Jimmie Bise, CPAC pal and world famous blogger at The Sundries Shack, has imagineered our future healthcare enrollment interaction with the Imperial Government as the beloved vintage computer game, Zork.
Enjoy. It IS hilarious.
Healthcare.gov Enrollment, Zorkified
October 25, 2013 at 8:04 am (General Geekery, Hands Off My Healthcare)
If This Doesn’t Scare You, Nothing Will
September 19, 2013 at 12:52 pm (Hands Off My Healthcare)
H/T HotAir
Georgia Gets Almost $4 Million for Obamacare “Enrollment and Education”
August 16, 2013 at 9:06 am (Hands Off My Healthcare, Stupid Government Tricks)
From the Augusta Chronicle:
[…] HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced $67 million in grants to 105 groups across the country to help serve as navigators for consumers under the act, also known as “Obamacare.” The groups would provide outreach and education about new options for insurance under the law and provide in-person support to those who need help enrolling, Sebelius said.
In Georgia, that will be done under two groups – the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences and Cooperative Extension Service and the Structured Employment Economic Development Corp., also known as Seedco.
[…] Everyone working as a navigator must complete 20 hours of training that include an emphasis on data security and privacy laws, and then pass a test to get certified initially, said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the deputy director of policy and regulation at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at HHS.
In Georgia, however, a recently imposed law requires 35 hours of training and a criminal-background check, among other provisions, in order for navigators to be certified by the state. Zeldin said the additional hours of training would need to be completed by state Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens’ office and would need to be outlined soon.
UPDATE: It gets better. The navigators and any assisting staff won’t have to submit to a background check or even be fingerprinted. (End UPDATE)
Navigator… navigator… where… hmmm… it niggles my memory. Something about… darkness… and mist. Merlin? No… spice, maybe?
Oh, I remember now. (below the fold) Read the rest of this entry »
“If you like your health plan, you can keep it” – POTUS
February 5, 2013 at 3:09 pm (Hands Off My Healthcare)
Yeah, that’s what he said.
But according to information released today by the Congressional Budget Office:
President Obama’s health care law will push 7 million people out of their job-based insurance coverage — nearly twice the previous estimate, according to the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday.
CBO said that this year’s tax cuts have changed the incentives for businesses and made it less attractive to pay for insurance, meaning fewer will decide to do so. Instead, they’ll choose to pay a penalty to the government, totaling $13 billion in higher fees over the next decade.
Good times. Good times.
Obama Exchanges Turning into Disasters? Who Would’ve Thunk It?
January 31, 2013 at 7:24 am (Hands Off My Healthcare, Stupid Government Tricks)
(h/t The Daily Gator)
IBD:
The feds may not have provided an estimate of the cost of operating an exchange, but several other experts have. The results are eye-popping. According to Maryland’s Joint Committee on Health Benefit Exchange Financing, administrative costs alone will run the state an astounding $201 per person in 2015.
The auditing firm KPMG recently found that Ohio can expect to spend $63 million to set up its exchange and another $43 million each year to run it.
That’s not to mention the many logistical challenges inherent in serving the 9 million Americans expected to take part in the exchanges in 2014. States will need to provide customer service call centers, “navigators” to encourage enrollment, and elaborate information technology systems to coordinate data among the state, federal, and private groups involved in selling coverage.
Even if the feds and the states manage to surpass these hurdles, the new marketplaces are unlikely to fulfill one of their top promises — lowering premiums.
Read the whole thing. Thank Heaven that Georgia passed on this monstrosity.
UPDATE: Some families will be priced out of the market due to the government’s definition of “afforability.” Honestly, folks, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried!
UPDATE II: It gets worse. Crippling. Don’t even get me started on this illegal angle.
It’s a Tax, Stupid
June 28, 2012 at 11:39 am (Hands Off My Healthcare)
The Obamacare SCOTUS ruling came down today. The big take-away is that the mandate requiring all Americans to buy health insurance stood, but only as a tax, not as a provision of the Commerce or Necessary and Proper Clauses of the Constitution. Could this be the future of social legislation? Using the tax code to enforce/discourage certain behaviors/beliefs instead of the rule of law? Disturbing…
Initial reaction here. Much more to come.
