I really am beginning to think that the only possible way the Obama administration will stop chasing independent votes by capitulating to Republicans and letting them screw everything up is to call… Supernanny! Because allowing states to simply shred medical benefits the way they do with Medicaid is not going to inspire people to go out and vote for the president again, and I can’t believe they don’t see that:

WASHINGTON — In a major surprise on the politically charged new health care law, the Obama administration said Friday that it would not define a single uniform set of “essential health benefits” that must be provided by insurers for tens of millions of Americans. Instead, it will allow each state to specify the benefits within broad categories.

The move would allow significant variations in benefits from state to state, much like the current differences in state Medicaid programs and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

“Differences”? I think they mean “deficiencies.”

By giving states the discretion to specify essential benefits, the Obama administration sought to deflect one of the most powerful arguments made by Republican critics of President Obama’s health care overhaul — that it was imposing a rigid, bureaucrat-controlled health system on Americans and threatening the quality of care. Opponents say that the federal government is forcing a one-size-fits-all standard for health insurance and usurping state authority to regulate the industry.

This criticism has inspired legal challenges to the new law — with the Supreme Court set to decide next year whether the government can require Americans to buy health insurance — and helps explain why public opinion of the law remains deeply divided.

The law is looming as a central issue in the 2012 presidential race, with Republican presidential candidates being evaluated on the strength of their opposition to it. The announcement by the administration follows its decision this year to jettison a program created in the law to provide long-term care insurance, a move that disappointed liberal backers of the program championed by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

The action Friday prompted questions among supporters of the new health care law. Prof. Timothy S. Jost, an expert on health law at Washington and Lee University, said, “The new bulletin perpetuates uncertainty about what benefits an insurer will be required to cover under the Affordable Care Act.” From the consumer’s point of view, Professor Jost added, “I wish the Department of Health and Human Services had signaled that there would be more uniformity and less flexibility.”

Chris Jacobs, a health policy analyst for Senate Republicans, said the new policy “gives states the flexibility to impose more benefit mandates, not fewer,” and would lead to higher insurance premiums, contrary to what Mr. Obama promised in the 2008 campaign.

See? No matter what he does, the Republicans find a way to criticize it. Why try to get their approval?

Harper’s publisher John MacArthur on Obama:

By now it should be obvious that the system, and the Democratic Party, run Obama, not the other way around. Under this arrangement, the president carries out his duties as pre-eminent party functionary — fundraising being at the top of his list of responsibilities — and defers on legislation, leaving it to corrupt Democratic barons such as Sen. Max Baucus (D.-Mont.), devoted friend of the insurance, pharmaceutical, and banking crowd and sworn enemy of reform.

As Ron Suskind’s book “Confidence Men” confirms, there was never any question of doing things differently. Describing the then president-elect’s choice of economic advisers, he notes, “Obama, after all, had selected for his top domestic officials two men [Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner] whose actions [in the Clinton Administration] had contributed to the very financial disaster they were hired to solve.” These anti-reform appointments did not go unnoticed by party regulars, even though they were ignored by Obama groupies. “I don’t understand how you could do this,” Suskind quotes Sen. Byron Dorgan (D.- N.D.) saying to Obama. “You’ve picked the wrong people!”

The “wrong people” included Rahm Emanuel, now mayor of Chicago, and his replacement as White House chief of staff, William Daley; both of these advisers were four-star generals within the Chicago Democratic machine who cut their teeth in Washington during the campaign to pass that job-killer North American Free Trade Act and who later worked for investment banks. But Obama’s hypocrisy in Osawatomie, Kan., set a new standard in deception. Among other things, his speech blamed “regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this [the unfettered sales of bundled mortgages], but looked the other way or didn’t have the authority to look at all. It was wrong. It combined the breathtaking greed of a few with irresponsibility all across the system.”

What’s truly breathtaking is the president’s gall, his stunning contempt for political history and contemporary reality. Besides neglecting to mention Democratic complicity in the debacle of 2008, he failed to point out that derivatives trading remains largely unregulated while the Securities and Exchange Commission awaits “public comment on a detailed implementation plan” for future regulation. In other words, until the banking and brokerage lobbies have had their say with John Boehner, Max Baucus, and Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner. Meanwhile, the administration steadfastly opposes a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, the New Deal law that reduced outlandish speculation by separating commercial and investment banks. In 1999, it was Summers and Geithner, led by Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin (much admired by Obama), who persuaded Congress to repeal this crucial impediment to Wall Street recklessness.
Continue reading “‘Deserves to be dumped’” →

That wacky, crazy Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association (“We Sell Fear”©) is gearing up for the election year fundraising blitz. Imagine, if you will, President Barack Obama carrying out a full-scale national crackdown on guns. Now that you’re done laughing, read just what paranoid flames Wayne is willing to fan to keep his million-dollar paycheck:

Obama administration officials are deliberately keeping gun owners in the dark about the president’s gun-control agenda as we head into next year’s national election, because administration officials know that when NRA members and gun owners show up at the polls en masse, anti-gun candidates lose.

The Obama campaign’s strategy goes like this:

Neutralize gun owners and NRA members as a political force in the upcoming national election by pretending to be pro-gun or at least not focused on pushing a gun-control agenda;

With gun owners neutralized, Obama will be able to win the election. After the president is re-elected, he won’t have to answer to voters because he won’t have to face another re-election battle;

Launch a full-scale, all-out assault to rip the Second Amendment out of the Bill of Rights through legislation, litigation, regulation, executive orders and international treaties — in short, every lever of power at the administration’s disposal.

Barack Obama spent his entire political career proudly and publicly pushing for the most radical anti-gun positions you can imagine. He endorsed a total ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns. He opposed right-to-carry laws. He voted to ban nearly all commonly used hunting-rifle ammunition.

During the presidential primary debates, Obama even vowed to re-impose the discredited Clinton gun ban, which banned many commonly owned firearms used for hunting and self-defense.

Obama hasn’t had a sudden change of heart; rather, he’s making a purely political calculation by staying quiet on the gun issue until the time is right. In the meantime, he’s gearing up for his second-term assault on the Second Amendment in a number of ways.

Hah! It’s more than a tad ironic that the CEO of the NRA is selling the same line Obama true believers do: “He’s keeping his powder dry! Just wait until his second term!” The truth is, the president has shown no interest in actually doing anything to control guns, although he occasionally offers tepid verbal support, like after Gabby Gifford’s shooting.
Continue reading “Wayne’s world” →