Repealing ObamaCare Costs How Many People Coverage?

Those who advocate the retention of ObamaCare are claiming highly exaggerated losses of coverage due to its repeal.  They assume that no new coverage will come into play upon its repeal.  HHS Secretary Burwell cited a claim that 30 million Americans will lose their coverage.  Many others are claiming that 20 million will lose their coverage.  These exaggerations are exactly as I predicted here.

First, as I noted here, only 11.1 million people were covered for the year in 2016, though 12.7 million signed up for coverage on ObamaCare health insurance websites.  They are very trusting people to sign up and to provide their social security numbers on those very incompetent exchanges.  But I digress.  The lower 11.1 million people number is found by adding up the monthly premium payments and dividing by 12.  But you can be sure that the advocates of ObamaCare use the 12.7 million number and have no regard for the fact that the 6 million who lost coverage due to ObamaCare are now proportional to the population growth as 6.1 million who would have been happy to stay on their old plans, especially now that they will have to soon make more changes due to the many instabilities that ObamaCare has introduced.  Subtract 6.1 million whose loss of insurance the ObamaCare advocates originally did not care about from 11.1 million and one has only 5.0 million on ObamaCare of new enrollees.

The ObamaCare insurance loss alarmists count all of the new enrollees on Medicaid compared to 2013 as being covered by ObamaCare as well.  As I noted here, of the 17 million new enrollees into Medicaid in 2014, only 3.3 million were newly eligible for coverage as a result of state expansions of Medicaid benefits as a result of ObamaCare.  It is clear that the claim that 30 million will lose their insurance comes from adding 17 million added people on Medicaid to 12.7 million who paid some portion of their premiums on ObamaCare purchased insurance in 2016.  It is also clear that this is a very dishonest number.

A more honest number is that of adding the additional 5.0 million insured under ObamaCare exchanges from the fully paid premium equivalent number to the 3.3 million added due to the expansion of Medicaid coverage by states under the ObamaCare law.  That gives us 8.3 million people.  But even that is dishonest.

Why?  One of the reasons this is dishonest because in 2014 alone employers dropped the health insurance coverage of 2 million people under their employer plans.  Small businesses alone dropped coverage for 2.2 million people as a result of ObamaCare and some unknown degree of reduction due to the super-extended poor growth Obama economy, some of which is also due to ObamaCare.  What is more, prior to ObamaCare, the number of people covered under employer plans had expanded year after year, so that growth in employer coverage was lost.  So, conservatively, we subtract another 2 million from the number of people who will lose coverage due to the repeal of ObamaCare.  We are now at 6.3 million people.

But in reality, these 6.3 million people will have the option to go without health insurance after the repeal, which may be wise if they are healthy or so rich that they can reasonably be self-insured.  In 2017, the wealthy will not be able to afford to lose 2.5% of their income to ObamaCare penalties, so they will have to buy ObamaCare health insurance no matter how little they need it, unless it is repealed.  Then ending ObamaCare will bring many employers back to offering insurance plans for their employees.  Many more cost effective private plans will come into existence, once the ObamaCare straitjackets are removed.  ObamaCare requires too many doctor visits and doctors offer much less treatment per visit since it was passed.  This is the usual practice with government-controlled health care.  It becomes very inconvenient, so people use it less and get less for the cost of the coverage.  Without ObamaCare, there will be a return to competition in the medical insurance market as well.  Most areas of the country now have only one or two insurers offering ObamaCare health insurance plans.  This is not good for costs.  High costs keep many from enrolling in health care insurance.

So, if the Republicans do nothing to replace ObamaCare, the net number of people losing health insurance will be fewer than lost it when ObamaCare was put in place.  If 6 million people happy with their insurance then did not matter, how can the advocates of ObamaCare claim that the less than 6 million people dependent upon ObamaCare will matter now.  In fact, the repeal of ObamaCare does not mean that those people added to Medicaid due to its expansion in some states will not continue to be covered by Medicaid in those states.  That 3.3 million people were almost entirely the responsibility of the states after 3 years under ObamaCare in any case.  2016 was the third year. Federal subsidy payments were scheduled to plummet in 2017 anyway.  This is why many states did not allow themselves to be hooked into expanding their Medicaid rolls.  So, the repeal of ObamaCare will actually result in fewer than 3 million people losing their health care insurance relative to the before ObamaCare number.

Only Democrat Socialists can get away with pretending that fewer than 3 million people are 30 million people or sometimes only 20 million people.  These are the same people who claimed that 47 million Americans were uninsured before ObamaCare and then in 2014 stopped counting the many millions of illegal immigrants as among those uninsured to make ObamaCare look as though it was much more effective in providing health insurance than it actually was.  Tricky Dicks, these socialists.  Too bad we do not have a free press willing to keep them honest.

ObamaCare Cost Increases in 2017

The Center for Health and Economy has released a study estimating the increased costs to taxpayers through the federal government in 2017.  ObamaCare premiums will be 22% higher in 2017, but the average monthly subsidy cost will go up by 26% from $291/month to $367/month.  The subsidy percentage increase is greater since incomes are losing ground relative to the premium increase.

The study says 11.1 million people per month are on ObamaCare in 2016 and this number is expected to increase to 11.4 million a month in 2017.  Of these 9.39 million in 2016 received tax credits and 9.65 million are expected to receive tax credits in 2017.  In 2016, 84.6% of the people on ObamaCare received a tax credit subsidy.  The study expects the same percentage in 2017. Clearly if you do not qualify for the tax credit subsidy, there is little likelihood that you will buy your health insurance through the ObamaCare exchanges.

The resulting increase in federal payouts from 2016 to 2017 is $9.8 billion.  The 2016 cost of the subsidies was $32.8 billion and the expected 2017 cost will be $42.6 billion.  The federal subsidies will therefore cost 29.9% more in 2017 than in 2016.  Those states that expanded their Medicaid rolls will also see large cost increases.

As an American, your health insurance premiums will go up, your deductible will likely go up, your co-pay will likely go up, your federal government costs will definitely go up, and in many states your state government costs will go up in 2017 thanks to ObamaCare.  Obama's transformation of America leaves those of us who are not subsidized with no hope.  Does it even provide hope to those who are subsidized as peons or serfs to the state?

The ObamaCare Disappearing Act

ObamaCare is not disappearing as a horse-collar around our necks, but it is disappearing as a provider of actual decent health care.  Many taxpayers are opting to pay the tax penalty rather than pay exorbitant health insurance premiums, only then to find out that the very high deductibles prevent them from using their health insurance at all.  Indeed, many with ObamaCare health insurance cannot afford to actually go to the doctor for health care after their impoverishment by the high premiums.  As a result, insurers operating in the ObamaCare exchange health insurance market are generally suffering huge losses.  Far too few healthy people are signing up for the ObamaCare abomination, while unhealthy people are signing up.

Consequently, Aetna, United Healthcare, Humana, and others have made huge reductions in the number of markets they plan to serve in 2017.  According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 31% of the counties in the U.S. will be served by only one insurer in 2017, while another 31% of the counties will have only two insurers under ObamaCare exchanges.  19% of enrollees will have but one insurer to choose from and another 19% will have only two to choose from.  Once again, an Obama promise to increase competition in the health insurance market turns out to be a lie. Yes, he might only have made a wrong prediction, but given the known history of his known lies, it is more likely that he knowingly lied about this as well.

As John Goodman has noted, the only plans that have avoided losses are those that offer services after the fashion of Medicaid and are operated by Medicaid contractors.  Medicaid level service is well known for its awfulness.  About 75% of the plans to be offered in 2017 are estimated to be for either Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) or Exclusive Provider Organizations (EPOs), according to a McKinsey & Co. analysis of regulatory filings for 18 states and the District of Columbia (reported in Wall St. Journal, 1 Sep 2016).  So only 25% of the plans will offer a wider choice of health care providers as are usually found in Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs).  About 15% of ObamaCare exchange users will have no choice of a PPO available to them at all.  This is another case of the falsity of the statement that "If you like your doctor (or hospital), you may keep him."

As recently as March 2015, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) was claiming that in 2016 there would be 21 million ObamaCare exchange enrollees.  However, in January 2016 the CBO reduced its estimate of 2016 enrollees by 8 million people to 13 million, of whom 11 million would receive subsidies.  What is more, the CBO, despite increasing tax penalities, expects the ObamaCare exchange enrollment to maximize at 16 million in 2018 and remain at that level through 2023, despite a growing U.S. population.  The White House has now projected an even lower level of 2016 exchange enrollees at 10.4 million.

