The “GOP has lost O-Care fight” claims Juan Williams recently.
Republicans bet the house that ObamaCare would be a disaster. They lost.
After a four-year feast criticizing ObamaCare, Congressional Republicans are now left picking at the crumbs of minor complaints. Their longstanding predictions of failure have come up empty. The healthcare reform plan is successful.
Even if Republicans gain control of the Senate in the midterm elections, the best they can do is stage the first Senate vote to repeal ObamaCare. That will come after 50 or more similar votes by the GOP majority in the House.
President Obama will veto any repeal bill, so even holding a vote amounts to one last gesture of futility from the defeated army of right-wing opposition.
More sour grapes are on display in the House. Republicans once promised to pass a detailed House plan as an alternative to ObamaCare before the midterms. But with the president’s program successfully launched, the House leadership has decided not to commit to any Republican plan until after the election.
GOP leaders rightly fear any such announcement would lead to a backlash. Voters would likely see the possibility of conservative proposals bringing forth bigger disruptions in the insurance markets and less coverage for the uninsured.
This success is an illusion. It is smoke and mirrors. CMS cannot resolve the discrepancies of almost 3 million applications:
The federal Obamacare marketplace was unable to verify nearly 3 million irregularities in the applications for enrollment, according to a new audit by the Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG).
The audit, released Tuesday, found that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) resolved less than one percent of so-called “inconsistencies” related to the citizenship and residency status of Obamacare sign ups.
“The Federal marketplace was not able to resolve inconsistencies related to: citizenship, status as a national, lawful presence, residency, family size, annual household income, and whether the applicant was eligible for minimum essential coverage through employer-sponsored insurance,” the audit said.
“According to CMS officials, as of Feb. 23, 2014, the Federal marketplace had resolved approximately 10,000 of the 2.9 million inconsistencies (less than 1 percent),” the audit said.
The big question- will Obama simply decree the inconsistencies irrelevant?
Anyone who’s been a reader here will know that we have repeatedly said that the only reason Obamacare appears to be a success is because most of it has not been implemented. Now democrats are picking up the pace on their retreat from Obamacare.
Back in April former Obama aide Robert Gibbs said that employer mandate would not survive:
“I don’t think the employer mandate will go into effect. It’s a small part of the law. I think it will be one of the first things to go,” he said to a notably surprised audience.
The employer mandate has been delayed twice, he noted. The vast majority of employers with 100 or more employees offer health insurance, and there aren’t many employers who fall into the mandate window, he said.
Killing the employer mandate would be one way to improve the law — and there are a handful of other “common sense” improvements needed as well, he said.
Others include better outreach ahead of next year’s enrollment — educating people about the law’s deadlines, penalties and subsidies; improved technology; and greater incentives, besides not having to pay a low penalty, to young people so they will enroll in health coverage.
And, most importantly, Gibbs said “health care has to add an additional layer of coverage cheaper than the plans already offered.”
Gibbs asserts that the employer mandate, already twice delayed, is a small part of the law. Small does not mean inexpensive:
This actually is one solution that some progressive commentators suggest when talking about ObamaCare fixes — and it makes at least some sense in terms of policy. The mandate will impose huge costs on employers, tying up their capital in regulatory costs rather than expansion and job creation. In fact, a new study shows that the costs for compliance will run between $4800-$5900 per employee for large employers, and that’s not including the rapidly-rising costs of premiums.
And there are major downsides to killing off the mandate:
On the other hand, canceling the employer mandate will provide even more incentive for those employers to dump their workers into the exchanges. That means tens of millions more Americans will have to deal with massive price hikes in premiums, and deductibles that all but assure them that they won’t see any benefit from those premiums. It’s a recipe for political disaster — especially if the White House dumps the employer mandate while enforcing the penalties for the individual mandate. Good luck explaining to consumers why Big Business got let off the hook while they get the gaff.
The notion of ending the employer mandate was immediately smacked down by Nancy Pelosi and Zeke Emanuel but it’s gaining momentum.
