Told Ya So!

The American voter never wises up.

From the "I Told Ya So"  Department:

Came across this recently, from the The American Spectator's Washington Prowler site:

"The economic report released last week by Health and Human Services, which indicated that President Barack Obama’s health care “reform” law would actually increase the cost of health care and impose higher costs on consumers, had been submitted to the office of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the Congressional votes on the bill, according to career HHS sources, who added that Sebelius’s staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken."

We knew this would probably happen, of course, and that the initial CBO (Congressional Budget Office) costs projections/savings numbers that Congressional Democrats were crowing about as being a cost saver both in terms of individual health care plans, as well as the federal deficit--were bunk. Pure baloney based on political and numeric gimmickry. Well, some of us did, anyhow. And we warned people about this. History alone should have sufficed for a flashing red light warning about the cost overruns of most any government program--and certainly health-related ones.

Continued the HHS source:

“The reason we were given was that they did not want to influence the vote,” says an HHS source. “Which is actually the point of having a review like this, you would think.”

The CBO is actually not allowed--by law--to make long-term extrapolations about cost or results, but rather can only deal with the numbers as supplied by the politicians. Garbage in, garbage out, or GIGO, as the old computer standby goes. But it appears as though even with similarly hopeful numbers as supplied to other agencies (this time, Medicare's Office of the Actuary) some problems have surfaced from the rosy claims.

Next comes word that some companies are already doing what was also predicted by some of us—the bill is not yet in full effect and serious considerations are being made for dropping people from their health care plans. It's just that they're doing it a little early. Perhaps they see the actuarial writing on the wall. And, just perhaps, it's scribbling "trouble."

(Golly--but I thought we were told if you LIKE "your" plan, ya get to KEEP it. Right?...........RIGHT? *nervous chuckle*)

Not necessarily.

Unless you're the sole proprietor or partner of a business, it's not really"your" plan. And that's another problem--another proverbial Devil in the Details--about ObamaCare that was not fully fleshed out in some people's noggins, or explained well, or (more likely) even admitted by its advocates:  Under the current rules and IRS stipulations in the health care bill, a company's ultimate apple-polisher/toad-licker types--the accountants--can get to play the heroic Captain Dollar Saver for a day by deleting you from the multi-hundred-dollar-a-month health insurance roles, and then telling you to take a hike to search elsewhere. As I mentioned above, some are already threatening this. Tax credits are supposedly on the way to help the smaller businesses offset some of the expense, but are unlikely to make much of a dent in what is anticipated to be increasing premium costs. By just paying the IRS fine (for not having employees covered, as prescribed by law) they're off the hook, brothers and sisters. In time, this situation will be deemed a "market failure" by government busybodies, and so we'll eventually get our "public option." 

Do we really think this is all so accidental and unforeseen? As the compu-geeks like to say, that's not a bug in the system, that's a feature of it. Uff Dah.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même PROSE.

..and yes, Virginia, not only was this to be expected, so was all the other crap nestled in this unconstitutional "health care reform" bill. Along with the fact that contra some claims to the contrary, this astonishing and unprecedented use of government force against peaceful individuals is very much enforceable.

Actually, however, neither situation should have been unanticipated.

We never learn, do we?
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**UPDATE: Liberals are in Denial Mode about the above report being "sat on" by Sebelius and the Office of Medicare Actuary.

The American Spectator's full response to the Office of Medicare Actuary's official denial can be found here. (Please read all the links for full context and some good analysis from other conservative bloggers. I do NOT wish to make this post much longer than it has to be for full context on this matter.)

Odd, wouldn't you say, that such vital "bad news numbers" information that would certainly negatively impact the vote of one of the most monumentally and fundamentally transformative economic and cultural moments America has even gone through, would ever-so-conveniently go MIA when the final tallies were taken.

Too late, the Democrats got their Eurosocialist-knock-off shit pushed under the door just in time.

How convenient.

As AmSpec notes: That the report "officially" came out after the vote on HCR is not in dispute--and never was. What is in dispute is just WHO had the numbers, and what they decided to do with this obviously damning information that without question would have hurt the ObamaCare vote tally. Also of note from AmSpec's response is that there is palpable anger over the fact that when it came to the Bush years, reports like this were easy fodder for all manner of pundits and groups and organizations to get ahold of in order to make their "case" about this or that policy. Such leaks were common in those days, and somehow in the Golden Leaky Years the information had long legs and traveled rather quickly. Perhaps the original American Spectator story (as quoted above) on this could have had some phrases crafted differently, such as the unfortunate use of the word "submitted" when referring to the report coming out before the vote, rather than something along the lines of "information available on vital details" before the vote on ObamaCare, etc.