For the 2014 tax year, 7.5 million taxpayers paid the ObamaCare penalty tax, which was far in excess of government estimates.  H&R Block said the average ObamaCare tax penalty was $172 in 2014. The average penalty paid in 2015, was up to $383.  While the IRS had released the information on the number of taxpayers paying the penalty for 2014 by early July 2015, that information does not seem to be available yet for the tax year 2015.  Perhaps it is too embarrassing to the Obama administration.

In the Fall of 2015, we knew that there were 10.5 million 2014 tax returns eligible for ObamaCare exchange insurance which did not claim having it.  12 million tax returns claimed exemptions from ObamaCare insurance, 5.1 million failed to check having qualifying insurance and paid no penalty tax, and 4.5 million taxpayer tax filings received ObamaCare subsidies.  Note that the number of taxpayers paying the ObamaCare fine or penalty tax exceeds the number of taxpayers receiving a subsidy by 3 million returns.  About 6% of taxpayers are covered by insurance under ObamaCare exchanges.

About 300,000 taxpayers in 2015 apparently paid the tax penalty despite being eligible for an exemption.  This is about all we know about 2015 tax returns on this subject.

According to the CBO, the 11 million receiving ObamaCare subsidies in 2016 represents 3.4% of the population of about 324.4 million people.  Many of these people had insurance without a subsidy prior to ObamaCare.

Much of the grief of the insurance companies is due to the fact that about 8 million fewer people have signed up for ObamaCare exchange health insurance in 2016 than had been projected in March of 2015 by the CBO and presumably by the health insurers.  These 8 million abstainers are generally much younger and much healthier than those who have signed up.  The premiums they were to pay were supposed to act like a transfer payment to those who had more health problems.  Even those who by age may be subject to more health problems, but are not now experiencing them, are often not signing up since they know they can do so whenever their health deteriorates.  Of course, such people used to actually pay for insurance because they could afford.  Thanks to ObamaCare many of them cannot afford it now, so they simply wait to sign up when they need it.

ObamaCare has lowered the quality of health care in the USA greatly.  It is now in large part limited to the low quality of Medicaid.  People on it have decreasing choices of doctors and hospitals, more limited care due to a greater need for cost-cutting, and they are excluded from many of the better hospitals and doctors, who rightly charge more for their services.  These terrible costs, as well as the terrible cost in our liberty, have been incurred in the name of a very small percentage of the population.  Meanwhile, 7.5 million taxpayers are paying ObamaCare penalty taxes for absolutely no value to their lives.  Another 2 million people are suffering under the higher premiums and deductibles of ObamaCare without getting any subsidy in return.

Prior to the passage of ObamaCare by an undemocratic Democrat dominated Congress and President, the justification in the socialist press was largely based on a claim that 47 million Americans had no health insurance.  Now we have ObamaCare and only some unknown fraction of the 13 million people on it in 2016 might have been without insurance if it did not exist.  We know from a McKensey & Co. survey in April 2014 that only 22% of the enrollees then signed up and who had paid their premiums had been previously uninsured.  If we suppose that the number of previously uninsured on ObamaCare is now 30%, that number is only 3.9 million people or 1.2% of the population.  The claim that a problem for 47 million people was to be addressed was almost certainly more than a ten-fold exaggeration.

It is a very sad commentary on Americans that they have not insisted on making this abysmal boondoggle a much greater factor in the 2016 elections than they have.  The self-ownership of our minds and bodies deserves much more diligent attention, as does the destruction of much of our health care system.

13 Nov 2016 Update:  Very late in the 2016 election campaign, Trump finally started to make a consistent issue of ObamaCare.  Had he not done so, it is easy to speculate that he would not have won in several of the states in which his margin of victory was very slender.

The Failed ObamaCare: Lost Issue of the Presidential Race

Unfortunately, the Republicans have once again chosen a presidential candidate who is unable to and uninterested in fighting a major suppression of individual rights, namely the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act known as ObamaCare.  This big government effort to claim the collective ownership of everyone's mind and body should still be a critical issue with those of us who value our liberties.

The American Enterprise Institute has produced a series of articles about the failures of parts of the ObamaCare Act.  The latest article (1 August 2016) says about the cooperatives set up by ObamaCare:

Twenty-three plans, funded with $2.4 billion in government loans, opened enrollment in 2013. By the end of 2015, 12 plans had failed, leaving $1.3 billion in delinquent loans, more than 700,000 people in 13 states scrambling for coverage, and hospitals and doctors with hundreds of millions of dollars in losses uncovered by the assets of the failed co-ops.

This result is hardly surprising. The people running the co-ops had no experience running an insurance company — co-ops were forbidden to have anyone affiliated with insurers on their boards. Their premiums were too low and their benefits too high. The failed co-ops went on to lose $376 million in 2014 and more than a billion in 2015. Only one co-op turned a profit in 2014, and all lost money in 2015. 

The complete article is here.

ObamaCare Continues to Lose Altitude with Crash Inevitable

The biggest problem with ObamaCare is the loss of the fundamental ownership of your own mind and body. ObamaCare is primarily a declaration that no one has individual rights. According to the ObamaCare philosophy one is nothing but an infinitesimal part of the Collective. Some persons in the Collective did not have health insurance or had health insurance that was not approved by the Regressive Elitists who controlled the government with a claim as benevolent caretakers for the unwashed masses  such as you and me.  That claim bears a great similarity to that of the aristocracy of medieval times to the Divine Right of Kings and Aristocrats justified by their supposed service to the People.

ObamaCare caused millions of Americans to lose the insurance they were happy with.  They were forced to pay higher premiums, higher deductibles, travel greater distances, and accept lower quality health care than they previously had. A recent Mercatus Center study reveals that qualified individual health plans had claims to premium income ratios of 1.10 in 2014, while non-qualified individual health plans had claims to premium income ratios of 0.83.  The group qualified health insurance claims to income ratio was 0.82.  To cover the cost of claims, individual qualified health insurance plans would have to have had premiums about 30% higher than they were.  Many insurers have stopped offering ObamaCare qualifying individual health insurance plans in many states due to these unsustainable losses.  Those who have continued to offer plans have done so with some combination of increased premiums, increased deductibles, and narrower and narrower networks of providers.  In many areas of the country, patients have to travel much greater distances for the limited health care their health insurance provides.

The chart above is from a Kaiser Family Foundation report of November 2015.  The average percentage of uninsured less than the age of 65 in the pre-recession years 2000 to 2007 is 16.5%.  The 2014 uninsured rate for the non-elderly population, including illegal aliens, has been reported to be down based on interviews.  In January 2014, a Gallup poll found that 16.1% were uninsured.  In September 2014, the New York Times reported that the number of uninsured fell by 8% in the first quarter of 2014 compared to 2013, which would make the percentage of uninsured about 15.4% or only 1.1% less than the pre-recession average for 2000 through 2007. A CDC study based on interviews from January to September of 2014, claimed the nonelderly uninsured rate was 13.3%.  The government has a history of exaggerating the insured rate of coverage since ObamaCare was passed and people now have reason to fear telling a government agent that they do not have qualified health insurance, so the federal interview technique may be inclined to return a low value for the uninsured. In addition, having been forced to sign-up for health insurance many do not want and do not think they can afford, many do not actually pay their insurance premiums.  The only reliable way to determine how many people are insured is after the year is over and the insurance companies report on how many they had insured, but such data does not yet seem to be available.  ObamaCare supporters often like to attribute the decrease in the uninsured due to the glacially slow recovery from the Great Recession to ObamaCare, so this reference to the fairly stable uninsured rate prior to the recession is important if one is not to overstate the effect of ObamaCare on reducing the percentage of uninsured.

Many of the newly insured are actually those wealthy enough that they had very reasonably self-insured themselves and their loved ones, but are now forced by ObamaCare tax penalties to buy the insurance they did not need.  The very small reduction in the uninsured was also accomplished in large part because the rates being charged in 2014 were much too low and unsustainable.  Premium rates went up dramatically in 2015 and again in 2016, and will go up dramatically again in 2017, even as deductibles have continued to rise for many and health insurance choices have greatly diminished.  Some large insurers in Georgia are planning 65% premium increases in 2017, while some in Pennsylvania plan increases of 38%, some in New Mexico 32%, and some in Oregon 30%.