Robert Gibbs’ prediction that Obamacare’s employer mandate would — and perhaps should — be jettisoned shocked Democrats back in April.
By July, the former aide and longtime confidant of President Barack Obama had a lot more company. More and more liberal activists and policy experts who help shape Democratic thinking on health care have concluded that penalizing businesses if they don’t offer health insurance is an unnecessary element of the Affordable Care Act that may do more harm than good. Among them are experts at the Urban Institute and the Commonwealth Fund and prominent academics like legal scholar Tim Jost.
The employer mandate, Jost wrote in a Health Affairs post in June, “cries out for repair.” Repealing it “might not be such a bad idea,” if it’s replaced with something better for workers and businesses.
democrats are scared to death of this:
Leading Democrats in Congress aren’t bolting from the employer mandate, at least not before the November election. But the White House has delayed it twice in the past year, dubbed it “not critical” and said it will be phased in more slowly when its begins next year.
Obama has unilaterally delayed the ACA 24 times, both as a nod to big business and unions and to protect democrats from the fallout of Obamacare until after the 2014 election. Increasingly, unions want out of Obamacare.
One of the principal reasons for Obamacare was to cover the uninsured, but Obamacare will not reduce the uninsured below 30 million and it might increase the number to 40 million.
Obamacare is such a bad thing, so poisonous that Obama has delayed the big business mandate until he is effectively out of office.
As is now customary, a democrat President is once again leaving a pile of dung to be cleaned up by his successor. I am putting that marker down right now. Remember I said it once democrats start whining that Obamacare fell apart on someone else’s watch.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
@retire05:
You’re constantly telling me that I’m not smart. I don’t believe that such a reference exists. I don’t believe jobs are being counted any differently now than they were in the recent past. Since you’re making the claim that they are, kindly back it up with a link. Otherwise I’ll assume there’s been no change.
Actually, you don’t. Most of the forms that IRS requires to be completed are filled out and retained in the employer’s records. They’re not submitted to the IRS unless they’re requested at some point. New Hire reporting is required for child support enforcement purposes—many people are attempting to shirk even the most basic social responsibility of supporting their own children—but that goes to a designated state office. A copy of the employer’s retained W4 form pertaining to the employee is acceptable to some state offices.
There are a lot of misconceptions about how the BLS estimates the size of the workforce, unemployment rates, etc. To be truthful, I wasn’t clear on this myself. The figures are really estimates based on statistical surveys. The BLS explains the process here.
If you are a CAPITALIST what you care about is PROFITS and SHAREHOLDER VALUE.
Workers”s wages? let the socialists worry about them
Every poll shows a positive trend in support for ACA that is a fact
@retire05, #50:
While you may find it difficult to believe, the U.S. Constitution is not a comprehensive, detailed instruction manual explaining everything that must be known to keep the nation on track through the 21st Century and beyond. The Constitution is an underlying foundation of fundamental principles, upon which all else stands.
Even at that basic level, there has been disagreement about the meanings and implications of wording from the start. I view the General Welfare Clause differently than you do. I also take mention of the general Welfare in the Preamble as a statement of intention and principle, whatever the Supreme Court might have said about it conferring no specific power.
This is not a convenient interpretation. It complicates rather than simplifies. But nobody ever said what is right will always be the most convenient.
@Greg:
You are socialist because you support the collectivist ideology that successful, hardworking people are to be penalized through government sanctioned theft to buy the votes of the less industrious, and hide your manipulation of the weak human tendency towards envy in a cheap, false costuming of “fairness”.
The only thing a business owner owes to his workers is an agreed upon wage for performed work, and a safe place to perform said work. Any additional benefits associated with a mutually contracted job should be based on competition for the value of a particular job, not forced upon business owners by slimy politicians trolling the less educated and less motivated for votes.
If a worker is dissatisfied with whatever work wage initially agreed to, and cannot persuade his employer to increase the wage, the worker is free to look for employment elsewhere, get training for a more valuable job, or put forth the effort to open his own business. The idea that the government should mandate wages and/or benefits of any kind is anathema to American philosophy. Such ideology is statist to the core, and places undue burden on any entreprenurial endeavors.