It was the word "submitted" that got the OMA's panties in a tight wad. He'll have to get over it, though. In essence, it would seem that AmSpec's claim is fairly accurate if damning info was known to people in high places and other positions of influence (like, say, Kathleen Sebelius at the Department of HHS) and then certain heads turned the other way to whistle past the graveyard.

As Prof. William Jacobson over at the Legal Insurrection blog notes, certain things add up here far more than the official "submitted" timeline bruha and the OMA's official denials. Writes Jacobson:

"Now it makes sense. The Democrats refused to delay the vote on Obamacare even though the Medicare Actuary was not able to complete his analysis and cost estimates in time for the vote. In light of this report, it is clear why the Democrats didn't want to wait. They could game the CBO, but not the Medicare Actuary."

With this crowd running things, these observations ring sadly true.

But perhaps the seamiest part of this already sordid and stained tale of Obama/NancyCare deception is the response of the amen chorus in much of the Denture Breath media and other administration allies, along with untold numbers of responses from others from the Left--organized and others: Upon hearing about CBO Health Care Reform numbers being pure bunk, or the OMA coming out with some bad news for those making the moronic and patently falsetto-voiced "Health Care Reform shall save us lots of money and cover all of us, and you get to keep your own insurance if you like it" sales pitch, the response so far from the American Left has been......"FORWARD, HO!! ONWARD, BUNKISH BUDGET-BUSTERS!"

One might think that even IF (and this is highly dubious) we could prove that Sebelius and certain members of Congree and high-level info-scanners in the administration had absolutely no knowledge of what was contained in the seemingly squelched OMA report, you'd at least see an answer to the nasty claims that ObamaCare misses the beat on a number of tunes. But nay. No apologies, no acknowledgement of the bad numbers. No mere recognition of the problems to be faced in financing this crap or so much as a "We're so sad, that's just too bad!" No offers to say, for example, "Gosh, we really mucked this one up, eh?" or perhaps even "Um, we need to find ways to fix this and shore up the gaps in coverage ASAP, before things spin out of control."

Nothing. Well, Sebelius for her part has done some things about this: She's stepped up attacks on private insurers, forcing them into a corner after it was known that HCR would cut Medicare payouts to private insurers by 136 billion dollars, and then telling the insurers they are not to raise insurance premiums to try and make up for the losses. Or else. All this, on top of the reality that under ObamaCare, the private insurers will generally no longer be able to do risk assessment in the competition for customers--which is absurd. It will end up creating what are basically mere appendages of government force.

The apparent reasoning here in this astonishing silence from the Leftosphere--in the face of a REALLY BIG boo boo--being that someone is getting some goodies for free pulled from someone else's hide, so who the hell cares about the ugly details or the results of companies making some practical cost-comparisons that urge them to drop employees ("You get to 'keep' YOUR insurance if you like!"--har har, 'tis to laugh!) now that they'll be forced into one-size-fits-all boxes? Besides, if our own nation's government-run health care and historically nasty socialized med precedents elsewhere are any guides, there's just so much to like here! Other than spending into utter oblivion, hell, what could go wrong in those details?

That's merely where the Devil lives.

The other reasons are a little more ideological, but still fall in the Who Gives a Flip Zone. The Democrats and their liberal/left allies feel they have nothing to fear from any backlash on the technical/coverage/fiscal shortfalls of Health Care Reform. Money and exact details of who's covered are not the main issues, and when you have a lock on power that would accompany something as powerful and intrusive as an overweening bureaucracy of ObamaCare magnitude, the bureaucracy defends itself. It is almost impossible to dislodge, and fundamentally alters the character of the lowing masses into a type of infantile dependency on government. Why piddle with numbers when control of the populace is at stake? That the numbers are bad, as shown above, is fantastic to realize, in that when the putatively "private" health insurers are no longer allowed (by LAW) to do risk assessment and must try and cover most any person under most any circumstances, and in most any context or health profile, they will eventually end up right where HCR advocates on the Left wished them all along. Bankrupt. The situation will, of course, be blamed on the "free market's failure" to "fix" the "health care crisis." Enter the power of government to lather, rinse, and then run the whole circus.

THAT's when we'll actually get the "health care crisis" so often talked about.