Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) accused the CIA on Tuesday of searching her committee’s computers.and
Feinstein said the search may have also “violated the Fourth Amendment.”Excellent, she has discovered there really is such a thing as the fourth amendment. But I guess it only matters to her when HER fourth amendment rights are violated. But it's a positive step.
Gary Cohen, the soon-to-be-former director of the main implementation office at the Health and Human Services Department, stopped by an insurance industry conference Thursday to offer an update on enrollment.As I see it, Obamacare made four fundamental promises:
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the health care law will reduce the number of uninsured people by about 24 million over the next few years, and that about 6 million previously uninsured people will gain coverage through the law's exchanges this year. So, is enrollment on track to meet that goal? Overall enrollment is looking pretty decent, but how many of the people who have signed up were previously uninsured?
"That's not a data point that we are really collecting in any sort of systematic way," Cohen told the insurance-industry crowd on Thursday when asked how many of the roughly 4 million enrollees were previously uninsured.The State of NY estimates 70% of its enrollees were not covered before, which seems like a number to brag about. So why would the Feds not even bother to collect in any sort of systematic way the number of enrollees who were previously not insured?
The White House on Wednesday announced a new ObamaCare delay that will allow some consumers to keep health plans that do not meet the law's standards until past the end of the Obama presidency.Those are the same junk plans from a few months ago. If the junk plans are better than the alternatives, does that make the alternatives junkier?
All of these delays are just tinkering around the edges of a law that is deeply flawed.
The biggest flaw is that the product the Obama administration is trying to sell to consumers is not the product people want to buy.
Rejiggering deadlines until this thing is contorted like a pretzel is exactly the wrong thing to do.
Obamacare needs a fundamental fix.
I have to believe that even its most ardent supporters are coming to that realization.I agree with Bob, except for that last sentence. Even the most ardent supporters will never come to the realization their baby is stillborn. See Ezekial Emanuel for Exhibit 1.
He describes the program, often referred to as Obamacare, as “a world historical achievement, even more important for the United States than Social Security and Medicare have been.”
Thirty-three percent (33%) now say their insurance coverage has changed because of the new law, up a point from January and the highest finding since last July.
Seventy-four percent (74%) of those who have health insurance rate their coverage as good or excellent.
Just 14% of all voters now say they personally have been helped by the law, down from 16% in January. Thirty-three percent (33%) say they have been hurt by the law, up from 29% earlier this year and the highest negative rating since April 2013. Fifty percent (50%) say it has had no impact on them.Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (he of the party that has compassion, looks out for the little guy and the middle class. He of the party of science and logic and reason. He of the sane party) has a different opinion.
“Despite all that good news, there’s plenty of horror stories being told. All are untrue, but they’re being told all over America.”He identifies the Koch Brothers as a source of these lies, calls them un-American also. Lies, damn lies and the Koch Brothers?
“I think we should not apologize for a single thing,” Biden said, calling on Democrats to tell voters, ”this is who we are. This is who we stand for. This is what we do.”This is who we are: You can't keep your plan. This is who we stand for: You can't keep you doctor. This is what we do: premiums will decline.
The CBO's intellectual conversion is all the more notable for accepting Mr. Mulligan's premise, which is that what economists call "implicit marginal tax rates" in ObamaCare make work less financially valuable for lower-income Americans. Because the insurance subsidies are tied to income and phase out as cash wages rise, some people will have the incentive to remain poorer in order to continue capturing higher benefits. Another way of putting it is that taking away benefits has the same effect as a direct tax, so lower-income workers are discouraged from climbing the income ladder by working harder, logging extra hours, taking a promotion or investing in their future earnings through job training or education.This is the liberation lauded by the White House, the NY Times and MSNBC, "Some people will have the incentive to remain poorer in order to continue capturing higher benefits."
The stimulus caused a spike in marginal rates, but at least it was temporary. ObamaCare will bring them permanently into the 47% range, or seven percentage points higher than in early 2007. Mr. Mulligan says the main response to his calculations is that people "didn't realize the cumulative effect of these things together as a package to discourage work."For years the White House, the Democrats, the NY Times and MSNBC have been screaming for higher marginal tax rates on the rich. It is tragic that their signature piece of legislation raises taxes on the poor and the result is exactly what you would expect:
when you pay people for being low income you are going to have more low-income peopleand
if you pay unemployed people you're going to get more unemployed people.
The volatile and often chaotic European financial markets of the Napoleonic Wars had settled down by the early 1820s. Spain had, in quick succession, lost colony after colony in Central and South America, and the legendary silver and gold mines of the New World were up for grabs.
Forever engaged in an endless quest for higher yields, London bankers and investors were swept away by silver fever. The great demand in Europe for investment opportunities in Latin America, coupled with new leaders in Latin America desperate for funds to support the process of nation building (among other things), produced a surge in lending from (mostly) London to (mostly) Latin American sovereigns.
According to Marichal, by mid-1825 twenty-six mining companies had been registered in the Royal Exchange. Any investment in Latin America became as coveted as South Sea shares (by 1825 already infamous) had been a century earlier. In this “irrationally exuberant” climate, Latin American states raised more than 20 million pounds during 1822-1825.
“General Sir” Gregor MacGregor, who had traveled to Latin America and fought as a mercenary in Simon Bolivar’s army, seized the opportunity to convince fellow Scots to invest their savings in the fictitious country of Poyais. Its capital city, Saint Joseph (according to the investment prospectus circulated at the time), boasted “broad boulevards, colonnaded buildings, and a splendid domed cathedral.” Those who were brave and savvy enough to cross the Atlantic and settle Poyais would be able to build sawmills to exploit the native forests and establish gold mines. London bankers were also impressed with such prospects of riches, and in 1822 MacGregor (the Prince of Poyais) issued a bond in London for £160,000 at a price of issue to the public of £80, well above the issue price for the first Chilean bond floated. The interest rate of 6 percent was the same as that available to Buenos Aires, Central America, Chile, Greater Columbia, and Peru during that episode. Perhaps it is just as well that Poyais faced the same borrowing terms as the real sovereigns, for the latter would all default on their external debts during 1826-1828, marking the first Latin American debt crisis.
