Obamacare
May 17, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Peter Baker reports on President Obama’s frustrations in the New York Times: In private, [Obama] has talked longingly of “going Bulworth,” a reference to a little-remembered 1998 Warren Beatty movie about a senator who risked it all to say what he really thought. While Mr. Beatty’s character had neither the power nor the platform of a president, the metaphor highlights Mr. Obama’s desire to be liberated from what he sees
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May 16, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
If this were April 1, I’d bet that the following headline from ABC News is a joke: “IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office.” But the joke is on us. Here’s the story: Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the
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May 13, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The White House has set up a Twitter account through which it is praising our Dear Leader in a style befitting the megalomaniacal leader of a one-party state. You really have to see it to get a fuller understanding of the Age of Obama, though I should warn readers that, as in the case of New York Times editorials, you may lose brain cells scrolling through the thing. In one
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May 12, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Last month Time’s Joe Klein decried the Obama administration’s “incompetence” implementing Obamacare. This month Klein expressed relief in an “Exclusive” report. In his “Exclusive” Klein praised the administration for streamlining the complex 21-page online Obamacare application to a mere three pages. Klein called it “a spiffy, new three-page application for individuals (find it here)” (footnote omitted). He added: “There will be a seven-page application for families (11 including the appendix),
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May 11, 2013 — Scott Johnson
A thoroughgoing dishonesty permeates the Obama administration. From Obamacare to Benghazi, this is the gang that can’t talk straight. Philip Klein catches the president in the act of being himself, peddling instantly classic doubletalk: As part of a Mothers’ Day weekend defense of his signature legislative accomplishment, President Obama claimed that the law represented the “largest health care tax cut for working families and small businesses in our history. “
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May 5, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
We’ve been saying for some time that Obamacare will be a central issue in the 2014 election, and that it offers Republicans the hope, if they nominate solid candidates, of taking control of the Senate. Now, Senate Democrats have figured this out, as well. Ron Wyden is latest example. He frets: There is reason to be very concerned about what’s going to happen with young people. If their (insurance) premiums
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May 4, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Last month Time’s Joe Klein decried the Obama administration’s “incompetence” implementing Obamacare. This week Klein expressed relief in an “Exclusive” report. In his “Exclusive” Klein praised the administration for streamlining the complex 21-page online Obamacare application to a mere three pages. Klein called it “a spiffy, new three-page application for individuals (find it here)” (footnote omitted). He added: “There will be a seven-page application for families (11 including the appendix),
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May 2, 2013 — Steven Hayward
I spent last evening at a splendid dinner of the Friends of Ronald Reagan at the California Club in downtown Los Angeles, where our special guest was Senator John Thune. It was off the record, so no, I won’t tell you what he said, except that when I mentioned I was from Power Line, he recalled running into Scott at the airport recently and was wondering if we were starting
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May 2, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Glenn Reynolds not only teaches law at the University of Tennessee College of Law, where he is the Beauchamp Brogan Professor of Law, he writes regular newspaper columns and books of general interest, conducts interviews for InstaVision, and scours the Web for material of interest to flag on InstaPundit, which looks like it would have to be a full-time job all by itself. And he also publishes readable law review
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May 1, 2013 — Scott Johnson
My introduction to the concept of the low information voter came in my capacity as Treasurer of Rudy Boschwitz’s 1996 campaign against then incumbent Paul Wellstone. Rudy had engaged the services of a prominent political consultant who had polled Minnesota voters on issues relevant to the race. The poll resulted in a briefly book that was a couple of inches thick, slicing and dicing the electorate with great sophisticatoin. According
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April 27, 2013 — Scott Johnson
President Obama really poured it on in his speech to Planned Parenthood yesterday (video below). Taken together with the introduction by Planned Parenthood’s president, we get a full airing of the sacramental view of abortion that underlies the Democrats’ mania on behalf of the practice. Obama’s speech begins at about 6:30. In the gospel according to Barry, we now have the blessing for the abortionist: “As long as we’ve got
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April 25, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Congress rarely comes together across party lines these days, but bipartisan consensus has emerged over the unsuitability of Obamacare’s insurance exchanges. Politico reports that Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join under Obamacare. The talks are said to involve Harry Reid, John Boehner, other top lawmakers, and the Obama administration.
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April 17, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Max Baucus, who helped write the Obamacare legislation, said today that he sees a “huge train wreck” ahead due to problems in implementing that law. Baucus addressed this comment to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during a routine budget hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, which he chairs. Baucus expressed concern that new health insurance marketplaces for consumers and small businesses will not open on time in every
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April 17, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The designers of Obamacare put some serious thought into the expansion of the welfare state. If you have an income up to 400 percent of the designated federal poverty line, you can now skip your application for disability benefits and proceed directly to get on the Obamcare dole. You may actually need the subsidy to cushion the shock of the premium increases that Obamacare will deliver along with the benefits.
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April 8, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The enactment of Obamacare by overweening Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate was more than a gratuitous act of destruction, but it was incredibly destructive, and it was premised on Barack Obama’s incessantly repeated pack of lies about preserving existing arrangements, lowering costs, and all the rest. A willful pack of lies. Now what? Ramesh Ponnuru and Yuval Levin have not given up the fight and have been
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April 6, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The White House, through economist turned flack Alan Krueger, wasted no time in blaming yesterday’s lousy jobs report on the sequester. It’s a ridiculous claim. As we observed, government employment held steady, and the sequester is too recent to have affected the private sector. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s, who is frequently cited by the Obama administration, agrees that the sequester is not yet in play. Zandi told CNBC:
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April 2, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Yuval Levin directs attention to a story in today’s New York Times which begins: Unable to meet tight deadlines in the new health care law, the Obama administration is delaying parts of a program intended to provide affordable health insurance to small businesses and their employees — a major selling point for the health care legislation. Levin advises us to get used to the first 11 words of that sentence.
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