That small 2014 decrease in the uninsured rate will not be maintained. Young and healthy people cannot continue to subsidize less healthy people by taking on ever-rising insurance premiums they cannot afford even as they cannot benefit from the insurance for many of their health needs because they have insufficient money left to also pay the ever-increasing deductibles.   Even in 2014, the young and healthy were failing to provide the support to ObamaCare that it critically needed and their rapidly rising health insurance costs will inevitably result in more and more healthy people choosing the ObamaCare tax penalty over qualified health insurance.  Meanwhile, many insurance companies are trying to sue the government to make the government cover their losses.  The only way these insurers are likely to be reimbursed their losses is if the Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives.


ObamaCare was always insane and unsustainable, as programs tend to be that ignore the essential fact of the individuality of humans and their sovereign individual rights.  Just as the aristocracy of Medieval times failed most of the people most of the time, so are the Regressive Elitists of our time failing most of the people most of the time.  It is impossible for self-proclaimed elitists to competently manage the lives of those they do not even know.  Just as the aristocracy of Great Britain failed to manage the American colonies competently in the 1760s and 1770s, our hone-grown aristocratic elitists of the Obama era cannot manage the health needs or anything else essential to the American individual of today.  A real Declaration of Independence from a government dominated by a self-proclaimed aristocratic elite and their chosen special interests, such as the health insurance companies who in 2009 backed ObamaCare, is long overdue in the struggle for the interests of the individual and his much maligned sovereign rights.

Ambiguity, Context, Legislative Deference, and State Emasculation in King v. Burwell ObamaCare Decision

This is my belated rational analysis of the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision to approve federal tax subsidies for health insurance exchanges mandated under ObamaCare whether they were established by the state or not in the King v. Burwell case.  I am not a lawyer.  I am simply a man who regards the protection of individual rights as the sole legitimate role of government, as stated wonderfully in the Declaration of Independence.  A very limited government consistent with that goal of legitimate government was mandated by the People in the Constitution of the United States of America.

The first Supreme Court decision on the infamously falsely named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was NFIB v. Sebelius.  The NFIB challenged the use of a fine or penalty fee to force individuals to buy only such particular health insurance plans as were approved by the federal government.  Congress had insisted at the time of passage of this bill that the individual penalty fee was not a tax.  The majority 5-4 decision that upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate was based on the bizarre claim that Congress had the power to tax.  Since the penalty fee was really a tax and was not a penalty fee according to the court decision, the individual mandate was within the powers of Congress to impose.

To this day, the Supreme Court designated tax is still called a penalty fee, a fine, and a shared responsibility payment by the federal government, rather than the tax that was falsely ruled constitutional by dropping the context of the taxing power in the Constitution. The power to tax was exlusively for use in exercising the very limited and strictly enumerated powers that promptly follow the power to tax in the structure of the text of the Constitution.  If the federal government were allowed to do anything it wants under the power to tax, there was no need to enumerate its limited powers to provide for the national defense, handle foreign affairs, establish a federal court system and a postal system, establish post roads, bankruptcy law, patent law, naturalization law, and uniform weights and measures.  Note the lack of any authority to establish health care or health insurance laws.  Now remember this lack of context in the case of the Supreme Law of the Land as we discuss this King v. Burwell decision which hangs so heavily on what it claims is context.

Basically, the decision concludes that ObamaCare "includes more than a few examples of inartful drafting."  Of course those of us who paid attention to the process by which it "became law" understand that it was slapped together with undue hast, without any attempt to rationally evaluate its effects and self-consistency, and without being read by most of those Democrats who voted for it.  In fact, we are not sure that a single voter actually read it.  But, we do know that a number of those who did thought that only those in states that chose to establish an ObamaCare exchange would be eligible for federal subsidies for health insurance plans on those state exchanges.  This was supposed to help convince the state governments to cooperate with the ObamaCare law or get them in trouble with those who would be deprived of the subsidies.

The context of this history was ignored by the Supreme Court in its decision, but its decision starts with the very political and historical assessment that

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act grew out of a long history of failed health insurance reform.

Indeed, it goes on to discuss a series of state efforts at reform and concludes that it is necessary for a successful health insurance law to provide that:

1.  It must have guaranteed issue.
2.  It must have a community rating requirement.
3.  It must require an individual mandate or impose a tax on non-compliant individuals.
4.  It must provide subsidies to make the insurance affordable for low income persons.

Deciding what successful health insurance reform is might be a legislative power, if it were even that and it is not, but most certainly is not a power granted to the federal courts.  Nonetheless, this Supreme Court has decided that this is a part of the context which it will apply as a critical element in its argument that ObamaCare is legal.  This is a purely political decision.

The decision claims that there is ambiguity in the oft repeated phrase "an Exchange established by the State under [42 U.S.C. Section 18031]" due to context.  The dissenting opinion disagrees on this.  If the state does not establish an ObamaCare exchange, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is directed to establish "such Exchange."  The word "such" is loaded with the meaning that whether the exchange is established by the state or by the federal government, those exchanges are interchangeable for all purposes of the law.  Now this is a major case of cherry picking a meaning for the word "such" and loading it with massive interpretive import, especially in the context of a bill which "includes more than a few examples of inartful drafting."  That is a form of context-dropping.  The court claims that this is providing context, nonetheless.

There is also a reference that the act provides that tax credits "shall be allowed" for any "applicable taxpayer."  In this case the majority decision chooses to interpret "applicable taxpayer" as one who meets the income requirement but the word applicable does not apply to whether the taxpayer is in a state with an applicable state-established exchange.  Well, who knows what this means?  It is a badly written bill, full of "inartful drafting."

There is also a reference that directs all exchanges to make an effort to inform individuals about the subsidy program.  Politically, this was known to be a part of the effort to bring pressure on states to establish an ObamaCare exchange.  If they did not do so, the federal exchange would broadcast to those who did not get the subsidy what their state had taken from them and put pressure on the state to cooperate with the law to reduce its costs to the federal government by creating and managing the exchange.  It did not work out this way because so many states refused to set up state exchanges that the Obama administration had the IRS rule that subsidies would be available in all states.  This was needed to tamp down the rebellion.

With the claim that there is ambiguity, the court says that the issue is so loaded with "economic and political significance" that Congress could not have intended that the interpretation be provided by the IRS.  So, the Supreme Court concluded that the interpretation should be provided by the Supreme Court with all of its expertise on economic and political issues.  A rational individual would conclude that if this really is ambiguous, then the Supreme Court should defer to Congress and announce that this critical provision in the ObamaCare law is ambiguous and unintelligible.  It should say if Congress wants the federal courts to enforce a health insurance reform law with subsidies, then it is the duty of Congress to eliminate the ambiguity by passing a new law to remove that ambiguity.  It is critical that laws have intelligible meaning.  But no, there is no deference to Congress and the separation of powers, not even in the context of the incredible change in the Congress resulting from the people's fury over the passage of the ObamaCare law.  This court does not want the new representative resulting from democratic choice of the people to have a say in the correction of the faults of the ObamaCare law.  Clearly, the Progressive Elitist view of the Supreme Court is stronger than that of the present Congress, so the decision must stay in the Supreme Court to insure their desired political and economic outcome.

This court ruling has also had the effect of much further reducing the power of state governments.  Their refusal to participate in a federal program which many of them thought correctly was unconstitutional and unworkable was swept aside.  These state governments were not to be allowed to protect their residents from any of the many harms of the rightfully unpopular ObamaCare law.  The Supreme Court ruled that there was to be no opting out of the health insurance reform bill which it had decided was a politically and economically highly desirable reform.

The Supreme Court has once again defied the Constitution, rational law requirements, the democratic expression of the People, and our sovereign individual rights to life, liberty, property, self-ownership, and the pursuit of our happiness.

Give Up Your Life Day

Well, it is once again Tax Day and once again the federal government and most state governments have confiscated many of the productive hours of each of our individual lives.  The more hours you chose to work and the more your productivity was recognized by others in trade, the more progressively the hours of your life were stolen from you.  The politicians and bureaucrats used this ill-gotten plunder to buy votes, to live the good life themselves, and to relish their success as our overlords.

Not content with just claiming many of the productive hours of our lives, this is the first year in which the claim that the government owns our minds and bodies generally has appeared on the tax forms.  See Line 61 below:

By virtue of government ownership of every American's body and mind, it claims the right to dictate how every individual will maintain their property in trust for the government, unless that individual pays tribute to the Mongol Horde in order to maintain a pretense of self-ownership.  Of course, self-ownership should mean the payment of tribute was not necessary.  So, there really is no way to maintain the exercise of one's sovereign right to self-ownership within the borders of the United States.  All payment of the tribute or the purchase of ObamaCare approved health insurance does is to cede one's right to self-ownership.  The government claims you must cede self-ownership one way of the other.

