Win Some, Lose Some

A person can drown in a lake with an average depth of only two feet.  Or, a person could drown in Obams's broken promises and spin thereof.  From The Hill:

As many as 20 million Americans could lose their employer-provided coverage because of President Obama's healthcare reform law, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a new report Thursday.

The figure represents the worst-case scenario, CBO says, and the law could just as well increase the number of people with employer-based coverage by 3 million in 2019.

The best estimate, subject to a "tremendous amount of uncertainty," is that about 3 million to 5 million fewer people will obtain coverage through their employer each year from 2019 through 2022.

However, reading on we learn that the most likely estimate of 3 to 5 million fewer people covered is a net figure:

Under CBO's best estimate, 11 million mostly low-wage workers would lose their employer coverage. About 3 million would choose to drop their coverage to go into the new subsidized health exchanges or on Medicaid, while another 9 million would gain employer-sponsored coverage, for a net total of 5 million people losing employer coverage in 2019.

So 11 million people will have a change in their health coverage foisted upon them, despite Obama's repeated promise that under ObamaCare people could keep their care:

"No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.. 

But rather than confront reality the White House chose to focus on net numbers:

The White House for its part argues that the latest projections are in line with what the CBO estimated when it scored the bill at the time of passage two years ago.

"Today's report also does not project major changes in the number of workers who will get coverage through their job," Jeanne Lambrew, the deputy assistant to the president for health policy, wrote on the White House blog. "At the time of passage CBO projected a change of 3 million people; last year CBO projected 1 million; this year 4 million – out of the roughly 150 million people get insurance through their job today. Other respected independent analysts have concluded that the number of Americans who get their health insurance at work will not change in a significant way."

A million here and a million there, and pretty soon it adds up to real people - but not yet, not at least for Team Obama.  That is change they just don't want to believe in.

Comments

[Mark Folkestad]

Geez, Hit, maybe those cruises are spendy, but if you come north when I get the cabin finished, I'll loan you some kayaks and we can have political discussions over breakfast and supper at the cabin. And you can look up and wave as Jonah and Jessica Goldberg and Daddy fly back and forth. Good enough?

[hit and run]

Oh,you betcha Mark. I've never been further north than Edmonton. I am very much looking forward to changing that...

[DrJ]

Edmonton is actually a pretty great town.

[cathyf]

I think it was 10 years after I started working "a real job" with a computer terminal that someone explained to me that the on/off toggle switch symbols were "0" and "1". I had somehow decided that I was looking a circle - from the front and from the side.

Try 20 years, here -- I always thought that they were a dot and a dash, you know, like morse code. and always trying to remember which one was on and off.

[Ignatz]

--Try 20 years, here -- I always thought that they were a dot and a dash, you know, like morse code. and always trying to remember which one was on and off.--

Yeah, but it's a lot easier to look nonchalant when you forget with a computer than when you're yanking on a chainsaw starter rope over and over because you forget; Stihl using the same stupid symbols.

[Porchlight]

For what it's worth, Jane, I looked at nrcruise.com and Breitbart is not on the list of guests (neither is Murray unless I missed him).

[daddy]

I'm pretty sure Charles Murray was on the cruise a few years back because I recall Jane saying she was going to dinner with him and did we have any questions. I had 2 questions which I sent her and I was angry when she didn't ask him my second question which was what was his favorite Irish Bar in NYCity?

I grrrrrrrrrrred at Jane about that for a post or 2.

[L.W. Dickel]

And then Jesus came upon his disciples and said, "What's this shit I've been hearing about a human sacrifice for sins!!!? Who in the goddamned hell came up with that Neanderthal bullshit!!!? What are we, living in the fucking Stone Age!!!?

Blood sacrifice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??
Listen, you can take that disgusting, sickening, vile, wicked pile of Cro-Magnon donkey shit and shove it straight up your goddamn asses!!!!"--Jesus Christ, The Lost Gospel

[Jane (Bad says Obama sucks)]

That's right Daddy, that was Portugal on the Riverboat. I think Caro also got to know his wifevpretty well.

[rse]

rain-

The French practice state socialism. It's really a Big established Business and Govt alliance that dominates that economy.The public sector employs a huge percentage of French workers.

