ObamaCares health insurance exchanges are currently set to start enrolling people in October. Or at least theyre supposed to. Recent comments from federal officials, however, involved in the exchange process do exactly inspire great confidence.
Its only prudent to not assume everything is going to work perfectly on day one, Gary Cohen, a Medicare official who is heading up the implementation process for the administration, recently told a group of health insurance industry insiders. Cohens colleague Henry Chao, who is managing the technology behind the exchange, told insurers he was pretty nervous about the start of enrollment. And while Cohen continued to insist that every state would have an exchange ready by October, he admitted that the federal government was making contingency plans, noting that there is some possibility that the type of exchange may be different than what were looking at today. A recent survey of health industry executives, meanwhile, found that 70 percent did not think the federal government would have the exchanges ready on schedule.
#1
A recent survey of health industry executives, meanwhile, found that 70 percent did not think the federal government would have the exchanges ready on schedule.
Planned programme delays? We can't have people huddled at the depots during election years. [shrill, European train whistle in the background]
#1
"When the latest bubble pops, there will be nothing to stop the collapse. If this sounds like advice to get out of the markets and hide out in cash, it is." - David A. Stockman
#2
The state would need to get out of the business of imperial hubris, economic uplift and social insurance and shift its focus to managing and financing an effective, affordable, means-tested safety net.
R&R would have begun the above process. As it is, we have another 3.5 years [at the earliest] to wait.
#3
Cash is devaluing at 10% per year so over the last five years you'd have lost half your value if you held cash. Is it NOW time to bail out of stocks or will the system continue to devalue cash in order to maintain stock prices?
Of course Stockman conveniently forgets that Bush had a Democratic Congress for most of his second term. Further he does not mention that Clinton was the one who defanged Glass-Stegall which started the entire housing mess.
And the current administration could call all of the loans to Wall Street tomorrow since they are not loaning out the money to main street but playing monopoly on the international money markets with it.
Stockman is right the Wall Street advances are a mirage, if stock valuations were based upon revenues, assets, and inventory as they should be, the stock market would be in the tank.
Lastly, the grand service based economy to get all of those nasty manufacturing jobs out of the US does not provide the high paying jobs or the engineering demand to give consumers the purchasing power necessary to keep a consumer based service economy afloat. Most service sector jobs are one jump from minimum wage and minimum wage doesn't buy cars, houses, jewelry, or expensive vacations. Increasingly only the very affluent can afford to consume...the rest of us middle class and former middle class can only afford to survive.
One last thing, Reagan never said deficits didn't matter, it was all of the democrats in Congress screaming when Ronnie started cutting the pork.
The only reason this article was published in the Times is because it in part blames the current economic mess on Bush. (the TARP was created by the Obamanistas in Congress in the period after the election)
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/01/2013 10:37 Comments ||
Top||
#7
One last thing, Reagan never said deficits didn't matter, it was all of the democrats in Congress screaming when Ronnie started cutting the pork.
Yeah, and George Bush Sr. said no new taxes, then the Donk bargained spending cuts for a tax increase playing their usual 'Lucy-Football-Charlie Brown' strategy getting the old fool to kick and then saying afterwards they couldn't/wouldn't deliver the cuts. Of course he became a one term president for being "bi-partisan".
And, yes, TARP was passed by a Congress controlled by Nancy Pelosi (D) and Harry Reid (D).
#8
There has not been true capitalism in the US for more than 100 years. This is crony capitalism. The government holds all hands and forces all else to sink you ignorant fool.
#9
Stockman's been ranting like this for a while and has a new book to promote. Meanwhile were witnessing the economic destruction of future generations of Americans.
Here's a complicated intellectual maneuver: a writer in Salon argues that it's OK to be an atheist, so long as you omit Islam from your list of the religions to which you object. The theory seems to be that it's bigotry to notice when more bad things are done in the name of one religion than in the name of others.
#5
Message to athiests: Either you think ALL religion is bullshit, or you don't.
If you say you hate religion, except for I-slam, you're a pathetic poseur who isn't willing to stand up for your "beliefs" when said "beliefs" might get your head chopped off.
You're just trying to impress the "cool" kids (who aren't cool at all). Losers.
Posted by: Barbara ||
04/01/2013 18:13 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Militant Christianity is emerging. Or should I say reemerging?
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
04/01/2013 18:31 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Atheists think God is bullshit.
They can have differing opinions about different religions.
Not sure how you could have a good opinion about Islam, but then a lot of people are still of the marxist faith.
#8
The writer of the Salon article appears to be a professional "Islamophobia" monger. In other words, a blithering idiot.
Posted by: DJ Curtis C ||
04/01/2013 19:58 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Well wait: the piece in Salon has Dawkins and the other 'New Atheists' ripping Islam. The author of the piece, Nathan Hale, takes particular care to make the New Atheists look as foolish as he can. For example, he spends several paragraphs pointing out that Dawkins admits to not having read the Qu'ran and yet rips Islam.
It goes on and on, and you certainly get that Mr. Hale is out to make the 'New Atheists' as odious as he can in their [clear to him] Islamophobia.
The question then, what the hell is Frum talking about?
Hale does NOT say that it is ok to be an atheist so long as you omit Islam from your list of religions to which you object. Mr. Hale is disturbed by 'islamophobia' -- he's written books about the subject, apparently -- and is going after the 'New Atheists' not for their lack of religion, or any hypocrisy contained therein, but specifically for their 'hatred' of Islam.
Mr. Hale, it appears, would go after anyone, atheist or believer, who hates Islam.