Did you know that 8 out of 10 tax filers in 2013 received a tax refund?  Did you know that in 2012 the typical tax filer received a tax refund of about $3,000?  Clearly this happens because the government provides tax tables to employers that demand over-withholding from income and few people adjust their allowances to eliminate this severe over-withholding.  It is clear that this does two things the wily government plunderers love:

• The government gets a large interest-free loan from most taxpayers.
• Most taxpayers are distracted by their refunds from the larger sum of money plucked from their hides.

Interestingly, if the taxpayer in any year should happen to owe the government $1000 or more and that sum is more than 10% of the total tax owed, the government demands an interest payment of 1.995%!  This is not a two-way, mutually respectful relationship.  It is clear that the government is the master and the taxpayer is the servant!

You might think you might just ignore the tyrannical Line 61 claim of government ownership of your body and mind, but the government will take the tribute out of your tax refund, if you have one.  I have heard it said that if you arrange to have no tax refund, unlike 80% or more of the filers, then the government cannot force you to pay the tribute, which they call a shared responsibility payment in the IRS 1040 Instruction publication.  But, the 1040 Form lumps it under the heading of Other Taxes, consistent with Chief Justice John Roberts absurd rationale for declaring ObamaCare a tax, even after it had been insisted over and over during the passage of ObamaCare that it was not at all a tax on the Middle Class.  ObamaCare was passed on the basis of innumerable lies.  This phrase "Shared Responsibility Payment" is most explicitly collectivist and makes it very clear that at most each individual owns only some portion of his own life and mind and body.  That portion is always subject to being reduced so long as the law that reduces the number of shares the individual holds in his own life is accompanied by a tax.  This is the Chief Justice John Roberts ruling.  The presence of a tax in a law allows the law to deprive the individual of any individual right, except insofar as that right is most explicitly spelled out in the Amendments to the Constitution and the courts choose to recognize that right in a reasonably broad manner.

Let us suppose you decide to ignore the abhorrent Line 61 and you have no tax refund coming or it is very small. You might think you are home free. Not necessarily. The IRS has a Catch-22 for almost anything. They may not be able to answer your phoned in question or if they do answer it, you may be more likely to be given the wrong answer than the right one and you will be 100% responsible for "your" error.  There is no sharing of responsibility in this.  But, there are a people in the IRS who are quite cunning and out to get you. So, how do they get you in this case? Did you know that the IRS may impose a penalty of $5,000 on top of any other penalties for what they deem a frivolous return? See page 92 of the Form 1040 Instructions:

"A frivolous return is one that does not contain information needed to figure the correct tax  or shows a substantially incorrect tax because you take a frivolous position or desire to delay or interfere with the tax laws.  This includes altering or striking out the preprinted language above the space where you sign." 

The IRS will brook no challenge to its role as Master.  It will not allow you the "right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" on your tax form filings.  The First Amendment is of no concern to the IRS, though we might think the IRS was a part of the Government.  But then we have all too clearly seen how this IRS does not believe in freedom of speech at all, with its vendetta against Tea Party and Constitution Education organizations.  The IRS makes it very clear that it is an enemy of the Constitution!  It is also very clear that the IRS and the Obama Regime are explicitly enemies of all of our individual rights, including the most fundamental right of all, self-ownership!

Mid-Term National Elections Have Fewer Uninformed Voters - Let Us Have More Mid-Term Elections

Only a small fraction of the US adult population know who the first President of the United States was.  No, I am not even talking about the first President under the 11 years of the Confederation of the United States.  I am saying they cannot name George Washington as the first president.  Most also do not know that we gained our independence from Great Britain, cannot name the original 13 states, do not know who the combatants were in the War of 1812 or in World War I, do not know the enumerated powers that Congress has under the Constitution, do not know how many justices serve on the Supreme Court, and have a greatly exaggerated idea of the powers of the President under our Constitution.

Now we ask these same people to follow and understand the operations of their local and state governments and of the federal government and cast an informed vote at least every two years.  Is there even a bit of realism in such an expectation?  The Framers of the Constitution certainly knew there were limits on the wisdom and knowledge of the People.  They were fully aware of the short lifespans of earlier democracies.  Indeed, they believed a short lifespan and great instability was a characteristic of any democracy.

Ben Franklin said:

Democracy... Is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.

John Adams said:

Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

The Framers of the Constitution were familiar with mobs in the streets, which we still have to this day in Ferguson, Missouri and not long ago had in many cities, such as Watts, California.  But 1789 and the 124 years that followed, government was much simpler to understand.  Government still paid attention to the enumerated powers of the Constitution.  The power to tax in order to fulfill the functions enumerated had not become a power to do anything which might be supported by a tax.  ObamaCare was recently ruled by the Supreme Court to be justified because it was so supported by a tax.  The interstate commerce regulation authority had not then been expanded to allow the regulation of all commercial activity.  The power and scope of government were much smaller then.  This was not only at the federal level, but also at the state and local level.  Yet, the People were not to have their intelligence and their diligence to inform themselves so taxed that they were to choose their own Senators.  Until 1913, Senators were chosen by state legislatures, which represented a body of people who were more interested in and informed about government.

Because so many of the People have an exaggerated expectation of the power of the President and so few appreciate the real power of Congress, they turn out to vote in much larger numbers for presidential national elections than they do for the mid-term elections.  Let us examine the voter turnout in the last few elections:

2014, 36.3%
2012, 53.6%, presidential
2010, 37.8%
2008, 56.8%, presidential
2006, 37.1%
2004, 55.3%, presidential
2002, 37.0%
2000, 51.3%, presidential

The average presidential year turnout was 54.25%, while the mid-term election turnout was 37.05%.  In presidential election years the turnout is 17.2% higher on average.  The significance of this is more readily seen by noting that presidential elections have 1.46 times as many voters.  I would maintain that in a presidential election year this means that for every 3 voters there is one voter who is less informed than the average voter in a mid-term election.

We made the federal government excessively democratic when we made Senators stand for popular election in 1913.  This also decreased the power of the states in the state - federal balance of power.  This loss of state power is now clearly seen to be ill-advised and has greatly contributed to the political divisiveness of the present times.  While I think it would be wise to remove the 17th Amendment that unbalanced our federal system of government, there is more that we can do to rectify the ills that plague our federal government.

Government is now so powerful, so into everyone's pocket and business, that it is no wonder that even fairly intelligent people do not have the time or the will to devote effort to understanding what it is doing and what the consequences of those actions are.  Even full-time politicians are overwhelmed and uninformed.  Just in the last day or so, Obama said in a press conference that he had just become informed that Jonathan Gruber had spoken about how the framers of the PPACA, more accurately the Patient Subjugation and Unaffordable Care Act, had purposely deceived the voters, who Gruber called stupid in a too forthright admission of the Progressive Elitist assessment of others.  Of course, that infamous bill was passed by a Democrat Congress few, if any, of whose members who had read the bill.  Other such examples abound.  So if the full time politicians are so uninformed, how can the People generally be expected to make rational choices at the polls?

The present system of too much democracy has led us into a morass of tyrannical government.  People vote on the basis of their wishes after buying into undeliverable promises by politicians.  They do not critically evaluate the promises for their supportability or their consequences.  To be sure, some major element of democracy is unavoidable if one is to avoid a tyranny of an oligarchy or of a despot.  So, how can we adjust the system modestly so that the People may still exercise their vote and make their corrections to the system?

I propose that we have more mid-term elections and fewer presidential elections.  Let us allow a President one and only one six-year term of office.  With government as complex as it is today, the demands placed on a President are much greater than they were in the early years of our Republic.  Yet, when I read biographies of our early Presidents, even with much smaller governments, they were extraordinarily busy men, beset with huge burdens of worries.  Most who served even four years in office were worn out.  Eight years in office is too much for mortal man and very few of our Presidents are really extraordinary men.  They come into office with a few core ideas and those that are politically palatable are commonly put into place in the first couple of years they are in office.  After that they seem to tire out, run out of ideas, and certainly lose touch with the People.  At the end of six years, it is time to send them back to their plows.

