Obama pulls plug on part of health overhaul law

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration Friday pulled the plug on a major program in the president’s signature health overhaul law – a long-term care insurance plan dogged from the beginning by doubts over its financial solvency.

Targeted by congressional Republicans for repeal, the long-term care plan became the first casualty in the political and policy wars over the health care law. The program had been expected to launch in 2013.

…

Although sponsored by the government, it was supposed to function as a self-sustaining voluntary insurance plan, open to working adults regardless of age or health. Workers would pay an affordable monthly premium during their careers, and could collect a modest daily cash benefit of at least $50 if they became disabled later in life. Beneficiaries could use the money for services to help them stay at home, or to help with nursing home bills.

But a central design flaw dogged CLASS from the beginning. Unless large numbers of healthy people willingly sign up during their working years, soaring premiums driven by the needs of disabled beneficiaries would destabilize it, eventually requiring a taxpayer bailout.

After months insisting that problems could be resolved, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, finally admitted Friday she doesn’t see how that can be done.

“Despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time,” Sebelius said in a letter to congressional leaders.

So it turns out bureaucrats in Washington really don’t know everything. No matter how smart they think they are they simply can’t design the perfect system, or even a system that works better than what we have.

Oh yeah and the elimination of CLASS also eliminates 50% of projected budgetary “savings” from Obamacare.

This, of course, comes as no shock to those of us who opposed Obamacare from the begining. Hell its no shock to anyone with a functioning brain.

Please define exactly what “fair share” is. Be as specific as possible.

Powell, the nation’s first African-American secretary of state, praised Obama’s leadership style in 2008 in endorsing him, saying shortly before the election that Obama “has a definite way of doing business that will serve us well.” He also said at the time that he didn’t think the GOP vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, was “ready” to be president.

Leave aside the judgment of whether Obama’s “way of doing business” has, in fact, served us well; I guess anyone can misjudge character during an election cycle (and, let’s face it, it’s hard to argue that John McCain’s “way of doing business” was obviously better in 2008.

No, this reminds me of how all the Respectable Types in 2008 knew that the defining issue of the election was, “Is Sarah Palin ready to be President?” Three years later, I think we can all look back and thank God above that we didn’t elect a vice president who uses divisive rhetoric, is a laughing stock whenever speaking in public, has a difficult time discussing matters with people of different opinions, hasn’t the slightest understanding of economics, fails to garner respect among our enemies, is so stupid as to not to know left from right, is used by the president as an identity politics tool to pander to middle-class rubes who are too dumb to understand reality, constantly needs media allies to cover up gaffes, or just generally makes a mess of things whenever speaking.

Yes, I’m glad so many Respectable Types saved us in 2008 from having a Vice President who wasn’t ready to be President. I anxiously await Colin Powell’s endorsement for 2012.

Today comes this little bit from Obama:

President Obama told a crowd at a battery plant in Holland, Michigan, this afternoon that Republicans must “find a way to put country ahead of party.” Obama went on to say, “There are some in congress right now who would rather see their opponents lose than see America win.”

Ugh. We spent years being lectured about how divisive George Bush was, and how he was always questioning everyone’s patriotism. And we were told that Obama would be better. Well here we are.

The story I linked to referred to this as Obama aping McCain’s ‘08 slogan, “Country First.” But if you look at it, it’s the converse of McCain’s slogan. “Country First” was a description, meant to refer to McCain - how he himself had put country first during his military service, how he had put country first in bucking his own party to do what he thought was right, how he would continue to do that as a president beholden to none of the interest groups of his own party. “Country First” was a candidate pointing out his own virtues and history of service.

Obama’s message, “Put country before party,” on the other hand, is a command to Republicans – who, were it not for Obama’s urging, would surely place the interests of their party above the interests of their country; who would ruin our economy in order to achieve partisan gain.

So while McCain focused on hyping his own devotion to country – I guess you could have taken it as an implied swipe at the patriotism of others, but that’s being unfair; if people can’t point to their own virtues without it being taken as a swipe at others, we’ve entered a very unpleasant world – Obama is using the theme to question the patriotism of others in blunt terms: “There are some in Congress right now who would rather see their opponents lose than see America win.” Because Republicans love power/hate Democrats more than they love America.

Have you heard any stories of older, more expensive federal employees losing their jobs during this budget crisis — as corporations typically do when they are hemorrhaging money?

