We'll Score This As "Not A Like"

With the calm and civility we have learned to expect when the object of their affection is questioned, the "Booman" denounces a NY Times contributer who complained about her insurance premium hikes under Obamacare as "either misinformed or the worst kind of liar".

Yeah, yeah. Ms Gottlieb is writing as a single (well-paid) mom in California with at least one child who complained that her new replacement plan would cost $5,400 more than the plan being cancelled. I can't compare precisely, but here in My Blue Heaven of Connecticut, my wife's personal Anthem plan was also cancelled as non-compliant. To replace it with a new Anthem plan with the same deductibles and copays (i.e., a Gold plan) would have cost an additional $600/month, or $7,200 per year.

Or, to replace it with a plan at a slightly lower premium than we currently pay we could have increased our deductible by $9,600 and an annual out-of-pocket max by $6,600. For various reasons hitting the deductible is a bit of a sure thing, so when I engage in cocktail party chit-chat and tell people that my wife's insurance cost under Obamacare rose by $6,000 or $7,000 dollars I am neither lying nor misinformed.

As to Ms. Gottlieb, her story is consistent with my experience, but how can I be sure? However, as to the choice between (a) she's lying, and (b) the Booman is suffering from an ObamaCare induced anal-cranial impaction which we hope is covered by his insurance, well, I have to go with (b). Also based on experience.

It is interesting to observe the rage and denial displayed by the reality-based community when introduced to reality. Prof. Althouse has more on that.

AND SPEAKING OF ESCAPE FROM REALITY... Garance Franke-Ruta, writing in Tha Atlantic, offers five ideas that might be even better than an apology from Obama for fixing health care. I love this exhortation:

2. Enroll "Young Invincibles": The second most urgent problem is getting enough young healthy people into the exchanges to keep rates low in 2014. Between Healthcare.gov's technical troubles, the complexity of signing up through the exchange sites, and the fact that many of the uninsured are not the most civically engaged people in America, it's no surprise that most of the uninsured haven't even visited a single exchange website. It is going to take a lot to get them insured. 

To get the young people whom the system needs to succeed into the exchanges will require more than just "navigators" and microtargeting key populations. Fortunately, if the Obama campaigns in 2008 and 2012 were good at anything, it was turning out and engaging young people, and that knowledge ought to be deployed in the campaign to sign people up for insurance, too. The campaigns made electing Obama a community project and a community conversation that involved meeting people where they were to talk about politics and voting. It involved barbershops and hair salons, coffee shops, laundromats, community organizations. Getting the insurance equivalent of low-information, unlikely-turnout voters to sign up for insurance—something much more complicated than going to the polls—will require tremendous work.

More "complicated" than going to the polls? It's also an awful lot more expensive!  Getting callow youth to think Obama was cooler than Hillary, McCain or Mitt - easy. Getting them to translate that sense of shared cool purpose into a willingness tio stand in line for an hour and vote (twice!) - not so hard. Getting them to translate that into a willingness to spend hundreds of dollars a month on insurance they don't need in order to subsidize the old and sick? Good luck. They may be dumb enough to have voted for Obama, but they aren't that dumb.

Comments

[clarice]

In case you haven 't seen these ads bought with your money:http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/164036/latest_obamacare_ads_are_an

Also apparently we paid WebM to praise Obamacare. Yells you how much to trust that site.

[Beasts of England]

Happy Birthday, sbw!

[Janet]

Happy Birthday, sbw! Lots of love to you.

Thanks for the link, rse. I'm going to a fundraising event this weekend to support the organization that is trying to stop the streetcar. I've volunteered to be our neighborhood captain for them too(not sure yet what that will entail!)

National advocacy groups are runnin' our lives. It's like the Sierra Club is our true government...

[clarice]

More on gluten free hoax:http://www.science20.com/science_20/blog/glutenfree_fad_dangerous_so_backlash-124085

[clarice]

Janet, you'll end up being elected mayor.

[Janet]

I guess Richard Cohen is having a hard time. -
"“I don’t understand it,” said the columnist, who lives in New York City. “What I was doing was expressing not my own views but those of extreme right-wing Republican tea party people. I don’t have a problem with interracial marriage or same-sex marriage. In fact, I exult in them. It’s a slander” to suggest otherwise. “This is just below the belt. It’s a purposeful misreading of what I wrote.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/controversy-over-richard-cohens-comments-on-the-de-blasio-family/2013/11/12/3c37f900-4bda-11e3-ac54-aa84301ced81_print.html

Don't slander him...but it's okay for him to slander "extreme right-wing Republican tea party people."