Yet, it is not the worn-out President that is the chief reason for this proposal.  The chief reason is that having two mid-term elections for every presidential election would tend to keep that one out of three voters who is least informed away from the polls for two elections for every time they vote.  Everyone who is a citizen would still have the right to vote just as often, but he would have to motivate himself to come to the polls even when no one was up for the office of the now Imperial Presidency.  This would give us more of the outcomes for smaller government that the 2014 and 2010 elections provided.  This would give us a less tyrannical set of governments at all levels of government, since it is clearly the less informed and less motivated voters who are most susceptible to the empty promises of politicians who would grow the governments at the expense of the private sector and our individual rights.

Frankly, it would help to diminish the power of the Democratic Party, the party Franklin and Adams might name the Murder or Suicide Party.  Government is never a proper means of association unless it is necessary that force be used and supplant voluntary cooperation.  Whenever an individual asserts his individual rights as justification for not obeying the dictates of government, government replies that it is ready to use deadly force to command obedience.  When government fulfills its legitimate function of protecting individual rights and does no more, there is no conflict with the rational individual.  But when government tries to take the life, or the hours of the life, or the income of one's work, or the property acquired through prior work, it is actively using force to deprive one of what is one's by right.

Such governments are prepared to murder citizens and in so doing or threatening to do, they do great harm to many of the People.  They are weakening the society.  Big Governments put different groups with special interests at one another's throats and cause a general breakdown in cooperative, private sector associations.  Such governments murder some minorities and even the more favored minorities suffer the general losses due to a weakened society.  In the end, a society so ruled commits suicide.

The Patient Subjugation and Unaffordable Care Act and Progressive Elitism

As the time nears when Americans are once again being forced to sign-up for government approved health insurance plans, a string of pithy quotes by Jonathan Gruber, a chief contributor to the creation of the near-secret PPACA bill, baldly state that stupid Americans were easily manipulated into subjugating themselves to this law.  In fact most Americans have always opposed this law and very many were always angry that the Congress did not construct a bill of such a critical nature with due deliberation and discussion.  It did not even read the bill, as famously noted by Nancy Pelosi with her statement that the bill had to be passed so that it might be read!  It is true that Americans had been duped into providing the Democrat Socialist Party the presidency, a super majority in the Senate, and a majority in the House of Representatives.

All one had to know about the bill to oppose it was that individuals were no longer to be free to choose what medical care would be covered in their health insurance plans.  With some thought, some even realized that the basis for a government claim for the authority to dictate how an individual would maintain his mind and body, was a highly collectivist claim that government had a right of ownership in every individual's mind and body.  This is an appalling claim to anyone who understands and values the equal, sovereign right of every individual to life, liberty, property, the ownership of one's own mind, body, and labor, and to the pursuit of one's own happiness.  The government's denial of individual self-ownership is chilling and brutal.  This denial was a chief aim of the many Progressive Elitists in leadership positions in the Democrat Party, in academia, and in much of the media.

In the cause of achieving this universal claim of collective ownership of every individual's mind and body, the Progressive Elitists are highly united.  They often agree that lying, misdirection, bribery, and fraudulent voting are all very acceptable means to achieve the end of collectivism which they value above all else.

Progressive Elitists often state that everyone is morally obliged to sacrifice their own interest for, as they like to say, "the least among us."  This is not only a moral claim in their minds, but it is a license for the use of government force to make everyone give up their own interest in favor of someone the Progressive Elitist believes to be in need, either materially or mentally.  This claim of subjugation to the needs of "the least among us" has become more and more common on the part of Progressive Elitists.

There is a tradition and still a strong following among Progressive Elitists for the notion that government is the moral enforcer of the so-called pragmatist claim that the greatest good for the greatest number defines morality.  When real moral principles are deemed too hard to formulate, to defend, and to live by, such a weak nostrum is about all a society can fall back on, excepting religion and the commonly related divine right of Kings and their aristocratic and ecclesiastic enablers.  To be sure, the American Progressive Elitist does view the President as a King-like figure and themselves as the aristocratic and ecclesiastic enablers.

They also claim to be proponents of democracy, though that claim is modulated by their constant belief that most Americans are stupid, as was so clearly revealed in the Jonathan Gruber and Nancy Pelosi comments.  This was earlier revealed in Obama's claim that most Americans cling foolishly to their guns and religion.  That he also sees himself as a king is very apparent in his saying as President he can do anything he wants and in his continuing violations of the Rule of Law.

Progressive Elitists are in a bind given that they purport to support democracy, yet they think the People are mostly incapable of choosing their own values, managing their own lives, and of voting correctly as envisioned by the Progressive Elitists.  They must find a way to manipulate the unwashed masses to vote in a manner that will allow the Progressive Elitists to actually dominate and control the government.  Because the Progressive Elitist is sure that she knows what is best for the masses, deception through any combination of lies and misdirections is justified.  We have seen this in spades with the PSUCA (see title) or the Patient SuckA.

How do the Progressive Elitists enlist support from the People in democratic elections?  Usually it is by claiming that they are for all the People except the Rich or that they are the champions of the Middle Class.  In this way they are hoping to gain the support of the majority and they will commonly promise this majority enough special favors to try to win them to their cause.

Among their many deceptions is the idea that it is possible to achieve the greater good of the greater number through laws that affect many of our moral choices.  Perhaps it is the in-supportability of this idea that has actually pushed more and more Progressive Elitists toward the claim that government is obliged to primarily pursue the interests of "the least among us," though this claim is usually made to fellow highly educated people they expect to be fellow elitists.  The practical problem of achieving political power is complicated if the Progressive Elitists actually ask the Middle Class to give up its own interests.  This is not an easy sell.

Why is this notion of the greatest good for the greatest number unachievable?  If force is to be used to transfer some value from some to others and yet a majority has to be enlisted to support that use of force by the government, then it is not easy to have a big enough pool of victims from whom enough can be extracted to provide a noticeable benefit to the majority except when the majority is not much greater than the victimized minority.  So, on one issue the beneficiaries might be 60%, on another 55%, and on another they may be 80%.  If the beneficiaries are randomly chosen, the chance any one individual was benefited on all three issues is only 0.264.

If these same issues were left to the private sector, most people might very easily arrange their affairs to benefit on each of the three issues or at least not to be hurt on any of them.  Surely on all of the issues before our Big Government now, a transfer to the private sector would commonly allow individuals to achieve 70 to 90% of their values.  In the private sector one has the added critical advantage that force cannot be used to make you enter into a trade that you do not think is in your own best interest.  In the government sector a victim is required and force must be threatened to make the victim yield his time, his income, or his wealth up to the Progressive Elitist re-distributor.

Now to be sure, the Progressive Elitist program does not aim to distribute the benefits randomly.  Some people are supposed to be the ones who are commonly to bear the hurt, in theory.  In practice, Big Government is little more controlled by the Progressive Elitists avowed agenda than it is a true expression of the democratic will of the majority of the People.  As I have noted over and over, Big Government is so vast and complex that the People do not understand what is going on and they commonly feel powerless to control it.  Even few, if any, Progressive Elitists can understand and follow the full scope of government actions.  This was richly illustrated in their contingent of full-time politicians voting for the PSUCA without reading it and later having to admit that they knew little about it.

Progressive Elitists who are not actually corrupt are also overcome by those who are corrupt and a multitude of special interests who fill the power vacuum to manipulate some government policies of particular interest to themselves.  Big Government becomes mostly a government not of and for the People, but one of and for the Special Interests.  Contrary to the claims of the Progressive Elitists, this is not correctable by electing or appointing better Progressive Elitist managers.  Indeed, the Progressive Elitists who see themselves as managing government actually have to turn to Special Interests for help in writing the laws which control actions in the private sector they do not themselves understand.  This happens all the time.  Some Special Interests are happy to do this for them so that they can design a law that gives them special favors or at least costs smaller companies, their future competitors, more to abide by than it costs them.  Complex laws and regulations tend to suppress smaller, hungrier competitors very well.

ObamaCare certainly has rewarded many special interests while depriving many individuals of the health insurance plan they wanted, the doctor they wanted, the convenience of using a hospital near them, and the weight of often much more expensive plans especially if a young male, but also for anyone who was healthy.  The AARP was among the heavily rewarded special interests, as were some other insurers.  So were many hospitals since many doctors had to give up their private practices and join hospital and clinic groups due to the computer records and financial pressures of ObamaCare.

