Red Death Joins The Candidate-Protection Program

He said it.  For over a year he said it.  "If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it."  Which begged the question: If huge majorities of Americans do, in fact, like their existing health care plans and want to keep them, then wasn't ObamaCare a crappy solution in search of a non-existent problem?

The answer was the same for this boast as for "bending the cost curve" and "universal coverage" - it was bullshit.  It was ALL bullshit.  Huge majorities of Americans TOLD him it was bullshit.  He and the Pelosi/Reid Politburo rammed it down our throats anyway.

Behold the latest two groups to get shat upon.

***Red Barry's idea of "simplifying" the lives of senior citizens is to strip three million of them of their prescription drug coverage starting next year:

More than three million seniors may have to switch their Medicare prescription plan next year, even if they’re perfectly happy with it, thanks to an attempt by the government to simplify their lives.

The policy change could turn into a hassle for seniors who hadn’t intended to switch plans during Medicare’s open enrollment season this fall.

And it risks undercutting President Barack Obama’s promise that people who like their health care plans can keep them.

A new analysis by a leading private research firm estimates that more than 3 million beneficiaries will see their current drug plan eliminated as Medicare tries to winnow down duplicative and confusing coverage, in order to offer consumers more meaningful choices. Instead of 40 or more plans in each state, beneficiaries would pick from 30 or so.

“As a result of this policy, there are going to be fewer plans offered in 2011,” said Bonnie Washington, a senior analyst with Avalere Health, which produced the study. “There is still going to be robust choice for beneficiaries, but those who have to change plans could experience some disruption and inconvenience.”

You know what another adjective for "duplicative and confusing" is?  Competitive.  Here's an analogy: Let's say you want to go out to eat tonight.  Nothing fancy, just a burger somewhere.  But look how many places you can get burgers: McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Dairy Queen, Jack In The Box, Burger Chef, Red Robin.  You can also get burgers at sit-down restraurants such as Shari's and Denny's as well, plus all manner of local burger stands and drive-ins.  Speaking as something of a burger connaisseur, that says to me one word: choice.  Variety.  It's why every fast food chain has a dollar/value/combo menu, and why they're always coming up with something new and delicious and healthy.  More choices are good.  Fewer choices are bad.

Except to a Marxist.  Now imagine the federal government nationalizes the fast food industry and "gives" us "single-combo".  With Scheherezade running things, it'd be some sanitized veggie gyro or something with a plain mini-salad (no dressing) and a half-pint of skim milk.  That's it.  No condiments, no kid's toy, no salt (Oh, my GOD, no salt), no dessert.  For young, old, male, female, fat, skinny, that's what you'd get.  Oh, yes, and each combo would cost ten bucks.  And the golden arches would be replaced with the O.

Why?  Because all those choices are "duplicative and confusing," dontcha know.  We're not smart enough to weigh and evaluate all those "duplicative and confusing choices"; we might just make the "wrong" one.  So for our own good, Barack Obama will eliminate all those "duplicative and confusing" choices and make the "right" choice for us.  And if you don't like that, well, who said YOU had any choice in the matter, Nazi evilmonger scum?

A quarter of seniors' prescription drug choices disappear next year alone.  At that pace, by 2014 - The Year We Are Fully Assimilated - there'll be one choice: Barry's.  And we'll like it, because the "simplication" of servitude is better than all the bother of living as a free human being.

Did I mention senior citizens vote?  Like no other demographic?  And they're, shall we say, "highly motivated" this cycle?

***You know how the Obama Depression keeps bankrupting states, which keeps triggering federal bailouts, which keeps triggering more bankruptcies, which keep triggering more federal bailouts, ad nauseum?  Here's a fascinating ObamaCare casualty you probably never thought of as belonging among victims:

More than a fifth of the nation’s 5,000 hospitals are owned by governments and many are drowning in debt caused by rising health-care costs, a spike in uninsured patients, cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and payments on construction bonds sold in fatter times.

In other words, all the factors that O-Care is going to enormously exacerbate.

Because most public hospitals tend to be solo operations, they don’t enjoy the economies of scale, or more generous insurance contracts, which bolster revenue at many larger nonprofit and for-profit systems.

