Horrific Healthcare Update (updated)

George Rebane

We are all familiar with the ineptness and incompetence with which government operates programs that were sold with the familiar refrain ‘we’re from the government, and we’re here to help.’  The news on the ability of government to do anything right, beyond its constitutional mandate of protecting the nation, just keeps getting worse.  To much of all this we have developed a tin ear, and at least half of us don’t even know what’s going on.

Fox News revisited the growing debacle of benefits for wounded veterans.  Seatbelts on?  Upon discharge from military hospitals veterans must apply for continuing benefits.  On the average, a disabled veteran must fill out 613 separate forms from 18 different (and overalapping) agencies to get the process going.  Every year these applications take 43,000,000 hours to process by government workers (I expect that at $100 per burdened hour). Today the broken system has an 833,000 claim backlog in which claims take an average of 260 days to work through, and some up to three years.

Onto such demonstrated bureaucratic incompetence our IRS has been mandated by Obamacare to administer this legislative late-term abortion.  And it’s clear that no one really knows what to do to implement the core function of the law which is comprised of the employer and individual mandates to purchase state-designated health insurance.  The approaching Obamacare “train wreck” has now become so obvious that it is necessary to grant exceptions, deferrals, and delay its implementation part by noxious part.  The employer mandate has been quietly pushed back from its legislated start of 2014 to 2015, after the mid-term elections.  The administration scumbags don’t want to saddle the entire Democratic party with the inevitable bad news that will become a torrent during an election year as application of the mandate is attempted.

Meanwhile businesses have already begun insulating themselves the best they can.  The so-called ‘49ers’ are jumping through hoops by not hiring, reducing jobs, sharing jobs, etc to keep under the 50 FTE threshold where fines get levied and extra reporting kicks in if they don’t provide government prescribed healthcare to their workers.  (All businesses must still file a new monthly report to the IRS on the hourly breakdown of each employee's work.)

But the real screamer is that the feds (Treasury Department) are neither ready nor have a clue about how to process the claims and information that will roll in from America’s 5.7 million businesses - their data management systems are not up to handling the work, and the actual processes to shuffle the reports etc are beyond their ken.  Montana senator Max Baucus, an author of this legislative cow pie, knew of what he spoke when he uttered the now famous assessment of what is coming at us down the rails.  The only thing working without a hitch is the big Lie Factory at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that has now perfected the Congressional End-run as it fundamentally transforms the nation.

[update]  To make the impact of the described train wreck more clear, we should also take a closer look at this year’s job reports that are making a thrill go down the legs of the people at National Propaganda Radio.  The up reports culminated with the Labor Dept dubious report that in June employers increased the total non-farm payrolls by 195K.   Most people just take this number as the number of regular jobs added.  But the jobs report is another squirrely statistic that comes out of the Beltway (details here http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm ).  In what we consider normal full time jobs, the 195K is reduced considerably.  Overall, June’s contribution brings the year’s total to 687K jobs added in 2013.


But all jobs are not created equal, and even less equal when the feds declare that they have lowered the full time work week to 30 hours from the usual accounting of 35 hours or more.  When we break down the year’s total new jobs, we find that only 130K full time jobs have been created this year.  The remaining 557K jobs are part time, and mostly in the hospitality industry – ‘… and would like fries with that?’  When the June job situation is examined more closely (see graphic from Zero Hedge), we find that according to the June Household Survey the full time job count actually plunged.  The positive report was made up by a sizeable part time hiring as employers attempt to minimize Obamacare damage to their businesses by attempting to game their employee counts as the fed’s wallow in indecision, misinformation, and just plain incompetence in getting this version of nationalized healthcare going.

Comments

[bill tozer]

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/022813-646270-affordable-care-act-pushes-women-off-insurance.htm?ven=OutBrainCP

[bill tozer]

Delay the employer mandate until after the next election. Smart move not to have your party saddled with the fall out. Don't know if it is legal to delay since the law Obama signed says it kicks in on Jan 2014. Somebody is looking at internal polls. Oh, that party pooper law of unintended consequences.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/022813-646270-affordable-care-act-pushes-women-off-insurance.htm?ven=OutBrainCP

[George Rebane]

Administrivia - I dug a few more comments out of the spam filter. If you don't see your comment post immediately, post another one telling me about it. Thanks.

[Ian Random]

Almost makes you wonder if it would be cheaper to fire the bureaucrats and use the money to buy insurance off the now less free market.

[Bill Tozer]

Don't know how they can wave a magic wander and call full time employment 30 hours a week. Now when we compare decades to decades, we need to add the little asterisk. Just like in sports. Asterisk means it was a 12 game schedule in football or the record was set in a 16 game schedule. Asterisk now means that full time was once considered 35 hours and this employment number refers to 30 hours a week. More like comparing apples to oranges than peaches to nectarines.

I always thought part time was more like working half the time. 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Half time gets old after 40-50 years, so now I take all day Sunday off and half of Monday thru Saturday.

