ACA Exchanges - Why?

Some of the problems with ObamaCare, or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), are the requirement to register for insurance coverage through healthcare websites labelled "Exchanges".  Those exchanges have several problems that would immediately put a private owned business out of business.  These problems include:

Availability.  When the exchange website went online it was inaccessible. People trying to sign up were stopped by the system itself.  While perusing the Huffington Post, commentators were chastising others who complained of a 4 hour wait to maybe get signed up ("4 hours is nothing if you get insurance' they would say).  Mostly the website was unavailable.

Poor information security.  Independent investigators conclude that the exchanges are the most insure websites they have encountered.  After the Obama Administration announced the problems were fixed, the experts testifying before congress said that security is worse than it was before it was "fixed".  If you want to be a victim of identity theft, here is the place to accomplish your dream.

No "back end". The people hired to design the ecommerce website did not include a way to catalog the information plugged in by anxious users to distribute to the various agencies required to verify the information or to send the information to insurance companies in order to get an actual quote.

Insurance policy may not be in effect. Once you complete the forms and are lucky enough to get a quote from an insurance company, and then pick a policy, there is no guarantee and no way to verify that you are actually covered.

OK, so what is my purpose in listing all of this bad news?

My reason for this is to point out that there is no known need to have ACA exchanges.  None whatsoever.

I can say that because of a few things everyone, and including politicians, should know:

1. Insurance companies have been running secure, reliable and available websites for, what? One, two decades?  They know how to do this.  Insurance companies would need only one thing from the federal government to sell insurance in compliance with ACA standards to anyone and everyone who wants coverage: Remove the barriers to interstate sales of insurance policies.

2. Many states have a public services commission that regulates which insurance companies can provide coverage, and what coverage are required, to persons within their borders.  These commissions also employ price fixing that requires insurance companies to submit requests to raise rates and play up to the commissions in order to stay profitable.  These commissions need to disappear or be refocused to other services.  Since the federal government has superseded any requirements state commissions could come up with and are doing the price fixing at the federal level, the commissions are irrelevant.

3.  The federal government has used the Commerce Clause to the US Constitution to regulate and create laws reaching into the states for enforcement.  In this case, the Commerce Clause could more appropriately used to force states to accept insurance policies from any insurance company that the federal government approves.  This, btw the way, is the express purpose of the Commerce clause: the prevent states from imposing unfair trade practices with their fellow states in this union.

To summarize, the exchanges, designed and built by the incompetent friends of the Obama Administration, are completely unnecessary.  Allowing insurance companies, who already have online and brick and mortar stores, to manage the transition from unqualified insurance policies to ACA approved polices.

Lets face facts, insurance companies are not in the business of throwing away money.  If they were tasked to arrange and implement ACA back in 2010, you can be pretty much guaranteed to have a functioning, available, secure, and easy to use website and navigators that would make moving to CA seamless and pleasant, well except for the part about the cost and disgust over paying for services you will never use.

Ahh, politicians.  Can't live with them, can't deport them.

ObamaCare: Would You Buy That?

For the sake of argument, let's say that instead of buying health care reform, we were buying a new car.

Would you make payments for 6 months on a car that you've never seen, you don't know what options it comes with, and that has never been tested?

Then, after 6 months of payments, you may get to drive it, but only roads predetermined by someone else while continuing to make the payments that go up and up for 10 years. Everyone who doesn't buy a car will be fined. Finally, when everyone has the same car on fewer and fewer roads, you can't really drive it much because the car company wouldn't allow more fuel to be harvested.

That is an accurate picture of the health care bill that has been built for us by the back room bribery of the self-serving know-nothing brokers of ObamaCare.

Originally posted on 3/19/10 4:03 PM

UPDATE: I'm happy to include this news release from Senator George LeMieux's (R-FL) office as further evidence that nothing the president or the Democrats have used as a sales pitch for their health care reform (HCR) is reliable.

The day the president signed this HCR into law may well be remembered as one of the darkest days of this country, where the completion of the central government's usurping of states' power and Americans' freedom is nearly complete. Next up: Immigration, followed by Cap and Trade.

ObamaCare Passes: Progressives Have Change.

The US House of Representatives passed their health care reform legislation later last night. The progressives (i.e. liberals) have more of the change they have been looking for. They believe they are winners and are still using the GOP as a whipping kid.

Trying to share the blame, Nancy Pelosi said that "the vote may be partisan, but the bill is not as it has 300 Republican amendments". Of course she won't say what the GOP amendments are. That would allow Americans to verify her claim. But, since it's not true, and she is not truthful, we can take our cues from that.

With any luck, in November, we will replace many of these post-American politicians with some that will minimize the damage HCR will cause.

Kudos to Lanny Davis, Mostly...

