Olympic Level Obamacare Schadenfreude

Ugh.  It's still winter here, below freezing, with gray skies and windy.  But it's a good thing for Russia, who's holding the Winter Olympics.  The speed skating went by so fast I missed it most of it.

A fairly slow day in Obamacare Schadenfreude, unless you insist on repeating everyone who whines about the CBO report, or whines about how people are whining about the CBO report. But there are a few newish nuggets that rise to Olympic heights.

The big news in Obamacare Schadenfreude is that Obama is thinking about continuing to play Calvinball with the individual mandate, considering putting off the requirement that requirement that people in the individual market switch to Obamacare compliant policies until after Obama leaves office.

The Obama administration is considering an extension of the president's decision to let people keep their individual insurance policies even if they are not compliant with the health care overhaul, industry and government officials said Thursday.

Avalere Health CEO Dan Mendelson said Thursday that the administration may let policyholders keep that coverage for as long as an additional three years, stressing that no decision has been made. Policymakers are waiting to see what rate hikes health insurers plan for the insurance exchanges that are key to the overhaul's coverage expansions.

"The administration is entertaining a range of options to ensure that this individual market has stability to it, and that would be one thing that they could do," he said.
Avalere Health is a consulting firm, but Mendelson said his company was not advising the administration on exchange policy. He said he has had informal discussions with administration officials about the extension, but he didn't identify them.

Health and Human Services spokesman Joanne Peters confirmed that the issue is under discussion, saying: "We are continuing to examine all sorts of ways to provide consumers with more choices and to smooth the transition as we implement the law. No decisions have been made."

If it's such a good plan, why put it off up to three more years?

This became one of the most politically explosive issues in the transition to a new health insurance system under Obama's law, which ultimately aims to cover millions of uninsured people. The wave of cancellation notices — at least 4.7 million of them — hit just when the new HealthCare.gov website was experiencing some of its worst technical problems, and it undercut the president's well-publicized promise that if you liked your plan you could keep it.

Pure politics.

Obamacare isn’t a train wreck, it’s a cancer

When a locomotive crashes, it stops. Obamacare, on the other hand, just keeps on going like a cancer that’s ignored, perpetuating itself and destroying everything in its path.

While we thought the health care act was a train wreck, it’s more like cancer.

Discovering you’ve got a problem should be the first step on the road to recovery. You’re supposed to go in and confront it like you would if you found a tumor.

You wouldn’t just leave it there, wondering what it was up to, hoping it would go away on its own. No, you’d enlist some help and take care of business.
. . .
So now Americans have Obamacare, a cancer that no one is trying to stop as it keeps replicating itself, metastasizing further into our body.

We do have a piece of paper, though, that says “health insurance.”

While they really haven't figured out how to deliver healthcare to 50,000,000  people, they have figured out how to get everybody into the government database under the "right" label:

ObamaCare’s Compulsory Race Question

You can’t see a doctor now unless you fill out a questionnaire about race and ethnicity, and Maetenloch comments at AOSHQ:

“Thanks Obama and Congress. These days I always put myself down as ‘Mixed’ since

a) it’s true in the larger sense andb) it fucks up all their statistics.”

Heh. If there is an option of fill-in-the-blank for “Other,” I would suggest writing in some archaic category: “Sumerian,” “Hittite,” “Hun,” “Hottentot,” “Creole” or “Octaroon.” As for myself, I’m pretty sure “Celto-Hibernian” or “Appalachian-American” would do.

I'll list myself as Neandertal-American in honor of the 2% or so of Neanderthal DNA that the vast majority of us carry.  I'm not sure whether or not I can claim any Denisovan heritage, though.

A lovely piece from LauraW at Ace's: The Pursuit of Happiness: Done. You Can Stop Chasing It Now

Up until recently, most of us here understood that happiness is something the government cannot give you. It is something we must furnish for ourselves, and the government's job is to refrain as much as possible from impeding our progress to this highly individual and subjective goal.

But we were wrong. The government can deliver on happiness.

Specifically, the government can create conditions where people may no longer be painfully chained to a job they don't like, just because the place offers great health benefits. Certainly this new definition of freedom will lead inexorably to enduring bliss.
. . .
Truly, economic wisdom has been turned on its head. At no other point in history has this concept of freedom from (stressful, but well-paid) employment ever been advanced by public policy makers and pols.

The reason, of course, was because it never seemed like a good idea up until people had to brainstorm up bullsh*t excuses for Obamacare's failures. You may even say this is 'unprecedented.'

And you would be correct.

Read the whole thing.

Could Obamacare bring down Colorado's Mark Udall?

Obamacare is extremely unpopular in Colorado, according to a new Quinnipiac poll, at that looks like trouble for the state's senior senator, first-term Democrat Mark Udall. In its survey of registered voters in Colorado, Quinnipiac found that 60 percent oppose the health-care law, and only 37 percent support it. Those who oppose Obamacare in Colorado include 68 percent of independents, 53 percent of women, and 61 percent of young adults under the age of 30.

How does that bode for Udall, who was first elected in 2008 and, like every other Democratic senator, voted for Obamacare? The poll found that when voters were asked if a politician's support for Obamacare would affect their vote in November, 52 percent said it would make them "less likely" to vote for that candidate. Just 29 percent said it would make them more likely and 18 percent said it would make no difference.

An effective Republican campaign against Udall, focusing on his support for Obamacare, could topple the Democrat. Quinnipiac found Udall's support is weak, with voters split evenly at 42 percent on whether he deserves reelection. On job approval, 45 percent say they approve of Udall to 41 percent who say they disapprove. Among the five potential Republican opponents, Udall beats them all--but just barely, and in none of the match-ups does he receive more than 45 percent support.

I have infinite confidence in the Republican's abilities to throw away an advantage.