Orwellian Obamacare PR

A young woman I know received a mail piece recently from the Democratic National Committee (DNC). View a PDF version.

The headline on one side is: “Your Preventive Care May Now Be FREE Thanks to America’s New Health Care Law.”

The headline on the other side is: “You may now get many of your preventive care services for FREE.”

The mail piece goes on to list the preventive services including cancer, HPV, and HIV screenings, as well as contraception.

I find all the listed preventive services to be fine, dandy, worthy, appropriate for women, who should pay the cost of same like everyone else pays for their preventive services whether through an available health insurance policy that covers such services or directly.

The problem with this political effort is the word FREE in green, all caps, bold, and italic.

The problem? It is a lie.

All health care services cost money. They are not for FREE.

The truth for women? “Your Preventive Care has now been SOCIALIZED Thanks to America’s New Health Care Law.” That is, the cost of the preventive services listed will now be paid by everyone covered by health insurance, including women who use these services. The DNC is lying.

It is notable that men will be universally subsidizing these services together with women but, at least as of yet, women will not be universally subsidizing the cost of prostate cancer screenings, HPV and HIV screening, nor the cost of condoms and erectile dysfunction treatments for men. Where does this stop? What interest group will be the next to demand services that will be SOCIALIZED under universal Obamacare mandates? How about abortions? How about drug and alcohol treatment? How about mental illness treatment? How about smoking cessation? How about weight watchers? How about gym memberships?

So, why is the Democratic National Committee selectively mailing Obamacare propaganda about female preventive services to women? (def of “propaganda”: information, especially false information, that a government or organization spreads in order to influence people’s opinions and beliefs)

The DNC is lying to women in an effort to gain their support for all of Obamacare without having to explain the realities of universal mandates and actual costs. The DNC effort is both a lie and an attempted bribe.

George Orwell was just a few decades early in the reality he saw coming.

The Political and Financial Disaster that is Obamacare

The Congressional Budget Office (not Fox News, not Rush Limbaugh, not Glenn Beck, not some other source considered by those on the left to be on the right wing fringe) published Updated Estimates for the Insurance Coverage Provisions of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a., Obamacare) on March 13, 2012.

Obamacare is now estimated to cost $1.76 trillion for eleven years through 2022, rather than the $940 billion forecast for ten years ending 2020 as represented at the time it was enacted. That’s $1,760,000,000,000 instead of $940,000,000,000. Get it? See this article in The Washington Examiner. I am still searching for a mention of this report in The New York Times (let me know if you spot one).

Is the $1.76 trillion number comparable to the $940 billion number? Not exactly as the updated numbers include estimates for 11 years through 2022 while the initial estimates were based on ten years starting in 2010. But this was a known scam to begin with and the current CBO numbers reveal the back end cost loading (see Table 2). Anyone hear anyone questioning Mr. Obama on how we are going to pay for an additional $820,000,000.000 over the next ten years, and the estimated $265,000,000,000 each year beyond 2022? Is this updated estimate reflected in Mr. Obama’s budget? Where are the questioners?

Here is the White House spin. It never compares Obamacare’s updated estimated cost with the cost when it was enacted. Does the word “dishonest” come to mind? Ever wonder about the history of actual spending on government health care programs compared to estimates at the time of enactment? And here are some known details of actual costs and taxes imposed by Obamacare.

Mr. Obama and the people in his administration don’t care what it costs. They are happy to put your children and grandchildren in hock for their lifetimes to move us to nationalized health care, to make government the supreme decider. Mr. Obama and his supporters are confident they know what is best for you and believe they have a right to impose the cost of their certainty on you. That alone is reason they all need to go. The obvious financial problems just increase the odds they will soon depart leaving a disastrous legacy.

Let Reason Rule

This responds to an article in the Wall Street Journal from November 3, 2011 by Jeff Greene, “We Should Listen to the 99%”. Mr. Greene is an investor and was a Democratic candidate from Florida for the U.S. Senate in 2010. He is a signatory to the Giving Pledge, which commits participants to devote the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.

I am pleased Mr. Greene found the educated, middle class “occupy” protesters “sincere.” I find him to be sincere as well.

Mr. Greene concludes the protesters are “angry and frightened about the future” because they believe 99% of Americans are becoming more insecure, while only 1% of Americans are becoming more secure. Ninety-nine to one! Sounds like an unfair fight to me but people in America are free to express themselves. That expression helps us all digest what we observe, and reach our own conclusions about what has the ring of truth and what does not.

Mr. Greene puts blame for the insecurity of the protesters on a combination of bad government housing policy, bankers, low relative gas taxes, and a non-competitive education system. (Clarifying note to Mr. Greene, those Federal highways were paid for by the drivers who paid those relatively low gas taxes.)