@john:
You are beyond delusional if you really believe that.
Capitalism is the engine that built America from a ragtag group of frontier colonies to what was once the greatest nation on earth. If you think running a business is so damned easy with all the collectivist policy burdens you socialists keep devising, then by all means open your own business from scratch, produce a good or service at a price people are willing to pay, and pay your workers whatever you are demanding as a “fair wage”. Provide health insurance that pays everything. Show all us greedy capitalists how to keep your doors open paying for employment insurance, the employer portion of social security taxes, and your operating expenses. Crimeny. Do you even know any all business owners? Do you know how hard it is to make payroll for your employees, plus pay all the government regulatory costs, then your business costs – before you see penny one of profit?
Gasoline is a great example. Who makes more money off a gallon of gas being sold? The oil company or the government? The average profit on a gallon of gas is 9 CENTS, while the federal government takes roughly 26 cents or more, and state governments take from 30-40 cents a gallon. So the company that searches for oil, invests in equipment to extract the oil, transports oil to refineries for production of gasoline, then transports it to your local gas station for sale – employing all those people involved in those processes, providing their benefits, paying the additional costs of government regulation, then paying stock dividends to investors….they make 9 cents a gallon for all that work out of the average $3.80 of the sale cost of a gallon of gas.
So pardon me for not giving a mushy mouse turd of concern or worth to your socialist delusions.
I think most people believe in a system that’s halfway between socialism and laissez-faire capitalism. That’s what I support. That’s the balance that a healthy two party system is suppose to maintain.
@Greg:
You are not smart. And that comment coming from you, who gleans his information from Wikipedia, instead of actual government sites, is pretty laughable. Since when do you ever provide honest, non-partisan data? Never. Now we can add “lazy” to your resume since you don’t seem to have the where with all to research how that BLS data is achieved on your own.
Thanks for proving you’re not only stupid, you’re clueless. When a company hires an employee, the information is currently filed electronically (you do know what “electronically” means, don’t you, Greggie?) and the information the employer provides is Social Security number and number of dependents deduction. It is sent to the IRS, and Social Security at least within days of hire. The IRS then keeps tabs on how many employees that company has, and if the employer is not paying the adequate amount of tax (which is also filed electronically at which point the IRS does an electronic debit to the company’s bank account) they are quite to inform the company of the error.
What is obvious, beside you being stupid and lazy, is that you have never employed anyone.
Your comprehension of the U.S. Constitution is absolutely pathetic. The Constitution is clear, and lists the 18 enumerated powers of the federal government. And those enumerated powers are quite specific. Health insurance, as well as education, not mentioned in the 18, falls under the purview of the states, and the states only.
Intention and principal? Where did you steal that from? Perhaps you should understand what the word general meant to the authors of the Constitution. It did not mean selective, as in picking winners and losers as Democrats are wont to do. It means general, as in general assembly. General means equal, as in any thing the government does must effect everyone equally. The military protects us all (the general public) equally.
While you’re taking that Economic 101 course, back it up with a course on the U.S. Constitution because your left wing perception of it is totally wrong.
JOHN
you should never spit on the CAPITALIST,
IT TOOK AMERICA TO THE MOON,
IT WAS KEEPING YOUR ASS DRY WITH A NEW DIAPER,
EVERY TIME YOU FIRST SCREAM YOUR HEAD UP,
DON’T DEPEND ON SOCIALIST WHICH WILL SINK YOU ,
UNTIL YOU DISAPEAR FROM THE HOLE YOU ARE FALLING IN ,
FASTER THEN YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO KNOW IT
@retire05, #58:
In other words, you haven’t got a single credible source that supports your claim.
And I’m guessing that you don’t have a source to support that claim, either. But please, surprise me. If I’m incorrect I’ll acknowledge it, and be glad to have accurate information. So far as I know, the only report that must be filed within a specified period of hiring is the New Hire report, which goes to a state office. There are forms that the IRS requires the employer to have completed and retain. They aren’t provided to the IRS unless requested, however.
