National Socialism, American Style

Good Lord, if I hear one more person compare compulsory health insurance to compulsory car insurance my head will explode. If you want to compare ACA to anything "car" it is an after purchase WARRANTY, which is not required anywhere. Required car insurance is for causing damage to the property of others, not for replacing ball-joints.

Maybe they are just trying to soften up the conversation for when someone has the bright idea of forcing everybody to buy personal liability insurance as a consequence of being an American citizen. Personal liability insurance being the proper instrument to compare to automobile liability insurance.

If one wants to compare this latest American adventure into National Socialism to anything, it is the aspect that you think it is just fine for the government to force you, under threat of violence and loss of liberty, to do business with favored vendors of the bureaucrats who never met you and don't care one whit about your welfare.

Ⓐ Steve Ⓐ

The Next Excuse for Nationalized Healthcare

It has been about three years since the Affordable Care Act appeared before the President, after a questionable trip through the halls of Congress. One by one, the bullet points of the sales pitch have been skewered, only to be excused away through misstatements and flat out lies.

Here is a doozy, that you get to keep your policy if you like it.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  What the Obama administration is ruling is that any change in any insurance policy voids that policy and a new one, under new guidelines must be written.  That includes a policy that you like, but the bureaucracy does not like.  It is all for your own good, of course.

Here is the latest from CBS via Reason, and my prediction on how it will be explained away:

Millions Losing Insurance Because of Obamacare
October 29, 2013

CBS News has learned more than two million Americans have been told they cannot renew their current insurance policies -- more than triple the number of people said to be buying insurance under the new Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.
There have been estimates about hundreds of thousands of people losing coverage, CBS News' Jan Crawford reported on "CBS This Morning." CBS News has reached out to insurance companies across the country to determine some of the real numbers -- and this is just the tip of the iceberg, Crawford said. The people who are opening the letters are shocked to learn they can't keep their insurance policies despite President Obama's assurances to the contrary.
Source: CBS News. Read full article. (link)

For some reason, my Conservative and libertarian allies think this revelation will lead to something like repeal.  The masses will rise up and demand their representatives in Washington, DC "do something and fix this!"

Well, they are partly right.  They are just completely wrong about the "something" that will be done.  Here is what will happen:

• Insurance companies who are attempting to follow the law, by cancelling any policy that must be changed due to Obamacare, will be blamed for cancelling policies.
• Insurance companies that offer new policies, within the coverage and pricing guidelines the federal and State governments gave them, will be blamed for the pricing.

That is it, that is all, and nothing else will change.  Okay, maybe some bill will be floated that does not change a thing.

Of course, none of this would be a problem if all of this crony scaffolding were ripped apart and a Laissez-Faire approach were taken.

Ⓐ Steve Ⓐ