Local officials also predict an expensive future as new requirements—for technology, quality accounting and care coordination—start under the overhaul, which became law in March.

Moody’s Investors Service said in April that many standalone hospitals won’t have the resources to invest in information technology or manage bundled payments well. Many nonprofits have bad credit ratings and in a tight credit market cannot borrow money, either. Meantime, the federal government is expected to cut aid to hospitals.

“We’ve been hit by that whiplash recently, with industries closing down and the number of insured growing less,” said J.D. Mosteller, the attorney for Barnwell County, S.C., which is considering selling its hospital.

There is a lone ultimate fate for these municipal hospitals: They'll cease to exist.  Either they'll get unloaded into the private sector, where larger systems won't be able to afford to upgrade and/or renevate them will will probably shut them down; or they won't be unloadable, in which case they'll be terminated without that extra step.  Whoever owns them, public hospitals and clinics will become even more unsustainable because they're the ones stuck taking Medicaid patients - of which there's been a gusher increase of late - and government Medicaid reimbursement rates suck even worse than Medicare rates (sorry, they bend the cost curve even better than Medicare does), which is why public hospitals and clinics are unsustainable.

Of course we know what the endgame Obamunist solution to such amputation-lovin', tonsil'-wacking private doctor greed is, don't we?  Nationalize all private hospitals and clinics (on the same rationale as ObamaCare) and draft all doctors into government servitude.

Because it's so less....confusing and duplicative that way.

***So it's finally come to this:

“Unfortunately, there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in [the reform law] and what isn’t,” Sebelius told ABC News Radio in an interview Monday.

With several vulnerable House Democrats touting their votes against the bill, and Republicans running on repeal, Sebelius said “misinformation given on a 24/7 basis” has led to the enduring opposition nearly six months after the lengthy debate ended in Congress.

“So, we have a lot of reeducation to do,” Sebelius said.

The administration is particularly concerned about the views of senior citizens – who “have been a target of a lot of the misinformation,” according to the health secretary. 

Ensign Ed calls this "parody".  I don't.  I think Oberfuehrer Sebelius's choice of words is completely genuous and entirely deliberate.  They are the words borne of the totalitarian mindset that seeks to put over truth as lies and lies as the truth.  The public isn't buying the lies - never did, in fact - and the regime has grown so frustrated that I think they fully intend to "re-educate" the American public - forcibly, if necessary - into regurgitating the effusive, toadying praise Dr. Chicago wants to hear.

If the Pelosi Politburo is left in power for another biennium, nothing will stand in the way of it.  Which might be why the Donk view outside the Obabinet is just a little bit more nuanced:

Now, HCAN’s field crews are finding that the best way to support reform-friendly lawmakers is to talk about something else: jobs, the economy or other issues likely to resonate more with voters.

“We want to be flexible in talking about what is most relevant to constituents, whatever issues are most motivational,” said HCAN’s national field director, Margarida Jorge, who organizes a daily call with their partner organizations. “We can have a high level of focus on health care but also understand at times the focus is going to shift.”

HCAN activists say they are not dodging their key issue; rather, they want to keep pace with voter concerns, which have markedly shifted over the past year.

But what HCAN describes as a tactical shift, reform opponents see as proof that the law is unpopular, a loser for Democrats in a tough election cycle. “Voters don’t like health reform and they know that,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former CBO director who now works with the American Action Forum on their Operation Healthcare Choice project. “Independents are key to control; health reform is unpopular but jobs and economy could move votes. When it comes to substance, on health reform, they’re in bad shape.”

Remember: First the Obama/Pelosi/Reid Axis wanted to ram through ObamaCare because it would help the crummy economy; then they wanted to ram through ObamaCare because all the front-loaded and so-called "consumer-friendly benefits" would distract voters from the crummy economy; and now they want to talk about the crummy economy "Recover Summer" has made even worse to distract voters from Barack Obama's Landmark Signature Achievement.

They can't talk about the economy, they can't talk about O-Care, and they can't even demagogue Bush anymore.  If Democrats weren't flailingly denouncing the electorate they need to keep them in power as racists, bigots, sexists, homophobes, and Islamophobes, they'd all be mute as well as deaf.