@Greg:
Not at all. It’s because YOU refuse to answer any questions put to you by myself, and others; because you rarely back up your claims with credible sources using other sources like Wiki; because I am not a liar and because I am not your research assistant.
Now, how do I know about companies having to electronically file employee information to the IRS? Because, unlike a common lackey like you, I have not only had that responsibility for companies, but I had that responsibility for my own company. When an employee hires on, the employer also has to notify Social Security. That is how some companies, especially in construction, learn that their Hispanic hires don’t have valid Social Security numbers. Social Security notifies the company that the data (name and number) are not valid (could be any number of things that creates a non-match). The company advises the employee that there is a problem with their SS# and if there is a mistake on the SS end, the employee has to correct it. If it is a stolen, or false SS#, they can, and should, suspend their employment until the problem is taken care of and straightened out with SSA.
Once taxes are taken out of a pay check, the company, depending on its size, has 30, 15 and 7 days to send that money off to the IRS, via electronic transfer and to report wages and taxes.
You’re trying to conflate retaining a form filled out by the employee with the company reporting to the IRS. They are two different things because keeping a form on file and reporting, and sending a remittance to the IRS are not one and the same and it is no surprise that you are trying to conflate something you clearly are clueless about. I realize you don’t want to expose your stupidity. Too late for that though. The fact that there is something you don’t know comes as no surprise.
You can’t cite a reference for that one, either, because there is no such requirement. Maybe companies that you worked for had a lot of job applicants who couldn’t come up with Social Security cards. In that case, they’re supposed to advise the applicant to submit an SS5 to the Social Security Administration to get one. The employer is not required to notify Social Security that someone has been hired. There are specific things concerning each employee that must be reported by the employer later, such as the employee’s total earnings for the year, FICA and Medicare tax withheld, etc.
I don’t think I’m going to continue this exchange. You’re saying very specific things that aren’t true, you’re refusing to provide any links to back the assertions up, and you’re continuously insulting me simply because that seems to be your natural inclination. I haven’t got time for such silliness. I’ve wasted too much time on it already.
@Greg:
I thought you were tired of arguing with Republicans. Yet you are still here spouting off your low information voter nonsense.
Quite trying to CYA with lies. The BLS unemployment numbers have never been presented as “estimates”. They are compiled from the real numbers that have reported to them by the state’s unemployment offices. The numbers do not reflect the actual unemployment numbers, simply because once an unemployed person is no longer involved with the state unemployment agencies systems, the agencies have no further contact with them. The reason the BLS’s numbers are not accurate is not because they are “estimates” but because of the numerical methodology used by the BLS.
Here you show how completely ignorant you are about how payroll works. The IRS gets exact numbers reported to them every month of precisely what each and every documented worker was paid, including precisely how much taxes were withheld and sent to the State and Federal governments, along with other tax relevant information. (Pensions, employee stock purchases, etc.) When Social Security and pensions are paided to retires, the IRS knows that as well. This is the computer age and there are many ways that that the IRS database can be used, including flagging and reporting possible discrepancies, such as when a particular taxpayer id (SSN) suddenly ceases having taxes withheld.
Where the hell do you think the BLS get’s it’s numbers.? From the various government agencies.
Entitlement programs also report on the individual’s accounts they process. And the Federal government receives all that information, continually and it is already collated by the government. In fact the government knows exact how much of our documented society is unemployed, as they do report the numbers quietly to Congress and the White House.
You continue to prove to us what a total waste of time it is to even bother with you, as you never learn. You just return again another day throwing out the same BS that you were proven wrong on before.
It’s Federal tax law you nit wit! Every small business owner with at least one worker knows that. Damn it man, at least take some time to study what you’re debating! What the hell’s wrong with you! You have no idea just how idiotic you are presenting yourself to be.
Gee, Greg.
Both of those are ideals, never been reality, so, yeah.
But the issue is in the governing.