Government can be designed so that it only acts in all of our interests.  There is only one way this can be achieved.  Government must be allowed only the power to protect the one value we all share.  That value is our individual rights.  This was recognized in our great Declaration of Independence.  A government so limited in power and scope was mandated by the People in our Constitution.  Unfortunately, the Progressive Elitist program has long required the effective destruction of the protections of our Constitution, for as Obama famously stated it is a roadblock to the redistribution of wealth and favors.  The Constitution stood in the way of his Progressive Elitist transformation of America.  Now the Obama Regime simply ignores it and any law they do not like.

Because the Progressive Elitist government model cannot improve the lives of the majority of Americans compared to their own self-management in the private sector, the Progressive Elitist has to have constant recourse to lies and misdirections.  The Middle Class must be deceived.  It is simply impossible to actually benefit "the least among us,", the Middle Class, and the necessary number of Special Interests.  It is an absolute certainty that most Americans will suffer from the Progressive Elitist Big Government model.

The only way we can ever bring back a commitment to constitutional and limited government consistent with our individual freedom is to live by an individualist philosophy designed to promote rational values consistent with the practical needs of life on Earth.  Objectivism is that philosophy.  A commitment to its principles would enable the People of the USA to elect officials capable of and dedicated to reforming our horribly errant governments.  We must transform these tyrannical governments too much under the control of the Progressive Elitists and their allied Special Interests.

Those special interests are not just rich people, corporations, and religious people as the Progressive Elitists claim.  Some special interests are rich people or corporations, but there are many more.  These include:

• Christians who would use government to impose their values, commonly by requiring women to carry a fetus to full term, by denying same-sex marriages, or by claiming that Christian charity requires governmental redistribution.  Yes, some Christians are Elitists, some Progressive, some Traditional
• Islamists who want to impose Sharia Law.
• Environmentalists who believe man is evil, but all other animals are supreme.
• Those opposed to carbon-based fuels for environmental and CAGW reasons.
• Those who believe that profit is evil.
• Labor unions who deny individuals freedom of labor contract.
• Government workers
• Green energy companies with subsidies and favoring mandates
• Farmers with subsidies
• Those who benefit from the ethanol mandate.
• Users of the Export-Import Bank
• Those companies protected by high tariffs
• Banks with cheap money from the Federal Reserve
• Too-Big-To-Fail financial institutions
• Too-Big-To-Fail auto companies
• Extended unemployment beneficiaries
• Disability insurance recipients who used to work with the same disability
• Food Stamp recipients
• Employees whose employers are forced to do all the tax paperwork with its risks
• Professions and jobs with limited competition due to licensing requirements
• Accountants and tax attorneys due to the overly complex tax law
• Trial lawyers
• Insurers due to excessive liability awards allowing them to collect high premiums
• AARP with its health insurance supplements and anti-youth political program
• Home builders and mortgage lenders due to mortgage interest deductions
• Beneficiaries of rent controls
• Older home owners in areas with severe home-building restrictions
• Existing commercial real estate owners where new commercial construction is denied
• TV and radio stations favored by the FCC
• Those near shale oil and gas formations with super cheap energy because governments are delaying pipeline construction
• Russia and the Saudis because governments are slowing energy production here
• Many, many more

The Progressive Elitist does not think we are capable of arranging and choosing our own health insurance, just as they do not think we can generally choose our values and manage our own lives.  As Tocqueville said:

A man’s admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.

It is interesting to note that that contempt seems to easily transform into a disregard for the welfare of your fellow man and makes it easier to take advantage of him as a Special Interest manipulating the powers of excessive government.  The transformation of America implemented by the Obama Regime has richly illustrated this.

[On 26 November 2014, Prof. Walter E. Williams wrote a column called Elite Contempt for Ordinary Americans, which emphasizes the role of academics as a center of such contempt and their efforts to indoctrinate the young in college.]

A Clearly Rational Federal Court Decision Against the IRS Rule to Offer Subsidies on Federal ObamaCare Exchanges

Among the cases challenging the IRS rule that subsidies for individuals and tax penalties for non-complying individuals and companies would be administered in all fifty states and the District of Columbia, is the case brought by Scott Pruitt, the Attorney General of the state of Oklahoma.  Oklahoma and 35 other states did not choose to establish PPACA or ObamaCare exchanges, as the PPACA law tried to get them to do by taxing every American, but only allowing individual subsidies in those states establishing an ObamaCare exchange.  Non-complying states were to be penalized with taxes and the loss of any partial return of that tax money in the form of subsidies.  That this was the intent was very clear to those who followed the progress of the PPACA legislation through Congress.

Of course, it was also very clear that PPACA was a revenue bill which violated the constitutional requirement that it originate in the House of Representatives.  It is further clear that the only justification for the collectivist claim that the collective gets to dictate how every American maintains his or her body's and mind's health is based on a claim of collectivist ownership of everyone's mind and body.  This is a very clear and certain violation of the American Principle of a very limited government dedicated only to the protection of the equal, sovereign right of each and every individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  I for one am exceedingly furious that the government considers me its slave by depriving me of self-ownership and the right to pursue my own happiness.

United States District Judge Ronald A. White of the Eastern District of Oklahoma ruled on 30 September 2014 that "the IRS Rule is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with law, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. [paragraph] 706(2)(A), in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations, or short of statutory right, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. [paragraph] 706(2)(C), or otherwise is an invalid implementation of the ACA, and is hereby vacated."

Judge Ronald A. White provided a very rational decision, which is very much appreciated in light of the three judge panel in King v. Burwell who decided that they would not help the plaintiff destroy the PPACA by ruling in accordance with the language of the law.  No, instead they decided on the basis of how they claimed Congress intended the law to work while not considering the actual history even of constraints on Congress in forcing the states to comply with handing control over health care insurance to the federal government.  Neither did they consider the actual discussions and trades within Congress needed to acquire even sufficient Democrat votes to pass the bill.  Similarly, the dissenting judge on the three judge panel that vacated the ObamaCare subsidies and tax penalties in Halbig v. Burwell for the District of Columbia Court of Appeals exercised a similar flight of fancy in interpreting the PPACA.

The Honorable Ronald A. White read the bill as written and said that if Congress had intended the bill to operate otherwise, it would have written the bill differently.  What is more, if Congress decides that the application of the law as written is not what it wants, then Congress can readily pass legislation to change the law.  This is exactly the way a rational person would expect laws to be applied.  Neither the IRS nor the federal courts are the legislative body and neither has the constitutional power to enact or to change laws.  How the 3-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court that decided the King v. Burwell case could have decided that the law was ambiguous is incredible.  What is more, if it were ambiguous, then it is up to Congress, not the IRS, to eliminate any such ambiguity.  Ridiculous consequences would result from any other principle and the People would lose all power to control any government operating as the 4th Circuit Court ruled government should work.

Unfortunately, the entire District of Columbia Circuit Court decided to rule on Halbig v. Burwell and the Democrat appointed judges are now in the majority on that Circuit Court.  They will hear the case in December.  What is more, the decision by the Honorable Ronald A. White will be appealed to the entire 10th Circuit Court on which 7 of the 12 judges were appointed by Democrats.  The case of Indiana v. IRS is also yet to be decided.  Given the otherworldly ability of Democrat-appointed judges to misinterpret clear English and to ignore the history of the passage of this law, the People of the United States may not be relieved of the ObamaCare tyranny.

But, the state of Oklahoma, Governor Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma, and the Honorable Ronald A. White of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma have all proved themselves Heroes for in their efforts to preserve the rights of the individual in this desperate fight to protect self-ownership against the brutal onslaught of ObamaCare.

ObamaCare's False Boast: It has significantly lowered the number of uninsured

It has become common to see supporters of ObamaCare, artfully and deceitfully called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, claim that it has decreased the numbers of the uninsured from the 17.4% of Americans in 2010 when it was signed into law to the present 13.4%.

Of course the main factor affecting the percentage with health insurance is affordability.  It happens that in 2012 real dollars, 2010 was the minimum in household income for the upper limit of the lowest, the next lowest, and the middle quintiles of household income due to the Great Socialist Recession.  Even the fourth and next to the highest quintile upper limit was almost as low in that year in its worst year of 2009.  So of course one of the ways households hard-pressed due to the loss of income due to the Great Socialist Recession got by was by dropping their health insurance, especially assuming everyone in the household was in good health.

It makes more sense to compare the percentage of uninsured under ObamaCare now to the number before the Great Socialist Recession had its great depressing effect on household income.  In 2008, only 14.4% of Americans were uninsured for medical care.  That year was the maximum income year for all four lowest quintiles before the Great Socialist Recession depressed earnings, with the exception of the second quintile whose upper limit income maximized in 2007, but at a figure only $100 greater than that of 2008.  So, the great success of ObamaCare is really a 1.0% drop in the percentage of uninsured, not the 3.0% claimed by some of its advocates.