[Marlene]

Happy Birthday SBW!

[Beasts of England]

Of all the misdirection and deflection I've read from the ACA apologists, this has to be a low-light: we didn't want the ACA, we had to settle for it because of the republicans; we wanted single-payer!

So, since the dems passed ACA without a single opposition vote, they could have just as easily passed single-payer, right? Talk about some serious blame-throwing...

[Janet]

Janet, you'll end up being elected mayor.

Hah! There's no way...I don't have any Cherokee blood.

[narciso]

LOl, yet such an ironic turn of events, with Cohen, the carp about Clinton is just two much, why doesn't anybody say, that was his wife's plan as well.

[Beasts of England]

@Janet - His biggest disconnect was in his original paragraph he referenced 'conventional' people, but in his walk-back, he said 'extremist'.

So which was it? Extremists had a problem with interracial marriage or conventional people did? He can't have it both ways as his latter statement can't be reconciled with his original premise.

[narciso]

Khamenei maybe many things, but he's no fool.

[GMax]

Spartans hang one on national tv on John Calipari. Guess who is the new big dog in the NCAA basketball scene. Tom Izzo for President!

[Captain Hate on the iPhone]

Nowhere in that Cohen article does it point out that his stereotype of a conservative exists only in his otherwise empty head.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Richard Cohen-- As Ignatz and I noted yesterday, Dick Cohen was projecting his own fears and hatreds on people he dislikes, good to see he got called on it publicly.

Dick Cheney- we all love him. An adult, a patriot, a decent man, what's not to like. But let's all remember one thing, before he became the Left's bete noir (Darth Cheney) for 30 years he was a Wash DC fixture-- he IS the ESTABLISHMENT, not just the Repub establishment. He would be comfy with a Hildabeast POTUS with a Repub Congress-- he is happy to work with Clinton 'realism'-- plus he's OK with lesbians, so Hildy fits the bill for him. The ESTABLISHMENT is striking back against the Obamaniacs-- the knives are out to politically gut him. The Tell that they've won? ValJar takes a 'leave of absence' to spend time with family. Obummer's got about 40 Lib Senators, 150 Lib House Critters, and the scared bureaucrats on his side-- he's the lamest of ducks. He won't be able to push anything through-- he'll be retreating constantly. Nice.

[centralcal]

Good morning and happy birthday to SBW!

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Very happy Birthday to SBW. Have a happy and healthy one.

[centralcal]

Oh, hey, Janet! We can all be faux Indians any ol' time we want. So, yes, you could be Mayor one day!

[narciso]

Actually no, he led the pushback against the Iran Contra witchhunt, he voted against
giving Mandela his walking papers, that caused some vapors when that came out. According to Baker, he was backing Luttig over Roberts, what a gamechanger,

[Marlene]

Janet,you have mail.

[Janet]

Nowhere in that Cohen article does it point out that his stereotype of a conservative exists only in his otherwise empty head.

Exactly, Captain! I kept thinking...Name one, Richard. Name one actual person that you know that is an "extreme right-wing Republican tea party" person that "gags" at interracial couples. NAME ONE.

[narciso]

That was quite a Captain Tupolev move on Cohen's part, snorfle.

It looks like Fusco will go 'Norwegian Blue', man what an episode

[Captain Hate on the iPhone]

I don't agree with Cheney on everything and he has been in Washington for a long time but he ruffles establishment feathers more often than not. GWB lost his way when he listened to Rove and Rice more than his VP.

[GMax]

Actually my gag reflex is triggered by vapid airheaded liberals mouthing platitudes and stuff they heard from their liberal friends at the Willard last Tuesday, not a married couple of even green stripes and checks...

[Marlene]

That Cohen column also had me seething. What a smug jerk. He should meet the biracial families (my sister's). I'm happy he got carp for his idiot remarks.

[narciso]

One expects that Lurch will put more pressure on Bibi, now that the Palestinian negotiator, left and took the football.

[Well, at least he's not a 'typical black person'.]

He's a mess. His grandmother was a 'typical white person'.

[narciso]

Good god, George Will's ex flame, the publisher of the post, thought the Cohen piece enlightening.

[Captain Hate on the iPhone]

I'm starting to think the dog gets it because I'll bet Finch didn't follow up on Reese's suggestion for a vest and they showed a preview of Root giving condolences to Harold. It won't be Reese and I still think the preview scenes with Fusco are misdirection.