I have to admit that I really do not care for many lawyers, especially those who help move the liberal agenda along with (what I consider) frivolous lawsuits. Lanny Davis, former special counsel to President Clinton, has earned new respect from me. He has written an editorial published at the Wall Street Journal's online edition where he takes America's progressives/leftists to task and blames them for the successful campaign of Senator Scott Brown (R, Massachusetts) . Read it HERE.

He rightly informs progressives that they did not lose due to a poorly run campaign by Democrat Martha Coakley as they claim. Instead they lost because of the message. That is one in a row for Mr. Davis.

Mr. Brown ran his campaign on stopping ObamaCare. That was the message. Mr. Brown knew, as did the voters, that ObamaCare is very similar to the universal health care program former Governor Romney signed into law. The voters did not like it, as the polls proved.

But my praise for Mr. Davis is short lived as he goes on to confuse the issue in the fashion of defense lawyers and especially lawyers supporting Democratic tax and spend programs . He says,

"According to polls, fears about the Democrats' health-care proposal played a prominent role in Mr. Brown's victory yesterday. In the last several months, the minority congressional Republicans have dominated the message on health care—and stamped on the Democratic Party the perception that we stand for big government, higher taxes, and health insecurity when it comes to Medicare."

While voters do fear the Democrats' completely partisan, bribe ridden, country busting, freedom destroying, health care plan, it was not because Republicans, congressional or otherwise, "dominated the message" and branded the Democratic Party as standing for big government, higher taxes, and health insecurity.

The fact is that the Democrats in government and in the news have earned the label of standing for big government, higher taxes, and health insecurity. They did not need Republicans to create this persona. They did it themselves.

And contrary to Mr. Davis' point of view, if the GOP had been dominating the news with their message, why it that only a very few know that the GOP had offered an alternative health care reform (HCR) plan? HERE

Did you even know that there is one? It's been around for almost a year now. And there are others from the GOP. The excuse used when anyone mentions the failure to report his newsworthy item is that the GOP is the minority and plan would go nowhere anyway, so why bother? Even O'Reilly from Fox News Channel makes this excuse.

Folks such as Mr. Davis routinely accuse the GOP of being the "party of no" in some Orwellian psychosis where they project their own MO at their opponents, while being careful to omit that there is an opposing plan, preventing Republicans from offering amendments to HCR

It is a well known fact that the legacy media (broadcast news such as ABC, NBC, CBS, & major newspapers), consist mostly of registered Democrats (85% at last count) and still enjoy the vast majority of viewers and readers. Much more than the few balanced or conservative radio and cable news and news talk shows. That being so, the legacy media always support their people in the Democratic Party and in government as much as they can get away with. This is the reason that many believe that the GOP have no plans, are undercutting HCR, and are only trying to prevent Democrats from doing anything for purely partisan reasons.

But Lanny does not stop here. He continues with a thorough rewrite of history. He injects a small truth, then lets the creative juices flow. He shows anyone who is paying attention that he cannot be trusted to be truthful on any subject.

In revamping President Clinton's re-election win, he states,

"He did so by creating a new ideological hybrid for a still-progressive Democratic Party: balanced-budget fiscal conservatism, cultural moderation, and liberal social programs administered by a "lean and mean government." This New Democrat combination appealed to Ross Perot independents concerned about deficits, and also to traditional Republican suburbanites who were culturally moderate on issues like abortion and gay rights but opposed to high taxes and wasteful, big-government bureaucracy."

President Clinton did no such thing. He was against the GOP's budgets, which brought him kicking and screaming to balance then surplus (for what it's worth). There nothing lean about government when he repeatedly (3 times) refused to sign a welfare reform act (beginning of the term "party of no") until one of his marketing agents warned he'd lose the election.

FYI Mr. Davis. "Liberal social programs" cannot be administered by a "lean and mean government." The two are polar opposites and are totally incompatible.

Mr. Davis,

"Then, in 2008, Barack Obama added something extra: a commitment to a "new politics" that transcended the "red" versus "blue" partisan divide."

I'm sorry, but Mr. Obama may have such an idea in his heart and may be able to articulate his well thought out marketing speeches, but he has yet to implement any such transition, paying only lip service to those high ideals.

"Obama's health-care proposal did not include a public option;"

You may call semantics if you like, but candidate Obama repeatedly professed suport for a single payer health care plan. A rose by any other name is still the public option.

"Bottom line: We liberals need to reclaim the Democratic Party with the New Democrat positions of Bill Clinton and the New Politics/bipartisan aspirations of Barack Obama"

I, as a conservative, can only hope and pray that Democrats are more open about their liberal ideology. As it is now, they hide behind the terms used by moderates when they are not moderate at all. If they follow your plan, Mr. Davis, they will finally come out of the closet and let the voters know who they truly are. Then we could vote for our representatives as opposed to the representatives of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party or the well monied special interests.

If Mr. Davis wants to find the real partisans, simply get a mirror.