Michael Burleigh makes the point in his book Blood and Rage that changing Euro universities from elite institutions to mass institutions flooded graduates (huge increase almost overnight of at least 5 to 1)with little real knowledge or skills. But they had expectations of a certain lifestyle and job because of the degree. Ripe then for govt "doing something".

After the carnage of the Rev the French established those elite schools but neglected the humanities. Made these credentialed workers very susceptible to believing that social systems like economies or society could be designed and manipulated and fixed. Marxism was quite open there which is why Revel's earlier books are also a great glimpse into that mindset.

There is a term for the French economy you should use-dirigiste. Directed. The state decides winners and losers. Dirigiste means no spontaneity and thus no real growth. Turns out the direction comes from economic modelling which leaves out important factors if they are hard to fit into what can be modelled. Playing with the assumptions in those recent models showed they are assuming no growth or declining growth in GDP because of the Green Growth policies.

Economic control is more important than growth. That's the policies BO is trying to import. See Was Times story above. BO's budgets have quietly acknowledged he is going to an industrial policy model. Growth for cronies but the bill and stagnation for the average person. Australia has same model now. The site Catallaxy Files will allow you to monitor that they are behaving just like EU.

If the desired control means no growth or gdp declines, you can try to make it a virtue. LUN is from a 2008 Paris conference, the 1st one. It is setting up the foundation for pushing Degrowth as a necessary future economic approach.

It is only necessary because we have a class of international bureaucrats with a desire for control and OPM.

[sbw]

Late to the party but I scored 59.

Forgot to count my hockey and baseball uniforms.

[Manuel Transmission]

Even later - 67.

Most of that was living in the boonies of Montana and a farm town near glasater before finishing high school. Didn't get any help from the beer or the entertainment questions.

Bottom line, even though I now live in a super zip, not many have an elite state of mind. Even the kids of these folks are pretty well centered, although you can see the narrower experiences.

[Neo]

As a Lehigh ’76 grad, I am ecstatic.

[Sandy Daze]

71.

Isn't Yuengling imported from Pennsylvania to the rest of world? That and Rolling Rock. What about the late great Olympia?
Very pleased to be in the same company with MarkO & Pat N. Congrats to both!

~

Am on a road trip to Dunedin, Fla with Laura and our daughters Breezy (older) and Windy (younger). They are both 50% Irish owing to their mom--me, am a mutt, with Ukranian, German, English and who knows what else blood. But, mainly, I am 100% American, unlike the bastard Voldemort, who, BTW, sucks. And speaking of Breezy, just in for Hillsdale Spring break, today's her 21st b-day, so how nice is that? She's just finished a long stroke behind the wheel, and now better half is taking it in.

~

Anyone JoMers near Dunedin? Perhaps an RV is in the offing?

OS~OMG~ABO !
Sandy

[NK]

Henry. Thanks for the personal bio. Did you know any of the Leeker brothers at SLU?
PS my son wants to work in. The midwest after school. I ll let you know if wisc beckons

[Holly]

Mr. Ballard, your link was very helpful. I deeply appreciate your and everyone else's help on this. With your guidance, I have been able to find several good sources. It appears to me that France's elites have been lying to the peasants about the state of the union vis-a-vis the Euro crisis. I'm sure they will find a scapegoat when the ship sinks, a la BarryO.

Iggy, oh, how I wish my group would proclaim 1789 to be the downfall of France (and Europe) in our presentation! Only in my dreams. This is a liberal west coast state school; the prof is European; students here are liberal robots. No one ever questions the socialist propaganda that permeates the curricula.

rse, your insight is so helpful! Thank you for taking the time to share. I have a question. There's an article written in 1989 by Andersen about Three Political Economies of the Welfare State in the which the author describes France's system as a "corporatist" welfare model (and different from Australia's "liberal" model). Would this corporatist model be the same as your industrial model?

Again, thanks for all the help JOMers.

[rain]

That last comment was from me, rain. I am here at my mom's house for spring break, going home tomorrow. My mom told me to ask you guys for help. Oh, and I'm using her computer.