So Mr. Frum misses a useful opportunity to call out Mr. Hale by focusing on something Mr. Hale didn't say, as opposed to what he did say.
But that's David Frum for you.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/01/2013 20:03 Comments ||
Top||
A top American Muslim cleric has warned against a global war on Islam spearheaded by the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia, Press TV reports. Isn't freedom of speech in the West wonderful? If these goat humping, Allah bothering, stone age Muslim kaffirs were to say these things in any Sunni controlled country, they would be executed.
"There is a continuation of the global war on Islam and Muslims all over the world. There is a blanket silence, whether it is Saudi Arabia, whether it is Bahrain, whether it is the continuous slaughter and bombing of Shia Muslims in Pakistan," said Abdul Alim Musa, Imam of Masjid Al-Islam from Washington in a Sunday interview.
"Wherever you look around the world, you see that the Muslims are under the threats of violence," he pointed out.
The cleric slammed the UN silence and the international media blackout over the "pure process of ethnic cleansing" against Muslims in Myanmar, Pakistan, Bahrain and other parts of the Islamic world.
Musa argued that the ongoing war against the Muslim world is spearheaded by a "triangle of terror" comprised of the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The remarks come as, according to the latest reports, sectarian violence in central Myanmar killed more than 40 people on March 20 and displaced thousands of Rohingya Muslim minority which accounts for about five percent of Myanmar's population of nearly 60 million.
Last year, scores of Rohingyas were killed when Buddhist extremists carried out atrocities against Muslims in the western state of Rakhine. Thousands of Rohingyas were also displaced.
Myanmar's government has been repeatedly criticized for failing to protect the Rohingya Muslims.
#2
See RELATED DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > IRAN OFFERED BENAZIR BHUTTO US$4.0BILYUHN FOR NUCLEAR TECHS [NucBomb]: GENERAL BEG.
Retired PAK Army Chief Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, WHOM ALSO REPOR ARGUES THAT ITS QUITE POSSIBLE IRAN MAY ALREADY POSSESS NUCWEAPS OR THE CAPABILITY TO QUICKLY PRODUCE SAME GIVEN THE AMOUNT OF TIME THAT HAS ELAPSED SINCE THE ABOVE INCIDENT???
#1
I think what Jennifer Rubin is missing is that it was the emphasis on nation building and democracy that followed the Iraq war that created the Arab Spring and by extension the mess in Libya, Egypt and Syria. A strong case could be made that it was a huge factor in getting Obama elected.
So although I supported the Iraq Invasion(and still do on principal) supporting the pro-Democracy movement is a lot harder to do and the fine line is too fine to debate with most people.
We should have put a strongman in power and driven into Syria right away. We are good at kicking the snot out of people, not so much at winning the hearts & minds (especially when half of our political class undermines us at every opportunity). So do what we're good at and pass the baton.
#3
I did and do support the Iraq war. However, the only way I support "nation building" is using the Doug MacArthur methods.
AlanC, I also did support the Iraq war, however I had my doubts on nation building. My apprehension was that it was a mistake to try nation building in a stone age, Muslim besotted kaffir society. I held my judgement when smarter people than me said nation building was possible, so I waited to see if they are right. I certainly had a sobering wake up call and will never fall for that idiotic delusion again.
If you're not going to emulate Doug M. then skip the nation building and go directly to the shampoo method.
Lather, rinse and repeat as necessary. I'm not sure there was any way to nation build that kind of society but if you want to try it there's only one chance for success. Otherwise .........
#5
I don't think the Doug M. method would apply to places in the middle east. Japan was a nation and not a simple collection of tribes. Problem in the Muddle east is that their priorities are something like:
Themselves
Their IMAN (i.e. Islam)
Their family (behind IMAN: see Honor Killing)
their Tribe
Fellow Muslims
anyone else.
#6
To some extent the Europeans tried the MacArthur method and the nations in question were unable or unwilling to take the example.
Plus if you occupy an inch of Muslim land, when you leave they will claim they chases you out. Better to simply break stuff, hand it over to some bastard we can deal with, and move on immediately.
#7
How powerful a message would iy have been to have taken out Saddam, taken out Assad and then Hezzbolah and set up a major base in Iraqi Kudistan to be able to strike deep into Iran with planes and copters.
Let France and Russia have their sleazy oil deals in exchange for cooperation (or at least not opposing).
I think Iran would have played a different game once they'd changed their shorts
#8
The current American administration is doing a very poor job of nation building at home. Argueably nation destroying. So I suspect it is very difficult to do nation building in the middle east when most of the people hate you.
#9
The Animal Planet Channel had an interesting program on a pride of African lions. The females were being harassed by a pack of hyenas. Whenever a female made a kill, the pack would hound the lioness resulting in her chasing several of the hyenas, but allowing others to steal her kill. They kept this up with all the lionesses since the female lions were not strong or fast enough to run the hyenas down. Finally, the old man returned from his territorial jaunt and surveyed the situation as it unfolded. He identified the matriarch of the hyena clan and took right after it, swiftly running it down and breaking its neck. The effect was to throw the entire pack into pandemonium since it then had to sort out its hierarchical pecking order. This gave the female of the pride the time to hunt and provide for their cubs.
I believe the ME hyenas are a bit too busy to cause major problems at the moment compared to over 10 years ago. You think Syria, Egypt, and Iran with Hezbollah in Lebanon are coordinating an attack on Israel at the moment or a bit preoccupied?
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.
ObamaCares health insurance exchanges are currently set to start enrolling people in October. Or at least theyre supposed to. Recent comments from federal officials, however, involved in the exchange process do exactly inspire great confidence.
