Bitter Cold Sunday Morning Obamacare Schadenfreude

The cold air pushing down from Canada arrived sometime last night, and the temperatures plunged to 26 F, with clear skies and a wind chill of God only what from the 20-30 mph north winds.  A good morning to sit with a cup of coffee (or two or three) and sort through the wreckage of Obmacare for some newsworthy nuggets.

From the Opinion Pages of the New York Times, thanks to Stacy McCain, this well reasoned missive:

Weird NY Times Column: Not Supporting ObamaCare Is Slavery or Something

This is just downright bizarre:

[T]he South is once again committed to taking a backward path. By refusing to expand health care for the working poor through Medicaid, which is paid for by the federal government under Obamacare, most of the old Confederacy is committed to keeping millions of its own fellow citizens in poverty and poor health. They are dooming themselves, further, as the Left-Behind States.

Do you believe this? “Free” money from the federal government? Medicaid as a job-creation dynamo? While I have not bothered to dig down on the data here, the basic economics of it is like saying that if you take $5 out of your pants pocket and put it in your coat pocket, you will then have $10. Government has no money of its own to spend. Every cent expended by government must come either from tax revenue or from borrowing, and borrowing — i.e., deficit spending — is ultimately a drag on economic growth, because capital invested in government bonds (which is how deficit spending is financed) is capital not invested in private-sector businesses.

If Voters Had Known They’d Lose Their Insurance, They’d Have Voted For Romney

A Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research survey conducted from Nov. 18-20 asked voters who supported President Barack Obama in 2012: “As you may know, millions of Americans have lost their insurance plans despite President Obama’s promise that, quote, ‘if you like your plan, you can keep it.’ If you knew in 2012 that this promise was not true, would you still have voted for Barack Obama?”

In response, 23 percent said they would not have voted to re-elect Obama, while 72 percent said they would still have voted for him. The largest number of defections were among female voters ages 18-54, 31 percent of whom said they would not have supported the president.

If "ifs" and "ands" were pots and pans

and all the seas were ink

and all the trees were bread and cheese

what should we have to drink?

Yep, they lied, knowing they were lying, and counting on the gullible to accept those lies and re-elect them.  Nothing left to do but try to throw the bums out, if that's even possible with majority of the voters on the dole.

More from Smitty, also at The Other McCain: ObamaCare Is A River Of Lies, With Headwaters In Hell

Your attention is drawn to Andrew McCarthy, who states it succinctly:

The point of showing that Obama is carrying out a massive scheme to defraud — one that certainly would be prosecuted if committed in the private sector — is not to agitate for a prosecution that is never going to happen. It is to demonstrate that there is logic to the lies. There is an objective that the fraud aims to achieve. The scheme is the framework within which the myriad deceptions are peddled. Once you understand the scheme, once you can put the lies in a rational context, you understand why fraud was the president’s only option — and why “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” barely scratches the surface of Obamacare’s deceit.

Read, understand and motivate your neighbors. 2014 is past the whole “most important election of your life”. We’re past any easy remedy for the Statist cancer. No, our back is now to the wall.

Mary Landrieu, the anomalous Senator from the deep red state of Louisiana  is feeling the heat:

The number of people supporting her reelection has dropped from above the critical 50% mark to 41% in barely a month, and you simply can’t discount the timing of the Obamacare roll-out with this as coincidence. The specifics in this latest round of polling get even worse for her.

- “Fifty-four percent of those polled said they’d be less likely to vote for the Democratic senator’s re-election next year because of her vote for President Barack Obama’s health law.”

- Her “good” ratings dropped by 14 points (from 44-30%). Her negative job ratings went up 10 points with most being an increase in “poor” ratings (up 7 points).

- Landrieu lost ground among male and female white Democrats. Her positive job ratings dropped 17 points among while male Democrats and 19 points among white female Democrats.

- 70% of undecideds said they would be less likely to vote for Landrieu because she supported ObamaCare.

- When voters were asked what was more important, Landrieu’s seniority or electing someone new, 56-37% said electing someone new.

If the voters are truly feeling that way, they may want to recall what Senator Landrieu said only last month.

“….We did not wake up one morning and declare this the law. The people of the United States declared this through us as their Representatives. If they do not like it, they can unelect us. Believe me, they will have a great chance because I am up for reelection right now. They will be able to do that. But that is the way you do it.”

Say… that’s some pretty solid thinking. I may not often agree with Landrieu, but I must admit that she may be on to something there.

But Obama (and the media) is ready to change the subject (again): 

Well, who can blame him?  Today’s competing radio addresses tell the meta-story, as CNN reports.  Republicans focused on the meltdown at HHS over the ObamaCare rollout, while Barack Obama provided his 387th pivot to the economy:

While Republicans continued on the anti-Obamacare offensive, President Barack Obama largely pivoted away from the troubled rollout of Healthcare.gov, instead focusing his address on the economy.

Back to the nuts and bolts, and web design, this is a perfect match for the Obama administration: HealthCare.gov contractor had high confidence but low success

As the meeting began, one of the officials reminded the CGI employees that HealthCare.gov was “the president’s number one priority,” assured them that the discussion would be a “blame-free zone,” and then bored in. “We must be honest and open with each other,” the official said, according to documents obtained from participants in the session. “I have to know what I don’t know.”
...
For that day and the next, CGI staff huddled with government officials in the semicircular conference room at the headquarters of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency overseeing the project. They combed through 15 pages of spreadsheets they had brought, which spelled out the company’s level of confidence — high, medium or low — that individual components would be ready.

By the time HealthCare.gov launched 51/2 weeks later, many of those predictions proved wrong, according to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post and officials familiar with the project.

This is what happens when a bullshitter hires another bullshitter to do his work.  He should have known better.  But he had to keep Michele happy...

Fox News reported Toni Townes-Whitley, a senior vice president of CGI Federal, is a Princeton classmate of first lady Michelle Obama and contributed $500 in 2011 and 2012 to Obama’s reelection campaign and another $1,000 to the Obama Victory Fund. Further, George Schindler, president for U.S. and Canada for CGI Federal’s parent company CGI Group, donated to Obama’s reelection campaign after his company won the ObamaCare contract.

Yes, it's a little old, but we don't want it to get forgotten in the maze of scandals.

But for today's ultimate Obamacare takedown, we have to go to George Will:

For concision and precision in describing Barack Obama’s suddenly ambivalent relationship with his singular — actually, his single — achievement, the laurels go to Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).

After Obama’s semi-demi-apology for millions of canceled insurance policies — an intended and predictable consequence of his crusade to liberate Americans from their childish choices of “substandard” policies sold by “bad apple” insurers — Scalise said Obama is like someone who burns down your house. Then shows up with an empty water bucket. Then lectures you about how defective the house was.

 "But wait", you say, "He's just quoting someone else!"

True enough, but then he goes on to finish the analogy in devastating style:

What is now inexplicably called Obama’s “fix” for the chaos he has created is surreal. He gives you permission to reoccupy your house — if you can get someone to rebuild it — but for only another year.

At least he has banished boredom from millions of lives. Although probably not from his.

 And just yesterday morning I thought I might have to discontinue this series for lack of material...