacare premiums will increase next year. Rove said that according to a recent Manhattan Institute report, premiums for a 40-year-old man are rising in 10 of the 12 states with Democratic-held Senate seats at risk. For a 40-year-old woman, premiums will increase in nine of the 12 states. And then there are the cancellations. In Senator Udall's Colorado,the insurance commissioner recently announced that 29,000 people covered by 22,000 policies will lose their insurance on December 31, in addition to 8,200 policies already canceled or flagged for cancellation. Together with last year’s terminations, this means thar 340,000 Coloradans have lost or will lose their plan -- even if they liked it, they can't keep it. What is happening in Colorado is also happening in New Hampshire and other states, as Americans are being shifted from their plan to a different one and insurers are withdrawing from some states, reducing their choices under Obamacare. Rove thinks Obamacare may also influence the outcomes in the November 4 election by demonstrating that the federal government is too big and trying to do too much. Asked in a September 7 Gallup survey if “government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses” or if “government should do more to solve our country’s problems,” 54% of Americans said that the government doing too much and only 41% said government is doing too little. In the September poll, when Americans were asked “how much trust and confidence” they have in our federal government to handle domestic problems, 42% answered “not very much” and 17% said “none at all” -- 47% is a record high for this question, which Gallup began asking in May 1972. ~~~~~ Dear readers, when November 4 arrives, in addition to Ebola (now on New York City), the economy (an estimated 3/4 of new jobs are now part-time, often because of Obamacare), ISIS ($500 million already spent on an Obama airstrike 'strategy' that has produced very few positive results), and national security (non-secured southern border and the threat of an Obama green card executive order to regularize up to 12 million illegal immigrants already in the US) -- think about Obamacare. It is not too late to repeal and replace it with a sensible program to cover uninsured American citizens, to control costs and tort law excesses and to implement interstate insurance pools. This is all doable. But it requires a Republican Congress to enact legislation and to fight against President Obama's veto threats and government by executive order. A 51 GOP - 49 Democrat Senate is a start. A 53 GOP - 47 Democrat Senate would be even better.Think about it. It is doable.
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There are so many 'disasters" in the Barrack Obama Administration that there should be NO question who to vote for. I can not imagine why anyone would think about voting democratic the November.and if they do, and if the democratics happen to hold onto their majorities in the Senate - then those that vote democratic and those that simply chose to sit on the side lines and not to participate in our democracy deserve all that comes their way
ReplyDeleteRemember to Vote November 4th
ReplyDeleteSome 104 years ago President Theodore Roosevelt delivered a speech at Sorbonne, France on April 23,1910. The whole speech was titled “Citizenship In A Republic”. The section quoted below has become to be known as “the Man in the Arena.”
ReplyDelete“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
I have carried a copy of the section on my person since 1975, when a dear aa valued friend disagreed with my professional career, but later came around to appreciate what I chose as my life’s work.
The verse says a lot in a lot of different ways. What it isn’t about is an actual combatant in an arena setting … or is it? You decide
The man in the arena is the individual that will get up vote, offer a ride to a potential voter.
DeleteThe ancient Romans understood that freedom really is an ideal of three main components, which are not all mutually inclusive: national freedom, freedom from foreign domination; then political freedom, the freedom to vote and to choose public servants; and finally, individual freedom, the freedom to live as you choose as long as you harm no one else.
ReplyDeleteThat’s not so far from what most of us want today – is it?
In our system, the president is both head of state and head of government. Obama seems to enjoy the monarchial parts, but when it comes to the actual business of running government, he shows little interest and even less aptitude.
ReplyDeleteHis principal job, after all, is to administer the government and to get the right people to do it. (That’s why we typically send governors rather than senators to the White House.) That’s called management. Obama had never managed anything before running for the biggest management job on earth. It shows.
The President seems to be very upset the past few months over what he perceives to be the inadequacies and failures of the Federal Government.
ReplyDeleteEbola, IRS, Veterans Affairs, ObamaCare, Benghazi, ISIS, Secret Service scandal just nothing his going as he envision they should be.
There’s only one problem with his displeasures and amazements at the federal governments shortcomings … It’s his government. He’s president. He has been for six years. Yet Barack Obama reflexively insists on playing the shocked outsider when something goes wrong within his own administration.
Obama’s shows of calculated outrage — are becoming not just unconvincing but unamusing. In our system, the president is both head of state and head of government