[rain]

Another thing, I have wanted to comment here because so many times I get far better info about what is going on in politics than I get in my classes. Sometimes I just want to rant about the stupidity that surrounds me, but I figure you guys already know what that's like! My mom is lucky because there's really nobody in our family or our friends who thinks differently than we do. Well, when she "adopted" me and my brother (she's our biological aunt) four years ago and we moved in, her niece by marriage moved in, also, to go to med school, and the niece drove us crazy with her Obama worship. She didn't last long, only one semester. I thought that was bad, but I really had no idea how bad it could be. Life at a wacko liberal school sucks. Two weeks ago I travelled to IU to hear Ron Paul, not because I'm a Paul supporter, but because I wanted to be around people who sorta thought like me! And it was so much fun! Lots of conservative students there, the place was totally packed, standing room only. And I thought, OMG, how different school would be if profs and students had some sense!

Jane and Clarice, I probably will be able to post more when summer comes along. I've got exams and projects up to the gills right now, so gotta concentrate on that. It still makes me nervous to post, so I kinda get the run-out-the-mouth jitters. Once I start, I don't stop. :)

[rse]

rain-I printed out that article and will read tomorrow. Look though where it came from-sociology and anthropology are two social sciences created in an attempt to come up with rules to try to make human behavior as predictable and subject to modelling as the natural sciences.

Likely lots of wishful thinking about the way social systems work. Rick Ballard is the one is suggested I start with Hayek's The Fatal Conceit. Make it a summer reading project.

Yes Corporatist is a synonym for industrial policy and dirigisme. So is Fascism but Mussolini gave that term such a bad rep.

I actually do know what is going on on campus. Basically your profs want you to believe and feel issues, not know objective facts. Good for you for pushing through for real information.

Best of luck.

[Rick Ballard]

Rain,

I assume that's an assigned piece. Your question re French/Australian socialist systems is best resolved by reflection upon the history of the development of Anglo-Saxon concepts of personal liberty in contrast to the Roman law derived French concept of the relationship of citizen/subject and state.

I have no idea as to where you are in terms of absorption of the basic tenets of conservatism but I would hope that you had Montesquieu's The Spirit of The Law, some basic Burke, Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Tocqueville's Democracy in America and a bit of Bastiat under your belt before delving into The Fatal Conceit. If you wish to explore the contrast between the Scottish Enlightenment and the French Endarkenment, then Rousseau followed by a bit of history regarding the Terror of '93 in Paris, followed by skimming LeComte and perhaps JS Mill's ridiculous On Liberty, all with very close attention to "Who decides?" and "Who pays?", would be of benefit.

Consideration of differences and similarities between the current French oligarchy and the American oligarchy are worthwhile. Has the dichotomy between 'right' and 'left' been reduced to the obverse and the reverse of the same counterfeit coin?

[narciso]

Speaking of favored oligarchs, this piece offers loads of fisking for the entire family;

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/the-villain/8901/?single_page=true

[rain]

"I assume that's an assigned piece." Yup. No textbook in this class. Just excerpts from the classics (Bodin, Hobbes,Locke, Smith, Tocqueville) and essays. I probably should have dropped the course when I realized I didn't have the necessary political theory foundation, but I was a sucker for the topic. It fascinates me (probably because I'm living in a foreign environment where my views clash with everyone around me). I will have to do further study before I can reflect upon the differences between Anglo-Saxon and Roman approaches. My professor failed to mention them. :) And I'm an ignoramus. But I'm willing to learn because I've decided that the only way to deal with these idiots is to get information and bombard them with facts. They probably won't get it, but I will feel better.

I appreciate your guidance. It looks like I have some reading to do this summer. I'm intrigued by the Scottish/French stuff and will definitely delve into that. As for the French oligarchy and American oligarchy comparisons, the right and left dichotomy, I haven't a clue (there's an American oligarchy???). Looks like I need to do some more reading! :) But you've given me some ideas and I certainly intend to pursue them. Thanks.

[sbw]

Rain, congratulations on not having the necessary political theory foundation because most of it has run off the rails.

Ballard gave you enough to go on. Now use your head. Oh, and ask us questions on the latest thread for pointers. and insights.

Good people here are pithy and concise.

My take is different than most: Individuals create society for their own benefit when they recognize why it is in their own interest. That is the reverse view of many political theorist back to Plato.

But why create society?
1) Because our mental map of reality is imperfect and others' perspectives can be considered -- that is humility
2) Others are in the same fix we are in -- that leads to reciprocity.

On those two conclusions society and ethics are built.

BTW, don't forget that division of labor increases wealth.

That gives you a solid foundation to prune the crap others, right and left, would feed you because they want power.

Now go knock 'em dead.