The proponents of ObamaCare want us to assume that all of that 1% is due to poor Americans obtaining insurance coverage either through Medicaid or as a result of federal government subsidy for their medical insurance coverage.  The fact that studies have shown no health advantage in being covered by Medicaid is unacknowledged by ObamaCare supporters.  The fact that more than half of the government subsidies are based on an IRS ruling that clearly violates the ObamaCare law and has been judged such by the DC Federal Court of Appeals is also ignored.

Another factor is ignored as well.  Many American households are wealthy enough to have been self-insured.  Few people understand how many are so wealthy and few people recognize that their decision to be self-insured was often a rational one, especially if members of the household were of generally good health.  Since good health is a useful attribute in achieving high incomes and in accumulating wealth, it is likely that the wealthier Americans are also commonly the healthier Americans.  Yet, the tax penalties of ObamaCare will have forced many such wealthy households to stop being self-insured, which is registered as uninsured.  Many such households had to purchase ObamaCare mandated medical insurance.  The movement of these wealthy households to being insured, is a part of the mere 1% decrease in the number of Americans uninsured.

So, how many American households might reasonably have been uninsured before the onset of ObamaCare?  In 2012, the top 5% of household income earnings exceeded $191,156 a year.  With such an income, one can easily afford the doctor's bills a relatively healthy family might incur.  But there is more.  In 2012, the total net household wealth was $80.66 trillion.  This is an average of about $659,000 per household.  Of course the median household wealth was much lower at about $120,000, actually a 2011 figure.

I do not have the wealth distribution figures for 2012, but those for 2007 are available.  Assuming about the same percentages of wealth in the wealthiest 1% and then the next wealthiest 4%, the average wealth for these groups of households in 2012 is:

Wealthiest 1%, $22,790,000 per household.

Next Wealthiest 4%, $4,495,000 per household.

So, any of these wealthiest 5% of households might well have chosen to be uninsured prior to ObamaCare.  Now, they are most likely better off being insured.  So it is clear that there is great potential for all of the 1% decrease in the uninsured since 2008 being people from the wealthiest and highest income households.

This may not be case, but until there is a complete and validated breakdown of the health care insured by income and wealth, we should not assume that the 1% decrease in the uninsured is the result of poor and maybe middle income people rushing into ObamaCare.  In addition, with the assurance of health insurance under ObamaCare for those with severe health problems, some wealthy and high income people are undoubtedly also saving money by putting unhealthy family members under ObamaCare's lower age-pooled rates.

Given the very small decrease of 1% in the uninsured since 2008 and the claims that large numbers of people have been signed up on Medicaid, it is clear that many of the people who had insurance in 2008 do not have it now.  This suggests strongly that a larger fraction of the middle income groups do not have health insurance now than did in 2008.  This is an expected effect of the large increase in the cost of insurance premiums brought on by ObamaCare for those who qualify for little or no subsidy.  It is also an expected result given the decrease in full-time employment since then due to this never-ending Great Socialist Recession.

ObamaCare - The Law of the Land Made Lawless

The Democrats of the Democrat Socialist Party have repeatedly claimed that the PPACA or ObamaCare is the Law of the Land and must be respected.  Yet, Obama has made many exemptions from the law's requirements for unions and favored businesses and has made 18 major changes in the law, mostly by delaying its provisions, without the congressional action required by the Constitution, which is the Law of the Land. 

Of course, I think that ObamaCare is clearly unconstitutional, since the government was given no power to own our bodies and minds and hence has no power to determine the means of maintaining our bodies and minds.  Any attempt by government to take over this critical life function of the individual is a fundamental violation of individual rights.

But if we ignore that paramount fact, then the many unlawful changes in ObamaCare made by Obama have clearly deprived it of any pretense of being The Law of the Land, unless Congress and the Courts become adamant in defending the law as voted on by Congress and originally signed into law by Obama.  The law is already highly blemished, indeed highly rotten, by virtue of the many provisions already violated by Obama.  Those violations of the law by Obama have not yet been opposed by Congress, making Congress complicit in this lawlessness.

The fact that this law is maintained in an ever changing form against the wishes of most of the People is a red flag slapping us in the face and shouting that this is not a democracy, however often the Democrats proclaim it to be so.  This is a clear indicator that special interests and not the People control the government.

The fact that the Democrat Socialist Party is now in such terror of the next election is a very clear result of the extremely harmful effects of ObamaCare.  The very high premium costs in most states, the high deductibles and co-pays, the poor doctor and hospital choices, the many drugs and medical services no longer covered, the severe disruptions brought to the entire medical care, medical insurance, and medical insurance policy holders, and the financial risks of entering the system negligently deprived of security guards for one's personal information, all scream that the law is highly inimical to our welfare.  The law has failed to induce the uninsured to sign-up for ObamaCare as well.  So, it is both unaffordable and unwanted.  So far, only about 10% of the uninsured have become insured and fewer of the previously insured who lost their insurance because of ObamaCare have signed on to ObamaCare.  While some uninsured with serious medical conditions have now signed on to ObamaCare, others with serious medical conditions who previously had coverage and then lost it thanks to ObamaCare are now either without insurance or have a less desirable insurance coverage.

The results of ObamaCare are so bad that it is pretty much impossible to buy into the idea that the Democrat Socialist Party ever thought that this law was consistent with the Welfare of the People.  Or if they did think so, then the Progressive Elitist claim to rule due to superior intelligence, education, and moral fiber is ridiculous.

ObamaCare Premium Changes Vary Hugely by State - How Does this Affect Control of Senate?

The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research has an interactive map of the US with the percentage change in health insurance premiums by gender and for ages 27, 40, and 64 years of age.  It is remarkable how much variance there is in health insurance costs by state, by gender, and by age.  The differences with respect to gender and age are clearly on very different bases from state to state.  In a few states, the rates actually fall.  In most states they increase substantially.  Sometimes they rise greatly for one demographic, while falling for another in the same state.  In some states the large increases are only for young men, in others for both young men and women, while in still others they rise most for young men and for older women.  The campaigns for the Senate need to be aware of where their candidate has advantages or disadvantages with various demographics due to the health insurance premium changes.

I have prepared a table with the Senate races of 2014 and the ObamaCare health insurance premium changes below.  Those increases which exceed 10.0% should allow Republicans to pick up votes, provided their campaigns make sure that the demographic suffering those large increases know what is hitting them.  Males 27 years old in Arkansas, where Democrat Mark Pryor is vulnerable, are facing premium increases of 250.1%, while women of that age will see increases of 110.0%.  Men aged 40 will pay 186.5% more, while women aged 64 will pay 105.4% more.  With increases as large as these, it is very hard to imagine that an informed electorate will view the Democrat Pryor as less than a monster.  But this message has to be driven home by Tom Cotton.  There are very big increases in many states, which the Republican candidate should take great care to inform the voters about.

All increases greater than 10% are in red in the table since they favor the Republicans.  Those of 5% or less are in blue since they favor the Democrats.  The party favored is not a prediction of the election outcome.  It is only to indicate which party has the advantage based on the ObamaCare premium changes.

Of course other factors are also significant, but the Republicans in many cases should and must make a big deal out of the increases in many of the contested states if they are to take over control of the Senate.  The now Democrat Senate seats in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, and South Dakota all have very large ObamaCare premium increases which a decent Republican candidate should be able to use to win those 7 Senate seats.  In Kentucky the increases are also large, which should protect the Republican Senate seat there.  Very large increases in Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Oregon should make it possible for a wily Republican candidate to become competitive even in those states where the Senate seat is now a Democrat seat.  Even in those states with no overall advantage to one party, a successful effort to inform a demographic hurt by premium cost increases will be a useful tool for a Republican candidate.

CBO Says 2.5 Million Jobs May Be Lost Due to ObamaCare

The Congressional Budget Office announced on 4 February that by 2024 the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time jobs may be lost because of the so-called Affordable Care Act.  That act offers neither affordable medical care nor incomes upon which Americans can afford to live.  It is a cruel lie to call it the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  It is also an insult to the intelligence of Americans.  It is a hidden tax on work, which violates Obama's claim that he would not increase taxes on the Middle Class.  It is, however, a massive redistribution scheme, which Obama told Joe the Plumber he was intent on implementing.

Many Democrat Socialists responded with claims they are celebrating the fact that many people will have much more free time.  Of course, they are really celebrating because many more people will become dependent upon Big Government.