In the grainy opening film I was pretty sure it was Carter blasting the drug shipment because of her distinctive body shape.

[narciso]

I didn't consider that, Finch and Fusco aren't so close.

[James D.]

Happy birthday, sbw!

[James D.]

Hey, Janet, do we even HAVE a mayor here in Arlington?

[GMax]

Instapundit is on a roll this AM! He points out that Zero has been called incompetent by no less than Jimminy Carter and then lectured on commitment by BJ Clinton, in the last two weeks. What is lower than whale shit?

[GMax]

Or put differently, who would know better from incompetent than Jimminy? And certainly BJ knows a lot about lack of commitment...

[Captain Hate on the iPhone]

Slick is such self serving trash. He was fluffing Gaylord at the convention for signing 404Care.

[Janet]

You're right, James..hah! We don't have a mayor. We are run by a far left oligarchy.

[jimmyk on iPad]

GMax, we'll know Barry is toast when Boy George says he's effeminate.

[Old Lurker]

HB SBW!

[GMax]

JimmyK

Heh

How about when Forrest Gump calls him a slow learner?

[Threadkiller]

Happy Birthday, SBW!

[Thomas Collins]

Happy Birthday, sbw.

[Threadkiller]

There is always the slim possibility that criticism from leading democrats may not render the leading communist toast.

"Obama Classmate; Need To Call Obama & His Cohorts What They Are; Communists"

http://youtu.be/UKL9kO08UUM

Members of the party that installed him just now realized what they have done. It is too late for them to undo this mess.

[clarice]

Actually, I believe Obama's a narcissist and as things gt worse for him he will grow ever more dangerous and uncontrollable.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

jimmyk et al- link below short dry article that explains alot, such as 1. why the labor market is much worse than the nominal 7.3% U3 rate; and 2. Why the business/establishment Repubs want amnesty-- they need lawful payroll taxes from millions of new legalized workers, b/c the soc sec funds are gonna crater-- fast. We'll all be shocked by how fast soc sec OPM dries up and then payroll tax caps will go to infinity. Te productive class wil take it in the neck again: http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/12/the-shrinking-labor-force-participation-rate/

[Threadkiller]

Clarice, what is a situation that is worse for him? How is he affected?

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Clarice@9:51-- I agree with that. But who will he attack most viciously? IMO it will be the Establishment Dems, the non-commies. The Clinton -Panetta-McAwful crew. He needs the Dem Party to implement his evil plans, so he needs to control the Dem Party-- hence he needs to destroy the Clintons.

[narciso]

Yes the 'downfall' parodies are not off the mark, although he's more like the dictator in Bananas, the Clinton's will not put up much resistance, no matter what they tell Ed Klein.

[Threadkiller]

The Dem party needs him more, NK. Last month he won the shutdown battle and ushered in a new era where the Executive has control of the purse.

http://mcclintock.house.gov/2013/10/the-debt-crisis.shtml

They will help him with Big Evil as long as they can if it is the only was to get their share of the booty.

The guy closed the Whitehouse and turned it into his private crib. Do you really think he givs a shit?

[Account Deleted]

Happy Birthday, SBW.

[narciso]

So 'Mr I never bluff' is saying support this deal with Iran, or we have to go to war, Volodya chuckles from his mansion in Rublyoka.

[Ignatz]

Hmmm, social security isn't working out mathematically or actuarily. So we can;
1. Make sensible, relatively simple adjustments to the system that makes it sustainable;
2. Do the right thing and privatize it, or;
3. Import a large bubble of third world educated, manual laborers, illegally who don't even speak our language and declare them all citizens and start collecting taxes from them assuming they don't end up on our expanded welfare state.

Let's go with #3 cause when they and their inordinately large pool of offspring retire we'll have a nice template for how to solve that SS shortfall.
It's turtles all the way up!

[narciso]

Yes, it's worked great for Europe. What's that you say,

[Eric in Boise]

Need To Call Obama & His Cohorts What They Are; Communists

If you like your Mayo Clinic, you can keep your Mayo Clinic.

What's that? The sign over the door says "Mao Clinic" now?

No worries; we just cleaned it up a bit. Carry on.

[narciso]

So a former Journal reporter, will be the Solon of Scranton's deputy chief of staff, with a lobbyist as her boss, shocker.

[sbwaters]

Thnx all! Enjoying birthday carb overload this morning, courtesy of the staff who celebrate every birthday here. To celebrate with family tonight at TS Steakhouse, I get taken out to dinner (and the cleaners . . . my CC).