Socialists always like to say that it always fails because THEY personally were not the ones to put it into practice, so it wasn’t done”right.”
But it can never be done right.
The two parties used to both be for a slightly different version of capitalism plus care for the indigent.
Nowadays the two parties are much further apart.
Remember Rep. Maxine Waters saying, ”this liberal would be all about socializing…..be about taking over and the government running all your companies...” to Shell Oil President John Hofmeister.
How would you like Maxine to be the one who chooses how to reach that ”balance?”
Man!
I’m glad it’s not her!
What you fail to understand (and/or admit) is that 0Muslim (doesn’t) Care contains the worst of both socialism and capitalism; i.e. socialist mandated HC coverage with little or no regulations or controls on the capitalist premium costs.
The end result is a corrupt and broken system that’s completely unfair and/or unaffordable to those who aren’t on public assistance and/or connected to the public sector.
Even worse is the fact that far fewer people today have HC coverage then just prior to this disastrous socialist/capitalist bastardization of our HC coverage system.
The whole thing is a mess (just like everything else 0Muslim has ever touched).
Well. there you have it. Greggie has picked up his ball and gone home.
Perhaps he did a little surfing on the BLS link he provided and found that if he looked a little deeper, that he simply didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. No surprise. That’s pretty much how Greggie rolls.
@retire05:
Greg insults himself by arguing about something he clearly doesn’t know a damn thing about. He insults our intelligence by wasting our time with his arguing from a POV of ignorance on the subject. It’s like having a debate with a drunk That is why I’ve been loath to even reply to Greg at all anymore. Life is far to precious and short to spend hours of it on trolls.
@Ditto, #63:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics explains this in some detail. I thought I had posted a link to that page in post #51, but I see now that’s only bringing up a FA Page Not Found message. So, here’s the link again. (I double checked this time to confirm that it’s working. Sorry for the prior dead link.) Refer to the discussion under the Where do the statistics come from? header.
The BLS explains that unemployment figures are derived from statistical analysis of data gathered monthly from a 60,000 household sample. They’re not simply compiling a count of the number of people who are receiving unemployment compensation in any given month and using that figure. They explain why doing so wouldn’t provide an accurate number.
Have you got a source for that assertion? I can’t seem to find one. I simply don’t believe it to be true. Again, please dispel my woeful ignorance by providing a credible reference, which for a reporting requirement so basic and apparently universal should be easy.
@Greg:
I guess you think that a business that takes federal income tax/Social Security taxes are just allow to pay the government whenever they feel like it or when they get around to it? How damn dumb are you, Greggie?
Federal Income Tax and Social Security and Medicare Tax
Larger firms may be required to file in 30 days, 15 days or weekly.
Right from the same link you provided, Greggie.
@retire05, #69:
Quarterly ain’t monthly, ducky. Further, anyone who takes the minimal trouble required to examine IRS form 941 will quickly note that it doesn’t capture any individual information whatsoever concerning employees. It asks only for a total employee count, and a breakout of total wages, tips, and other compensation upon which the total employer withholding figures are based. Whether this is submitted with quarterly, monthly, or weekly payments is irrelevant, because it most definitely does not represent a monthly report stating precisely what each and every documented worker was paid, as described in post #63.
The IRS does not receive such monthly information. There is no requirement that it be provided.
What’s so difficult about occasionally being wrong about something? Everybody is wrong at times. What compounds the problems that arise from the fact that we’re all occasionally wrong is an inability to ever admit it. This results in an ever-growing accumulation of misinformation, and an ever-increasing likelihood of drawing incorrect conclusions.
@Greg:
Do you know what that means, ducky?
No need. Those records are kept by the IRS according to EITNs.
You’ve made being wrong a career.
I think the moral here may be that cuckoo nests should be flown over. There’s little to be gained from landing.
Greg
save your time, there is no more CUCKOOS,
they are on the ground caught by the TURBINE WIND TOWERS,
THEIR HEAD CUT OFF, they will be missed,
no need to be landing,