[Dawn] THE government wanted it and the opposition has granted it, but no one has quite been able to explain any of it: talks with the Taliban are to be attempted again, but how, when and on what terms? The only thing that is clear since last weekend's drone strike is that Hakeemullah Mehsud is dead and that the political class wants the public to believe that his killing has dealt a major blow to the talks process. Beyond that, nothing is clear. Even Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan's claim that a three-member delegation was set to travel to the tribal areas the day Mehsud was killed remains unsubstantiated -- and there is some reason to be sceptical of it. The problem is the government appears unwilling or unable to address any of the obvious problems with its dialogue strategy.
Start with the obvious. The killing of Hakeemullah Mehsud could not have in and of itself ended the possibility of dialogue, as the government appeared to suggest in the aftermath of the drone strike. For if the TTP can continue its attacks going into peace talks -- set aside the attacks whose provenance is for whatever reasons disputed and that still leaves the killing of an army general in Upper Dir that was explicitly and in video evidence claimed by a branch of the TTP -- then why does an attack on the TTP necessarily scuttle peace talks? If the TTP can talk about talking while still fighting, why is the political class so afraid to claim the state's right to do the same? Surely, signalling fear and meekness so publicly to the TTP cannot possibly help the negotiating process. Or does the government intend to submit to whatever the TTP wants short of disbanding the government and scrapping the Constitution altogether?
More problematic still is if the government and pro-talks lobbies are taken at their word when they claim that the spate of attacks, since it was agreed that dialogue with the TTP will be pursued first, are the doing of anti-peace and hostile elements. If that is in fact true, then what is the point of talking to the TTP at all? For even if the TTP has kept its guns silent and temporarily put away its boom jackets, bombs and IEDS, there has still been an unacceptable level of violence in the country the past few months. So what kind of peace can the TTP guarantee anyway, even if dialogue is successful? Mystery and confusion, thy names are Pakistain, at least at present.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/07/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11124 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Invenstor's Business Daily] Meltdown: A health care scholar estimates that if ObamaCare is fully implemented, including the employer mandate, 129 million people will not be able to keep their plans. The train wreck has become a nuclear meltdown. That's 40 percent of the population. Seems high...
The never-ending and ever-changing story line emanating from the damage control room at the White House has morphed from you can keep your plan, period, to we said you could keep the plan you liked at the rates agreed upon only if we decide it's not substandard.
That, we were told, would only apply to some 5% of Americans. They would get a better plan whether they liked it or not. It's as if the government decided the car you drove to work was "substandard" and forced you to drive a "better" car like the government-subsidized Chevy Volt.
ObamaCare is kind of like "cash for clunkers" only with fines and penalties thrown in. We fork over more cash in the form of higher premiums and deductibles and get the clunker known as ObamaCare.
The story has changed again as commentators try to split the hair between "intentional deceit" and "lie."
"Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really like that plan, what we said was you could keep it, if it hasn't changed since the law was passed," President Obama said Monday night. Oh, so that was what you meant by "period," Mr. President.
Every insurance plan changes as risk pools and claims vary over time. That's why people have had to renew their policies every year or so.
That is the ultimate Catch-22 of ObamaCare, one that will snare an astounding number of Americans in ObamaCare's tangled web of lies and deceit. Classic 'bait and switch'...who knew ?
Those who thought their plans were exempted under the "grandfather" clause were sadly mistaken and ignored that phrase throughout ObamaCare -- "the Secretary shall determine." Well, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius determined unless your plan was carved in stone tablets for all time, they had to go and changed the regulations.
Now, as the Daily Caller reports, an analysis by health care economist Christopher Conover at the Center for Health Policy & Inequalities Research at Duke University, shows just how wide that web will extend when ObamaCare is fully implemented in 2014.
It also helps explain the delay in the employer mandate -- an attempt to cushion the blow. Yes, letting us down softly, as has been mentioned here several times.
When ObamaCare is fully implemented, Conover finds, an estimated 129 million people -- that's 68% of the 189 million Americans with private health coverage -- could lose their previous health coverage due to a combination of factors including the cancellations of existing plans as well as changes and "improvements" to existing coverage that will be required under the new health care law.
Conover gave a further breakdown of the figures, saying that between 18 million and 50 million people will have their existing plans entirely taken away, including 9.2 million to 15.4 million in the non-group, or individual, market and 9 million to 35 million in the employer-based market. But, but, but that was the PLAN !
The rest, he said, will retain their old plans but have to pay higher rates for added ObamaCare-mandated "bells and whistles."
The Manhattan Institute's Avik Roy calculates that, in the average state, insurance premiums will rise 41%.
"Men will face the steepest increases: 77%, 37% and 47% for 27-year-olds, 40-year-olds, and 64-year-olds, respectively. Women will also face increases, but to a lesser degree: 18%, 28% and 37% for 27-, 40-, and 64-year-olds," Roy writes in Forbes.
In addition to dropped plans and skyrocketing premiums and deductibles, there is another ticking time bomb -- the lie that if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. Matters little, as he'll likely not accept ACA, Medicade, or Medicare anyway.
HHS' response to the question on the currently down enrollment website was, "Depending on the plan you choose in the Marketplace, you may be able to keep your current doctor."
This is not a glitch. This is a health care meltdown. The "glitch" took place in Nov of 2008.
#3
AH, that's the idea. Doctors will become the first of the new slave classes totally controlled by the gov't. If they retire or find other work they will be replaced by cheap foreign imports...see UK.
#6
AH, that's the idea. Doctors will become the first of the new slave classes totally controlled by the gov't. If they retire or find other work they will be replaced by cheap foreign imports...see UK.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Dawn] THE government wanted it and the opposition has granted it, but no one has quite been able to explain any of it: talks with the Taliban are to be attempted again, but how, when and on what terms? The only thing that is clear since last weekend's drone strike is that Hakeemullah Mehsud is dead and that the political class wants the public to believe that his killing has dealt a major blow to the talks process. Beyond that, nothing is clear. Even Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan's claim that a three-member delegation was set to travel to the tribal areas the day Mehsud was killed remains unsubstantiated -- and there is some reason to be sceptical of it. The problem is the government appears unwilling or unable to address any of the obvious problems with its dialogue strategy.