Have you read any stories about departments drastically cutting back and looking for money-saving solutions — doing more with less, as they say, or “working smarter, not harder”?

Has the media been full of stories by weary bureaucrats complaining, like teachers are apparently instructed by their unions to claim, that they have to buy their own supplies to properly do their jobs?

Has there been any grousing that federal employees are missing expected pay raises and promotions, being forced to work at their old salaries through this crisis?

The answer is no.

While the country is teeters on the verge of a Depression (if it has not tottered over already), the federal bureaucracy remains gold-plated and immune to cutbacks.

I hope the Republican nominee makes a real issue of this, as there is undoubtedly billions of savings to be had simply by taking a hard look at the bureaucracy.

They are currently insisting that we absolutely must raise taxes, so therefore Republicans should vote for tax hikes. But it was just last December (which, according to my fingers, was seven months ago) that a Congress completely controlled by Democrats passed an extension of the Bush tax cuts.

In 2008, we elected a president who promised a “net spending cut” and who swore to let the Bush tax cuts expire. He then greatly increased spending and signed an extension of the Bush tax cuts. And this is now being used as a reason for the Republicans to break their (winning) 2010 pledge of not raising taxes.

I don’t like to ascribe bad motives to others, but I think an objective analysis of the situation shows that the president is using a possible default in order to get Republicans to vote for tax cuts hikes that are so politically toxic that he wouldn’t let his party vote for them a mere 7 months ago (and after they’d already been beaten in an election).

I’m no fan of the 109th Congress, but if there were an election held today a Republican running for national office would be able to say, “The last time Republicans controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress, the unemployment rate was less than half what it is today, and the budget deficit was 1/7 what it is today.”

Put in other words: Since the Democrats took over Congress, the deficit has increased seven fold, and the unemployment rate has doubled. On the bright side, the price of gas has only gone up by by 50%.

In short, Democrats have thus far gotten away with demonizing the Bush years in the abstract. But if you want to compare how well off the country was from 2003-2007 with how well the country did from 2007-2011, Democrats will not enjoy the comparison. That’s probably why, for them, “the last eight years” will never include the last four.

P.S. Let us look back at the halcyon days of 2007, when a scandalized reporter at Forbes noted that the budget – the last passed by an all Republican government – would not have a mere $158 billion deficit, but an unbelievable $344 billion deficit. By comparison, under a government controlled by Democrats we had a deficit of $222 billion … in a single month. One shudders at what the current deficit might be if we used that Forbes writers’ methodology.

Update: I forgot that the question of whether Tom Harkin is delusional is, as we say in the law, asked and answered. So Tea Partiers should be pleased to be thought to be a “cult fringe” by someone with such a marginal connection to reality.

The president says Congressional Republicans are being irresponsible; I think his speechwriters are being irresponsible to allow him back within a country mile of driving-related metaphors.

I’ll give you an example of how this is working. Here in Texas, we almost had to cut the budget back in 2009. It was going to be a pretty dramatic budget cut. But then a ton of stimulus money rained on us, so we were able to avoid laying off government employees (mostly teachers). Well 2011 has rolled around and money failed to fall from the heavens on us, so we either had to raise taxes or cut the budget. So obviously we cut the budget. The actual amount of budget cutting ($4 billion – that’s not a per capita budget cut, but an actual decrease in the amount of money we’re spending) matches up almost perfectly with the amount of stimulus money we got two years ago.

So now tens of thousands of government employees (mostly teachers) are getting laid off. Considering that the main purpose of the stimulus was to give state and local governments money to avoid laying off government workers, I have to presume a similar phenomenon is taking place in jurisdictions across the country this year.

In the end, the number of jobs “saved” by the stimulus will continue to shrink. The relevant statistic will not be how many “jobs” were saved, but rather how many “job-years” were saved. Because the effects of a temporary stimulus are, shockingly enough, temporary.

P.S. +5 internets to the first Democrat who suggests that the tailing off of the stimulus’s impact means we need a “permanent stimulus.” A super bonus of 10 additional internets will be awarded if that same Democrat suggests the 14th Amendment allows the president to borrow money for a stimulus without Congressional approval (”Without a permanent stimulus, our unemployment rate will, eventually, rise to 100%, which will bring into question the validity of our debt in violation of the 14th Amendment. The president has to see that the laws are faithfully enforced, so it’s a no-brainer that he has the power to borrow this money.”)