Henry, glad you are enjoying the book. Feedback is welcome if you end up more than non-plussed reading it.

NK, healthy is my wish for all at JOM!

. . . and I thought the court said that it was the Wong decision. [duck and run]

[narciso]

Methinks he overdid the whole drone thing, Volodya wants one,

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Ignatz@10:06-- as usual you're exactly right. I was only pointing out that the Esatblishment refuse to opt for 1 & 2 because they are hard and politically dangerous -- FOR THEM. So they screw the rest of us and opt for #3 which is more politically convenient. They are not patriots they are cronies of the elites. But times may be changing, which leads to my next point...

[Ignatz]

Happy Birthday to ordinarily mild mannered newspaper man SBW who, when he passes a phone booth (they still have those, right?) turns into SuperPublisher!.....unless he's just walking (not wokking) the dog, of course and nothing is really happening, in which case he just strolls on by and doesn't turn into anything, so maybe you should ignore that first part...except for the happy birthday thing.

[Ignatz]

"Mayo" is subpar.

[Miss Marple]

Threadkiller,

They have to balance access to the last coins in the purse vs. being exiled from DC and losing all those opportunities for cash and prizes from lobbyists and foreign nationals.

Those 12 Senators aren't thinking about how they will get to divide the pie, since they realize that next year they won't have access to the pie at all.

I prefer to see Cheney agreeing with CLinton. It is BI-PARTISAN criticism of Obama, which is good.

I next expect to see discussions of Obama's mental state. They can dump him by having the men in white coats carry him off. All they have to do is pay of Michelle and somehow get rid of Jarrett, maybe with a UN job or something.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

TK/Narciso-- I think you're right that the Obamaniacs prevail over Clintonistas and take control of the Dem Party. personally, I hope that happens. Then the 2 Parties in this contry-- for the first time in my lifetime-- become a Leftwing and a Center-Rightwing party. Clear choices. And for the rest of my life the Dems will be a minority--party. Nice.

[Old Lurker]

Iggy as usual is right about SS. My great lament, repeated here often, is how few people understand the difference between having that system "look" actuarially sound vs its "real" status on a cash flow basis. Those trillions in SS Treasuriy IOUs have to be converted to cash by getting the cash from somebody.

[narciso]

The main enemy, I forget the Russian word, is always the Tea Party, unfortunately the Top Men see it the same way, as young master Dayspring made quite clear,

[narciso]

The Dems are already there, there is a pretense that the GOP is,

[windansea]

The frequently delightful Kirsten Powers just echoed my sentiments precisely

Delightful unless you remember she had sack time with the Weinerman :)

[Miss Marple]

I prefer to think Ms Powers dated him but dumped him before things got too serious, as those of my generation say.

[narciso]

Gene Healy, delivers a proper thwacking to that Purdum column from last week,

[Ignatz]

--Delightful unless you remember she had sack time with the Weinerman :)--

Well, she has seen the light spiritually so I'm hopeful she'll see it politically one day too.
Of course if she does and thinks back on her Little Antony era she may become a nun.

[Jeff Dobbs]

BTW, for those scoring at home, we had brief flurries of global warming last night. I didn't even realize it was supposed to snow - but those flakes of climate change were global weirding their way down from the sky as I walked to my car after work.

[GMax]

Everyone knows that the Mayo Clinic is substandard. Meanwhile the Mao Clinic is "new and improved". As Mick Jagger has said, dont mind the maggots...

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Narciso-- no the Repubs are not yet a Right party-- but I believe that is the inevitable path, for lots of reasons.

[narciso]

They are still flacking the SkyDragon nests at my fishwrap, because well there's nothing else to report.

[Account Deleted]

OL,

Careful. If you take the next step and note the false nature of the assumed growth rate used as a predicate for all CBO static analysis you will reduce readers to a catatonic state.

It ain't just SS that don't work no more.

[Jeff Dobbs]

Here's my "I'm good at killing people"/Edie Sundby juxtaposition.

I'd like to apologize for misleadingly putting his quote on a pic of him and Secretary Sebelius, when in the book he was obviously talking about how much he drones and drones and drones (for the record that's pew pew pew from those unmanned planes, not his speeches), but I won't. That's just how I roll.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

OL/RickB-- neatly sum up the Federal Debt Bomb-- in addition to that, the Blue Hells have their own Debt Bombs which will go off sooner as their access to OPM escapes to Redder states.