Funny thing about the Sequester is that the White House tours are closed and people in Europe and the IMF are screaming bloody murder that we are are going to stump growth because of these little cuts here and there. Well, Obama signed it into law. Now, we are going to spend billions upon billions of dollars to set up exchanges, but nobody is screaming about that money pit. At least UAW, the labor unions, school teachers, and other assorted and sundry gubberment workers will get a waiver from the Cadillac Coverage penalty until 2016. Hey, I bet the waivers for the Cadillac hefty tax gets extended to 2017...after the next Presidential election. Talk about slowing down a slow train wreck. Guess the Coal Miners Union don't have to worry about coverage. By 2017 there won't be a Coal Miners Union. That will go the way of suction dredging in California. Some will find some "full time" employment and others will find two of those Obama "full time" jobs to make ends meet. 60 hours a week is normal nowadays for most.

[Michael Anderson]

Prediction: Obama will cancel the employer mandate after the 2014 elections. This will cause many small and mid-size, and even some large corporate employers to dump their company-sponsored health plans. Here comes single payer!

Funny how that wimpy and silly "community organizer" out-foxed and out-gunned the right, performing a fancy march-through of the Republican's Maginot Line. Chicago hard-ball, Obama-style. Pwned!

[Gregory]

Prediction: after the 2014 elections, there will be so many Republicans in the Congress that single payer becomes a political impossibility.

[Todd Juvinall]

Single payer and Obamacare will be kaput as the money will not be appropriated.

[Michael Anderson]

Sorry GG, Americans aren't voting for Republicans anymore. The brand is spoiled.

And while we're at it which Republicans are you talking about? There are at least two branches of the species at the moment, and both of them are dying off.

[fish]

Sorry GG, Americans aren't voting for Republicans anymore. The brand is spoiled.

And the way things are headed economically Team Dem will be on the endangered species list soon too. Was fun while it lasted.

[Ben Emery]

Single payer is already an impossibility because the D's have advocates arrested instead of inviting them to sit at the table.

Obamacare is good news for insurance and pharmaceutical industry, 30 million more people on the roles needing prescriptions from drug pushing MD's.

[fish]

Funny how that wimpy and silly "community organizer" out-foxed and out-gunned the right, performing a fancy march-through of the Republican's Maginot Line. Chicago hard-ball, Obama-style. Pwned!

The Hyde Park machine has worked wonders during the past 6 years. It's much easier too implement programs of questionable efficacy when you have a compliant press ("Tingles" Matthews anyone) and a grasping naive public (Obamaphone lady anyone).

Keep celebrating though Michael I'm sure it will all turn out just fine.

[Todd Juvinall]

Greg, I just listened to an analysis on Congress and MichaelA is just plain wrong. Any attendee to the Burning Man is a bit off anyway. But the House appears to be fine as a Republican stronghold and we have a good shot at the Senate. America is center-right and I expect it will return to a common sense bunch of conservative people soon.

Of course, the R's could make some errors and things could change but so could the D's.

[Michael Anderson]

Thanks fish, I have my party hat on.

[Bill Tozer]

Here is an article pointing to the eventual singer payer. What happened in the housing/credit meltdown is happening to an exchange near you: No docs, just liar's loans.

Hawaii tried to reign in people who qualified for employer sponsored health care but who opted out and had the state pick up the tab for their state sponsored health care. Saves the folk money. Once you taste the honey, its hard to forget. Hawaii was unsuccessful in its attempts to get people off the state and BACK ON their employer sponsored plans. People prefer the free stuff. Reigning in poor workers who purposely dumped their employer sponsored plans caused an uproar in the almost broke state. Not popular. How mean to have to verify your income to see if you qualify for a subsidy. Why buy the cow when the milk is free?

Delays and tweaks are going on because the millions upon millions of uninsured simply are not flooding the rolls. Especially the young. All that food and the banquet hall is empty. Hey, without everybody signing up, it will be just another overpriced inefficient government program. Maybe if we can get enough employers to dump their employees through insignificant penalties, ObmaCare might stand a chance to skip happily down the yellow brick single payer road.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/08/administration-makes-another-obamacare-change-relaxes-standards-for-subsidies/?test=latestnews

[Bill Tozer]

More law on unintended consequences: Markets and employers and common folk like me need stability. Having a moving target does not create a stable environment.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fatburger-others-obamacare-delay-came-102700057.html

[Paul Emery]

Todd quote

"America is center-right and I expect it will return to a common sense bunch of conservative people soon.

Let's see Todd, you had Romney by 7 in the last election. To what do you attribute your new found wisdom in predicting elections?

[fish]

Thanks fish, I have my party hat on.

.....and you look fabulous!

[walt]

My now out of work daughter ( collage grad, and microbiologist) Is finding that
the government mandated insurance she has been saddled with isn't paying for ANY
Dr. visits for her children. The money is getting taken from her bank account every month non the less.
She made a phone call about that this morning. She was told she "might get re reimbursed is about,,,, 18 months."
I call it down right theft.
I told her "welcome to Obummercaretax. Maybe your old fart of a Dad was right?"
She has had to learn the hard way that Liberalism is not her friend.

[Bill Tozer]

Walt said "she had to learn the hard way that Liberalism is not her friend" Amen brother.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/12/obama-avoids-discussing-poverty-study-finds/