The hardship of the People is good for Democrat Socialists, so they work hard to see more and more hardship is distributed upon the American People.  The pretense of redistributing the income earned and developed by others is a cover for this actual increase in and redistribution of hardship.  This is why the War on Poverty has not reduced poverty in decades.  It is why all the talk about improving the education of children never results in children acquiring more learning skills, problem-solving skills, a desire to learn, or acquiring factual knowledge.  This is why the economic condition of Black Americans still leaves much to be desired.  The Democrat Socialists do not want to solve the problems they claim it is their purpose to solve using Big Government as the tool.  No, their power is dependent upon these problems remaining unsolved and remaining sore points that divide Americans.  For every pretense of help, there is a greater, less publicized, harm.

Medicaid and ObamaCare are Racist

The Progressive Elitists have told us over and over that those of us who believe one should have to have photo identification to vote are racist.  Of course there are many actions for which a photo ID is required, such as setting up a bank account.  That is not just a bank policy, but it is actually required by law.  One is sometimes also required to show a photo ID to enter a courthouse or many a federal facility.  All apparently racist policies.

Why is it racist to require a photo ID?  Well because the poor are more likely to be of certain racial or ethnic groups and the poor are less likely to own a car or have other easy transportation.  They are also less likely to have a stable address.  Yet, ObamaCare either requires you have a computer, or go to a few sparse and undependable centers for registering, or to undergo an exchange of mailings which tends to depend upon a stable address.  It clearly discriminates against the poor by the criteria of the left.

Now many of the poor will qualify for Medicaid in those 26 states that chose to expand Medicaid under the PPACA or ObamaCare law.  How do they apply for that Medicaid once they find out they qualify for it?

• Go to your Social Security, health department, or social services office.
• Produce a birth certificate or a passport
• Produce your Social Security card
• Produce a utility bill with your address on it
• Provide a recent paycheck or a tax return
• Provide a photo ID

Now, having enrolled in Medicaid, call and travel all over tarnation trying to find a doctor who will actually treat any medical condition for the severe underpayment amount provided them by Medicaid.  Clearly, the Medicaid program does not consider those on it to be worthy of an adequate payment for their medical care and has no concern for their travel time or problems, long waits for care, or even if they can actually find care at all.

As is usual for Progressive Elitist programs for the poor, it is all a pretense and there is no actual concern for the poor.  Yet, the existence of the programs is supposed to fool everyone into believing that they care, while those of us who point out the absurdity of the programs are claimed to be uncaring and racists by criteria the Progressive Elitist laws themselves require.

• Birth certificate or passport
• A power or light bill showing your address
• Something that shows your Social Security number
• A recent paycheck or tax return

Let's see; did I forget anything? Oh, that's right… A PHOTO ID!

Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/12/obama-racist-promoting-obamacare/#ep0PgVDhw432vRDE.99

24 States Expand Medicaid Under ObamaCare

The CBO predicts that 9 million more people will go on Medicaid in the next year.  Most of this increase will be in the 26 states that expanded Medicaid under ObamaCare.  These states are shown in gold in the map below:

The states not expanding Medicaid coverage under ObamaCare have the number of additional people they would cover with coverage to 133% of the poverty level shown on them.  This represents a huge future savings for these states after 2022 for their state budgets when the federal government stops paying 90% of the bill for the added state dependents.  Those living in the states in gold had best have piles of gold to pay the tax bills after 2022 for all of the people on Medicaid.

The CBO is predicting that ObamaCare expansion of Medicaid will add 9 million people on Medicaid by the end of 2014 and 13 million by the end of 2020.  These additions and the future large increases in state budget costs will occur in the states in the above map in gold.  Of course, Progressive Elitists will complain that the added 5 million people who might have been added in the blue-gray states have been sadly neglected in this redistribution of wealth.  In fact, they like to complain that even more of those in poverty live in many of these blue-gray states.  See the map below from one of their websites:

So the states not expanding Medicaid have an average 9.1% of their populations qualifying as below 133% of the poverty level, while the national average is 8.0% of the population.  But one thing that is overlooked is that there is one single poverty level for the 48 contiguous states and higher levels for Alaska and Hawaii.  So, this map of those below 133% of the poverty level has to be compared to one for the cost of living.  Clearly, some people at 133% of the poverty level are much better off in low cost of living areas than are others at that level in high cost of living areas.  The cost of living map:

Now we see that the states that refused to raise their Medicaid dependency levels to 133% of the poverty level are mostly states with most of their population below or at the national average in the cost of living.  Most of the states that raised the Medicaid eligibility level to 133% have most of their populations living in high or average cost of living areas.  Of the 24 states not raising the Medicaid eligibility level to 133%, Wyoming, Montana, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Maine are the only ones mostly at the average or higher in cost of living.

There is a reason that Republican-dominated states tend to have lower than average costs of living.  The governments in those states mostly extract less from the private sector to use in unproductive ways in the government-sector.  Their present choice not to increase the eligibility for Medicaid in their states is a move to continue having a lower cost of living.  That means that people in those states above 133% of the poverty level will continue to be better off than will people in the expensive government states that mostly raised their Medicaid eligibility levels under ObamaCare.

After 2022, when those mostly above average cost of living states have to pick up the cost of the 13 million people added to Medicaid, their cost of living will shoot up even higher.  Their taxes will increase further and some of them will go bankrupt.  More and more people will migrate out of those states and move to the states that did not raise their Medicaid eligibility levels.  There will be a further easily seen lesson on the perils of redistribution and socialism.  Socialist transformation and change will have seriously damaged the middle class who will have to pay the bills in the mostly Democrat states that made this bad choice to expand Medicaid.

Government Continues to Lower Expectations for Pre-paid Health Care Exchanges

The federal government pre-paid medical care exchanges are supposed to be working better today.  They are supposed to handle up to 50,000 people on-line at one time now.  Since the federal exchanges are claiming you can sign-up for plans beginning on 1 January 2014 until 23 December, this means that counting today, there are 23 days to sign-up.  So far in two months, it is thought that about 150,000 have chosen plans.  At 50,000 sign-ups per day henceforth a grand upper limit total of another 1,150,000 sign-ups may occur before time has run out.  Some people will not sign-up for anything until they have been on-line over the course of several days examining the offerings and then looking into the provider networks elsewhere.  The enthusiastically socialist state of Maryland, which operates its own exchange, has a much earlier sign-up deadline of 10 December and a very confusing website.

It is not at all clear that even if one signs up by 23 December on the federally operated exchanges, that one will have an actual plan by 1 January 2014.  This is because you do not have a plan until you have paid the company offering the mandated ObamaCare pre-paid medical care plans.  The federal exchanges do not yet have a means to enable such payments.  Given their track record to-date and the methods they are using to manage the exchanges still, it seems unlikely they will have a working mechanism for making payments to the plan providers before Christmas.  So, it seems very certain that fewer than 1,300,000 plans will actually exist on 1 January 2015.

Recall that ObamaCare was passed so that 47 million Americans without health insurance would have pre-paid medical care once it was implemented.  Nothing was said about many millions of people who had insurance losing that insurance.  As it happens, to-date more than 5.55 million insurance plans have been cancelled and the federal government wants to declare success for ObamaCare if 1.3 million new plans are issued under it.  But, this is a net loss of 4.25 million insurance plans, while the supposed 47 million Americans uninsured before will all remain uninsured.  Yes, of course some of them will get ObamaCare insurance and more than 4.25 million of the newly cancelled plans will have no replacement.  The few state-run exchanges which work better than the federal government exchanges will manage to sign-up a few more of the 4.25 million lost plans, but will not sign up most of them either.

Meanwhile, throughout 2015, tens of millions more health insurance plans offered by small businesses and big businesses will be cancelled or replaced by more expensive plans with much increased employee contributions.

On 1 January 2014, many more Americans will have no health insurance and no pre-paid ObamaCare medical care than the original 47 million claimed uninsured who were the very justification for the wrenching changes to our medical care system including the loss of our doctors and hospitals, especially the better ones, the cost of much increased premiums for most of us, the increase in deductibles for most of us, the need to travel much greater distances to the health care providers for many of us, long waits to see doctors or nurse and pharmacist substitutes, a decrease in medical innovation, a decrease in covered medical procedures, more trips to medical facilities to get through a given medical procedure, decreased medical and financial privacy and security, and the many aggravations of having to choose and learn new health networks and how to do their increased paperwork.