Your Sunday Dose of Obamacare Schadenfreude

Back to sunlight, at least early in the day. Still warm and moist out. Oh, all right, onto the schadenfreude:

Californians with Obamacare are driving to Mexico for cheaper, better healthcare

Californians unhappy with their forced Obamacare related healthcare packages are finding a cheaper and more efficient way to see a doctor — high tail it to Mexico.

The growing trend among Californians finds citizens driving into Mexican towns like Tijuana, and seeing a doctor for as little as $15 out of pocket. While the Obama administration remains puzzled why so few Latinos are signing up for health insurance, the answer can be found just a few short miles away from the border.

The administration will continue to have a tough task going forward, in an attempt to entice Latinos with green cards back into the United States for their medical visits. Those who can travel back and forth over the border have little reason to enroll in an expensive healthcare system, racked with long waits and errors.

For David Hayes Batista, the director of the Study of Latino Health and Culture at UCLA, the trend may begin to appeal to other U.S residents looking for ways to get medical treatment, not just Latinos.

Mexicans come to the United State to get things they want; jobs mostly.  There's nothing wrong with aspirations. However, they retain close ties to their home country, and many do not intend to become citizens, they just want to earn money to send to family, and to save enough to retire comfortably in Mexico.  They are comfortable with Mexico's culture in a way we are not.

I was once on a cruise ship that turned back from the leg to Cozumel from the Grand Caymans because a woman in labor was afraid to give birth in Mexico. In Mexico, drugs are cheap and readily available; the quality is suspect and you can find healthcare as good as you can afford.

Oregon and Massachusetts, classic blue states, have dumped their own attempts at Obamacare exchanges, and run back to the feds like a dog with it's tail between its legs after a losing fight with reality.  Maryland declared defeat too, but opted to borrow Connecticut's working model. Now a CEO with a leading insurance company has advised the Aloha state, also a liberal bastion too abandon it's efforts:

The chief executive of Hawaii's largest health insurance company is calling on Hawaii to shut down its beleaguered health insurance exchange, which was set up as part of President Barack Obama's signature health care law.

Michael Gold, president and CEO of Hawaii Medical Services Association, says the state shouldn't keep spending money on the Hawaii Health Connector, a system that he says is financially unsustainable and does not work.

"I think there's an alternative that Hawaii needs to pursue immediately," Gold said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Hawaii should ask the federal government for an exception to the part of the Affordable Care Act that requires states to set up and run their own insurance exchanges, Gold said. He thinks businesses should buy approved plans directly from insurance companies, as they have done in the past. Individuals would do the same, or the federal government could take over that part of the exchange, he said.

It's almost like Blue states don't do real work, like setting up working websites...

Obamacare Myth-Making: Five phony success stories.

Among the many exaggerations and inaccuracies the law’s defenders are touting, five stand out.

• First, they say that premium rates are down. In support of this, liberals cite research from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), but they misinterpret it. In fact, the CBO’s most recent estimate of premiums shows a decline not from what they were in 2013, before the implementation of Obamacare, but rather from what CBO estimated they would be in 2014. Studies from many outlets have shown that rates have gone up since 2013, substantially for many people . . .

• Second, supporters claim that Obamacare exceeded the enrollment target promulgated by the CBO. This is questionable. The CBO last year projected 7 million enrollees, and the Obama administration now gloats that 8 million people selected a plan in the exchanges. But not everybody who selected a plan will pay for it. The best estimate right now is that about 15 percent of initial enrollees are not paying their first premiums. If that holds, paid enrollment will come in slightly under CBO’s 2013 prediction. But there is more. CBO downgraded its forecast earlier this year from 7 million to 6 million, and this month declined to update it even after the “surge” of last-minute enrollees began. The reason: The prediction is an annual average. By this metric, Obamacare will struggle to hit 6 million, with enrollment so weak in the first quarter.

• Third, liberals claim that insurers are happy, pointing to recent earnings reports from the biggest companies. But this is a non sequitur. The insurers have become clients of government. Federal subsidies to exchange insurers this year will hit approximately $10 billion, thanks to a program called “reinsurance” that reimburses Obamacare exchange enrollees for excessive claims. As a point of reference, $10 billion just about equals the combined profits of the top five insurers in 2013. Moreover, the total subsidy could go even higher, thanks to another feature of Obamacare known as “risk corridors.” . . .