Perhaps Mr. Greene represents the intersection of the “occupy” people and the “tea party” people, or perhaps he represents the ultimate in statist policy presumption that tells people where to live, what forms of transportation to use, and what skills the government will train them to perform. How about the following ideas Mr Greene?

Young and capable people are being asked to finance unsustainable social security and Medicare/caid entitlements. My daughter, a college student, doesn’t understand why she is expected to finance my retirement and health care benefits and pay off 15 trillion dollars in debt accumulated by my generation. She and the “occupy” people are right to be incensed about this. So, let’s restructure the entitlements to transition to a sustainable model where each generation has a chance to receive benefits of equal value. This means that each participant needs to share in both the risk and the return of these programs, not presume their children will subsidize them. If these problems are addressed with fundamental structural reform that fully addresses the multi-generational issues many will be willing to pay additional taxes to help with such a transition to sanity.

The political soup of the now taxpayer owned mortgage bundlers, Fannie and Freddie, has contributed materially to the culture of greed, self dealing, and influence peddling that corrupted the mortgage market and motivated its derivative financial engineering. So, let’s close down government intervention in the housing market and require both lenders and borrowers to suffer the consequences of dishonesty, while holding all parties accountable for performance of the obligations contained in the mortgage contracts they freely enter into. Let’s also make the Federal Reserve accountable to the people for its actions by requiring an annual audit.

One can presume from Mr. Greene’s comments that he understands the role of national, state, and local education interests in driving down the quality of education while driving up the cost. So, let’s put the power to choose and to allocate funding in the hands of the parents that care. Let’s also reflect on Mr. Greene’s comments about required skills and let employers tell the educators what skills they need, as they will be the ones hiring.

Finally, I am pleased Mr. Greene has committed a majority of his wealth to philanthropy as it demonstrates an understanding that it is more productive to deploy his money in the diversified private charitable realm than to allow it to be consumed by government in the form of estate taxes. I hope he is also allocating some of the capital derived from his individual success as an investor to business opportunities that may employ some of those protesters he identifies with.

Boy Scouts to the Rescue (?)

Treasury Secretary Geithner and I agree that Federal regulation of the banking and financial industry is warranted where it serves the general interest of all citizens in the stable functioning of a free economy. However, we should find Mr. Geithner’s defense of Dodd-Frank concerning (Wall Street Journal, Financial Crisis Amnesia, March 1, 2012).

The primary impact of Dodd-Frank is to give the Federal government leverage over the financial industry through its arbitrary and expansive language. An initial poster child for the impact of this leverage is the recently announced $25 billion settlement with five large banks over alleged processing abuses on mortgage foreclosures. Why are five major US banks agreeing to fork over $25 billion without defending themselves?

As reported by Bloomberg, it turns out the banks and the Obama administration stuck a deal whereby these banks that service about half the nation’s mortgages on behalf of investors will be able to share losses on their junior loans with bondholders and get credit toward the cash they pledged to spend in the settlement. This proportionate write-down of the first and second mortgages represents a reversal of lien priority.

So, the banks are compelled to negotiate with the administration, and then agree to a settlement that diminishes the rights of first mortgage holders by fiat. So, would you now want to own first mortgages on real estate? How would you value them given that the government can renegotiate your contract rights at will?

That Mr. Geithner defends Dodd-Frank in the Wall Street Journal with the enthusiasm and naivety of a Boy Scout seems disingenuous in the context of political reality. The lesson here is that over regulation can, has, and will corrupt the healthy and normal functioning of markets and the private economy to our detriment. Somebody please inform Mr. Geithner.

Why Isn’t AARP Screaming?

AARP advocates on national policy issues.

AARP has demonstrated its influence as an instrumental supporter and beneficiary of Obamacare.

Surprisingly absent from AARP’s current policy advocacy is any mention of the Federal Reserve’s intentional devaluation of the savings their members rely upon. Seniors quite sensibly put their savings into US Treasury securities or Federally guaranteed bank Certificates of Deposit to realize a return while minimizing risk of loss.

The Consumer Price index increased by 3% in 2011. Within that total food increased 4.7% and gasoline increased 9.9%.

Currently, one year US Treasury Bills are yielding less then one quarter of one percent and one year bank CDs are yielding about one percent, putting seniors in a giant hole.

In a March 5, 2012 article in the Wall Street Journal Andy Laperriere writes, “During the past three years, the Federal Reserve has tripled the size of its balance sheet—in effect printing $2 trillion—something it had never done in its nearly 100-year history. The Fed has lowered short-term interest rates to zero and signaled that it will keep them at that level for years. Inflation-adjusted short-term rates, or real rates, have been in the minus 2% range during the past couple of years for the first time since the 1970s.”

One would think the demonstrated errosion of buying power caused by Federal Reserve policies devaluing the dollar and fixing interest rates would prompt the AARP to speak up in protest on behalf of their members.

A strange silence indeed.

Learn more about AARP.