Groundhog Day 2011
February 2, 2011 at 9:02 pm (Hands Off My Healthcare)
The Senate GOP failed to win repeal of Obamacare, losing on a straight party-line vote 47-51.
So six more weeks of death-panels. Great.
The New Civility Crumbles into the Same Ol’, Same Ol’ in 3…2…1…
January 19, 2011 at 9:58 pm (Hands Off My Healthcare, Obama Bad)
You knew it wouldn’t last.
Steve Cohen (D-TN) starts it off with a bang, comparing the GOP and Tea Party to Nazis. Niiiiice. He’s not sorry, either.
…the last time he stooped this low he tossed in a little joke about McCain looking like a Vietcong POW again when he stood next to Palin. That’s the mentality you’re dealing with here — exhibit 8,579 in what a sleazy fraud the left’s ostentatious handwringing over “civility” is.
Is there a corollary of Godwin’s Law that relates to the US Congress?
Regardless of the business-as-usual demagoguery, the House repealed the atrocious Obamacare 245-189, with three Democrats joining the GOP in the vote. The three Democrats were Reps. Dan Boren (OK), Mike McIntyre (NC) and Mike Ross (AR). They also opposed the law last year.
Now the bill moves to the Senate, that model body of decorum. Some Senate leaders have vowed to stall the bill. President Obama promises to veto any repeal of his pride and joy that reaches his desk.
Desperation breeds interesting bedfellows. Even now, the race card is being flung out – if you oppose Obamacare, you’re racist. Yep. You could set your watch on it.
I tell you, it all trickles down from the top. If the top guy doesn’t understand what is appropriate, how do you expect his devoted followers to behave?
Death Panels? What Death Panels?
August 17, 2010 at 9:46 pm (Hands Off My Healthcare, Obama Bad, Socialized Medicine, The S Word)
Remember when Obama miffed that his delicate sensibilities were bruised by the outcry against the perceived Obamacare “death panels?” By people who’d actually read the bill or understood the ramification of government intrusion into personal health decisions? Regarding Britian’s existing NHS:
When government controls all the resources and makes all the decisions, the “death pathway” is an entirely predictable result. Patients and their families no longer control the decisions made in health care, because they no longer control the compensation. Even if the “death pathway” doesn’t appear in the ObamaCare bill, the nationalization of heath care sets the stage for the kind of “comparative effectiveness” decisions that lead to its implementation.
Dig this:
The FDA has voted 12-1 to rescind its endorsement of Avastin, the world’s best selling cancer drug. Also a the drug of choice for colon cancer, it was approved for treatment of women with breast cancer that has spread in 2008.
The Avastin recommendation led to revived allegations that President Barack Obama’s overhaul of the US health care system would mean many would be denied treatments currently available.
During the debate, those opposed to the reforms cited Britain’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which decides whether new treatments should be made available on the NHS on the basis of cost effectiveness, as an example of the sort of drug rationing that amounted to a “death panel”.
David Vitter, the Republican Senator for Louisiana, said the FDA decision amounted to rationing health care.
“I shudder at the thought of a government panel assigning a value to a day of a person’s life,” he said. “It is sickening to think that care would be withheld from a patient simply because their life is not deemed valuable enough.
“I fear this is the beginning of a slippery slope leading to more and more rationing under the government takeover of health care that is being forced on the American people.”
By the way,
Breast cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death among US women, with 40,000 last year.
Ace gives it a flaming skull.
This is criminal. To avoid a difficult political debate — and the honest confession that “bending the curve” of Medicare costs to free up money for ObamaCare is going to require a lesser standard of treatment — the FDA is killing a safe and effective drug and thereby outlawing for anyone, including those who can be helped by this drug and no other, and who are paying for the drug with their own private insurance or own out-of-pocket money.
In other words: He is doing exactly what he vowed he would not. He is “equalizing” health access not by bringing up care for those who have little, but by reducing care by full might of federal legal power for those who have “too much.”
Moe Lane quantifies the decision in lives not saved, but lost.
Criminal, indeed.