• Fourth, liberals claim the law is “working.” This omits the dozens of provisions that the president has suspended or delayed because they were not working—for budgetary or political reasons. The suspended or postponed provisions include the mandate that businesses cover full-time employees, the cancellation of noncompliant plans, and cuts to Medicare Advantage.. . .

• Fifth, the left assures us Obamacare cannot be repealed. This is particularly rich, considering all the provisions the administration itself has effectively repealed when it found them inconvenient. . . .

On the other hand: 9 Obamacare Predictions That Have Come True

1. The individual mandate is an enforcement nightmare. -As a candidate, President Obama worried that an individual mandate to buy insurance would be unenforceable. He changed his mind once he became president. This year—the first year that the mandate penalties are to be imposed—he has already started backtracking on the enforcement of the provision he signed into law.

2. The law will create new disincentives to work.- Between Obamacare’s higher taxes and its subsidies that drop off if you raise your income, there’s not a lot of incentive here to work harder and better your situation.

3. The law, particularly the employer mandate, will impose new costs on businesses that undercut jobs and wages. - The employer mandate has been delayed until 2015, but the uncertainty Obamacare has created—and its 18 new tax hikes—have put a huge dent in job creation.

4. The law undermines competition and further consolidates health insurance markets. - Heritage Foundation analysis of federal and state exchanges shows that the law has, in general, reduced competition and consolidated health insurance markets. Between 2013 and 2014, the number of insurers offering coverage on the individual markets in all 50 states has declined nationwide by 29 percent.

5. The law guarantees major premium increases. - As Heritage predicted, the average annual premiums for single and family coverage in 2014 are rising in the state and federal health insurance exchanges all around the country. In 11 states, premiums for 27-year-olds have more than doubled since 2013; in 13 states, premiums for 50-year-olds have increased more than 50 percent.

6. The law discourages insurance enrollment among the young. - The law’s insurance rules and new benefit mandates will make it cheaper for many younger Americans simply to remain uninsured and pay the penalty fine. It’s not surprising that young people have been staying away.

7. The law’s Medicare savings would not financially strengthen Medicare. - The law’s proponents originally promised that “savings” from Medicare changes would be spent simultaneously in two places: helping Medicare and expanding Obamacare. But money can be spent only once, so that didn’t work.

8. The law’s Medicare changes will result in reduced benefits and threaten seniors’ access to care. - The law’s impact is fairly straightforward: Fewer Medicare providers, reimbursed at rates progressively reduced over time, will create access problems for patients. Medicare cuts have been underway for several years now.

9. The law compels taxpayers to fund abortion and weakens protections of the right of conscience. - Obamacare mandates health plans that include coverage of abortion. It also spawned the Health and Human Services regulatory mandate that forces American employers to provide coverage for abortion-inducing drugs. It is safe to say that four years ago, millions of Americans did not expect that the national health care law would become a vehicle for an aggressive government infringement of personal liberty or coerce Americans to fund medical procedures and drugs in direct violation of their ethical and religious convictions.

And, by way of Maggies Notebook, John Kerry gets down to his real beef with Boko Haram:  They don't provide healthcare:

“The kidnapping of hundreds of children by Boko Haram is an unconscionable crime, and we will do everything possible to support the Nigerian government to return these young women to their homes and to hold the perpetrators to justice,” Kerry said in a speech in Ethiopia.

“I will tell you, my friends, I have seen this scourge of terror across the planet, and so have you,” he continued. “They [terrorists] don’t offer anything except violence. They don’t offer a health care plan, they don’t offer schools. They don’t tell you how to build a nation, they don’t talk about how they will provide jobs. They just tell people, ‘You have to behave the way we tell you to,’ and they will punish you if you don’t. 

Which, I suppose, explains how quickly democrats are to call Republicans "terrorists" for opposing their half baked efforts.

'We're gonna punish our enemies, and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us' - Preznit Obama, Oct, 2010