I’m embarrassed. So, so embarrassed. I cleaned the sticky notes off my monitor as I try to do every few months, but forgot to replace the “♡bamaCare!!! Fail” sticker, which is why you haven’t seen one of these in the last few days. But don’t worry — there’s been plenty of fail during my brief absence, and to make it up to you, today I have a double.
The first comes to you from that progressive haven on the Left Coast, a little place I like to call “What’s Left of California.” This is a juicy one, too:
One of the most expensive and contentious initiative campaigns in California this year pits progressive Democrats against the state’s ObamaCare exchange. The progressives want to give the state insurance commissioner veto power over health-insurance rates while the exchange backers want to prevent ObamaCare from imploding.
State Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones decided to go to voters after unsuccessfully lobbying the legislature to give him authority to reject health insurance rate hikes. Backing him are progressive groups and San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer, who say consumers need more protection from money-grubbing health-insurance companies.
Assisting insurers in their fight against the initiative, Proposition 45, are regulators for the state exchange Covered California. “It’s going to end up hurting Californians, hurting consumers, increasing costs,” declared Democratic exchange board member Susan Kennedy at a meeting last month. “And it will damage health-care reform, perhaps permanently, perhaps fatally, in California and I think perhaps nationally.”
You really should read the whole thing. The blue-on-blue battle to divide up the spoils is really just heating up, so keep your eye open for any news on Prop 45. The Democrats are stuck between a rock (the promise of lower insurance rates) and a hard place (the promise of tons of goodies), neither of which they can deliver. But they might just blow up what’s left of the state over who gets stuck with what.
Fun!
And now the not-so-fun item. Jim Angle reports — surprise! — that businesses are cutting jobs due to ♡bamaCare!!!:
Health economist John Goodman noted that “three Federal Reserve Banks in Philadelphia, New York and Atlanta have surveyed the folks in their area and roughly one fifth of the employers are saying they cut back on employment.
“Roughly one fifth are saying they’re moving from full time to part time,” Goodman added. “More than one in ten are saying they’re doing more outsourcing – all this because of the new health care reform.”
Doug Holtz-Eakin, former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, said “for the smaller employers — those that have between 20 and 49 employees — you get a negative impact on jobs, you get a negative impact on wages in those jobs. What this means for small business as a whole is over $22 billion of earnings gone for their workers and 350,000 jobs.”
There are not enough I-Told-You-So’s in the world to cover the abomination the Democrats foisted on us four years ago.
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