[Ignatz]

--Those trillions in SS Treasuriy IOUs have to be converted to cash by getting the cash from somebody.--

Step right up and get your QE∞ bucks right here, young man! We got a trillion of em! Why, we got a quadrillion, I tellz ya.
Alls I gotta do, you little squirt, is step behind this curtain ya see here, do a little Yellin and my hands will be full, I say, full of QE∞ bucks.
What's thatcha say, kid? QE∞ carny bucks aren't worth shit and I'm just a barker?
.....go away, kid, ya bother me......

Next! Say, you look like a gullibl.....er I mean savvy, yeah, I say, a savvy young man.....

[Old Lurker]

Rick & NK,

And just as the younguns are rejecting Obamacare because even they can sober up and stop screwing (thank CO for making that clear) long enough to see the absurdity of THAT mandated transfer from them to some more favored class, and even Boomers (K Powers on Fox last night was a HOOT) are now realizing that the only thing Subpar about their now cancelled policy was that it did not transfer enough of their money to others, soon they will all see NK's debt bomb as "Huh, you want ME to pay THAT too? F' Off"

And then the bomb explodes.

Oh. And other city in CA went bankrupt today. Tick tick.

[peter]

GMax at 10:35

Zing!

[Extraneus]

Good one, hit!

[Old Lurker]

Ditto that, Iggy.

[peter]

Ignatz, where did that bit come from? Was that a Milton Berle routine? WC Fields? Phil Silvers? Because I only recognize it from cartoon homages.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

I wish I had Ignatz's and OL's gift of salemanship, I could have explained my Debt Bomb metaphor much more persuasively these last 5 years. For several years, I wondered what 'The Plan' was by the Sooper Geniuses at the Fed and CBO to address the acturial fails of the Public Debt, the Entitlement unfunded debt, the QE Debt etc etc, then when BenB announced no way no how he would stay as Chairman, it came to me, there is NO Plan. There is only default...Hmmm.. maybe Krugman does know what he's talking about, that scalawag never intended to pay any of this back. remember he is a Son of Enron.

[Jane]

I'm thinking of getting an IPad 5. (I currently have IPad 1.) Anyone have ant thoughts on that?

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

My wife just got a MS Surface tablet for work. She loves the compatibility with her company servers.

[Jane]

"any"

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Surface = real keyboard as well. Extra $$$ though.

[Old Lurker]

Jane, please hurry up and get the new iPad 5. That way I will own the last iPad 1 which I hold as an honor along with my goal of being AOL's last paying customer.

I don't like change you say?

[centralcal]

In all the talk about Obama the dangerous narcissist, don't forget to factor in his evil, wicked stepmother and only trusted advisor, ValJar.

They are both dangerous with their backs to the wall, but I betcha she has to push him a lot.

[GMax]

There is only default...

Well hyperinflation works too, and it allows the elite to not get those icky guts and blood on their clean white togas...

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Gmax-- agreed... but of course hyperinflation is a form of default. That's how Weimar 'paid back' the Kaiser's war reperations.

[James D.]

No, you won't, OL - I've still got one as well.

(although I put a new iPad on my Amazon Wish List as a hint to my family, so there's a chance I'll be graduating from the ranks of the iPad 1 owners next month, fingers crossed!)

[Thomas Collins]

"graduating from the ranks of the iPad 1 owners next month"

Now it's James D. who wants to abandon the iPad Classic! Pretty soon I'll be the only Classical iPadder!

[Thomas Collins]

Oh, I notice OL is also a Classical iPadder.

[Thomas Collins]

And Jane, too, may be abandoning the iPad Classic. Abandoning the iPad Classic is the equivalent of clearing one's bookshelves of Plato's works and replacing them with Oprah Book Club selections!

Time to go into hiding from Oprah Book Club aficionados!

[Account Deleted]

What's an iPad?

[Old Lurker]

:-) Rick

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

IEA says USA will be top OIL producer by 2015... 2015. Mid East will be biggest worldwide supplier by 2025 based on Iraqi production ramp up (and eventual Iran return to market). IEA does NOT factor NEW USA sites on currently banned Federal Land-- looking at you Alaska-- or current offshore areas. Energy costs will be a USA competitive advantage for decades to come, despite Obama's evil plans, and will be a bigger advantage with a sane POTUS.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

The IEA story link: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/12/208326/us-expected-soon-to-be-crowned.html

[jimmyk on iPhone]

If they really wanted to get young healthy people to sign up for 404Care they could have included iPad coverage. It's got as as much to do with health insurance as birth control and abortions.

[caro]

Just do it, Jane.